When you look around and see the tragedy of moral, financial, and business failures stacking up all around us, you have to be concerned.  Ask yourself the question, “Am I next? Is this just the way the world is, or is there something going on here I need to learn and therefore avoid?”

I think there is, but no one can avoid failure.  It happens to all of us.  Markets turn around, business companions walk away, and marriages break up for a lot of reasons.  But there is one identifiable thing going on, and that is, people are taking shortcuts.

Yeah, shortcuts, you know those things that we think look good; the quick, easy simple path to success, great relationships, a marriage, or a family.  And so instead of going the long way around, instead of getting an education, investing the time to learn a skill, a trade, start a business; instead of long hours of negotiating differences, moods and personalities we just use the power of our own determination and will and push through.  And we often take shortcuts like lying, dishonesty, not telling the whole truth, moving in the shadows, disappearing for long periods of time, doing something that later will come back to haunt us, disqualify us, and pull us out of the game.

How many times have I sat across from a young, thirty-something who has lost his marriage, his career, and much of his life?  I hear him talk about how he got there: shortcuts, things that he shouldn’t have done, lies he shouldn’t have told, business deals he shouldn’t have been involved with.

Here is the curious thing about short cuts, because oftentimes you don’t see them a s shortcuts until you’re a victim.  You look back over the dumb things you’ve done to get you to where you are and you ask yourself, “Why in the world did I do it?  Why would I ever have done that?  I couldn’t see it.”

The cure to shortcuts?  Having good people around you, people who can speak to your life, living out in the open, never in the shadows, never putting yourself in a situation where all you depend upon is your own judgment and decision-making, your own strengths or power of personality.

Remember, there is no shortcut to any place worth going. If you’ve taken shortcuts, go back and go the long way around.  If you haven’t gotten your education and you’re just running on personality-plus, go back and learn the skills.

What’s very bad about shortcuts is you pay for them at the worst possible moment, and when you do you go totally to the back of the line, and oftentimes you’re out altogether.  Resist the temptation.  Succeed the long, slow, plodding way.  It’s called the way of integrity and character. You’ll be glad you did.

• You either stagnant, declining, or growing. Which one best describes you now? #
• There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going. #
• Honesty is not the best policy. Honesty is best. #
• Off to Eagles then Holy Smokes. Staying connected. #

• If you’re not enjoying the journey, trust me you won’t like the destination any better! #
• Slow down to the speed of life to enjoy the journey! #
• Generosity begets generosity. Trust it. #

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! This is the week we celebrate our freedoms. Here are the seven I’m celebrating this week.

1. Freedom to worship without fear of retaliation or incrimination.

2. Freedom to do the work of my choosing.

3. Freedom to marry a good woman and be faithful to her.

4. Freedom to fail and start over again smarter and stronger, and build a better future.

5. Freedom to search for and know the truth; to let it set me free and allow me to contribute to the world around me.

6. Freedom to fully engage in the marketplace of ideas without fear of being shut-out because of my race, creed, age, or disability.

7. Freedom to make of my life anything that my dreams, desires, determination and hard work can make of it.

• If it is in your heart to do something F.U.N., dare to start. #
• He who hesitates; vegetates. #
• RT @DanLGreer: When leaders learn to keep promises to themselves it builds the character that allows them to keep them with other people. #
• The first step is the longest. #
• Do more than you’re paid for and soon you will be paid more for what your doing. #
• If you dare do anything F.U.N. (fulfilling, unique, needed) you must defy convention! #
• Dare you compete with yourself, and you wont be disappointed. #
• Whatever is worth your time is worth your best! #
• Today is a gift not a given! #
• Today you are living the life of your dreads or your dreams. I you don’t love, change it! #
• RT @mattcarlisle: Great Dave Ramsey interview with Seth Godin on his latest books, “Tribes”. http://ow.ly/g3Cr #
• Today is clean-slate Monday, they best day to start something F.U.N. #
• Finishing my 5 mile run. Set a personal best! #
• I am stepping into this day armed with joy and sustained by hope! #
• Cowards die many times before their deaths. (Julius Caesar) #

As a speaker I want to do everything I possibly can to make my talks compelling.  I want to add weight to them.  And oftentimes we speakers resort to a nasty little habit called “name-dropping.”

There is a nationally known speaker I listen to quite often who is in the habit of saying, “I have a friend who is a doctor, a leader, and quite wealthy.”

Alright, do we really need to know that?  How about you just have a friend? How about a friend who’s a leader? How about a doctor who’s quite successful?  There are a thousand different variations of how to use that information.  I know why we do it.  We name-drop to let people know we have credibility, that we’re weighty, that in the parlance of urban-ese, we’re phat, with a P.

Name-dropping doesn’t normally add weight to what you have to say. And usually people who name-drop are only casual friends of the people whose names they use to garner weight, attention, and credibility.

So at the end of the day, let your ideas, the fact that you’re prepared, and you’re speaking out of the overflow, that you’re speaking about something you have a well-developed passion for, that you’re giving out information that leads to insights, and that you’re encouraging, informing, inspiring, and outraging all at the same time; let these speak for themselves.

Let’s just leave the name-dropping for TV shows and out of work celebrities.  Just a thought from a guy who wants to change the world one great talk at a time.

• You need only be the best at being you. #
• What you give governs what you get! #
• Money does not change men, it only reveals their true selves. #
• Great day planned at The Gathering today http://ow.ly/g0Nb #
• Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. #

Today @ The Gathering we continued in our present series with part five, “When is More Money the Answer?”

Oftentimes we talk about the evils of money to the point where we fail to realize what it really is and what it can do.  Sometimes more money is the answer, if your heart is right and you understand how to live in the flow and out of the overflow.

We talked about six times money is the answer:

1.    When you know what it is. Money is option and choice; simple as that.  Once you spend it, your options and choices go down; when you invest it, they go up.

2.    Money is the answer when you understand what it isn’t. It isn’t a sign of superiority or of God’s approval.

3.    Money is the answer when you know what it can do. It allows you to participate in the commerce of the civilization you find yourself in.  It puts you in the flow of business.

4.    Money is the answer when you know what it can’t do. Money can buy you a house, but not a home.  It can buy you a bed but not sleep; medicine but not health, luxuries but not culture; companionship but not friends; religion but not salvation.

5.    Money is the answer when you practice the principle of overflow.  As we’ve said before in this series, God is the source and He provides what He provides as a resource.  When we step into the flow of His generosity, we live out of the overflow of His goodness.

6.    Money is the answer when you are willing to obey the law of the harvest.  We talked about three laws:

•    The law of cause and effect
•    The law of sowing and reaping
•    The law of delayed gratification

It was also exciting today to see all the graduates in our first-ever Graduate Recognition here at The Gathering.  It’s exciting to see high school and college students who have a vibrant faith and who are moving into the future well-equipped to take advantage of all that God has in store.

These are good days; the days of summer.  I hope you’re enjoying them and relaxing.  I hope you’re pressing into God during some of these quite times; that you’re reading a great book that will challenge you.  For me, I just finished “Same Kind of Different As Me.” If you’re looking for a good summer book, this would be a great one to read.  It’s challenging and also true.

Today was awesome at The Gathering.  I want to just stop and thank all of you who call me pastor, who give me the privilege, who trust me, who are open to my influence.  I am working every day to be worthy of that calling.

• I see my legacy, not in the things I’ve built, but in the eyes of my daughters! #
• Shopping at Lowes with Paula. Savoring lifes simple joy. #
• Stop trying to be the best at being the best. Start be the best at being you. #
• What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? #

Tomorrow at The Gathering, both at our 9:00 and 10:30 services we are going to continue our series, “Generous Wins.”

We’ve been learning how to live in the flow.  Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.  Anyone who abides in me will bear much fruit.”  But he also warned that without him we would be without a resource.

We’ve been talking about the difference between source and resource; that God is our source and uses our job as a resource.  The source never changes.  The resource is ever changing and moving, just as it is in the new global economy that we’re all learning how to adapt to.

We’re living in a brand new age of free-agency.  No longer do we work for “the man” or for the organization for a lifetime, retiring in our late fifties to a life of leisure and lawn-mowing.  This is a brand new world and I believe, in God’s economy, a better one.

So join us tomorrow at The Gathering when we talk about the importance of money: understanding what it is, what it isn’t, what it can and cannot do, and learning the laws of the harvest that cannot be violated.  Maybe you’re facing the loss of a job or looking for a new career.  This would be a great weekend to bring someone with you to rethink the world and re-enter your life at a place where God, your source of all good things, can continue to bring the right resources into your life.

Remember The Gathering is a place for people who have given up on formal, traditional religion, but are longing for a real relationship with God. If you’re looking for a place where it’s ok to not be ok, if you’re looking to gather with other honest people, your friends, your neighbors; if you’re looking for a relationship with God, a connection that changes everything and not just religion, then The Gathering is for you.

• Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.
  Proverbs 12:1 #

The longer I live, the more I talk and counsel with people, and the more I consult with people in the midst of change, the more I’m convinced that hurry is our biggest enemy in our current global transformation.

Everyone’s in a hurry. I’m not sure that anyone is fully aware why.  Maybe if we hurry we won’t think about the things around us and how things are changing and trusted institutions and secure ways of looking at the world are going away, never to return.  Maybe it’s just a habit.  Maybe we look around us and see people going fast and we think that’s just the way life should be.

One of the things I’ve noticed in dealing with people in this laser-lane world, is that very few people are available. They are not fully present, in the moment; not available for the person right across from them, not available in the meeting, not available on the way to work, not available when they come home, not available when they stop at the grocery store or the gas station.  They are always texting, calling, returning calls, or looking at something on the phone; never looking at you in the face, looking away, walking and looking away, walking and talking on the phone.  And here’s what I’m absolutely convinced about: 80% of this phone activity, this preoccupation is that we’re just embarrassed to be where we are.  We don’t want to engage the people around us and so therefore we are not available.

Opportunities come to those who are available, those who can slow down long enough to savor the sacredness of every moment no matter how mundane.  Maybe it’s the drive home, or an evening with the kids, on the way to the airport, riding the shuttle bus; a thousand different places we find ourselves that we are not available.  The question I have for you is, “Are you available?”

Would you be available if God tapped you on the shoulder and called you into something new, exciting, financially rewarding, and professionally fulfilling?  Would you hear it?  Could you understand His call to you, even if it slapped you in the face?

Talk about “slap in the face,” maybe that’s what’s happened to you in the loss of your job or career.  You’ve been slapped in the face with opportunity.  It’s an opportunity for you to re-enter your life in a very different place, to think about the world differently, to occupy your time on this earth in a more redemptive, fresh, creative, happy way.  But are you available?

So be available. Be available for something new.  Be available for someone new.  Be available for the unexpected.  Be available for the “Aha” moment.  Remember the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.  They come to go; they do not come to stay. Doors open and then they close.  You must be available when opportunity knocks.

• Time doesn’t take sides. #
• Let’s be known for being creative cultivators rather than critics and comdemers. #
• If I haven’t read a good book lately, i need not tell it. It shows. #
• Anyone can critique. Only the confident can leave the familiar to create. #
• What are you known for? Creative? Compassionate? Critical? Condemer? #
• Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
  Colossians 4:6 #
• Only Information that challenges assumptions can lead to transformation. #
• The best way to change culture is to create better same culture. #
• Today, I will get up, suit up, show up and do the next right thing. This I can control! #

In the global transition we’re going through there are a lot of lessons that we’re relearning; things that we used to know that we have forgotten in our “I’m so big and successful that I don’t need you” world.

A great example is what going on right now with the release of the new iPhone 3GS, and also the release of the new operating system, 3.0.

Apple has decided to give away the 3.0 operating system for free to all iPhone users.  But AT&T is charging an $18 upgrade fee, not only for those who are just getting the software, but for those who are buying the phone: $18 plus another $18 for what I am not sure.

The question is, why would AT&T charge so many fees and be so non-responsive?  Answer: They can.  That’s it.  They can.

But before we demonize AT&T, remember GM did the same thing, and Chrysler did the same thing.  A lot of companies have done the very same thing.  “I’m so big, and so successful, and so powerful, and so bureaucracy-laden, that I do what I want to do.”  It’s all about the bottom line.  It’s all about now.  It’s all about grabbing as much money as I possibly can while I have people in a head-lock.

Have we not learned that proprietary systems don’t work for any one consumer and in the long-term the company?  So here is what we need to learn about the practices of AT&T and other proprietary companies.  While you have the control, yes, people will pay you fees; they’ll bow to your pressure.  But have you not learned that your control is temporary?  Soon the iPhone will be unlocked to be attached to any service a person chooses, and the backlash for AT&T will be great.

The question is, will there be a time in our global history that the rudeness and non-responsiveness is blamed on market forces rather than what it is: bad business practices, poor ethical decisions, and just plain right-now thinking?

Don’t get me wrong.  I am an AT&T customer.  I’m one of the few people who don’t have a lot of complaints.  I’ve been treated really well, even through activating my new phone.  I got through, the operators were responsive, I used online chat.

It’s just this fee thing.  Isn’t it interesting how the little things are the ones that reach up and bite us?

• At the chapel of apple in Nashville. Customer is so good. They inspire me. #
• Giving the people you’re with your full attention is a generous win. #
• Today. What a powerful word. #
• live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. (1 Peter 3:8) #

• When will we admit the whole idea of “retirement” is a failed concept? #
• Avoiding something because it makes you feel guilty drives the guilt deeper into subconscious. #
• When you get the impulse to reach out to someone in trouble, act on it! #
• If you’ve got to err, err on the side of grace. #
• Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven…
  Luke 6:37 #
• Just finished 4 mile run with @pauladfoster. Getting ready for a 140 ride to Chattanooga on my Electra Glide Standard. #

It’s amazing the number of people who give all their time, money, and resources in the pursuit of success but never take the time to define what it is.

Maybe it’s just one of those things we think we know.  But we don’t.  I’ve often found that one of the best ways to define a thing and to get clarity is to talk about what it isn’t.  So here are seven dumb definitions of success.  See if any of your assumptions appear on this list.

•    Dumb Definition #1: Success is more. That’s it, just more; not more of something better, or something important, just more: more money, more work, more time, more play, more cars, more houses, more debt.  Just more.  Everything up and to the right.  This is dumb because it will kill you and leave you no time to enjoy your “more.”

•    Dumb Definition #2: Success is stuff. Again, coming out of the first definition “success is more,” success is just more stuff.  That’s why the storage industry is one of the leading industries in America.  We have so much stuff, we don’t know where to put it.  We have to build places just for stuff.  At the end of the day, the more stuff we own, the more our stuff tends to own us.

•    Dumb Definition #3: Success is being number one. Think about that: being number one, the best.  How many of you can remember the Super Bowl Champions of last year?  Ok, well maybe that’s not fair.  How about two years ago, or three, or four, or even ten?  How about the NCAA, or the World Series?  Or who was the Vice President under Eisenhower, or maybe that’s not fair, under Nixon?  But you get my point.  Number one is a relative term.  You can be on top one day and on the bottom the next.  There is no such thing as the best or being number one.  It’s, at best, a temporary condition.  Why not try being your best, number one in your own effort, number one in integrity, in character, number one in service from your customers’ or friends’ point of view?

•    Dumb Definition #4: Success is about right now. What’s cool, what’s faddish, what works, what trend are other people jumping on and you want to look like you’re cutting edge so you jump on too, even though in your gut you know it’s not right for you?

•    Dumb Definition #5:  Success is an unbroken string of wins. This only appears to be true from a distance.  No one wins all the time, no matter how good you are.  And if that’s your definition of success, you will fail to learn the valuable lessons that your failures will teach you, that will allow you to be effective and productive in the future.

•    Dumb Definition #6:  Success is always bigger.  More stores, more inventory, more employees, more things to do.  That may not be true.  You may have reached your capacity with 5 employees rather than 500.  Maybe three stores were better for you than thirty.  Learn to limit your labor and you’ll limit your liabilities.

•    Dumb Definition #7: Rely on unbridled consumption. That’s where we are right now, isn’t it?  We’ve relied on people just buying and buying and buying more cars, bigger cars, going into debt for more clothes and bigger vacations, no savings, not thinking for the future, not living by the law of the harvest, not sowing, not being disciplined, not practicing delayed gratification, and calling that success.  Hey, that’s dumb.  And we’re learning the lessons right now.

The question is, “Are we really learning the lessons or are we going to just repeat the same old mistakes?”

It’s brave and courageous to stop long enough to define what success is for you and do only that.  Focus on what matters to you and let everything else float on by.

• “If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area of his life.”
  (Billy Graham) #
• God will fund whoever you must be and whatever you must do, but no more. Anything more is on you. #
• Speakers speak not need not to self interest! http://ow.ly/fuXR #
• 4 miles into my 6 mile run. #

I was in Home Depot the other day trying to find an item for a home project when I overheard a gentleman say to a salesman, “I have to drill six quarter-inch holes.  What do I need?”

I watched the salesman take this young “do-it-yourself-er” to the drill aisle and show him about ten different drills.  Within a minute, there were five salesmen surrounding this guy, talking about the virtues and the liabilities of certain drills.  There are blue drills, red drills, orange drills.  There are drills that look like something you’d use on a dollhouse. Others were high-impact drills that looked like it would take two people just to hold them.

What I noticed during the conversation was the blanked-out expression on the face of the young man.  And it dawned on me.  He didn’t want a drill.  He wanted holes.  And herein is a teachable moment. If you are a drill salesman, you love drills.  If you are a leader, you love leadership.  If you’re a pastor on a church staff, you love talking about church buildings and staff, and podcasts, and the latest book, and the cool conference.

But remember, that’s not your business.  You’re in the business of holes.  You’re not in the business of building a staff, a shelf with books on it, or a conference itinerary that would impress Bill Hybels.  You are in the business of helping people connect to their need, or to heal their hurts.  You’re there to help people get to where they want to be. It’s about them and there needs.  It’s not about you and the body of information that makes you an expert about your particular field.

Remember, when you stand to speak, whether it’s in a church or a corporate boardroom, talk about people and their need for holes; not your love affair with drills.

• Another great day at the Gathering. I love going to church. #
• Happy Father’s Day to all my fellow daddy dudes! I love being a daddy! #
• You either living in he grip of grace or the grip of greed? #
• RT @mattfry: Thanking God for an incredible dad who loved me and modeled integrity & Godly wisdom. I miss him. #
• When the horse dies, dismount.
  ~Proverb, (German) #