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Innovation Breeds Complaints

August 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever changed something?  If you have then you know exactly what I am talking about. When innovators see beyond the here and now and begin to move toward what they see, many people will stand up and try to stop them from going.  If this is you, it is your job as an innovator to keep going and see the dream fulfilled.  People can’t see your vision, they can’t know what you know.  You can tell them everything you see but they will still not have as clear a vision about your dream as you will.

Surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth.  If you are going somewhere you need people to tell you to stop if you are going in the wrong direction.  Don’t confuse these people with the ones that are trying to get you to stop because they do not like change.  Rehoboam failed this test when he did not listen to the elders but listened to the younger leaders. (1 Kings 12)  You need people in your life to keep you from going off a cliff.  Leaders cn not lead from a vacuum.

Surround yourself with positive people.  These are people who may not see your exact vision but they will urge you to get there, and help you in any way they can.  Negativity can stop you dead.  Having just one person to cheer you on and tell you that you are doing a good job can drowned out the negative talk.

Put yourself in the shoes of the complainers.  ask yourself, what are they losing, and what do I need to give a little on to help them make the adjustment.  Moving to fast may be your only real problem.  Slowing down and taking the time to explain what you are doing may be all you need to get more people on your side and stop the complaints.

Remember there will always be people you can not please.  Use your positive influences to help you get past their arguments on to what you are called to do.

Image by alonso_inostrosa via cc 2.0

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How Seth Godin Hooked Book Publishers Into Giving Him New Readers

August 25, 2010 By 2 Comments

I try to keep up with the reading and writing world as best I can because I love to read, and I write what I think on my blog.  Seth Godin recently wrote that he is “Moving On” From traditional book publishing.  By this he meant that he was no longer going to use an editor and publisher for his writing because they separate him from his direct readers.  This has started a firestorm in the publishing world because Mr Godin is a very accomplished author… i.e. he sells a lot of books.  While I and most of his readers see his point it is obvious many book publishers do not and are heading out in defense of their craft.

The first thing I think Seth Godin accomplished was hooking many editors and publisher talkies into republishing his blog post on their blogs.  Brilliant!!!   This gives him tens of thousands of new readers to his blog that may have never heard his name at most, or at least read one of his books.  Controversy gets you in the headlines.  This is what I call the Rush Limbaugh effect.  If you want to get on the front page or get the word out about your stuff be controversial and people will talk.

Second, most of the people I read that replied to Mr Godin missed his point.  He is not connected with the readers of his books, he is connected with the publishers of his books, therefore, he sells book to publishers that they want to buy not that he wants to write.  Publishers buy books way before people do. Seth’s idea is not original.  In 1976 George Lucas negotiated with Fox so that he could have all rights to the end product of Star Wars because producers, and publishers will change your content.

Finally Seth Godin will make more money in the long run controlling his merchandising because of his own idea of the “Long Tail”.  The more he has on the market the more long tails he has to make residual income on.  Right now the publishing industry is making tons of money from digital books.  They are charging $10 at minimum for new digital books that cost them close to $0 to make beyond the writer and the staff that needs to be paid.  If  Seth can publish his works at $5 per digital book and sell half of what he sold traditionally  he will make far more money than any publisher will pay him per book.

Seth and most authors owe their fame or livelihood to the publishers that get them where they are. However it is a new day and a new way of selling books has emerged and the publishing industry has to take note of what people like Seth Godin are doing, not make excuses for getting left behind.  The majority of books I have read in the last year have been bought off websites as pdf’s  not from book stores and not on e-readers.  We will see what happens.  If all else fails Mr. Godin will get a lot of backlinks to his site and a lot of new readers.  Tell me what you think.

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First Impressions With Jesus

August 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Do you remember your first introduction to Jesus?  I don’t remember my first introduction, but I remember the impressions I got from his followers. My grandmother was a great example of a Christian for me.  She helped every one who asked, and studied the bible and prayed daily before breakfast.   I also had two very bad examples from chaplains in the Navy, and others that I saw proclaim him but lived awful lives. I let the bad I saw as an adult drive me more than the good I saw as a child and I walked away from him.

I remember meeting Jesus for real at 25 years old.  I remember being overwhelmed and accepting him as the Lord, leader, and savior of my life.  I remember thinking how it could not be true that every bad thing I had done in my life was going to be washed away. I was completely overcome with thankfulness and very aware that the same Jesus knew all that I had done and forgave me anyway.

In the bible John tells us about the first meeting between Jesus and some of his first disciples. Andrew and presumably John himself are disciples of John the Baptist.  As Jesus comes by after being baptized himself John the Baptist tells his two disciples who Jesus really is.  This is the messiah who Israel had been expecting for 400 years.  John calls Jesus, “The Lamb of God,” and the two disciples leave John the Baptist and begin to follow Jesus.

This meeting in a tiny backwater some 60 years earlier changed John the disciples life forever.  John knew where he was as a 70 plus year old man.  He knew what he had been through and how he had gotten to that point in his life.  He also knew where it all began, down by the Jordan river.  Most scholars believe that the unnamed disciple is John and as he writes, he knows this point is the key to his life and wants to recount it for those who will read his letter.

John was young, and possibly a teenager.  He did not have as much to lose as many of the disciples did, but walking away from family was dishonoring and he could still lose his family.  That was a chance he was willing to take.  The other disciples mentioned knew the risks of being associated with the newest messiah in town, but they went anyway.  They knew Jesus was different from the others claiming to be the messiah before him.  John tells of Jesus telling Nathanael what he was doing before he ever met Jesus, through this image Nathanael proclaims Jesus as, “The Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”

Those disciples knew who Jesus was from the beginning and they followed willingly and they changed the world  I told you a little of my story, so why not share yours?  What was your first impression of Jesus?  Was it so powerful that you would want to write about it in 50 years?  Did a follower of Jesus give you your first impression?  Has your impression changed since the first one?

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Practices For Life

August 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The practices you choose to use in your life will make a difference on your success and failure.As we go through life we all need to be reminded about some simple lessons.  These are simple thing that each person can do but still so difficult for so many to grasp.

Gratitude Will get you pretty far. Being thankful for what you have and for anything you receive will change your outlook on life.  Once you are content with what you have you won’t need anything else.  You can choose to be grateful everyday.  Write down three to five things you are thankful for every night before you go to bed and begin to cultivate a new attitude.

Your thought life determines how you live. This is a play on the first one since all that we put into our mind is what we are going to get out.  If you are continually thinking, “I wish I had that,” or “He’s lucky to get that promotion.”  You will never find happiness.  Seek the Lord first and all you need will be given to you.

Know where you are going. If you have a destination in mind you are more likely to get there than if you don’t.  Take the time to find out where God wants you.  We were given the Holy Spirit as a counselor to help guide us in our walk with Christ.  If you are not seeking him in where you are going then you may not be going the right way.

Don’t worry about what others think.  This is a hard lesson to learn but ties in with the first two above.  We buy and want a lot of new stuff because we are scared of what people think about us.  Grown men shop at clothing stores for teenagers, plastic surgery is sky rocketing, and the lines are around the block to get the newest cell phone that doesn’t even work very well.  All because people worry about what others think.  Look at the birds and the flowers, do they worry and toil, no.  God still provides them with everything they need.

You can only give what you have. Put good stuff into your mind every day so that when you meet people who need what you have you can give it to them.  Listen to good music and teachers, read good books and blogs, don’t watch the news or graphic television shows.  You can get the top news headlines at Google News or newsmap.  When I learned that my TV watching was nothing more than a habit it was easy to stop watching and change my habit.

Be kind. When you find yourself not being kind think about why you are not.  What is in your mind that is causing you to be anything but kind to those around you.  Jesus said to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The person that is closest to you or in need of your help at any point is your neighbor. Love every one like you would yourself.

Image courtesy of Samuel Stocker via cc2.0 licences

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Don’t Worry About Anything

August 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Countdown to Zero

Countdown to Zero (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Paul Tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 that as believers in Christ we are supposed to pray instead of worry.  I just watched Lawrence Bender being interviewed on the Charlie Rose program (Watch the interview here).  Mr. Bender has a documentary coming out called Countdown to Zero. The movie is about nuclear proliferation and how close we are to a nuclear catastrophe.  He says that within the next 50 years there is a 99% chance that we could have a major nuclear attack somewhere in the world.  As I watched the program I could not help but think of how information like this affects people in their daily lives.  How people lose their happiness because they can not stop worrying about when this or an event like this will happen.

My Bible Study this morning was on Philippians 4:8, but backing up a couple of verses it struck me how this show and this verse collide.  As a Christian we are not supposed to let the world around us get so deeply ingrained that it affects our lives.  When we worry, we are letting that thing take the place of thinking about God, and the good things he has done and is doing in our lives.  When we spend time worrying about global catastrophes that we can not change we are actually hurting ourselves and not helping.

Worry does not just come from the global catastrophes.  It comes from heart disease and cancer, from teenagers and young adults.  It lives in so many forms that we can not escape it even for one day.

What are you worrying about that you can not change? Instead of worrying take the advice in Philippians 4:8

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.(NLT)

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What Traveling Can Teach You About Leadership

August 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

My wife, children and I just got home from seeing her father in Indiana. It is a twelve-hour drive so we spent a lot of time thinking, conversing and planning the future. Here are some points on leadership we came up with.

Not Everyone Goes At The Same Speed

When you are driving this is obvious as cars go flying by you at 90 mph, or maybe for you it is reversed but that’s your business.  When you are leading you may not see it as clearly. When you want to see growth in a group of people your first tendency may be that, “I got it, why can’t they.”  Not every concept is as obvious to those we lead as it is to us.  Whether it is their maturity level, or the place they are at in their growth, not everyone will get it at the same time.

Not Everyone Will Follow You.

This has to be one of the most overlooked aspects of being a leader.  You may think everyone will follow you but the odds are that some one will not. Just like cars people will go faster or slower than you do.  People will pass you and some will drop off altogether. This is usually proportionate to your level of leadership.  We all know that if you have a lower level of leadership, people with a higher leadership aptitude will not follow you.  The reverse is true as well.  If you are an eight or nine there are threes and fours that will be jealous of your leading and they won’t follow.

Big Ideas Don’t Come Along As Often As Small Ones.

We went through tens of small towns along the way several medium towns but only three big cities: Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville.  Big ideas are direction changers and take time to work through.  Developing a big ideas may take outside help to give you direction, but they also provide more options than smaller ideas.   Small ideas keep you going and build on the  momentum of the big idea. Smaller ideas may add to the big ideas or they may help your sort out details, but they are not direction changers.  Some small ideas may become big ideas if they are developed right, but that is for another post.

When Coming Out Of Something Big It May Take Time To Get Everyone Up To Speed.

When a big idea has run its course there will be people who want to stay at that level.  They want to hang on to the big idea because it gave them security and some it gave a leadership position to.  If it worked before why will it not work again many ask, not able to realize that times change and ideas become safety nets to keep us from being stretched and changed.  Some will abandon you or the organization for another place that can give them the safety of that one big idea that meant so much to them.

The Going Can Be Slow At Times

Traffic moves slow at times, and so does growth.  There will be times when you are developing an idea and it will feel like no one but you gets it.  Whether it is your growth, your people’s growth, or just the wrong time it will feel like you are going nowhere fast.  During these times you may want to give up or get off the road, but now is not the time.  It is okay to pull over and reevaluate and check your direction, but you need to get back on the road and keep going in the direction you believe you should.  Eventually you will see the pace start to pick up and changes start to take place.

image by flicker user kool_skatkat used under cc2.0 liscense

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Personal Development Plans

July 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Came across two great post today on personal development plans from google reader.  The first was  a simple question from Jesse Phillips at Catablog, “What is your personal development plan? share it!” I didn’t share mine because I don’t have a specific plan.  I read a lot of books and piggyback them off of each other, I read the bible and pray, I spend quiet time before the throne of God,  but I have not had a specific plan for a couple of years.

Luckily Ron Edmondson is where Jessie got the question from.  Ron had posted on his blog  Three Questions to Write a Personal Development Plan.  I immediately went to Ron’s post and scoured the article.  Ron is a leader and leaders help those around them.  I am not going to put Ron’s three very simple keys on here because I want you to go to his site and read them for yourself.

So do you have one?  Post it here, or over at Catablog.  If you are like me and don’t have one let’s get started together.

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Personal Success – Everyone Was Created To Do Something

May 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I think when you realize that you were created to do something your life begins to take shape.  You realize you’re not on this earth to just sit around in a cubicle or work for a company.  You realize that there’s something inside of you and you begin searching for what that is.  When you begin the search you don’t really know what you’re looking for so you start anything you can.  That is OK, trying different things and failing helps you to realize what you’re not supposed to do.

Think about this for a minute.  The modern job has only been around for 150 years.  No one worked in an office complex or a factory for 5000 years, now almost everyone does.  Everyone had a home office, you lived and worked in the same place.  But now our image of work is so screwed up that we believe money is the reason we work.  Money should never be the reason you work. Yes you need money to survive but you need a lot less money than you think you do.  So wouldn’t it be better to do what you were created to do and live a happy life than to work for money and live a miserable half-filled life.

I don’t know what you were created to do; maybe were created to be a great mom or dad, maybe you were created to start a restaurant, maybe you were created to paint a great painting (there are a lot of lousy paintings around so somebody needs to paint a good one).  Whatever it is you were created to do, start with a step.  I’m not telling you to quit your job, I’m not telling you to leave your family. I’m telling you to take a step and find out what it is you were created to do.

Here’s the hard question I ask on the coaching survey, “If you died tomorrow how would people remember you?”

Read What Ton Teegarden said about The Single Biggest Secret of Moving From Fear to Your Freedom

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Learn To Lead Yourself Before You Lead Others

April 28, 2010 By 5 Comments

This phrase actually came from Tiger Woods. At his news conference before the 2010 Masters.  He actually said that his father told him he must, “Learn to help himself, before he helped others.”  But I decided I liked “lead” instead of “help” so thanks Tiger for the quote.

I have experienced many types of leaders through my life.  Many of them never really lead as much as they told those that worked for them what to do. They then went about taking credit for the good, and giving blame for the bad.  I worked with a man once that complained about Dr. John C. Maxwell’s writing on leadership, but never read any of it.  I would suggest he never learned to lead himself.

Discipline is hard, but discipline is a must for anyone who wants to be successful at whatever they do.  If you are always late, it is because you are not disciplined enough to be on time.  Not because your family is a late family and you always have been.   When I was in the Navy I learned this lesson first hand.  I was relieved from my watch every day by a man who was consistently late.  I reported the man several times and he was moved to other watch sections but his tardiness never ceased.  He was finally taken to Captains Mast and reduced in rank before being released from the Navy.  His inability to be on time cost him his job, and he never knew why.

Control your tongue. Swearing is one of the best signs of an  undisciplined mouth.  In the bible we are told that the tongue is like the rudder of a ship.  A rudder is small in comparison to the ship, but turns the thing.  Your tongue can lead you down roads you do not want to travel.  Swearing is not the only sign of an undisciplined tongue.  Arguing, sarcasm, complaining, and gossip are other signs.  No one wants to be around someone who complains all the time.  It’s just not fun.  Learn to control what you say and do by Forming Better Habits which can take some time, but pay huge dividends in the long run.

Discipline is more than being on time and controlling how you talk.  But being on time is a good start and controlling what you say is a good start.  Make a list of things you need to do and stick to the list this way you can be encouraged by you progress, and prodded when you slack.  Always remember, you can only accomplish something if you do it.   The minute you put it off, you will stop and lose your momentum.

From Mary Jo Asmus  Stuck? Admit It and Ask For Help

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Forming Habits You Can Live With

April 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Professionals will tell you it takes 21 days to create a habit.  While this may be true a habit that is only 21 days old can easily be broken.  Habits a truly formed over a lifetime of study and change.  The younger we form the habit in our lives the deeper the habit will be ingrained.  Kids that learn to get out their books and study as soon as they get home will keep this habit for a life time. On of the strongest habits we as Americans have is watching TV.  Yes it is a habit not a need for you to watch must see TV every night.

Here is one way to form a habit.

1) Take a 3×5 index card and write in the first person present tense the habit you want to form.  If you want to be more courteous, on time, an early riser, what ever habit you want to form write it on the card.  Only Do This For One Habit At A Time. If you try to change to many things you will change nothing.  Read the card every hour during the day to instill it into your mind. Example:

I get up at 5:30 every morning

2) Do what you say you are doing.  If it is hard to get up get a coffee pot that automatically makes the coffee before you wake up so you can go get a cup as soon as you get up. You must do the thing you want to.  Reinforcing by reading and then not doing only brings disappointment in yourself .  This turns into failure talk and you stop doing what you really want to do.

3) Don’t give in to tomorrow talk.  I’ll start tomorrow will never start.  You have to do the things you say you want to do or you will never do anything.  If you do the same thing enough days in a row you will find it becoming easier over time.  It becomes ingrained and you become better for it.   A habit is like a computer program that just starts ever time your computer starts.  You don’t have to worry about it and you know you can rely on it being there.  You will do the right thing every time without having to think about it.

Charles C Noble said this, “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”  You can do what you set your mind to, but you have to do it.  Reading about it will not organize your house.  Watching a TV show will not drop the pounds.  Listening to a motivational speaker will not get you off the couch.  You have to go do it so do it today.

For all you techies here is a website to help you with your habits HabitForge.  It is free and emails you everyday for 21 days.  Another place I like is FutureMe.  You can send an email to your future self just so you know what you were thinking, or check up on where you thought you should be.

You Can Start A Payment Jar

I hate to admit it, but I have a swear jar.  If I use a curse word I put a dollar in the jar.  It only has five dollars in it, but that is a sign of a habit I need to break.  If you want to stop swearing or even stop eating out a jar is a good way to encourage change.  Fro the eating out, or spending money without accounting for it, you put the amount you were going to spend in the jar so you are saving the money instead of spending.  Yo can also do this by asking a friend to keep you accountable. This is the jerk friend that points out when you need to put money in the jar and smiles at your failure.  Yes it needs to be a jerk friend that you will get so tired of seeing their smiling face tell you to put the money in the jar you will stop doing to get back at them instead of losing the money.  Remember, you still have to do it for it to work.

Here is a quick idea from Unclutterer…Three quick organizing projects you can do right now

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