Me on our roof. Apparently we weren't big on safety back then

I was an unusual kid.

I didn’t do the things most of my friends did. Sports weren’t my thing (still aren’t), video games bored me, and I was extremely shy. No surprise that I wasn’t invited to many sleepovers.

The garage became my sanctuary.

Some of my best memories were waking up on Saturday mornings to the sound of my dad’s power saw buzzing away. It was like code for: “we’re going to spend all day working on a project.”

My parents live in a home built in the early Twentieth century, so as you can imagine, many Saturdays began with a project.

I learned some important lessons in that garage. Things like: how to rip a sheet of plywood, rebuild an engine, weld things together, counter-sink a screw. I also learned that gasoline smells better than it tastes, dropping a crescent wrench on your eye really hurts, never trust your life to a hydraulic jack, and punching things out of frustration doesn’t solve any problems.

I also learned the importance of solitude. Working alone with nothing but my own thoughts and challenges to overcome.

The other thing it taught me was how to be content and resourceful within constraints. You see, our garage was not like most garages. It was tiny. It leaked. It had no electricity. We had to string an extension cord 50 feet from the house to the garage for power.

But the most important lessons I learned didn’t have anything to do with any of that.

1. It is important to know who you are and what you’re good at. 

Being different doesn’t always feel good, but it can be a good thing. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of not feeling good to figure this out. What I’ve learned about myself is that all that time in the garage ingrained in me a desire to create. It’s a key part of who I am and I’m finally learning how to accept and embrace that.

2. Who you are and what you’re good at is not an excuse to avoid things you don’t like.

This is one my wife has been challenging me to think about. Being different is not an excuse to avoid the things you’re not good at. You see, I have this tendency to run from things that I don’t do perfectly right off the bat. Just because I love to create and work by myself is not an excuse to avoid things that don’t fit into my ideal world.

I’m notorious for not responding and most of my emails start with “Sorry for the delay.” It would be easy for me to commiserate with you about the ridiculous number of emails I get everyday, but that’s one of my pet peeves and I don’t want to annoy myself.

But I’ve recently discovered something that helps: Forcing myself to reply on my iPhone.

Writing emails on that tiny keypad forces me to think about how to communicate in very succinct ways. I usually won’t type more than a couple of sentences. When I email from my computer I feel compelled to write more. I don’t know why, but I do.

Someone recently said it bothers them to see those little words at the bottom: “Sent from my iPhone.” They found it disrespectful to be replied to on a phone. My brain translates those little words, “Saints be praised I don’t have to read another long email.”

Obviously it doesn’t work for every email, but most emails shouldn’t be more than a couple of lines anyway.

Try it sometime and tell me what you think.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.” -James Michener

1. Decide conversation needs to happen
2. Wait approximately 5 seconds
3. Dial number
4. Speak
5. Be relieved you did it now instead of later

Photo by Kevin Dooley

We brought two incredible people to campus. Phil Vischer, Creator of VeggieTales and Sean Womack, Former VP of Marketing for Walmart.

The theme for Leadership Week 2012 was Relive: Defining Moments of Faith.

Our team decided on this theme because of a great leader by the name of Samuel. The story of Samuel tells of a defining moment of faith, a chance to RElive.

After many many years of rebelling against God, the Israelites finally decided they were finished doing things their own way. They were ready to turn back to the Lord, and they had a new leader named Samuel.

When the Israelites came together in one place for this event, the Philistines saw it as their chance to attack. Samuel, being the great leader he was, decided to make a sacrifice to God in the hopes that God would protect them from the Philistines. Which God did. So Samuel created a big stone monument to signify Israel’s return to God and God’s protection from the Philistines. Samuel called the stone Ebeneezer. Ebeneezer represents a defining moment for Israel. A chance to start over and RElive.

Both Phil and Sean told their stories; stories of defining moments in their lives.

Phil spoke about the rise and fall of VeggieTales. He went from being the next Walt Disney, to bankrupt staring at a blank sheet of paper. His challenge to the students was not to fall in love with your dreams. Dreams become idols when we fall in love with them.

You can watch Phil’s chapel talk here.

Sean told his story in chapel on Thursday. Sean was the VP of Marketing for Walmart Stores. He was managing a $570 million dollar advertising budget, and helping Walmart transform its image. But an affair with his boss and accepting gratuities from ad agencies caused his career, his marriage and his family to unravel. His story was very public and very painful. I can’t do his story justice here, but it is an incredible story of God’s grace and redemption. A defining moment of faith.

It was a great week. I’m still not finished processing it, but I’m hoping to post another blog with the things I learned. I think the biggest lesson for me is to not hold too tightly to anything in this life. It is all temporary. How we live today is what matters. I’m so thankful for Phil and Sean. Thankful for their stories. Thankful for their transparency. And thankful that they were willing to share what they’ve learned with us.

Ben Rector recently released a cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

Ben is an incredibly talented musician. In this video, you can almost hear the music coursing through his veins.

For me, there is nothing as inspiring as watching someone do what they were born to do and do it with everything in them.

You might think I’m being outlandish, but to me this is more than a music video, it’s an inspiration to keep creating, to keep pursuing what I was made to do.

I haven’t blogged much lately because I literally haven’t had time. My inboxes are blowing up, paperwork is in piles, projects are screaming to be finished. I probably have way too many things going on. Truth be told, there is no one to blame but me. I tend to throw a bunch of things at the wall to see what sticks. This is fun until a bunch of stuff starts sticking. That’s where I’m at. A lot of my projects are proving their viability and it’s a lot to keep up with.

With all of this stuff going on, I’m constantly asking myself these questions:

1. How do stay focused on getting the right stuff done?

2. What is most important?

3. Who can I find to do the rest?

We use this phrase at The Soderquist Center a lot…helping people get the right stuff done. I’m trying to live that out.

For me, I have to fight every day to separate the truly important from everything else.

This sounds so much easier than it actually is.

A lot of things seem important.

That email marked “High Priority.”

That form that needs to be filled out.

That new idea that sounds great in the shower.

These things are impostors, posing as important things.

I’m learning that focusing all of my energy on inventing the future, creating remarkable things, and challenging the status quo means that:

Emails will go unanswered.

People will get frustrated.

Unimportant things will get half-assed.

All for the sake of accomplishing the big stuff. The stuff that matters.

We leverage cutting-edge technology and award winning design to deliver innovative products and services for our clients.

If you work in the corporate world, you probably don’t see anything wrong with these sentences. Scary. I copied/pasted these from real company documents, so you may have even written them.

There is a word for this kind of stuff: Gobbledygook.

Most people in the corporate world use gobbledygook to sound smarter.

The problem is, using gobbledygook just makes it harder for people to understand what you really mean. People have to decode what you’re saying. They have to strip away the corporate mumbo jumbo to get to the core of your message.

There are at least two major problems with speaking in gobbledygook:

1. People literally don’t know what you’re talking about.

2. People don’t give a crap. Believe me, no one gets excited when they hear the word synergistic.

When you’re writing, try to write like you talk. I’ve really been trying to do this lately. It’s harder than you think.

Here’s the thing, if you can communicate exactly what you want in written form (emotions and all) you will be way ahead in a world where we live and die by emails, texts, blogs, Facebook feeds, and message boards.

I for one believe it is possible to express your intended emotions, tone, and personality in words. Many people will tell you otherwise. But it takes a whole lot more effort to do this correctly.

Do you agree?

The artist is Dan Smith. We went to John Brown University at the same time. Now I wish I’d gotten to know him better. His music inspires me.

This may not be your style of music, but listen anyway. It’s raw. It’s haunting. It’s powerful. Really listen to the lyrics.

Because our church is made out of shipwrecks
From every hull these rocks have claimed
But we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
So come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
Come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
We only have what we remember