Most Oceans are Purple

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If you’re a little lost by the title, there’s a classic business idea of the “blue ocean”. If you’re in a competitive industry (read: sharks), you’re in a red ocean. There’s blood in the water. If you’re in an industry with no competition, you’re in a blue ocean. There’s lots of space. And no blood.

The reality is most oceans are purple. Very rarely can you jump into a completely blue ocean. There’s always someone competing – or there will be very quickly.

But great companies come up with ways to add a blue ocean element to their services. Uber didn’t invent the taxi or the private driver. But they figured out how to add a blue ocean component to it. Nobody was doing the app well. That means they had a new opportunity.

In business, almost all oceans are purple. There’s fierce competition, but there are also ways where people aren’t competing. Finding and locking onto those blue areas is what makes a business different.

 

Lazy Thinking

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It’s OK to be wrong, but lazy thinking isn’t OK. In politics, in spirituality, in life, and in relationships, it’s easy to not process things intelligently. When we discuss ideas, we want to get to the root of those ideas. We need to understand how and why things work. We need to ask good questions.

In the things that matter, we can’t afford lazy thinking. Yet this is most often what we get. Churches are full of lazy thinking preachers. News agencies are full of lazy thinking reporters. Businesses are full of lazy thinking employers.

Often, it’s not their fault. Active thinking requires effort and training. Most people never take the time to get out of lazy thinking patterns.

If you want to break out of lazy thinking, here’s some questions that might help:

  • What has already been written on this topic? – Find it and read it.
  • Why is this the case? – When you discover why, ask “why” again. Go deep.
  • How can I make this better?
  • How do the principles I believe apply to this situation?
  • What do I believe that almost everyone else believes?
  • What do I believe that almost no one else believes?
  • What does the data say?

If you ask those questions of any problem you have, you’ll be well on your way to finding a meaningful answer. Let’s stop being lazy with our thinking.

The Main Thing

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It’s easy to lose the main thing. When you are giving a talk, do you have a main thing you’d like to communicate? Does your business have a main goal? Do you have one big thing you want to accomplish each day?

We miss the main thing because it’s hard to focus on the main thing. It can be hard because:

  • If we set a goal, there’s accountability
  • With ideas and concepts, it takes work and thought to get to the main thing
  • Focusing on the main thing requires discipline of thought and action
  • It’s easier to do what we feel like than focus on the main thing

If you’re not getting the results you want in any area of your life, chances are you’ve missed the main thing. Try and find it, focus on it, build strategy around it, and then get moving.

Business vs. Freelance

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The difference between a business and a freelancer is: Who does the work?

In a business, you build systems and processes to use the lowest talent possible (not to say you don’t want talented people, but you don’t want to need them to function). With a business, you create systems and processes to help make everything run without you.

As a freelancer, the client depends on you. As a business, you depend on your systems and your team.

When Innovation Trumps Experience

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Many job postings today require a good bit of experience. 8 years here. 10 years there. And rightly so, they want hires who know what they are doing.

What you need to make sure however, is that experience doesn’t replace hard work and innovation. What happens when things change so fast your experience isn’t relevant anymore?

That’s the risk. Hire experienced people. But they also have to be hungry to stay on the edge – especially in any digital or tech industry. Otherwise they’ll be 10 years experienced in something that doesn’t matter anymore.

The Rich Young Ruler

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Recently I was re-reading the story of the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10. One verse stuck out particularly.

“Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” (emphasis mine)

Jesus didn’t want the young ruler to sell all his things because God is against wealth. Nor is God out to make us unhappy. Christ asks us to give him everything because he loves us. The things that we hold on to are the things that can keep us from following Christ completely.

 

Statistics, Lighting, and Hard Work

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Have you ever had a big dream (start a non-profit, run a business, change something in culture) and someone offers you some free advice like “you’re more likely to get hit by lightning than for [that thing] to happen”?

Besides being annoying, there’s one problem with this idea. Yes, it’s fairly unlikely you’ll get hit by lighting in your day-to-day life without any changes. But if you climb to the top of a skyscraper with a 35 foot metal pole, you can dramatically increase your chances. If you fly a kite in an open field during a thunderstorm, you can also increase your chances.

This may seem like a dumb analogy, but stick with me: Statistically, it is highly unlikely that you’ll get different outcomes from doing what everyone else is doing. In fact, it’s nearly impossible. But as soon as you start doing things that NO ONE ELSE is doing, you increase your likelihood of success greatly. In a year’s time in the midwest, I can almost guarantee that you could get hit by lighting if you try. In fact, you could probably get hit by 2 or 3 lighting bolts in just one year! You just have to do those things that no one else is doing.

Although I do not recommend trying to get hit by lighting, you can increase the likelihood of your dreams coming true by doing certain things. Position yourself properly, build a brand, work hard. Do things that other people aren’t doing and you’ll position yourself for success.

Don’t let statistics be a cop-out. As long as you’re swimming with the current you’ll be part of the statistic. As soon as you try something new, you’re much more likely to be an outlier.

The Casting Call for Your Movie

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“Most people wouldn’t even be the lead character in a movie about their own lives.”

If you let that quote sink in for a minute, it can be a little scary. If a famous Hollywood director came up and asked to make a movie about your life, what would it entail? Are there any battles you are fighting right now that are really making a difference? Are you serving or fighting for things that are bigger than yourself?

The trick to being an interesting character in a movie is pursuing a worthwhile goal. Luke needed to save the Rebel Alliance. Frodo needed to destroy the Ring. Indiana Jones needed to find the Ark. They were all pursuing bigger goals outside of themselves. And all of them took great risks to see it through.

If the biggest thing you’re pursuing right now is your own happiness, I can tell you it’d make a pretty crappy movie.

Boredom and Phones

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In case you haven’t noticed, our culture uses our phones quite a bit. Call it an addiction. Call it whatever you want, but ultimately, I’d argue that the reason we spend so much time on our phones is because our lives are often very uninteresting.

When you’re hiking in the mountains, meeting with clients, digging into intense projects, building a sandcastle on the beach, or having meaningful conversations with your favorite people, you probably aren’t very tempted to use your phone.

So do more of those things. Do more interesting, fun, exciting, and challenging things. The more of those you do, the less interesting Facebook will become.

On Salt and Yeast

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In many of the churches I’ve attended, there seems to be an utter fear of culture. Specifically, a fear of being in the minority. The fact that culture is often running contrary to our “traditional” beliefs scares some people immensely.


But when we read through scripture, it didn’t seem to bother Jesus. In fact, he seemed to expect that outcome.


We know this because Jesus compares us to both salt and to yeast. I’m no master chef, but what I do know is that when you’re cooking, a little bit of salt and a little bit of yeast go a LONG way. Salt when well mixed adds flavor and depth to the recipe. Yeast makes bread rise to give it the texture that we expect from bread. But often a teaspoon or less of each of these will do the trick. It doesn’t take much salt or much yeast to get the desired outcome.


God doesn’t compare his church to flour or sugar or water in these examples. If God was interested in us being the strong majority, I think he would’ve picked a different ingredient.


We are the underdogs. We will always be counter cultural. We’ll never be the flour. We will always be the salt. And it just takes a little salt mixed in to make a big difference.

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