Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain

I spent way too long trying to become an extrovert instead of harnessing my unique powers of my introversion.

Click to buy Quiet on AmazonAs most introverts do, growing up, Susan received implicit messages about the insufficiency of introverts. But the truth is, we need introverts. When introverts don’t be introverted, everyone loses.

We should be thinking much more often about temperament pairings in leadership.

Temperament informs our person as deeply as does gender. And while to some degree, we’re all “Ambiverts” (there’s no such thing as a pure introvert or pure extrovert), we need to learn how to harness the power of introversion.

Introversion describes how you react to stimulation.Continue reading

The Making of a Leader – Andy Stanley

Click here to buy Deep & Wide by Andy Stanley
Many of these ideas are in Andy’s most recent book, “Deep & Wide”. Click here to buy it!

Information and Insight alone do not make a leader. What makes me into a leader is how I respond to

  1. Unexpected Opportunity
  2. Unavoidable Adversity
  3. Undeniable Calling

The leader is not the first to SEE an opportunity. They’re the first to ACT.

My response needs to be a story worth telling. The younger you are, the more important this is. But less significant this feels. Be careful!

Andy illustrated his thesis through several autobiographical stories:Continue reading

11-15: Why Batman is the Best

batman_inc_111. Batman really is the best literary character.

I know I’m going to get crucified for this, but it’s true.  Batman is all about what it means to be human.  He lives in a world that is broken at a fundamental level, and he himself is a victim of that world – he watched his parents murdered in front of him.  And in a world where evil seems overwhelming, in a world full of beings with supernatural powers, the Batman is only human.  He has no special abilities.  He has only his will (and a giant pile of money).  As silly as it sounds, I think the Batman speaks to that deep part of us that rages against injustice, that refuses to believe the world is just a random joke.  That part of us that knows something’s broken and wants to fix it.  That part of us that believes we can do more than everyone else thinks we can.  That part of us that knows there’s more to being human than what most people settle for.

12. Violence doesn’t solve anything.

The thing about Batman is that he’s fictional.  There’s a reason superheroes don’t really exist: they can’t.  The world really is broken, but it was broken by people.  We broke (and continue to break) the world by trying to impose our own kind of order on it.  Something like 7 billion wills all trying to get the world to march to the beat of our own drums and we wonder that chaos seems to be the order of the day?  And somehow we’ve gotten it in our heads that the answer is to try harder than everyone else.  That if we are louder or stronger or more powerful than everyone else, our way will reign supreme.  But that’s not true.  Violence only begets more violence.  Violence can be effective in the short term, but it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem, the break at the core of who we are.  It only makes it worse.

13. The worst kinds of violence aren’t physical.

In fact, physical violence might be the preferable.  Its effects are more immediate, more visible, but they fade more quickly as well.  The more insidious kinds of violence are those that leave scars on our souls – emotional abuse, degrading another person’s spirit.  Crushing other cultures not by the sword but the commercial.  Teaching someone that difference is dangerous, that conformity is humanity.  Making someone else feel less human because s/he doesn’t fit into your idea of a perfect world.  That’s much worse.

14. Power is dangerous.

And that’s scary, because as soon as you have influence over another person, it’s possible (even likely) that you’re going to hurt him or her.  None of us is perfect; we all try to remake the world in our own images.  And that means we’re always at risk – always toeing the line between really engaging another person and colonizing him, remaking her to fit into our world.

15. The best place to be is uncomfortable.

Safe is easy.  And easy is dangerous, because easy is comfortable.  When we’re comfortable, we get complacent and we quit paying attention.  We stop asking hard questions.  We start to think we’re the king of our castles.  Being in an uncomfortable space reminds us that we’re not in control.  That the world is stranger than we like to remember.  That other people really aren’t the way we want them to be.  The uncomfortable spaces are a very good place to meet God.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the balcony of a Dominican Institute in Cairo listening to the Muslim call to prayer echo across the city.  I’m pretty far outside my comfort zone.

Who’s your favorite character?  Where have you been the victim of violence?  What about the perpetrator?  And how comfortable are you where you are?

6-10: Good Stories Matter

6. Reading is a necessary life-skill.

Leaders are readers.  Read lots of stuff.  Blogs, books, magazines.  Read the best stuff in your area.  Read fiction.  Read bestsellers.  Read classics.  Read books you’re pretty sure you’re going to disagree with.  Just read.  Seriously.  It’s a skill you can develop.

It just occurred to me that, if you’re reading this, I’m probably preaching to the choir.

7. There is such a thing as good literature.  Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and Tim LeHaye are not it.

If you’re reading, I’m so glad.  But please read good books.  Not the trash that gets pawned off as literature.  Yes, I’m a snob about good books and I will never apologize for it.  The world is packed full of good books, so you don’t ever need to waste your time with crap.  I’m sure I just offended tons of people, but see above: on this issue, I will not apologize.

Do. Not. Read. Bad. Books.  It’s actually okay to get into a book and quit because it’s not a good book.  I had to learn this lesson the hard way.  Do yourself a favor and do the work of finding and reading good books.

8. Good stories are hard to find.

Good StoryNot because there are so few, but because there’s so much clutter out there (see #7).  Good stories transport us outside our small worlds and to a place that’s bigger than we can imagine on our own.  They show us ourselves at our best and worst.  They’re mirrors that show us our true selves (because let’s face it: we all need help with that).

Here are some of my favorite stories: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Anansi Boys, The Dark Knight, The Shawshank Redemption and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

9. Good story-tellers can make anything interesting and worthwhile.

Seriously.  Good story-tellers make even the most mundane activities or scenes burst with life and energy.  They use words to unveil a reality that you see has been there all along, you just couldn’t see it.  They show you the magic that imbues even the very mundane and ordinary.  And they make it look easy, but it’s not.  It’s not a gift… it’s a carefully cultivated skill.

Some of my favorite storytellers: Stephen R. Donaldson, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Johnny Cash,

10. You can learn to be a good story-teller.

Just to be clear, this is a bad story-teller.

It’s true.  What looks like magic is actually blood, sweat and lots of tears.  We are hard-wired for stories, so there are some basic skills anyone can develop to become a better story-teller (and –hearer for that matter).  Donald Miller has been working quite a bit on this lately, and has tons of great suggestions about how to become a better story-teller.  Here’re some books I also highly recommend if you want to work on this!

Resonate – Nancy Duarte
Made to Stick – Chip and Dan Heath
Communicating for a Change – Andy Stanley

Whew – that’s 6-10.  Next week I’ll start off with my all-time favorite story character (no big surprise there).  But for now – how important are stories to you?  What are some of your favorite?  Who are some of your favorite story-tellers?

1-5: Other People Matter!

I don’t usually get weird about birthdays, but a couple weeks before I turned 30 (on October 23), it hit me that – arbitrary or not, 30 is a pretty big milestone.  Since then, I’ve been wondering what I’ve learned in my first 30 years of life.  Here’s what I’ve come up with, 5 at a time!

1. The person who knows 1, knows none.

This would probably be hilarious if we knew Arabic...This is true of languages, religions, culture and pretty much everything.  If you don’t take time to get to know someone else in a real and deeply significant way, you won’t know yourself.  We have less in common with God than we do with any person on the planet.  If we don’t learn how to live in true community with Others, we won’t connect with God as fully as we could.  We were designed to need each other.

2. You’ll get further this week developing a genuine interest in 2 other people than trying to get 2 other people interested in you.

palsThis is a quote from Tim Sanders. It’s true.  Dale Carnegie also talks a lot about this in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People.  My dad made me read that book when I was 16 and it’s still one of the best books I’ve ever read, one that has shaped me more than most.  Learn the art of caring about others… it’s a skill you can develop.  And it will change who you are.  For the better.  Because at the end of the day…

3. It really is more blessed to give than to receive.

I have one of these waiting for you... you know, if you drop by for a visit.

We are created in the image of the God who is fundamentally a giver.  We are hard-wired to be most fully ourselves when we’re giving.  This is the direct opposite of what our culture teaches (and you’ll hear in any Economics class that there’s no such thing as a self-less gift).  Giving makes us more human, more truly ourselves.  You can learn this art (and if you want a good place to start, do yourself a favor and pick up Miroslav Volf’s Free of Charge).

4. If you can help it, don’t open your mouth unless you’re giving something to someone.

I’m not here yet, but this is where I want to get.  I tend to be a very sarcastic person by nature, and I’m tired of making people feel like trash.  I want to be a person who’s a constant source of encouragement and life to other people.  I don’t want to feel good at someone else’s expense.  It’s something I’m still working on.

5. You have to fight for good relationships.

Quite a comeback they're making! I hope they win!

Somehow, I think we all got the impression that if a relationship is right and good, it just comes naturally.  Well, bad news… that’s a dirty lie.  True life-giving relationships take a lot of work.  We have to learn that Others are never going to be like us, no matter how much we try to change them.  God revels in diversity, so we have to figure out how to live with Others.

And that takes work.  In marriage, in friendship, in family, at work and church and even international politics (I suspect).

We’ve been fed the lie that we should surround ourselves with like-minded people and we’ve happily gobbled it up.  Time to switch tables and find some new cuisine!

If you want a good place to start, try reading a book by a person you don’t like (or think you won’t) and forcing yourself to write down something positive for every negative thing you say.

That’s it for this week… next week’s all about Story.  But for now, what do you think?  Do you agree or disagree?

Craig Groschel

These are my summary reflections from the Catalyst East Conference in Atlanta, GA.  The theme this year was “The Tension is Good”, so the speakers mostly used their talks to explore various tensions we all feel in Leadership.  I don’t summarize every speaker.

Craig Groschel is the pastor of the innovative LifeChurch.tv and spoke at Catalyst for the first time a few years ago and has since been a Catalyst favorite.  His style is blunt and in-your-face tempered with a large helping of humility and confession.  This year, he told us that he’d been asked to speak about generational tension, and since he’s right at 40 years old, felt he could speak to both the older and younger.

To the Older generation:

Don’t resist, fear or judge the next generation.  Instead, believe and invest in them.  The older generation feels insecure far too often.  Remember: you don’t have to be cool; you just have to be real.  Don’t give up.  If you’re not dead, you’re not done.

To the Younger generation:

Our challenge is that we feel entitled.  We want the giant ministries and fame instantly.  We typically overestimate what God wants to do through us in the short-term, which leads us to underestimate what God wants to do through us over the course of 15, 20 or 50 years.

If we want to lead up, we need to learn to honor the persons God has put in authority over us.  There’s a difference between respect and honor.  Respect is earned; honor is given.

Honor publicly leads to influence privately. – Andy Stanley

Andy Stanley (pt. 1)

These are my summary reflections from the Catalyst East Conference in Atlanta, GA.  The theme this year was “The Tension is Good”, so the speakers mostly used their talks to explore various tensions we all feel in Leadership.  I don’t summarize every speaker.

Andy’s first talk was brilliant, as always.  He explored the tension we feel because of our appetites – drives for food, fame, sex, etc.  He gave us this framework for understanding appetites:

Our appetites create tension in our lives because they always want more.
  1. God created appetites.  Sin distorted them.
  2. Appetites are never fully satisfied.  We live as though there’s something or someone out there who can, so we always experience tension.
  3. Appetites always whisper ‘Now’, never ‘Later’.

He then took us into the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25.  Esau, the older brother, trades his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.  Andy asks, “Who would trade his birthright for a bowl of stew?”

Actually, most of us would, thanks to how our brains manage our appetites.

Andy cited two psychological phenomena that make it hard to say NO to our appetites:

  1. Impact Bias – When we want something, our brains magnify that simple appetite out of porportion.  Essentially, our brains tell us that the object of our desire will satisfy said desire to a far greater degree than it actually will.
  2. Focalism – When we want something, our brains focus our attentions on the object of our desire to the exclusion of everything else.

So given that the temptation we all have to give into our appetites, how bad is that really?  Andy asked us to consider how history could’ve changed if Esau had reframed his desire for a bowl of stew in the larger context of his birthright.  Eventually, God would’ve introduced himself to Moses like this:

I AM the god of Abraham, Isaac and Esau.

But since Esau took the bowl of stew, it all changed.  No one was there for Esau to reframe his appetites.  And no one will be there for us either.

So ask yourself, Where do I want to be in 10 years?  And what’s my bowl of stew?

We have no idea what God wants to do with our lives.  So when it comes to our appetites, we have to reframe and refrain.

Knowing the bigger picture is a cure for our appetites.  What a way to start the conference!

Practice Makes Perfect!

For the record: I was way better than this kid.Clichés become cliché for a reason, and “Practice makes Perfect” is no different.  I grew up playing baseball, and you could always tell the teams that practiced from those who didn’t.  My team usually had brutal (to a 10-year-old) 2 hour practices that included such glamorous activities as running laps, playing catch and fielding ground-balls.  Over and over and over.  And over.  But of course we became a better team for it.  Activities that first required concentration and effort became second-nature.  We gained more endurance, became a stronger, more focused team for it.  This is the beauty of practice for a sports team.

I’ve found the same is true for speaking as well.  When I first began to give talks, I did not practice.  I thought that somehow that made my talks inauthentic.  Of course, that’s a real danger of being well-rehearsed.  We can become slaves to the practice, let ourselves become locked into the structures and styles we practiced.  But that is an abuse of practice.  It’s serving the system rather than making the system (the practice) serve us.

Good practice makes for a better talk.

Going over your material, organizing it and understanding its flow is essential to good communication.  Some of what you have in your notes will not translate well into an oral delivery.  If you use any sort of alliteration or physical examples, working through your presentation a few times will help you to get your flow right, so you don’t end up with dead, Listen to yourself. You'll be amazed what you hear!awkward space in your message.  Running through your material three to four times out loud before you deliver it can smooth out your transitions and work out any kinks you have in the structure you have built.  I often rearrange whole pieces of my talk after running through it a few times because I can hear a better way to communicate it.

Where do you practice?  I usually use my office or living room, though I know that some people try to use the actual space they’ll be in.  I’ve also found it very helpful to run through my material in front of other persons (my awesome wife usually hears a sermon I give at least three times) so they can give me constructive feedback – what was confusing, what worked well, etc.

Practice done well frees us to live in the moment of the delivery.

I find that the more I’ve practiced a talk, the more free I feel when I am delivering it.  I can respond to my audience more comfortably.  I can improvise without being afraid that I’ll lose my place.  Because the material has become second nature to me.  The message has become a part of who I am.  So as a consequence, the hours I put into practicing my delivery help me to become more authentic, not less.  And I’m not saying that it’s perfect, but it’s at least a heck of a lot better!

Do you practice for your talks?  What does it look like for you?  If you don’t, why not?  What does your process look like?

Your Flair

What do you think of a person who just does the minimum?Last week, I wrote about using specific, concrete examples to help your audience better grasp your point.  Today, I want to explore that further.

The best content in the world won’t change your audience if they can’t connect to your message.  That’s why the crafting of your talk itself is as important as the crafting of the content.  With a little practice, you can add flair to your talk that will engage your audience and help them to connect to your content in transformational, worldview-shifting ways.  I want to focus briefly on three:

  1. The words you use are key.  As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”  Using (but not over-using) alliteration can add a touch of poetic artistry, improve your audience’s ability to assimilate.  If you can sum up your talk in one clear, simple point, repeat it as often as you can in the talk (while it still feels natural).
  2. Be aware of how your body is moving.  Are you walking?  Are you sitting?  What are your arms doing?  Does the way your body moves emphasize or detract from your point?  A great, quick read on this is Malcolm Gladwell’s article “What the Dog Saw”, available in his book of the same name.
  3. Finally, can you use your environment to your advantage?  I gave a talk about Jesus as the light of the world in John 1 and its connection to Genesis 1.  We used the lighting in the worship space to illuminate my point – shutting them off and turning them back on in sequence at specific points throughout the rest of my talk.  It proved to be quite effective in cementing my point in the audience’s mind.  Another time, in a talk on Jesus’ third temptation, I used Guitar Hero as an example.  I used a Guitar Hero guitar on stage and had our worship pastor come out and play some songs to help me make my point.  Don’t even get me started on the adultery smoothie.

The point of all of this is not to create needless spectacle.  Rather, it’s to connect our audience to our content on more than just the aural level.  The more points of contact we created to our content, the more likely our audience is to take what we communicate to them home with us, to make our message a part of themselves.

What concrete examples have you created in your talks?  What strategies have you found most effective?