Let’s Get Away

Let’s Get Away

When I used to be involved in the Young Life youth ministry, we used to have this core value of “getting out of town” with kids.  You had to…It seemed like then, and only then, could we have relevant and meaningful conversations.  There we could talk about the big definitional issues that were causing the life they didn’t want and investigate the solutions to the life they ultimately desired.  There, meaningful and lasting change could happen.  It is no different with adults.

Cage

Cage

Being a self-made man, building a nice career, and earning a lot of money is a deceptive path that once on, is nearly impossible to depart.  This world is designed to captivate you with something far from God’s grandest intentions.  The offer is life and freedom and yet we unwittingly step into cages and latch the door behind us.  And the generations behind us, like this young man, buy into a lie that the Church (we) haven’t done a good enough job shouting over.

What Are Your Hills?

What Are Your Hills?

The hill you will die on is the place or position you will fight for with your very last breath.  It is the ground that will not be surrendered… you will do everything in your power to advance and preserve.  It is the songs you have committed to your Father to never stop singing.  I’ve found myself using that expression on a more regular basis of late, but it has been reserved for some very specific things.  There is something about this saying that evokes the much more significant beginnings of where it was likely first uttered.

December Top 10 Reads

Why You Shouldn't Worry About Being Smart
The most successful companies focus on being healthy rather than intelligent.

Peace, Discipline and Teamwork
All people want the same thing in life: peace.  Not happiness, which is an unsustainable and fickle emotion, but rather peace, which is the deep understanding that all is well, even when happiness is not possible.  And we all know when we have lost our peace; it’s when we feel fear, anxiety, angst or dread.  As much as those feelings are painful, they are actually blessings if we respond to them correctly. 

In Defense Of Disconnecting From Work After Hours
Spending time recovering from the work week is as important as recovering from a workout: Try to skip rest and you'll hurt yourself.

The First Step To Building A Marketing Campaign
The key is not to see marketing as ‘a campaign’ that starts and ends, or as part of a process that you’re getting through, but to think of your marketing (and your product) as a love note that makes an emotional connection with your customer.

Why Energy Management Matters More Than Time Management
As we all try to squeeze more hours from the day, time management may not be the answer. Managing our energy will make us more productive.

The Not-So Surprising Secrets To Getting Millennials To Stay At Their Jobs
Balance, pay, mentorship: these factors could be part of the formula that makes young workers stick around.

Are You Open to Getting More Sales?
Isn’t it curious that sales, the lifeblood of every small business, is so damn hard to get right? You started your business because you believed you could make or do something that other people wanted, but then you struggle to find a way to talk about it with them so they’re moved to say, “How can I get some of that?” You want so badly to connect with prospective customers. You want so sincerely to experience your salespeople connecting with them. And, it hardly ever feels like there’s enough connection going on, enough excitement about the product or service you’re so invested in, enough prospects turning into customers.

The New Habit Challenge: Give Your Day A Theme To Stay Focused
Distractions at work happen. But what if we can bounce back faster by devoting each day to specific tasks? Square's CEO thinks we can.

If You’re Rushing, Something is Wrong
Of course there are plenty of great reasons in life to rush. If you’re an ER doctor or a professional ping-pong player, rushing seems appropriate. But in most endeavors, feeling a constant sense of urgency and panic means somebody hasn’t done his or her job. And that somebody is most likely the person who is making everybody else rush around.

You Should Give Yourself a Little More Grace
Have you ever tried to quit a bad habit but went right back after the first relapse? Let’s say you’re quitting caffeine, then a bleary day hits and you have that one cup of coffee, only to go right back to the old habit. It’s almost as though that first slip up lets go the flood.  I used to be all or nothing about stuff like this but I recently had a conversation with Bill Lokey who helped me understand relapses are part of the process of changing a behavior.

Invasion

Invasion

There is a much larger story going on in the petroleum industry as there was in the simple birth of a baby born a little over 2,000 years ago.  And there is a much larger story unfolding all around you every day.  The Kingdom continues to advance and as a crucial player in it, your unique role to play is desperately needed.  Living with a world view that places you within that story and recognizes that you have an enemy set completely against you, will change everything.

Horizon

Horizon

Rare is the week where I don’t talk to at least one person overwhelmed by their situation.  Typically it is in regards to their own life circumstance, but it is a fairly common occurrence to talk to a leader frustrated, confused, or overwhelmed by their organizational challenges as well.  The “reference system” of everything going on around us tends to crowd out any hope or expectation for change and a different future.  When we assess the litany of issues swirling around us, it is nearly impossible to imagine things getting any better.

November Top 10 Reads

You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach
If you have room in your head for only one nugget of leadership wisdom, make it this one: the most powerfully motivating condition people experience at work is making progress at something that is personally meaningful. If your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.

Why Your Realistic Goals Are Holding You Back
Thinking bigger really is better. Why there's more competition for small goals and how 10 times improvement is easier than 10%.

How Showing Vulnerability Makes You A Better Leader
What you may think is a weakness can actually be a sign of strength. Why showing you're human can actually help your career.

How To Begin Developing A Product Story
We like to believe that our product story begins with the customer’s relationship to the product, when in actual fact what the customer is focused on is his relationship to himself (in the presence of the product). When he asks himself (or you), “How is this better?” what he really wants to know is, “How does this make me better?”

Are Your Shortcuts Actually Saving You Time?
Next time you find yourself taking a shortcut, buying in bulk or rushing through life, ask what it’s going to afford you. Are you really going to use that saved time as accountability to do something life giving or are you just piling more on and wearing yourself out?

How Healthy Is Your Small Business?
Perhaps you use Google Analytics to track every visitor to your website, right down to the country they’re visiting from. Maybe you even use wearable technology and a smartphone to measure the steps you take in a day or how much sleep you get at night. But what are you doing to measure the financial health of your business? If your only measure of financial performance is the revenue you generate each month or the balance in your bank account, you’re missing out on a wealth of information about your business.

Promoting the Non-Obvious Candidate
Conventional talent-management systems emphasize the need to give high performers appropriate experiences to help them ascend to more senior levels of management. Companies define career paths accordingly and carefully map, often in a linear fashion, the various roles one has to fill to reach higher management ranks.  However, in addition to grooming obvious high performers who are accomplished in a particular domain, talent-management systems should also deliberately look at non-obvious candidates. They are high performers in other domains who do not automatically fit the bill.

The Two Approaches To Marketing
All marketing uses two basic approaches. When I was growing up and maybe when you were too, marketers used ‘The Influence Method’.

Looking for the Perfect Customer? Look No Further.
It’s never been easier to chase after the wrong customers. With the explosion of online marketing tools, you and your team can spend all day (and all night) doing it. Which is why it’s never been more important that you have something—or more specifically, someone—to guide you. The challenge for today’s business owner is to get to know your customer in far deeper ways than you’ve ever done before.

Is Marketing Automation the Silver Bullet You're Looking For?
There are a lot of things marketing automation software can do for you. It can help you increase traffic, educate and inspire potential customers, and give you a microscopic view of what happens at every step of your buyer’s journey.  But like all good things, it’s not quite that simple. It takes a real investment of time, attention and money. It won’t create content for you. And it won’t tell you who your real buyers are. In short, you can get a lot out of it—but only if you put the right things into it first.

Life!

Life!

The difference between living fully alive and simply managing your sin until eternity is the difference between life and death.  We read amazing stories from the Bible and hear incredible contemporaneous tales about those who change the world in unique and inspiring ways.  For most of us, we view those stories as exceptions to the rule and see our lives as more pedestrian, simple, and of no consequence.

4 Phases

4 Phases

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" - Paul’s Letter to the church in Philippi. Paul seems to be referring to exiting Phase 4 and entering Phase 1 in terms of the Hudson Cycle of Renewal.  Frederic Hudson, founder of the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara, teaches the cycle as part of their overall coaching methodology.  It is designed to help figure out what phase an individual or organization is in in their development cycle.  

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

In the certain, stable, and still-watered times, you simply need a good manager or someone to stay the steady course.  The problem is, if we are intending to change lives, to bring transformation to the organizations and lives we have stewardship over, we will face certain and almost continual opposition.  We should almost expect that trouble, trial, and uncertainty would be the context of our every day existence.  The real question becomes whether or not we can take the directive (Take heart!) and trust in the promise (I have overcome the world).

October Top 10

If Your Company Culture Could Talk, What Would It Say?
Would you apply for a job at your business? Think about it for a moment. With where you are in your life—with your unique talents and dreams—is it the kind of place that would support you in getting closer to the life you want? Do you think you have any employees who aren’t evaluating their jobs, right this very minute, on that criteria?

How To Communicate Your Difference
There is a place where many entrepreneurs, (maybe you) and even global corporations who look like they have got it all together, (maybe yours), get stuck when trying to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. They hit a wall when they begin to articulate what’s unique about what they do and why it should matter to their customers. The reason they get stuck is because they’re starting in the wrong place—by trying to find the words before they work on the understanding.

How to Tell a Great Story
We tell stories to our coworkers and peers all the time — to persuade someone to support our project, to explain to an employee how he might improve, or to inspire a team that is facing challenges. It’s an essential skill, but what makes a compelling story in a business context? And how can you improve your ability to tell stories that persuade?

9 Different Definitions On The Meaning Of Work-Life Balance
What does "balance" mean, and can we ever have it? Entrepreneurs who've made their work their lives weigh in.

4 Tiny Tweaks To Make Meetings Vastly More Productive
The woman who spends her whole day observing other companies' meetings shares how you can make your meetings worth attending.

What to Do If Your Team Is in a Rut
Another brainstorming session, another slew of tired ideas. Your team is in a rut, but what can you do about it? How can you push everyone to be more creative? Where should you seek inspiration? What’s the best way to bring in new perspectives? And finally: how do you prevent the group from getting stuck again?

How To Find Solitude In An Era Of Constant Connection
Have we lost the ability to sit quietly, alone with our thoughts? Here's why we need to get that quietness back.

The Misleading Advantage
They had a chance to leverage the loyalty of regulars who they mistakenly treated like tourists who would never be back. So the people who were loyal to them for three years have switched—just like that. It turns out that when we have an option we will always choose how something feels, before we choose how it tastes, looks or works.

Efficiency, Quality, Value And Soul
A new public hospital is opening in Perth this week and along with cutting edge medical facilities patients can expect state-of-the-art “free-roaming food delivery robots.”  The theory being that quality will be improved if the time between cooking and delivery is reduced.  The system is efficient and if the temperature of the meal when it reaches the patient is the measure of quality then this high tech solution wins—but do absolute improvements in quality always increase value?

Do It Now: Change the Toilet Paper Roll and 19 Other Things to Boost Your Productivity
We are really good at putting things off until later. Some things, like changing the toilet paper roll, are better done now. Leaders who Do It Now at work and at home have more focus and greater productivity.

1 = 3

1 = 3

“I’m the CFO and my job is to find the best people and pay them as little as I possibly can.”  At least he was honest.  Despite managing $1 Billion in bank assets and outperforming virtually everyone in my high-performing peer group, I was still making only a few thousand more than when I started as a credit analyst just out of college.  Add to the fact we were expecting our third child and I felt like it was time to go around the boss (who said he was unable to adjust my compensation) and speak directly to the CFO we all reported through.

Purpose...

Purpose...

There seems to be a great swelling tide of purpose.  As Uncle Oswald (Chambers) says, “Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open.”  The reason that it seems so prevalent, so ubiquitous in virtually every corner of society, should not surprise us.  We were all uniquely created for it and collectively, we are called to the same.

Movement...

Movement...

I woke this morning, as I do most Mondays, with the week’s requirements present on my heart and mind.  Rather than feeling daunted by all that lies ahead as I occasionally do, I felt an uncharacteristic calm.  There is much to get done and everything seems to drip with import and implication, but it feels strangely manageable.  I started thinking about the rhythm of my life and all the surrounding movements that have led me to this place.  I thought it might be helpful to share a few.  The movement from…

Table

“Can we all still sit at the table and eat as a big family?”

A few years ago, my niece came for a brief visit.  She had gotten in trouble for something she did.  After being gently reprimanded, she asked through her tears, “Can we all still sit at the table and eat as a big family?”  What she did know was that sitting around a large table with a family of eight, felt very different that having dinner alone with a single parent.

What she did not know, was that her desire to sit at that large table with a larger family came from a much deeper heart cry that echoed in eternity.  Having experienced the breaking of the bread with our crew reminded her of something she could not have told you about, but deeply felt and feared the loss of.

Revelation tells of a wedding feast where we will one day all gather together, sharing everything in common and being reunited as a family with our one true Father.  That image, that future, is written on the heart of every human being.  It is what draws us even to the toxic table of many of our families in times like Thanksgiving.

Popular culture understands this:

  • The movie “Antwone Fisher” opens with the dream of an orphan boy, walking through wheat fields to find a great barn, where all the generations of his family are gathered and a seat is set for him at the head.
  • Norman Rockell’s iconic Thanksgiving photo titled “Freedom From Want” shows the generations of a family gathered together..
  • In “Places in the Heart” racism, hatred, murder, etc. are reconciled on a single pew in a church in the imagined future.
  • Even Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” talks about the fundamental needs to belong and be known.

All those concepts and images resonate in the deepest sense because they are evocative of something much larger, truer, and promised for all of us.  Last night our home church had what I believe will be the first of many “big table” gatherings where every member, their kids, and a few guests, joined together for dinner at a single table.

Okay, so a table set for 50-60 might be doable, but is it possible to scale this as the church grows?

Six years ago, my wife and I visited a Young Life camp in Colorado and what we found as we approached the dinner table for the last night’s feast, almost dropped me to my knees.  So powerful a manifestation of this idea, that I could scarcely take it all in.  A single table set for 450 was overwhelming in obvious ways, but also in ways that most of those high school kids probably couldn’t articulate, but deeply understood.

  • It is their one great hope.
  • It is a promise for things to come.
  • They were created for it.
  • The heart is desperate to find it.
 
 

Nieces, neighbors, high-schoolers, your employees, and frankly, every one of us needs to be reminded of this deposit made for each of us in eternity.  It is not enough to merely talk about God’s promises for us, we need to bring that experience to others.  We are not merely offering food and drink, we are bringing the Kingdom here on earth.

Our church is just getting started.

  1. Are you gathering with others to break bread?  Is there room at your table for others?
  2. Who did God bring to mind as you worked your way through this post?
  3. Put a date on the calendar, prepare a list, and let me know when it will occur.  I’ll pray for you.

September Top 10

Why Your Best Employees Are Leaving, And How To Stop Them
Turnover rates are rising. How can you keep the economy from stealing away your best people?

The Importance Of Ritual To The Creative Process
Inspiration seems spontaneous and boundless on the outside, but practice makes perfect for creativity, too.

4 Ways Leaders Can Create A Candid Culture
When leaders want to create an open culture where people are willing to speak up and challenge one another, they often start by listening. This is a good instinct. But listening with your ears will only take you so far. You also need to demonstrate with words that you truly want people to raise risky issues.

The Best Leaders Are Insatiable Learners
It takes a real sense of personal commitment, especially after you’ve arrived at a position of power and responsibility, to push yourself to grow and challenge conventional wisdom. Which is why two of the most important questions leaders face are as simple as they are profound: Are you learning, as an organization and as an individual, as fast as the world is changing? Are you as determined to stay interested as to be interesting? Remember, it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

How To Beat The 10,000-Hour Rule
Forget taking shortcuts. No one ever changed the world by cutting corners. Here's the case for taking "smartcuts" instead.

The Danger Of Messing With A Good Business Strategy
Trying to fix something that's not broken could cost your company heavily in the long run.

The Traits That Lead To Success—And How To Tell Who's Got Them
Being a good leader often means approaching situations with a rookie mindset. Here's how to tell if you are up to the challenge.

3 Ways To Trick Yourself Into Feeling Less Busy
Is busy only a state of mind?

1 Incredibly Simple Way to Stand Out From the Crowd
You'll be surprised by the research on how few of us keep this mind—and character—improving habit, and how much of an impact it can have.

How To Make Your Small Business Blog Really Shine
Is your blog getting you down? Do you wonder whether it’s worth all the effort, whether people are really getting something from it, whether you’re “doing it right”? Maybe you think you’re not a writer, or you simply feel like you don’t have the time to write with all the other demands of your small business.

Disruption

Disruption

The truth is that in being thwarted, laid up, or even slowed down a bit, the Father seems more present, available, and real.  The trials in the unforced rhythms of our lives is where we seem to meet Him more deeply.  The condition I most need to address this morning is not the violently inflamed heal soaking in Epson salts as I type, but the condition of my heart.  There is an essential rhythm of walking with God that can be as regular as the breathing in and breathing out of air in my lungs.  The relational offer of our God means that I shouldn’t find Him any different or deeper in my trials.  That I wouldn’t find him in the disruption, but in the every day.