Amanda Pelser… Ramblings of a Communications Director …

I had the great privilege of attending Catalyst this past October.  As a thank you for completing their post-conference survey, I got a free PDF of Andy Stanley’s most recent book, The Principle of the Path.  [Lesson to all: if you want me to complete a survey or do something for you, offer me a free book, especially one that I really want to read.]  I have several of Andy’s books on my want-to-read list, but I’d been wanting to read this book in particular since reading this post from Michael Hyatt.

First, I must confess that this it the first book of Andy’s that I’ve ever read.  Can you believe that?  It certainly will not be my last!  I love his writing style.  It is very much like his speaking.  He writes in a very easy to follow, conversational style.  Everything just seems to flow from one thought to the next making it very hard to put the book down!

The basic premise of the book is so simple that it is not recognized and followed by most of us.  The path that we choose determines where we end up.  No matter how much we try to ignore this principle, it is still at work.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• Recognizing the distinction between a solution and a path is the first step in understanding the principle of the path.
• Direction determines destination. …  You don’t have problems to fix; you have directions that need to change. It is time to begin living in the right direction.
• For just as this powerful principle explains how you’ve arrived where you are, it offers hope for the future as well. And, like every principle, once you understand how it works, you can leverage it to your advantage.
• The road I’m on always determines where I end up.  …  It really doesn’t matter where I intended to be; the path I take determines my ultimate destination.
• So a prudent person is a wise person. The implication here is that a prudent man or woman understands that all of life is connected. He is aware of the cause-and-effect relationship between what he chooses today and what he experiences tomorrow, what he chooses during one season of life and his experience in a future season—for better or worse. Consequently, prudent people look as far down the road as possible when making decisions.
• Simple is used interchangeably with the term naive. In contrast to the prudent, the simple or naive person lives as though life is disconnected; as if there is no connection between today’s choices and tomorrow’s experiences.
• For being oblivious to the obvious. The simple suffer for refusing to act on what they see. They suffer because they live as if there is no connection between the choices of today and the experiences of tomorrow. They overlook the fact that every path has a destination.
• Forgiveness and consequences are two different things.
• Principles are what enable us to plan with some element of confidence.
• At the end of the day, direction, not intention, determines destination.
• Prudent people know that it’s what you do that makes the difference, not what you see. Seeing danger and doing nothing doesn’t accomplish anything. …  Acting prudently often appears to others as unnecessary caution.
• Lord, help us to see trouble coming long before it gets here. And give us the wisdom to know what to do and the courage to do it.
• As long as we are lying to ourselves, it is impossible to get to where we want to be. Here’s why. You will never get to where you want to be if you don’t know where you are to begin with. When we deceive ourselves, we blind ourselves to our current location.
• Because now you know something you didn’t know before. Namely, your heart should not be your guide. It can’t be trusted.
• Choosing the right path begins with submission, not information. Not even direction. Submission. Specifically, submission to the One who knows where each path leads, as well as where it doesn’t lead. Submission to the One who knows what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you.
• Don’t trust your heart; trust God with your heart.
• The moral of the story is this: In order to make the best decisions now, we need much more than information, common sense, or conventional wisdom. We need God. We need to live with a posture of dependency. We need to acknowledge him in all our ways.
• Every path has a destination. Direction, not intention, determines destination. Divine direction begins with submission. Information is not enough. Insight is not enough.
• More often than not, the circumstances we face are saturated with powerful emotions. Those emotions easily turn into misguided passions. In the end, passion clouds the ability to accurately evaluate the circumstance in order to choose the right path.
• In refusing to kill Saul, he [David] modeled a powerful truth: one never accomplishes the will of God by breaking the law of God, violating the principles of God, or ignoring the wisdom of God. …  So I want to encourage you to apply these three questions to every option that comes your way: 1. Does this option violate God’s law? 2. Does this option violate a principle? 3. In light of the story I want to tell, what is the wise thing to do?
• Successful people are often credited with being smart. And many are. But the successful people I know don’t attribute their success to their IQs. They attribute it to the collective wisdom and insight they garnered from others. Successful people aren’t successful because they knew everything they needed to know. They are successful because they were willing to apply the lessons they learned from others.  One of the primary avenues through which God directs us is the counsel of others. …  Wise people listen and prosper. Fools don’t, and don’t.
• I learned a long time ago that there is something more important than being right, and that is making the right decision. People who always have to be right will always be limited in their decision-making ability.
• It is next to impossible to hear the voice of wisdom if we are not really listening for it to begin with. The best counsel in the world is wasted counsel if our minds are already made up.
• Your knowledge, insight, and experience may put you miles ahead of the average person. But even then, you won’t reach your full potential apart from tapping into the knowledge, insight, and experience of those who are a step ahead of you.
• What captures our attention influences our direction. Attention, direction, destination. That’s the principle of the path in three words. …  So pay careful attention to what you are paying attention to. Pay attention to the things that are competing for your attention. Pause before devoting your attention to anything. And devote special attention to those things that deserve your attention.
• Scripture stands as a reminder that regardless of what we’ve experienced, we are not the first. Regardless of what we feel, someone else has navigated through that fog before us. And more important, someone has faced what we’ve faced, felt what we’ve felt, and his or her faith has survived.
• There comes a time in each of our lives when we are forced to turn our backs on something we hoped for, prayed for, dreamed about, and perhaps planned for. These are usually good things. But a day comes when we are faced with the reality that they’re not going to happen for us. We aren’t going to get there. That dream isn’t coming true.
• Knowing doesn’t make the difference. Doing does. The decisions you make will determine the direction and the destination of your life. Choose wisely.

Incredible book.  A definite must read.  I even had the opportunity to recommend it to our Southbrook staff during a recent staff meeting because it fit so well with something that Pastor Rob was sharing with us from the book of Numbers in his devotional.

Dr. Irwin clearly summarizes De-Railed this way: “This book has two primary objectives: first, to help us understand how derailment occurs—the real point of the six leader profiles; second, to help us avoid a cataclysmic train wreck in our own careers—the subject of the second half of the book.”  The character flaws of these six high-profile CEOs show us where even the average person can get off track.  These traits are:  1. Authenticity 2. Self-management 3. Humility 4. Courage.

I really had to push myself to finish this book.  I’m a strong believer in the strengths-based teaching of people like Marcus Buckingham.  Dr. Irwin seems defensive very early in the book in response to strengths-based teaching, which then put me on the defensive as the reader.  I had a hard time with the profiling of the CEOs;  I don’t question the failures of these leaders so I think it was more they way that they were profiled that I didn’t like.  It seems that Dr. Irwin is referring to character flaws and not misuse of strengths or an ignorance of weaknesses.  He’s really bringing attention to a serious issue, but the way in which he does is a turn off.

The second half of the book was much better.  There was great advice and questions to ask yourself to avoid the stated character issues.  Unfortunately, over all I feel that the book was poorly written and just didn’t keep my attention despite some great content.

***  This book was reviewed as a part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers Program. ***

I decided to get this book after watching a great series of short videos from a training session with Shawn Wood at Seacoast Church.  I was at a point where I felt pretty overwhelmed with various responsibilities and really needed a better system in order to free my mind from holding all the details.  I needed to be able to release the stress and anxiety that goes along with trying to remember everything.

Shawn’s videos are a great overview of the process, so start there. Getting Things Done gets into the nitty-gritty details.  The book has been out for several years so it does not cover current technologies that can help in implementing a GTD process, but it is the basic process is what matters most.

Here’s a few of the keys to a GTD system and how I’m organizing my life.

• Create a trusted capture system.  I capture things in the following places: physical inboxes at work and home, email inbox for work and personal, Evernote inbox, and Remember the Milk inbox.  Some people need a small notepad to carry around to make notes.  I generally use whatever paper I have and make sure that it gets to my physical inbox.  Otherwise, I use my iPhone and send myself an email, send a note to my Evernote inbox, or send a to-do by email to Remember the Milk.
• Process things in your inboxes regularly.  Delete things that are not needed.  File things that are for reference.  I keep very few paper files any more.  Almost everything gets scanned to PDF.  Then, I file and tag everything in Evernote on my Mac.  If it can be done in less than two minutes, do it and be done with it.  Anything else needs to be delegated or deferred.  If I’m giving something to my husband or one of my team members to do, I keep the item marked as “waiting” in my email, Evernote “waiting” notebook, or tagged with “waiting” as a task in RTM.  For anything else, I create a task in RTM, tag as a project or something that I need to process in Evernote or my email.  I create to-do items for everything that I think of regarding a project.  David Allen suggests just the next action step, but I find if I don’t record everything that I think of that needs to be done, I keep too much of that project in my head and it weighs on me too much.  Even if it seems silly or trivial, I’ll spend the time to make a note of it rather than carrying it in my head.
• Do your work.  Tagging things on my to-do list in RTM always me to better choose what to work on based upon amount of time available, current energy level or mindset, resources available (like phone or internet), time item is due, etc.  It makes determining the best thing to do at a given time so easy.
• Review your inboxes, to-do items, project files, calendar, etc in depth once a week to determine any next steps on projects, trigger your memory of anything that you may have forgotten, need to follow up on or reschedule.  I’ve been doing this on Fridays.  It is the best day for me because it is usually my quietest day of the week with the fewest interruptions.

Here are some additional things that I’ve been doing and technologies notes…

• One of the goals is inbox zero; don’t store things in your email inbox.  One of the ways that I can stay on top of this is to move things to my project folder or to-do folder when I glance at my email on my iPhone.  In addition, if I can take care of it with a quick, simple response, I do that from my iPhone.  Because we use Google Apps for our email and my phone is set up using Exchange protocol, everything I do on my phone is mirrored on my computer / webmail.  This makes getting through my email so much faster.
• When I see links to things that I want to look at later, I send an email with the link to my Evernote inbox.  When I process my Evernote inbox, I can look at those links I saw in Twitter from my iPhone or put them in my read/review folder to look at later.  For longer term links and blog posts (I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds), I tag items using Delicious.  This makes it easy to point someone else to something that I found or get to it from any computer.
• Josh was eager to learn this system, so I’ve been helping him set up his processes in Outlook, Evernote and RTM.  We added each other as contacts in RTM so we can send to-do items to each other.  We also promised to process our physical inboxes at home; I can trust that if I put something in Josh’s inbox, he will look at it within a day or two.  This has kept our kitchen island free of clutter because I can put mail and catalogs and such in his inbox.
• We also make it a practice to “invite” each other to important things on our calendar even if it doesn’t directly involve the other person so we’re aware of where the other one is.  We also have our calendars shared with each other so that we can see the other’s full calendar to see where they are and what they are doing.  That way, if Josh is scheduled to be in a meeting, then I don’t continually call his cell phone looking for him unless of course, it is an emergency.
• I have Evernote and RTM connected to my Twitter account.  I can send a DM to either and whatever I send is in my inbox for the next time I process my inboxes.

If you’re looking for a way to handle the demands of your job, juggling to-do items at home, and decluttering your mind, this book is a great place to start.  But, don’t it half way.  You really have to set up your system and commit to it, including regular review.

Here are a few things that I’ve read recently that caught my attention:

• This post from Perry Noble about being disturbed by God really messed me up.  I don’t want to sit back and be content with average!
• “What if they [pastors] shifted from being drivers of innovation to being cultivators of innovators?” from Larry Boatright via the Catalyst Catablog.  Isn’t this Ephesians 4:11-12?  As church leaders, God has called us to be equippers of people.
• “If you think the way everyone else is thinking, you’ll do what everyone is doing.” from the LifeChurch.tv Swerve blog.  How can I start thinking in a new way?  What can I do to break out of my rut to do something that no one else is doing?

Outliers was on my radar before going to Catalyst.  I didn’t know much about it or Malcolm Gladwell.  Pastor Rob had mentioned that it was a good book, so I mentally moved it up on my reading list a little bit.  But then I went to Catalyst and heard Malcolm speak.  Wow.  He was such a great speaker.  Clear, easy to understand, captivating, and more.  He carefully wove together a story from the Civil War, the Great Depression, and our current financial crisis.  So, I got the book and it quickly moved to the top of my must-read list.  I started it last weekend and after being out at the WfX Conference the second half of the week, I read much of the day yesterday and finished the book.

The purpose of the book is to challenge what we believe about success and how someone become successful.  So, what is an outlier?

out·li·er noun 1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body  2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.

Malcolm put his purpose so clearly in this passage:

In Outliers, I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don’t work. People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.

I was raised to be relatively independent woman.  I don’t believe that things happen by chance.  I know that my family background and my educational advantages have been a large part of making me who I am and getting me to where I am today.  Until reading Outliers, it did not occur to me what a huge part those things and the systems that we put together in our society can do to make or break the success of a person.

Here are a few passages that caught my attention while reading:

• They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.
• Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
• Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement.
• We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.
• Their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. The people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
• In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.  And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.
• Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
• The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls “practical intelligence.”
• IQ is a measure, to some degree, of innate ability. But social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere, and the place where we seem to get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families.
• Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
• Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.

Last night as I was talking with Josh about the book, I began to notice all the things that I do with Jonathan, my almost 3 years old son.  Now, I don’t remember many details about how my mom raised me since I was 13 when she passed away.  What I do remember is a drive to be as good as I could be in school and anything else I did, the best if possible.  I remember a push to work hard and never give up.  So, what do I do with Jonathan when he falls?  I help him up, but I tell him he’s fine and to keep going.  What do I do when he get frustrated with putting his clothes on?  I tell him that he can do it and let him persist in figuring it out on his own.  When he cannot find something?  I tell him to look for it.  When he wants to help with dinner?  I let him make the mess as he learns what to do.  When he wants to quit and do something else?  Finish what you started.  Malcolm calls this a parent who “cultivates”.  Rather than completely staying out of what Jonathan does, I’m involved, but I’m teaching him the value of hard work, persistence, and the joy of reaching a goal.  I show him how to be a problem solver and figure out the answers rather than handing him the easy answer.

I loved this book.  Again, Malcolm is a great story-teller and has a fascinating way to giving statistics wrapped in intriguing examples from real-life.  Great book and highly recommended.