I killed Seth

Well I finally did it! I'll probably be lynched, or maybe driven out of town. Or if I am lucky I'll be tarred and feathered by the online community.

You see I have had enough of Seth Godin's negativity. He's right about all the things that are wrong about marketing and management and that we need to find a new way of doing things online. But to endlessly go on and on and on pointing out errors, and criticizing companies but not really offering a practical solution or championing those who are doing it properly is just not what I need.

There are others who are much more uplifting, who offer advice and help and examples of those who are 'doing it right.'. Who make you feel better once you have finished reading their blogs and their musings. And so I have decided to focus on those who are positive and life-affirming and I have deleted Seth and those like him from my bookmarks, readers and RSS's. People like Peter Meadows and Chris Brogan and Matt Price at Worshipedia.org, those are the people I am giving my precious time to.

For me it's an issue of leadership, and I want to follow people who are life-affirming, who are givers, who focus on the good. I am not interested in being influenced by the grumpy or the critics.

I guess the online lemmings who have built Seth up to be 'today's guru' are shaking their heads right now, and sharpening their axes. I'll just have to accept what's coming my way!

As Eric Clapton sang: "I shot the Seth man...'

The tale of the shrub and the eagle

So a friend of mine posted a thought on Facebook this week. It said that if we were feeling low then we needed to remember that ‘growth happens in the valley, not above the treeline.’

I guess that’s true if you feel that God’s destiny is for you to be a shrub! But what if God’s plans for you are to be an eagle? Then you are definitely going to be at your best when soaring high in the sky even above the clouds.

So many Christians feel that obedience equals suffering and difficulty and it shows – some of the most depressing people I have ever met are Christians. I have also found that this attitude has permeated church life, our service to God and our relationships with others.

But why can’t Christians believe they should strive to be the best? Like be the best husband you can be, or become everything God desires for you?

The best thing I have ever done has been to join with a group of people who decided that second-best was not goo = d enough! Who decided that Christians could produce better work than the rest of the world! Who purposed to bring glory to God by being professional and challenging the accepted status quo!

The result – the world’s first multi-hybrid online Bible engagement game for kids www.yahero.com No-one else has launched a multi-platform game like this, not Christians but more importantly not any secular organization either.

It sure feels good to be an online eagle. Join the eagle movement and stop shrubbering around!

Giving birth to a hedgehog

So what’s the toughest thing I have ever done?

It wasn’t swimming in the piranha-infested waters of the Amazon river in 1985.
It wasn’t fighting in a war in Africa. A war I didn’t believe in.
It also wasn’t burying my parents after watching them suffer through terrible pain and debilitating illnesses.
Nor was it getting a phone call on a cold, wet day in London telling me my best friend had just been killed by a runaway truck.

The toughest thing, has been part of a team that had a biiiiiig vision to launch a product that could change an entire generation. Someday’s it felt like we were trying to give birth to a hedgehog – man was it painful! But when we launched it on Thursday March 4, 2010 boy oh boy what a sense of fulfillment, achievement and success.

The lesson for me? Big dreams need big sacrifices. And sometimes pain, with maybe long days and short nights.
What a humbling privilege it is to be asked by God to use the gifts he has given me to do something that can change culture, communities and kids.
Tough things show us that with God all things are possible.

The toughest 2 years of my life. Sure! But also the most fulfilling.

My next mission – to birth hedgehog triplets! Haven’t told the wife yet though …

PS – Please go and check out my hedgehog on http://www.yahero.com

Pointers

Some people keep pointing out what’s wrong with the world. It’s so easy to do that – problems, evil, mistakes, they’re all around us, we meet them everyday, sometimes many times a day so there is no great skill in pointing them out.

The great skill is in finding the good, exposing the nuggets of truth and celebrating positive things. How many bosses do you know that keep highlighting your mistakes? And how many bosses do you know that go around trying to catch people doing the right thing and then celebrating and encouraging their team to achieve even more?

I know which one of those bosses I wanna be…and which one my team wants me to be!

Here is a little challenge. Everyday read one blog post from http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ and one from http://meadowsesq.wordpress.com/ and at the end of the week tell me which one makes you feel better and more inspired to change the world around you.

Sure let's point out the problems, but let's actively do something positive to make this better.

Coming Soon - The Baddest Recession Ever

We've all heard of the Great Depression. We've all lived through the Credit Crunch. And we've probably all sung the Bachman Turner Overdrive Song 'Baby you ain't seen nothing yet.'

So what have BTO and world finances got in common? Only that the next financial crisis will be the worst, baddest and toughest one to come our way in a looooong time.

Why am I so pessimistic? It's because I still see people have not learned the lessons from the recent Great Recession. Lessons such as income should be greater than outgoings, don't borrow short to pay long, don't think credit/store cards are the answer to make up for your monthly shortfall.

You see, I believe that the next financial tsunami is going to be as a result of people's over-reliance on credit cards. And if you thought the mortgage/sub-prime catastrophe was bad then as BTO sang....

It seems credit drives everything. From purchases of cars and even the gas to power them to online games where people subscribe via their credit cards. From flights to fiestas and all the way through groceries, hotels, internet purchases ...

The best money management resource I have found is written by Michel Bell and is called managing God's money. http://managinggodsmoney.com Check it out to see if there are any hints you can take to save yourself from the tears that will be shed in the days ahead as the world of credit collapses and leads ever closer to a new economic order, which may sound good but will ultimately lead to destruction.

How are you managing your use of credit?

How to be successful – part 1

Ask all your friends what they are striving for in life and I can almost bet that the vast majority will say something like ‘success’ or achieving a particular goal or winning at something. The drive for success in our wealthy, western world is very, very powerful.

One of the things I have seen with people who want success is that many of them want that success now, today!

It’s the same in business. Marketers want to use Social Networking because it’s the revolutionary new idea that can magically increase their sales. And so they dive headlong into copying what everyone else is doing – they blog, they set up Facebook groups, the try and get as many Twitter followers as they can …

Here’s another thing I have learned. Success never sneaks up on you! Lay the foundations, develop things consistently over time, win peoples trust by being a person of integrity. None of these things come quickly or easily. Count how many verses in the Bible God encourages His people to do things ‘little by little’ – you may be surprised.

And just a last thought before we all rush off into our day. Is success the thing we should be striving for?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

It’s the holiday season - let’s destroy the environment!

Has anyone made the connection between global warming and Christmas lights ... or am I just going crazy?

What’s the deal with Christmas lights and decorations that stay on all night long outside your house? Isn’t that using up electricity and so putting the earth in more jeopardy?

Bet most of the people who put Christmas lights up are the very ones who are so concerned with recycling, and driving hybrids and saving the environment the rest of the year! Strange how there is this disconnect - is it because saving the environment at this time of the year is inconvenient, or ‘we’ve always done it like this’?

Or maybe I’m just ‘Bah! humbug!’