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.