Part 2 of what I’m thinking about.
Part 2 of what I’m thinking about. (Taken with instagram)
Thought to mull over this weekend.
Thought to mull over this weekend. (Taken with instagram)
Burger: beef, mozzarella, organic spinach, onion, cherry tomato, non-organic avocado. Unreal.
Burger: beef, mozzarella, organic spinach, onion, cherry tomato, non-organic avocado. Unreal. (Taken with instagram)
Lunch time win. #memorialday2012
Lunch time win. #memorialday2012 (Taken with instagram)
First tux. That’s his walk down the aisle look. (Taken with instagram)
npr:
NEWS: Space Shuttle Enterprise completes historic flyover of New York City on the back of a modified 747 before delivery to the intrepid museum. This is totally an actual photograph of what actually happened.
Ok, scratch the photos I had up earlier and the dozens more floating around.
This wins everything.
Fantastic. -Savy
Source: ex-genius
I saw this definition before somewhere, but not as wall art. Maybe on a coffee mug or something. Wait… Is that wall art or just text on a photo? Anyway, still rad.
Source: futureben
deconstructing what you know… for what you could know
So, this weekend, I got a chance to go check out a day-long seminar called “your one degree,” and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of data in 7 hours, and it’s taken some time to decompress it all. I’m still not finished by any means either. But, I figured I should at least write some of it down, as writing is a great way for me to decompress it all.
One of the great take aways I was encouraged by was the whole concept of the seminar to begin with: finding YOUR one degree. The illustration works like this:
Picture your life/skills/experience/etc as a circle. He said you have greens that energize you,
yellows that you’re good at, but don’t thrive on, and reds that drain you. What he argued for,
was that you focus your time, attention, and energy on finding your degree, and cutting the
other 94 degrees out.
What?! Sounds crazy, right? I mean, you can’t just CUT everything out!!
But, what if you could?
What if, instead of spreading yourself thin doing lots of different things, you focused in on your best skills, gifts, etc, and grew even better at them?
Now, there’s a 60/40 rule in there as well, that you aim for your one degree in 60% of what you do. For example, I don’t generally budget/plan $$ well. Never have. And you can hear my blood pressure kick up like a turbocharger on a car when it comes up. Just a slow annoying hiss. That said, not planning a budget or looking at money leaves me in a terrible place. It just has to happen. Some reds just have to happen (like changing a poop filled diaper). But, finding the skills you live for and focusing on those sounds great, right?
It’s also hard. It means giving up on good things. Example: As a coffee snob, I would enjoy working the coffee bar at church. But, I’m committed to the band, and I am good at it (not saying that arrogantly, just saying, I’m capable of playing well). Music would be my one degree.
What I find so interesting in this is that it seems to be a thing that a lot of pastors & youth pastors have said (myself included) in the past. Our kids have tried to be experts at everything so they get big scholarships and have lots of options. And “most importantly,” because it makes them look good, or take a step further, makes them look better than the person next to them. And so they’re too busy to “do something dumb like get someone pregnant.” Which is a whole different issue I’ll leave alone. Our culture has created people that jump in the wheel, run hard, and switch wheels multiple times, trying to be good at everything. If you think I’m lying, look at a high schooler’s schedule. Fall sports, spring sports, clubs, homework, jobs, extra curriculars, church, family events, AP courses, playing an instrument, band, etc. I could go on, you get the idea. How many did you do? I had more than one.
Ironically enough, they’re exhausted. They’re either hyper because they can’t slow down & focus, or they’re depressed because they can’t keep up. They’re over medicated, taking pills to wake up, pills to sleep, pills to focus, and pills to calm down. Something about our rhythm & speed isn’t right.
We all know it, but none of us is willing to “lose out on opportunities.” I think if we did, we might find peace. We might find our souls again.
And then now in my 30’s, I finally have a guy who has encouraged me to say no to good things. Fortunately, I had to learn that already, but he pushed even more than I thought was necessary, and I think he’s right. You learn, you adapt, and you swim in a sea of yellow tasks that you can do well so you get your job security, you score a raise, you keep the peace at home. And you miss out on greens that would energize you in tremendous ways. Extend that to the broad family, what does that do to my family? I enjoy life less, so I’m shorter, angrier, less satisfied. And if they’re stuck in 100 yellows and 2 greens, they’re in the same boat. What if I pursued more greens, and empowered my wife & kids to pursue greens?
Our family would look DRAMATICALLY different.
And so now comes the hard work of trimming off the fat. What am I good at that I don’t need to make a priority anymore? My skill in my greens goes up, my love for those tasks goes up, my impact as a person goes up. Why? Because I get better at doing what I love, and because I am a happier person because I’m doing a task I love.
This is all meant as a broad thing, a life orienting so to speak. But it translates to work too. What if you did the same with your career? All things worth asking. All things worth leveraging your gifts, abilities, and time for. Worth throwing your heart into that conversation to watch it come alive.
Live deeper.
![thedailywhat:
Infographic of the Day: Of course the MPAA doesn’t want people to see Bully. If people stopped turning a blind eye to bullying the MPAA could no longer exist.
[thanks jill!]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ka08RHZV1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Infographic of the Day: Of course the MPAA doesn’t want people to see Bully. If people stopped turning a blind eye to bullying the MPAA could no longer exist.
[thanks jill!]
(via nicholealexis)
Source: thedailywhat
why I (still) love Jason Russell
Safe bet, you have seen what happened today in the news with Invisible Children. If you haven’t, I’m sure you will (or you’re searching google right now). Is what happened unfortunate? Sure. Is it “bad timing?” You bet. (not that there’s a good time for press like what IC is getting)
The real question is, what is your response to it?
See, here’s the thing: our culture (sadly) likes to watch people fall. And you can debate that all you want, but if you follow any news (or have ever seen/read tmz for more than 3 seconds) you know there are people out there that have literally built careers around “reporting” the failures of others.
And with that, we tend to not stick with things for very long. Think about it, what was the last project you got passionate about, and got involved in heavily. Are you still working at it? Has the group of people you are working on said project expanded, stayed the same, or has a whole different crew come on board?
Jason has been passionately lobbying for Uganada (and the places the LRA has moved to from Uganada), and stopping the LRA for years. He is a great guy, and he has a tremendous vision for instigating and helping create change for a people group that needs it. The things that Invisible Children has done (regardless of your debate about how they spend their money) has been great, and has had an impact. Jason is a great guy. Period.
This campaign has been exhausting on the people leading IC. And you can tell. I watched the int
erview Jason did on the Today show, and while I think he made his points, he looked like he was about 6 days past needing a 3 day nap. And this campaign blew up in good and bad ways. They had to go on the defensive in ways they haven’t had to, or at least at levels of intensity that they haven’t had to before, on top of the intensity & focus they needed to fight for the positive side of Kony 2012.
And that can be exhausting by itself, not counting the travel, the speaking, the videos & movie making, etc.
2 thoughts on this:
1- Our minds do strange things when we suffer massive sleep deprivation. It’s just a fact. If you go with zero sleep long enough over a period of weeks, it literally will kill you. People see & hear things that aren’t there, people act in ways they would not normally act.
2- With massive amounts of stress compounding the sleep deprivation, you take everything that is already on edge, and elevate it dramatically.
I know what it feels like to have to defend yourself to someone. I know what it feels like to experience rejection over an issue that you feel strongly about, and that you would gladly fight forever for. I’ve experienced first hand what it feels like to be denied forgiveness, to be shoved out and told that grace is yours, but it will not come from us.
It hurts deeply.
That said, I know what it is to receive grace. To get a second chance. To know that while your idealism has been beaten out of you (to borrow a phrase from a friend), you can still wake the next morning and know that the day is new, and you are free to get up and live.
Grace says I can try and fail, and learn and get up and be better than I was yesterday.
So, again, I ask, what is your response to this? I hope that it is grace. Because while Jason’s situation is unfortunate, it comes on the heels of his giving his heart & soul to something worth fighting for. And I can guarantee you that Jason & Invisible Children have their best days ahead of them, not in their past.
Live deeper.
career paths and lessons
Sometimes you make moves and have high hopes/expectations for them, and they just don’t work out. The dynamics of work escalate exponentially the smaller your company gets. By that I mean, in a large company, it’s more common that average work is acceptable. In a small company, you need as much above average performance for your company to be a wild success. Large companies have whole departments devoted to things that have to be brief/quick conversations/emails in a small business, and as such dynamics get weird as crew size drops. That said, I think I need to explain that there was still some good in the job even if the whole process turned out lousy. So, here are (were) the pluses to the whole deal: I say all this to say that even in jobs you love that don’t pan out, or in jobs you hate, or in your dream job that you can never get fired from, there are always lessons to learn, and roles to expand/improve/learn from. Live deeper
