The language of business and the language of war are often identical. Terms such as target market, competition, offensive and defensive strategy, and war room scream conflict. And these terms have come into our vocabulary because business can indeed feel like a war.

But the truth is business is much more than a war. A true, healthy business is an almost paradoxical blend of war and art. It is not just about defeating the competition. If your only focus is defeating the competition, the market will leave you behind. Think about the market for buggy whips. What market? Exactly. There isn’t much of a market for buggy whips today. But at one point, there was a market for whips. If you ran a buggy whip company and only focused on your competitors, the market passed you by. Business is just as much about creating value as it is about competition.

This is what most leaders trained in business fail to realize. The great businesses of our times were ones that created value to the consumer. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and even Wal-Mart are great examples. These companies were not started by MBAs. There were started by programmers, creatives, and shop owners. These were people who understood their markets and saw opportunities to make a difference. Perhaps some of these businesses have lost their way, but at one time they were making a real difference.

So what’s the big deal? Why is it dangerous to think solely about warfare in business? Because war means casualties. The casualties of excessive competition are often consumers. When CEOs and leadership boards focus too much on their strategy, innovation halts. Healthy competition drives innovation. Unhealthy competition stifles it.

I hate textbooks. Not a little bit. I hate them immensely. I really don’t know how it started, but the passion burns brighter everyday. In my defense, it’s not an unreasonable hatred. It is entirely merited

You see, textbooks are a reflection of a broken system. Textbooks are higher education’s last laugh. They are the $1000 you add to your bill once you’ve already paid for your education. They have the shortest shelf life of any book except a coupon book – and only because coupon books have expiration dates. But most of all, the majority of textbooks I’ve read, fail in one primary area. They don’t instill confidence in the reader.

Now of all the things I could criticize textbooks for, why did I pick confidence? After all, it’s the textbook’s job to just explain things, right? What does confidence have to do with anything?

Confidence has everything to do with a good explanation. Let’s take an example I borrowed from Lee Lefever’s book, The Art of Explanation:

Let’s say you are in a nice restaurant. You are given a menu as a guide to help you make an informed decision on what you would like to eat. You narrow down your option to three dishes.

1. Sea bass with wild rice and greens
2. Ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus
3. Crab cakes with mushrooms and a French remoulade

There’s just one problem, if you’re like me, you have no clue what remoulade is. And if it’s a nice restaurant, you might be a little embarrassed to ask the waiter to define the word. As a result, you won’t order item three, even though you might really like it. (For what it’s worth, apparently remoulade is similar to a tartar sauce.)

The book proceeds to tell us, “Explanations fail when we are unable to translate the language of our work to the language of a possibly uninformed audience.” You see, textbooks are written by the informed, but they aren’t written to the uninformed! Reading through the majority of textbooks shows us that they are written using a vocabulary and structure geared toward those who already understand the topic, not those who are just learning.

When I dig into my textbooks, they are incredible at complicating extremely simple subjects. I lose confidence that I can indeed understand what is being said – even though I know it is really not all that difficult. Because textbooks do not allow the reader to feel confident in his or her learning, they hamper the reader’s ability to comprehend the topic. It’s easy to mentally shut down when reading through a textbook because they generally do such a poor job of explaining the topic.

I think the textbook industry has some serious soul searching to do. Honestly, Wikipedia is better than most history textbooks, and Investopedia is head and shoulders above my finance textbook at explaining anything related to finance. Unfortunately, our higher education institutions are primarily responsible for the perpetuation of poor explanations. By requiring students to buy textbooks, they endorse the product although it is inferior to the other free resources available. I’d rather spend time finding the best explanation than be handed an explanation I can’t understand.

If we’re going to make education about education, it’s time we find resources that explain things in a way that instills confidence in the reader and empowers him or her to grasp the concepts for themselves. Information is useless without comprehension. It’s time we focused on creating resources that don’t just give information, but instead lead to comprehension. And the first step is developing resources that allow readers to feel confident they can understand the topic.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to watch the presidential debates this season. People who know me tend to be slightly surprised at this fact, but I had good reasons. Usually I was involved in some sort of homework or visiting with friends or family. It’s not that I don’t care about the election. On the contrary I care quite a bit about the election. The truth is, I already know which candidate I’m voting for this time. I’m not going to declare it here, but most of you can probably guess.

So why didn’t I watch the debates? Let me answer that in a roundabout way. I have an idea of what I want the country to look like. It maybe isn’t like the vision that others have. My vision involves lots of freedom. It’s of a country where people are free to work and help to create their own future.

So for me, it’s simply trying to determine which candidate is going to work to make the country the most like I see it. It’s not about talk. It’s about action. It’s not about parties or political groups. It’s not even really about power. It’s simply about casting a vote for a candidate that sees in the country the same things I do.

I respect and appreciate our right to vote. Unfortunately, in this American Idol age, we don’t realize what a privilege it is to really vote for a political leader. I’ll challenge anyone to really think about where they want this country to be in the next decade, then vote for the candidate that is most likely to get it there. Even if your candidate wins, they’ll disappoint you in the future. But all you can do right now is vote. Please don’t make it about debate performance, who has the best campaign commercials, or which candidate has the best personality. Make it about putting the person in office that will help realize your vision for this country.

Frankly, I’m sure that even if the candidate I want to win does indeed win, he won’t do everything I like. And I have no guarantees of what either candidate will do should they win. Fortunately, I’m not voting for a savior though. I’m simply voting for a man who believes in an idea, and is willing to work to make the idea a reality. So which candidate’s vision for the future of America is closest to yours? I would recommend you vote for that person. For all the glitz and glamour and mud and dirt, this is really what elections are about – voting for the candidate that most closely shares your vision.

Perhaps one of the saddest things I see in my generation is a failure to create things. We don’t build things by ourselves anymore, we leave it up to companies. I don’t mean just physical things. I just mean using creativity to bring something to life. It is easier now than ever before to create digital content. Even your cell phone has a video camera! Yet so many people I know just choose to be spectators in life. They work for someone else, then they come home and watch or read things that other people created. This isn’t necessarily bad. It only becomes a problem when they choose to replace their own creativity with simple observation. There is a place for observation, but there is just as much a place for creativity.

There is almost nothing like losing yourself in the creative process. I love the moment when I’m so focused on what I’m doing the rest of life falls away just for a few minutes. The moment when I’m so involved in a project that I forget where I am.

Create something today. Put together a craft, sew a garment, write a song. I really don’t care what you do, but just create.

It’s a brand new blog. It’s kinda like that feeling you get when you drive a new car off the lot. It’s perfect until you get that first scratch on it. Then each succeeding scratch becomes slightly less nerve-wracking. Blogs are kinda like that. The first post always makes me the most nervous. In fact sometimes I want to do a fake post before I do the real post just so nobody will think the real post is the first post. Confused yet?

The first scratch is always the worst, but it’s that collection of scratches that makes for fun stories to tell. Contrary to the television commercials, it’s not the brand new car you fall in love with. It’s the car that you took to Florida on vacation, or the one that drove you away on your wedding day. That’s the car you love like a family member.

Right now this blog is like a new car. Maybe this is the first scratch. I hope not, but if it is, at least we got it out of the way early. I have another blog that some of you may have read, but it is slightly more focused on a particular topic. This will just be a general purpose blog. It’ll be that place where I share ideas, try to organize my thoughts, or otherwise make heads and tails of my life. It’s the place where I’ll share, complain, brag, discuss, and pray. It’s where I’ll occasionally discuss the intersection of my story with the much bigger story God is unfolding in the world. It won’t have a particular theme or topic. Some days I’ll talk politics, business, church, family, philosophy, ministry, purpose, or…..well you get the idea. So if you’re looking for a highly focused, professional blog, you won’t find it here. There are lots of blogs out there that cover those topics. They even have cool ads and the writers get paid when you visit their site. So go check them out. But here it’s just me. If you don’t really care, that’s fine, I certainly have no authority to make you read it. It’s gonna be a journey. I don’t know the ending, but from here you’ll be able to join me for part of the adventure.

Let’s talk again soon.

Tyler