Disagree

Life Lessons, Making a Difference, Politics, Spirituality 0 Comments

The best thing about having a good relationship with someone is the ability to disagree in a healthy way. The other day I had a really good conversation with someone who completely disagreed with me on a contentious issue. No insults were thrown. No personal attacks were mounted. It was just a really good conversation.

Having those conversations can be hard. But having them with people who love you and care about you is a good place to start. And decide that it’s not about being right. It’s about seeing the other point of view.

If you can learn this skill, you’ll be able to learn and understand so much more.

I don’t know

Business, Life Lessons, Making a Difference, Marketing, Nonprofits, Politics, Start Ups 0 Comments

In our culture, saying “I don’t know” has a bad reputation. Admitting we’ll be making something up as we go along is a tough thing to do. It rubs against our pride.

So we talk like we know what we’re doing. We pretend. We roleplay. And we always get through it. We don’t know how to do it when we start, but we’re committed to figuring it out, so we keep pushing.

When you need help with a project, with a business, or with an organization, it’s tempting to find people that have done something successfully before. And sure, that can be helpful. If you can find them, great!

But the people you want to find are the people who are committed to figuring out how to make it work. Whether they’ve done it or not before is basically irrelevant. If they are committed to seeing it through, hire them.

And if you want to be a person worth hiring, be the person who will figure it out no matter what. Those people are almost never out of a job.

Comparison

Business, Life Lessons 0 Comments

No matter who you are, comparison is your enemy. Everyone’s journey is different. Everyone’s path is unique. Get to know people, learn from them, and always push yourself to be better. Even use them as a benchmark. But don’t compare. It’s not worth it. Comparison leads to judgement. And judgement doesn’t benefit anybody.

If you don’t do it, no one will.

Business, Life Lessons, Living Like Jesus, Making a Difference, Marketing, Nonprofits, Relationships, Spirituality, Start Ups 0 Comments

At some point in your life, you realize that if you don’t do things, they won’t get done. If you’re trying to build a company, you’re the one that has to do it. If you want to ask that girl out, you’re the one that has to do it. If you want to start a non-profit, you’re the one that has to do it.

It’s easy to complain and gripe about how challenging something can be. It’s easy to wish someone else would do it. But you can’t control them. You can only control you.

So do it and stop complaining.

Endurance

Life Lessons 0 Comments

The best way to build endurance is to endure. The longer you endure this time, the longer you can endure next time.

So if you’re in the middle of something, and you’re ready to give up, just keep pushing through. If you’re stuck, keep moving. It takes endurance to build endurance.

This Shall Pass

Business, Life Lessons, Nonprofits, Politics 0 Comments

Whatever you are dealing tie right now. It will pass. If you are loving life and living high, or ready to completely crash and burn. It will pass. That’s not intended to be depressing. It’s intended to be the truth.
So if things are going well, be grateful. If they aren’t going so well, be grateful they aren’t worse and know that this will pass.

Over Communicate

Business, Life Lessons, Marketing, Nonprofits, Start Ups 0 Comments

As I learn more about client work, there’s one piece of advice I would give to everyone – OVER communicate. And I don’t mean be constantly bugging them and asking them questions. That’s a pain.
Instead, just keep them updated with what you are working on. People just like to know you’re working and making progress. This is especially true if you’re new to the relationship.
Communication helps bread trust.

Ideas Don’t Matter

Business, Life Lessons, Making a Difference, Nonprofits, Spirituality, Start Ups 0 Comments

If you’ve ever watched, The Social Network you know a little about the backstory to Facebook. Like anything in Hollywood, it is certainly over dramatized. And like most things that do with Entrepreneurship, they focus on the idea of Facebook. It’s almost as if the only thing that really mattered with Facebook was the idea. Once Mark had the idea, the rest was simply inevitable.

But nothing could be further from the truth. They had to build it. They had to host it. They had to overcome technical challenges. And perhaps most important, they had to get people to use it.

Facebook was an awesome idea, but dozens of other social networks had existed before. What made it better was the execution. In business, execution is everything. Ideas don’t really count.

It’s also true in life. Having the idea of working out doesn’t make you healthier. Having an idea to ask a girl out doesn’t get you a date. And having an idea how to help someone in need doesn’t change the world.

To borrow from our friends at Nike: Just do it.

Why Don’t You Just Work for Google?

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“Why don’t you just go work for Google?”

I get this question occasionally from very well meaning people. They see that I work in software and the web and assume that I would want to go to the “mecca” of the web – Google. But the truth is, although I love what I do with the web and software, I secretly love running my own business. It’s the uncertainty and the opportunity that draws me.

It’s the ability to make a real difference in a client’s business. It’s the opportunity to work hard knowing that you are sowing seeds that will eventually come back to you – not to some billion dollar organization.

That’s the entrepreneurial bug.

Finding Your Calling – The Micro and the Macro

Life Lessons, Living Like Jesus, Making a Difference, Spirituality 0 Comments

For a long time, I’ve mused over the idea of calling. What does it mean to have a life calling? In school, they had an entire center devoted to Life Calling (it was a Christian College…..obviously). But at the end of the day, all of this talk of calling led me to more confusion than clarity.

They positioned calling as some grand adventure in which you go and find what you are really called to do. Ironically, saying it that way sounds very similar to a lot of eastern religious ideas of finding yourself.

But somehow my calling as a part of my profession never really materialized. There was no light in the sky, no burning bush, no flipping through scripture and landing on a particular one. No clear, unwavering divine guidance.

And to be honest, I think that’s how most of us live. Most people I know never had a voice from heaven telling them that they needed to get into a particular profession.

You see, the modern church has distorted and minimized this idea of calling. If you are a follower of Christ, you have a calling. Read through scripture, I think it will be pretty clear. Here are some of the things you are called to:

  • Go and make disciples
  • Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
  • Do not worry about your life
  • Take care of the least of these
  • Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength
  • Love your neighbor as yourself

And there are dozens more. Those are all part of your macro calling. No matter what occupation you work in, these are always the same. If you are a Christian, this is your calling.

Now you can also have a micro calling. This is your job, your occupation, your purpose more specific than the above calling. Maybe it’s to work in a non-profit. Maybe it’s to be a nurse. Maybe it’s to be a stay at home mom. It doesn’t matter.

But what you have to realize is that to truly be impactful in your micro calling, you need to excel in your macro calling. If you want God to use you in your job, you need to first learn to let God take everything in your life.

Without working on your macro calling, you will only have a small impact in your micro calling.

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