Being in the marketplace for ten years, I’ve seen my fair share of challenging enviroments for young leaders and learned first hand how difficult it can be to stand out against the masses and be a person of influence.  It’s easy to be the one who is influenced, much more difficult to be the one who does the influencing.  We have much to learn from life experience and from others!  Regardless of your faith background, the Bible also has much to offer in the area of leadership.  These four tips are drawn straight from the Old Testament book of Daniel, Chapter 1.  Even in Babylon, an ancient civilization famous for its power, materialism & cruelty, Daniel stood his ground & was an incredible example of a Culture Shaper!   

1. Be available.  You don’t need me to tell you that there are some wild environments in the marketplace, business world & other workplaces!  Corporate scandals, office politics, selfish motives, the list could go on… The craziness of these environments may just be the very reason you are needed there!   You can’t make an impact there, if you are not there!  Be available to go when the time is right. 

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were four of the young men chosen. Daniel 1:6 Yes, Daniel was a slave in Babylon and didn’t have many choices, but he answered the call nonetheless!  He was available.

2. Be yourself; don’t compromise.  Being in an environment doesn’t mean you have to sell out to everything that environment holds valuable.  Stand firm to your beliefs and don’t be a sell out!  Spend some time identifying your values and then ask yourself where these values conflict with those of your work environment.  Real leaders know who they are and what they believe in. Be yourself and don’t compromise!

Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. Daniel 1:8 Daniel did not compromise!

3. Be respectful to authority.  In a world that generally disrespects authority, be different.  When others are slandering the boss or leadership, don’t give in.  Lead up!  If you disagree with something, respect authority by talking with them about the issue.  Most people choose instead to talk about their boss.  Be different and respect authority. You will earn their respect and the respect of others in the process. 

He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods.  Daniel 1:8  Daniel showed the ultimate respect by asking for an exemption from something that would violate his customs. He showed respect!

4. Seek the help of God.  If you truly seek God, he will not only give you the ability to be strong to be in a crazy environment, be he may give you the wisdom needed to contribute significantly to that environment.  Your ability to ask and discern this wisdom is crucial.  Ask with the right intention and he will give what he sees fit to give.  If your heart is in the right place, you may be the next difference maker in your workplace, and on your way to becoming a Culture Shaper in 2010!  

God gave these four young men an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom.  Daniel 1:17  I’m not saying that God will always do this; I’m just saying that he can!  God gave Daniel unusual wisdom that he used to help his leader.

For the full context of these verses, read through Chapter 1 of the Book of Daniel.  What are some other ways you can be a Culture Shaper this year??  What is difficult for you with these fours tips??  It’s not always a time to stay where you are.  Occasionally, it may be time to go.  Check out this great read from Scott Williams entitled, “10 Signs it Might Be Time to Move On.”

Remedy for all the couch dwellers!  Let me know what you think….

Where do you go to spend time alone?

For many around the world, the holidays are filled with fast-paced action and utter madness. So, I put out a post asking the following: Hey, what tip do you have for surviving the holidays? Answ. In 140 ch. or less. @replies will be a Xmas eve blog post!  Thanks to all who replied! I loved this one from Jillian Abernathy: Don’t just survive – live it up. Share the only gift that is eternal. Life in Jesus Christ. What a time to celebrate…Our Savior has come!  Greatness.  

 

Here are some great tips I got back from other friends around the world on how to survive the holidays:

 

Ashley Poletiek - patience

Tom Dugan - Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to please everyone. Enjoy – don’t stress!

Tiffany Nash  – don’t sweat the small stuff

Bethany Christensen - Shop early to avoid the dreaded crowds, don’t plan to attend every party, and focus on the family and creating traditions that your kids will carry on for generations.

Christine Gaudette Leonard- Attitude, attitude, attitude!!! Just be happy and be nice, it rubs off on most other people!!

Jillian ‘goff’ Abernathy- Don’t just survive – live it up. Share the only gift that is eternal. Life in Jesus Christ. What a time to celebrate…Our Savior has come!

Jody Hoover - Tell everyone they are getting less gifts so you can be charitable. then be charitable!

Cynthia Koons-Hall - Sleep in and enjoy the day with your family…stay home..do not travel…

Jennifer Theisen - Order early and online!!!

Sydney Simmons - I have so many kids to buy for I stash gifts all year long.  

Shelley R. Smith - breathe…sleep…avoid the masses

Shelley R. Smith - pray, be thankful, enjoy family time

Leah Stafford - Clark: Our holidays were always such a mess… How’d you get through it? Clark Sr.: I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels. Great movie! Sad advice from Clark Sr…Chad

kellilw  - plan ahead and don’t wait until the last minute to do anything!

LifeVerse - Get up before the rest of the family, open your Bible and spend alone time thanking God 4 the gift of the Savior

Kris10_Rene - relax and remember what the season is really all about. Jesus.

alittlesongbird - don’t try out new recipes during the holidays! stick to what you know & what those you’re cooking for are fond of.

 

What did we miss?  How do you survive the holiday season?  Please share your thoughts on the above responses or add to the list!

I worked with kids, teens and young adults for over ten years before working with adults now at the LifeChurch.tv Fort Worth campus.  I’ve seen hundreds of parents and kids go through tough times at Christmas.  I have also personally dealt with and overcome a number of challenges with my own family in the past, as my parents were separated when I was younger.  Here is what every divorced parent should know at Christmas: 

Face up to reality, the holidays are going to be tough.   Christmas and other holidays are going to be a little more difficult for families that have dealt with divorce.  It’s just the way it is.  It’s one of the casualties of your past.  It’s not your kid’s fault that your marriage ended up in divorce.  I realize the holidays are tough, but try not to take out your frustration on your kids as they work out schedules to travel around on the holidays.   Don’t try to guilt them into spending more time with you during the holiday, they are doing the best they can! Be flexible.

Know your kids still have a relationship with your ex (in many cases).  It’s neither fair nor healthy for you to slander your ex in front of your kid in any way.  If you do this, you are essentially manipulating them and attempting to transfer your unhealed emotions onto your kids.  Deal with your issues.  Trust me, your kids have plenty of their own issues to be healed, without you pouring salt into their wound.  Love your kid enough to respect their parent in front of them, regardless of how difficult it may be for you.  Talk instead to a biblical counselor who is trained to help you deal with your issues.  Your healing is one of the best gifts you can give.

Know forgiveness from God is but a breath away.  Do you really feel forgiven?  Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ actual birth on earth over 2000 years ago.  God passionately loves you and will forgive you of your past if you just ask him.  He is able to do this because of the actual life, death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ.  He is waiting to have a real, loving relationship with you.  Not religion.  Not being holy by yourself.  A wild, loving relationship.  When you don’t allow God to forgive you, you are basically saying that you don’t care about his act of love in the birth of Jesus.  Be restored to him this Christmas and become the new creation he intended you to be.  All you have to do is talk to him and ask.  He is waiting.  Do it now. 

Forgive yourself.  God will forgive you; have you forgiven yourself?  Your past has past.  Today is here and will soon be yesterday.  Forgive yourself.  Guilt may be the only emotion you fell comfortable with, particularly if you’ve carried it for so long.  You don’t have to keep carrying the heavy baggage!  Your name has been removed from it and replaced with the name of another: Jesus.   

Forgive your ex.  You recognize your imperfections, forgive theirs.  You’ve been forgiven much, forgive them much.  I’m not saying don’t have hurts.  I’m just saying, allow God to heal those hurts and make the decision to forgive when you don’t feel like it.  It is time to let it go, forgive them.  Don’t let bitterness steal your life!  Tell them you’ve forgiven them.  Let you kids know you’ve forgiven them. 

Love the mess out of your kids!  Not because you are earning their love back but because you have a father that loves you unconditionally.  Think about it, God’s family was completely broken just like yours.  The sin of the world had separated him from his children, his kids, you.  Because of the sins of man, he knows the ultimate feeling of divorce.  But he is bringing his messed up family back together all the time through the cross of Jesus!  He loves his children so much, love yours with that same love!

Throw a party and celebrate your new life.  Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  Because of his life, you can now truly live!  Build meaningful relationships.  If your kids can’t be there much during the holidays, love on someone else’s kids.  Don’t know of anyone, look around.  I’m sure you can find the unloved and love them! 

Realize the holidays are always going to be a bit of a challenge.  Respect your kids relationship with your ex.  Be truly forgiven! Forgive yourself.  Forgive your ex.  Love the mess out of your kids when you see ‘em! And throw a party for Jesus, you have much to celebrate this Christmas!  Have hope.  My family holidays are a blast now!  Why? Jesus, some pretty amazing parents, and a lot of healing.  I know yours can be good too!

I’m still very new to the social media game, but have made a few observations by reading other people’s articles and watching individual & groups like Starbucks & others.  If you or your organization blog, use Twitter, Facebook or other social media, you better have a social media strategy!  Regardless how long you’ve been engaged in social media, you can always learn and ask yourself or your organization basic questions to get better at what you do!  These questions may or may not be new to you, but they are fairly fundamental to anyone using Twitter or other media in connection with their blog or organization: 

1. What am I trying to accomplish with Twitter or other forms of social media?  If you don’t know what this is, you will be unclear about your message.  Spend some time figuring this out and you’ll have a much better chance of crafting your tweets and updates to bring clarity to what you produce.  Do you have a cause? Do you want to educate people in a particular area?  Do you want to drive people to your site?  Do you want to build relationships?  Do you want to simply express creativity?  Become crystal clear with what it is you are trying to accomplish & then craft your communication around this objective.  

2. Is my message simple & clear?  After you’ve identified what you are trying to do, are you clear about it in your message? Is it clear to others? What are you asking people to do?  Read your entry? Go to your blog?  Ashton Kutcher’s recent partnership with malarianomore.org produced a very clear , twitterable message: “Every 30 seconds, a kid dies of malaria. Nets save lives” - and a clear call to action: $10 buys a net. The goal was to drive people to Malaria No More’s Web site to donate.  The result: 90,000 nets donated for those at risk of malaria.  The message was simple, “go to the website, save lives.” 

3. Am I interacting to encourage personal involvement & buy in from others?  How much do you engage others? Starbuck’s twitter page has consistent question & answer tweets to their loyal followers.  Their social media team is highly involved through twitter in meeting the needs of latte drinkers, particularly in regards to their new “My Starbucks Rewards” program (read about their use of Facebook & Twitter this Christmas).   What has blown me away is how in touch they are with their followers!  Corporations around the world are rapidly following suit to try to meet people where they are  (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and preserve and build their brand.  Are you engaging others?

4. Is my content good?  Are the articles or content you are posting about any good?  Here is another corporate example: Nestle has also recently partnered up with Kutcher to put on a 16 week web-based video series to help sell Hot Pockets (entitled Katalyst HQ).  Katalyst is Ashton’s swankified production company, whose recent parody of the media mogul’s firm has had over a million replays on Facebook, with each video reaching an average of 65 friends.  They are certainly on to something.  You may have seen the video on Facebook.  Kutcher calls it influencer marketing. Why has it been successful?  I believe one main reason: good content.  (by good I mean, accomplishing it’s purpose of entertaining.  Learning from someone doesn’t mean you agree with everything they do).  So, how can you create a following with what you put out on the web?  Create great content.   For Kutcher, the answer is entertaining content. For you it could be teaching someone something, inspiring them to do something or helping to shape their personal values.  It should be built around your answer to the first question above.  Whatever you are trying to do, do it well and other people will find out about it. (Questions 2 and 4 are formed from info in a great article on Kutcher from Ellen McGirt: more info here).  How good is your content?

What are you trying accomplish? Is your message clear? Do you develop interaction with others? Is your content engaging?  I’m sure I missed a ton, what are some other tips you’ve picked up?  What individuals or organizations do you learn from?  What’s missing?  Love to hear feedback!

I don’t use social media because its trendy or because I don’t have anything better to do with my time.   I don’t use Facebook for Farmville, Mafia or Vampire (not that there is anything wrong with playing these).  Here are 6 specific reasons I still use Facebook:  

1. Not everybody is on Twitter.  I really prefer Twitter over FB, but a lot of people I know are still not using Twitter regularly.  I still believe FB has much to offer! 

2. Learning & growing personally.  I like to browse through frequently to see what people are talking about, what trends are out there, what friends are passionate about, etc.  Twitter allows me to do this via search words and other tools, but Facebook is still valuable to me for learning & growing! 

3. Keeping up with friends, friends keeping up with me.  I keep up with several friends & family regularly & vise versa via Facebook.  When I do see them in person, I don’t have to ask, ”What have you been up to?” Instead, I’m often able to say, “Tell me more about your trip!” or “How are you doing with your new project?” Our conversation is usually more fun because of keeping up on Facebook.

4. Helping build community & conversation.  People grow best in the context of community.  Facebook can help build such community. If I can bring other people together around a topic or question, perhaps I’ve played a tiny role in helping them grow or be connected in some way.  While we realize that social media doesn’t take the place of personal relationships, it can be used to enhance both community and conversation.

5. Helping others.  I love to write, encourage and be generally creative.  Facebook allows a way for me to express this stuff for those who are interested, to encourage, inspire and inform.  I’m also able to pray specifically for others when I see needs or requests. It helps me help others.

6. Connecting with new friends & old friends.  I meet a lot of people on Facebook before I ever meet them in person.  When I do get to meet them, I have a much better context of who they are and what they are all about.  I’ve also re-connected with some great old friends from as far back as my childhood too.

Why do you use Facebook?  What can be gained from it? Do share!

Wow, time goes by fast!  We learn, then instantly forget!  Does it have to be this way?  Do we have to re-live tough lessons over & over again?  Albert Einstein defined insanity as: doing the same thing over & over again & expecting different results.  I don’t think its because we want to be foolish.  For me, I just forget!  Here are four thoughts on how to remember what you’ve learned: 

1. Record what you’ve learned.  Take account of things you’ve picked up.  Journal, blog, tweet, take a picture, draw an etchasketch or whatever.  Just don’t forget by not writing it down or recording it in some way!  Take 20 minutes a day to record your thoughts, reflections, memories or anything you’ve learned.  Guys, call it a journal if you think someone will dog you for having a diary, ha!  Just record what you’ve learned!

2. Reflect on what you’ve learned.  Think back on when you learned something, when you made it through a hard time, when you overcame an obstacle.  Don’t forget what you’ve learned!  Psalm 143:5 says, “I remember the days of old.  I ponder on all your works and think about what you have done.”  The biblical author is remembering what God has done in the past.  The verse before says, “I am losing hope; I am paralyzed with fear.  Even in the midst of complete desolation, he remembers a saving act of the past that gives him hope and leads him to faith! Always reflect on what you’ve learned.

3. Redefine your values based on what you’ve learned.  Look back in life at what you treasure the most.  Family? Career? Faith? What is it?  Look at your calendar over the last week.  Does this match up?  Take some time to reflect and redefine your values. Make some goals for the week, based on your clarified values.  When you live live out of your clearly defined values, you are much more likely to achieve the things that are most important to you!

4. Remind yourself what you’ve learned.  Think of a way to create a physical reminder for yourself or your family about a time or event that made you grow stronger.  Remind yourself of your values.  Create something you can look at frequently to remind yourself, even if it is on your laptop screen or mirror at home.  I’ve known people that will write note cards to themselves and carry them around; I make notes to myself on my phone to look at all the time.  Whatever works for you, just create a visible reminder for what you’ve learned.

Record, Reflect, Re-clarify, Remind- whatever you do…..remember!  How do you remember?  Do share.  Next post I will share your ideas and some more ways to remember!