mike goldsworthy

Following up from yesterday on a few random things that I shared with our staff that I’m learning and processing without much commentary…

Sometimes I need to stop the input and just produce

Twitter, blogs, podcasts, books are all inputs that for me are good, but they can contribute to The Resistance that keeps me from producing.

Sometimes I just need to stop gaining more info, stop the input and instead just produce

I shared with our staff today 12 random things that I’ve been learning and processing. Thought I’d share a few of them over the next several days or so on here as brief thoughts without much commentary…

I was having a conversation with someone not long ago about handling critics and criticism, and one of the things he said to me that resonated and stuck:

You have to outlove and outlast your critics

We’ve been doing some cleaning, trying to declutter, and have a bunch of books we’re going to get rid of. We thought we’d offer to give them to you first before we sell some of them on Amazon.

So, if you’d like one of the books below, you’re welcome to it. First come, first served…you’re just responsible for getting it. If you’re out of town, we’d be happy to mail it to you, you’ll just need to pay for shipping. Shipping via media mail costs around $2.50.

So, let us know if you want any of these by next Friday

(click on the image to make it larger)

Macs seem to be getting more and more popular. In fact, it’s not rare when I go into a coffee shop now to see more people working on Macs than on PC’s.

I think this is going to become one of our new phrases in leadership discussions.

“Provide the but”

We were in a leadership discussion this week talking about how typically no given person will like 100% of everything we do, and there will be things that are inconvenient, but what we have to learn to do is to provide the but. This really is what Parkcrest has done throughout the years.

The parking is terrible, but…

The buildings are old, but…

I don’t like Mike’s haircut, but…

Providing the but is about giving people reason enough to be a part of what we’re doing even when there’s something that we might not totally agree on or something a bit inconvenient. As long as we provide the but, that thing becomes inconsequential.

And really, this is what good companies do, isn’t it? Think about some of the conversations you’ve had at times…

Apple computers are more expensive, but…

It’ll take longer to get it from Amazon than from the store down the street, but…

That restaurant is always so crowded, but…

A part of leading an organization well is learning to provide the but. And plus, how much fun is it going to be to use that phrase in more and more leadership conversations.

In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield identifies the Resistance as that thing which keeps us from accomplishing what we’ve set out to accomplish. It’s what pushes against the creative process and gives us the excuse to procrastinate and put things off.

The Resistance keeps us from simply getting things done. It regularly creeps up in my life, and I let it win far too often. I have far more ideas than what I actually get done because I succumb to The Resistance.

When I do well, here’s 7 ways that help me to beat The Resistance.

1. Turn off the Internet. A lot of what I do often involves writing on the computer, which means that Email, Twitter, looking up random definitions of words and seeing what else pops up when I google my name become far too easy and distracting. If I’m going to get something done, I have to intentionally turn those things off for a set period of time. Every time you glance at your email or briefly check your Twitter when you need to get something done, The Resistance wins.
2. Do Things On Your Schedule. Just because the phone rings, you don’t have to pick it up. Just because a TV Show is on at a certain time, you don’t have to watch it then. Just because Steve Jobs is giving a keynote address, you don’t have to pay attention to the live-blog of it…maybe that’s just me. Do those things on your schedule – return the call later, utilize a DVR, and read about the keynote on the million blogs reporting on it later. Whenever we let the immediate thing drag our attention away from what we had planned on doing, The Resistance wins.
3. Launch Unfinished Ideas. The Resistance says that everything has to be a certain way in order to launch it. You hold back from making things public because it’s not quite there yet. If it has to be perfect, it never will be, and The Resistance wins.
4. Set a Schedule and Put it in Your Calendar. How many people have started a blog, but never done much with it, or began a project only to put it aside later without much being done on it. Force yourself to write or to take that next step with your project by scheduling it out and putting it on your calendar. The Resistance wins when we keep putting it off and find other things to do
5. Have Bad Ideas. Every time we won’t write something down, try something new, or say something out loud because we’re afraid it might be a bad idea, The Resistance wins.
6. Don’t Wait for Inspiration. I used to think that I could only work on my sermons when I was inspired. The problem was that I wouldn’t always get inspired and Sunday came up again pretty quickly. The reality is that we’re not often just inspired. Creativity is just hard work. The Resistance wins every time we put something off because we’re waiting for inspiration.
7. Just Do Something. Every one of us has an idea to implement, a story to write, a craft to create, a project to build. Don’t let others be the creatives, and others be the ones who do inspiring things. Just do the thing you’ve been thinking about doing. Don’t talk about it. Just do it. When all you do is think about it or talk about it, The Resistance wins.

What has helped you to beat The Resistance?

What a great weekend at Parkcrest this past weekend. We celebrated some of what God did in 2009 and talked about what he’s calling us to over this next year.

A few of the highlights…

• In 2009, we saw 299 people get baptized, an average attendance of 2,529 people, sponsored an additional 113 kids with Tumaini, saw High School Students live our projects bigger than themselves, and gave away around $315,000 outside our church walls
• This year we will fully implement a simple, overarching discipleship process for the entire church
• We will be launching a “Parkcrest School of Theology” in the Fall
• We’re planting a church in Machakos, Kenya in October and moving forward with one for So-Cal as well
• We’re increasing our efforts in Tijuana
• And we’re going to be even more committed evangelistically locally with a simple evangelism strategy – Invest and Invite

So much good stuff has happened. This is going to be a crazy and exciting year…love being on this ride with you Parkcrest!