When I was an arranging major in college, my prof (Paris Rutherford) gave me some great advice that spans all art. He suspected that I was attempting to write an opus, a masterpiece, a piece to be remembered and admired (and he was right). But my work was clunky, and more weird than anything. ”Stephen”, he began, “you don’t get good by writing a good chart (a jazz piece). You get good by writing charts.” Plural.
His point: you get good by repetition, not by a single best effort. You get good by crossing the finish line (and crossing it again and again and again), not by trying to run a marathon.
Wanna start a blog? Great. Aim for short, frequent posts. Don’t try to write well, just try to write often.
Wanna be a good cook? Don’t try making gumbo. Start with PB&J, then grilled cheese, then a hundred other things, then gumbo.
Wanna become a developer? Start with “Hello World” and ship it. Show your friends. Like this: (“Hey, look at my awesome iPhone app!”)
This morning I revisited a tradition from my youth; studying the box of cereal while eating said cereal. As a kid, I remember this being fun. As an adult, I am grossed out with the marketing.
A TV & an xBox? So far so good. I’m interested, so I turn the box over:
Now it’s suddenly “some of” the hottest toys. I’m growing suspect of their offer. It gets worse:
Actual prizes may vary?!? ”We showed you a picture of an xBox, but you actually won…a vacuum cleaner.”
Odds of winning: zero.
It was all a lie. Thanks, Kellogs. I’m done with my cereal now.
There is a half-joke out there that the best definition for a leader is found in Webster’s dictionary.
lead·er (noun \ˈlē-dər\): one who leads
And it’s true: To appoint a leader, find the guy (or gal) who is influential and respected, and give him a leadership role. In other words, identify the leader, and just start calling them “leader”.
To appoint a church elder, find a man who already meets the qualifications of an elder, and give him the role. You should find that very little changes, for he was already an elder of sorts. (Just be careful not to now “meeting” him to death!)
If you feel called into missions as a “goer” (or you think you might be), ask yourself, “Am I a ‘missionary’ here at home? Am I burdened for the lost in my neighborhood? Am I a prayer warrior? Am I an opportunistic evangelist? Do I have a handle on the Scriptures, armed to give an account for the hope within me?” If not, then don’t expect to become these things magically after you move. Like a leader and an elder, a missionary is already a missionary before getting the title. Or to put it simply…
mis·sion·ary (noun \ˈmi-shə-ˌner-ē\): A mature Christian who moves
The call to missions begins with the cross. Because of Jesus’ love for me, I want to tell others, that they might share in it.
So I went to Thailand (I just got back). While there, I came face to face with human trafficking. For four days I spent most of the day in poor villages where girls are trafficked away (either voluntarily or forcibly) from their families for financial gain. I saw the store fronts where those girls live & work. I saw transactions take place.
Reflecting on this heinousness, I saw the need for workers to rescue & rehabilitate these girls. To provide a means of escape to those trapped by the industry (there are those who are fighting this battle).
But rescue is not enough; the girls need a paradigm shift. To be taught that their lives are more valuable than that, that their bodies are sacred, and to be given purpose. These are fruits of the gospel, so we’re back at the cross.
I saw the need to decrease supply of trafficked girls. That if policies and enforcement would rise to a certain level, trafficking would decrease (there are those who are fighting this battle). But…
Supply exists because demand exists. The root of the problem is that creepy men want to buy girls. The marketplace exists in Thailand because it exists in the heart of evil men. So in order to fully solve the problem, these men need a conversion. They need a change of heart. We’re back at the cross again.
You’re probably heard several definitions of money. A common one is “money is a measure of value”. This is true, but it misses a big point: money doesn’t just measure something’s value; it measures your value of that something. That’s where charging for something comes in really handy: it exposes other people’s true motives.
For instance, I charge my church a tiny fee to host sermon files. Since my servers are already being paid for by other clients’ hosting fees, you might ask “why do you charge your church, when it doesn’t cost you anything?” The answer is: I want to make sure they want it. If they don’t want it, don’t waste my time.
I’ve learned to scrutinize when folks say they want something. They might be lying (to themselves first, and you second), and when you charge for something, it exposes the discrepancy. There are lots of people swearing they’ll buy the iPhone 5 when it comes out, and not all of them will.
- “I really really want X. It’s for a good cause. It’s a big part of what we’re doing. It’ll really help. We need this! You’re the guy for the job” (the lie)
- “I’m happy to help. I’ll charge $x for it” (the lie detector)
- “Nevermind”
- “Then you don’t really want it, do you?”
- “Hey look, a butterfly!”
Another thing: the church will automatically review my recurring charge every budget season. That means I don’t have to. By nature, the people being charged are accountable for the project.
A while back, Seth G. wrote a similar post worth checking out.
Have you ever had a glass of cheap wine? And I mean nasty stuff? How can that stuff even exist? ”Well, simple, there’s a market for it.” Very true: if you want to rid the world of cheap wine, you don’t go to Boones Farm and ask them to shut down their operation, because another will just pop up in its place. Rather, go to the indiscriminate public and convince them that they’re better off not ingesting that gross flavored apple wine product, because there are better, more enjoyable, and healthier alternatives out there.
If no one eats at McDonalds, McDonalds will either rebrand or shut down.
If the world upgrades from Folgers to Starbucks (and Starbucks is not the best), such that the demand for bad coffee diminishes below profitability for Keurig, Inc., they’ll start selling truly gourmet coffee. And the world will be a better place.
Praise and worship music is 99% bad wine — often intolerable by those of us who savor the good stuff. But I’ve come to see a fundamental shift in my gripe with the Christian music scene: my complaint is not first & foremost with the artists. Like bad wine shops, they’re creating something because the market asks for it. My frustration is that there’s so much bad wine out there, that it’s simply called “wine” now. If you say to me “praise & worship songs”, I hear “bad music about God”. Unfortunate 
I hope that the musical palette of the church becomes more sophisticated.
P.S. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that crappy music can’t lead you to worship. For many, it can (and does) solicit real, God-honoring worship. But I might throw out that better music & better lyrics leads to better worship.
Recently a friend of a friend of a friend contacted me because they heard I do websites. As is my custom, during the first few exchanges of emails (scratching the surface of her needs) I asked her what her budget was. Now, in my head, I know before she asks what my response is going to be:
- Big budget -> I build it myself
- Mid-sized budget -> I refer it to a trusted colleague (simply because I’m too busy in this season to take on new work)
- Small-budget…?
OK, so I didn’t know what my response should be for a small budget. And I’m writing this post because she had a small budget.
So before you read on, you can already think of logical responses:
- Tell her all my contacts are currently too busy to take on new work
- Ask around and see if any of my web friends are bored and want to take a huge pay cut.
- ?
Rule #2 out. One rule I know is that I won’t make the ask to my friends to do a website for a huge pay cut. A savvy real estate agent is not going even mention to me that someone made a $75,000 offer on my $200,000 house.
Rule #1 may be true, but either way it’s really a lie. So what to do?
I ended up referring her to 99designs.com, which is a place where people can post their project and the price they’re willing to pay, and see if any applications roll in. The moral of this story is: know when to turn down work, and when to not refer work to entry-level professionals. Entry-level web developers and clients new to the web are due for their first big professional lesson. For instance, I don’t know a single seasoned developer or designer who has not paid their dues with bad client or scope-expoding project where they average $2 p/hr. So if I directly refer client I don’t know to a developer I don’t know, I’m sowing the seeds for a bad client-vendor relationship that can be traced back to me. No good. The answer: I don’t make the personal referral.
P.S. My brilliant friend and co-worker Jon Dale also pointed out that clients with smaller budgets tend to be more headache than clients with larger budgets, which is true for a number of reasons I’ll save for a later blog post.
I love good music. To me, good music is like sushi: when it’s great, it’s wonderful, but when it’s bad, it’s disgusting.
As a result, I’m always on the hunt for great music. My favorite finds are bands on the rise, who put on fantastic shows at smaller venues. Don’t wait till they’re hot; get ‘em while their not.
I use these tactics in searching:
- Find an artist’s profile page in iTunes, and look for the “Listeners Also Bought” panel. Do you know these artists? Try Amazon too, and there are other sites who cross-promote similar artists with more comprehensive lists.
- When you see a festival line-up such as this one, sample music from the artists in small font.
- Pandora. I pay for the pro-version ($39 p/yr) which I think is money well-spent. Thumb-up artists and songs you like, and you’ll hear new stuff you might like as well. On the down side, Pandora is limiting. After a while, you may realize your station is just a playlist of a hundred songs or so. Secondly Pandora resembles FM radio in that it doesn’t play the lesser-known songs on albums. I hate that about radio.
- Research artist influences. Artists biographies, interviews, profile pages, etc will give way to the great bands of yesteryear.
- Record late-night talk show host episodes. They have live music on every night, remember?
Happy listening!
If you are the boss, there are two chief reasons people come to you in need:
- “I’m depending on you to help me, otherwise this thing may fail”
- “I would like additional counsel, so I can make an informed decision”
Good and humble leaders assume #2 is the case, almost all of the time. Bad leaders assume #1, or can’t tell the difference.
Point is, good leaders cultivate leaders among their followers.
Bad leaders are indispensable, but not in a good way. They’re indispensable because they’ve painted themselves in a corner, by not allowing anyone to take control upon their untimely death. So in a sense, good leaders are actually expendable, because they’ve spawned leaders in their wake.
My friend Nate works for a church. Recently he went out to lunch with the lead pastor who asked him to verbalize his ideal job description. This exercise was intended to explore Nate’s passions (rather than his immediate role) with a view to putting him in a position he was made for (his sweet spot), regardless of whether or not that position is available within his local church.
Hearing this made me smile. We go to the same church, and it encouraged me to know that, behind the scenes, the leaders are being equipped and encouraged to be the best version of themselves.
Which made me think of the corporate world. Imagine if your boss came to you and said “where do you see yourself in five years–oh and before you answer, know that whatever your answer, I’m going to start cultivating you to that end”? I would pee down my leg.
