Life Events

Tuesday was the culmination of a lot of hard work by the HiveATL team. We hosted our second ever Hive Gathering event, bringing together local leaders to help end lonely leadership.

HiveATL is something the team and I do in our spare time. We spend many weekends and weeknights moving our organization forward with late night brainstorms and conversations over meals. We’ve invested a ton of money, time and talent into making things happen. Right now, our biggest efforts go into the events we put on. Naturally, it’s the place we can impact the most leaders. It’s the “sugar stick” of our brand.

Tuesday went incredibly well. I told the guys afterwards that “we got lucky.” After months of talking, planning and dreaming, things had to start happening. We had set a date and sent out invites. People were coming to this event and we had to put it on!

I headed home around 11:30pm after the event that night. Windows down. Cool weather providing a relief from the sticky feeling created from setup and teardown. I began to think how we live our lives as if we are putting on an event. We set these dates and goals in our minds and fumble our way towards the finish line. We accomplish the to-do list only to begin the search for the next milestone.

For some of us this is reflected in our career goals. The event is planned and you’ve invited yourself to attend your full time job once you graduate. You accomplish little tasks here and there to make it through college. Little victories compile into one large win. You hit crunch time after crunch time. You finally finish school and you realize the event (job) isn’t everything you thought you had been moving towards. So you reboot and move towards the next event.

You’ve been planning what and who your spouse would be for years. You have a secret wedding board on Pinterest just waiting for the right moment. You have a list with checkboxes for the “right” person. You’ve prepared the guest list and decided how to avoid your mom and step-mom from sitting too close. The big day comes and goes quicker than you can even remember. The aftermath of the event goes on forever.

I often catch myself looking forward to these events. I don’t enjoy the time in-between. We want to live our lives full of the high we get from the triumphing moments. From one mountain to the next without doing a little climbing. I don’t want to be living my life for the next event. I want to be content in the preparation, and in awe of the aftermath. I want to allow the vision of future events drive present decisions, and the wisdom gained from past events propel me back up the next mountain.

As someone famous probably said one time, “Today is the only today you get.” Don’t waste today waiting on tomorrow.

BKM

Easter(s)

Leading up to Easter almost felt like Christmas at West Ridge. Honestly, it was more exciting to me. Easter has so much more central of a focus than Christmas does. We could feel life change on the brink. 

A lot of churches build huge marketing campaigns, buy billboards, and create a super creative series to draw in the crowds for Easter. I’m not saying those things don’t help, but this Easter proved it wasn’t necessary. As you can read on Phil Bowdle’s blog, we kept it simple this year. The key wasn’t a huge expensive effort on our part. It was using our best resource, our people. 

Our staff had been praying to reach 10,000 people over our 13 service and God answered the prayer. The first sign the weekend would have an impact was the men’s prayer breakfast the Thursday before Easter. Close to 100 ment showed up at 630AM to pray ove the weekend.

God moved through our volunteers and team to create a moment where people truly experienced worship. The experience caused people to begin sharing with their friends and the numbers at each service continued to grow. 

Life change happened, people accepted Christ for the first time, and we all got a glimpse into what God’s plan for Easter was this year. 

Don’t let your church devalue the importance of its people. Don’t rest your hope on fancy marketing, graphics, or gimmicks. Rely on the people to share, invite, and impact the people they do life with by challenging them to make the difference. 

Aligned Thinking

This past week, I was able to be a part of a Chick-fil-A event called Fusion. West Ridge has hosted this event for several years and I had to opportunity to help with the production of this event. Fusion was composed of several keynote speakers including President of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy. 

Chick-fil-A may sell chicken, but the vision being cast by their leaders is so much more. They understand they are much more than a fast food restaurant and want to influence their community. When Dan speaks, no matter what your profession, you get something out of it. 

There was one nugget (pun intended) that really grasped my attention. Dan said “Aligned thinking results in aligned behavior.“

As a leader, you can take this information one of two different ways. Some leaders may see it as an excuse to surround themselves with people who don’t challenge them or think the same way they do.

A great leader sees it as an opportunity to become a better vision caster. 

I believe Dan realizes in order for the leaders in his stores to build teams that make an impact, they have to instill the vision in their team members. By clearly communicating vision to a team, you can create aligned thinking. Creating aligned thinking causes your teams actions to reflect the goals of your organization. A group of people acting in unison can accomplish a lot more than a group of people with no direction. 

It makes me think of the couple of times we have had to move the piano at West Ridge. Sometimes, things go smoothly because whoever is leading the group gives the team direction as to where we are going. Sometimes, we all just lift and are stuck holding a piano with idea where we are moving it to. 

Aligned thinking results in aligned behavior. Share the vision and direction well with your team. Don’t get stuck holding a piano. 

Culture of Hustle

In a meeting recently, my friend and boss used the phrase “Culture of Hustle.” It was a phrase that really stood out to me and I’ve been stewing on for a couple of weeks now.

He was talking about the culture they try to develop at West Ridge. It’s the idea of getting stuff done. Having a to-do list, tackling it, and then finding something else to do.

I loved the phrase because I am a task oriented type of guy. When your top strength on strengths finder is responsibility, you tend to fall that way. I’m an achiever and I love a good hustle.

One thing I have struggled with over the past few years has to do with being within a culture of hustle. Working for WinShape Camps for Communities during the summer, you spend 9 weeks in a culture of hustle. You have a team of 23ish college students who all are working towards a common goal. Your day goes from 6am until 6pm and then you eat, sleep and do it over again.

It’s non-stop for 9 weeks and I.LOVE.IT. The team has been given core principles of what is expected of them and then told once they hit their goals, go the extra mile. Keep going. Don’t stop at meets expectations, hit exceeds expectations.

The rest of the world isn’t like that. I’ve gone back to the same job twice and worked in several ministries and struggled because others didn’t have the drive that I did. It frustrated me. In the real world, people are too often worried about their own motives. They’re driven to provide for themselves and make themselves look better. They aren’t hustling for a common goal.

I want to live in a culture of hustle with the rest of my life. Too often, we get comfortable in our positions and eventually move into coast mode. I never want to be in coast mode.

Your ministry, organization, or company could benefit greatly from instilling hustle into your team. Hustle is contagious. When we see others hustle, we want to run along side them. It can create healthy competition once your team is moving in the same direction.

The opposite is true as well. If someone on your team notices another person slacking off and nothing done about it, it gives excuses for the whole team. That’s why you have to build a “Culture of Hustle.” It has to be in the DNA of your organization. From the top leaders, to the lowest team members, you have to promote and encourage hustle.

How will you build that culture of hustle in your team and organization? I would love to talk with you about it! Email me! bmalone21@gmail.com

Effective Message

I am getting the opportunity to practice a lot of what I have learned so far through my internship with a project I have been assigned. I am putting together and executing a communication strategy for recruiting the interns for next year at West Ridge.

This is an assignment that I love. It helps keep my busy and productive. I like to always be moving and having things to do. One of my top strengths is “Achiever.” I like to check off boxes, which is why you may hear me talk about things like Any.Do pretty frequently. 

I decided one of the most powerful ways to recruit new people is by letting them hear from past interns. By giving them the ability to hear directly from us what our experience was like, we may be able to overcome some “barriers” in their own lives. I thought the best way to do this would be through video.

I contacted everyone need for the creation of the video and I thought my job was done. We were just going to get on camera and tell our story. I didn’t realize how big of a mistake I was making. 

Most of the time, video interviews can be tricky. The person you are interviewing may not necessarily know the target audience. You can ask all the right questions and still not get the answers you are looking for. 

With the help of the team at West Ridge, I realized to present an effective message to my audience, I needed to do the leg work. This is a concept I understand in a broader sense. For instance I got to share a little bit of my story from stage one Sunday morning. The day before I had written out everything I was going to say. I practiced it so I could better communicate what I need to tell the audience. 

What we don’t realize in the moment is how forgetful we can be once we are in front of a crowd or a camera. 

Effective messages aren’t something that we can just spit out. Anytime we want to get something important across, we have to examine every aspect of it. Where is the message coming from? what is the medium? Who is it going to? What are their barriers?

Effective communication skills aren’t all about giving the right answer to a question on the fly. Effective communication skills are our abilities to full comprehend the weight of our message and prepare in advance for sharing it. 

Leadership Lessons from Kid President Pt.1

If you’ve never checked out the Kid President videos, you need to. He has been a source of inspiration for me over the last couple of weeks. Not only are his videos entertaining and inspiring, they are a great example for leaders. 

In his most popular video, “Pep Talk”, he displays something throughout the video that all leaders should display. Honesty. Check it out below:

 

The video starts out with a BOLD statement: “The world needs to stop being so boring.” Kid President is addressing the problem. From his perspective as “Kid President” he has called us out for being boring. He makes sure we understand that he means us!

Good leaders should never be afraid to address the problem. No matter where you lead, issues will always come up. There will almost always be a time where you are leading someone who is not performing to expectations. As leaders, we have to address it specifically to who we need to step up their game.  

Kid President establishes we are all a part of the same team. His honesty shines in showing he wants what is best for us as a team. As the world. Leaders build trust by establishing that together we are all a part of the solution. Honesty. 

Where can you greater display honesty with your team? Where is performance down and when will you address it?

Check back next week for more leadership lessons from Kid President. 

 

Sweet Spots

I’m a big fan of Jon Acuff and his Quitter movement. He talks a lot about what you should be doing vs what you are doing. I read a quote tweeted by my friend Charlton the other day that said something along the lines of “The things you do when you’re procrastinating are probably the things you should be doing for a living.”

I think there is a lot of truth to that statement. We should always be striving to do more of what we are designed to do, whether or not it is part of our job title. 

Even when you get in a position you really like, you’re naturally going to have tasks you like and you don’t like. I love the internship I am in. I am constantly learning a lot and finding new things I enjoy, and new things I don’t enjoy. 

This past week I have gotten a couple of tasks that I know that I am going to get so much energy getting to be a part of. 

One of those things was video switching. I had practiced switching a couple times while preparing for the role, but this past Sunday I got to switch for the first time. I think it will soon become a sweet spot.

It was my first time, so it was far from perfect, but I think it gave a good idea of what its like to find a sweet spot in your current job. 

Another opportunity I am getting is to work on developing the communication strategy for recruiting new interns for next year. Every leader should always be attempting to replicate themselves and I am getting a very literal chance. 

I am getting to design and formulate where and when we are reaching out. What mediums will we use and how will we use them? Being a former Marketing major and a current communication major this is right up my ally. It allows me to dream big. 

No matter what kind of job you’re in now, look for your sweet spots. Those moments that you spend doing those tasks will help you thrive in other areas. They’ll give energy to you other daily tasks. 

Series Planning

Being a part of a creative team in a church is interesting. You have to grapple with things that may be happening in the church several weeks down the road in advance.

I got to sit in a series planning meeting discussing what the next series and Easter look like for us. I’m really excited about the content of what we are doing, but we had to figure out how to build a series out of the content.

It was awesome going through the content and having to grapple with what it means to us. In order to build the creative side you have to understand the impact of the compact. What are we learning through what we are studying? 

One thing I struggle with working in church is it feels like you don’t get to learn with all of the people attending. You are so busy on Sunday mornings that there is no time to soak. For a creative in a church, series planning becomes that time for you to wrestle with the content. 

Not only do you get to study what it means, you wrestle with what it looks like. There are so many different perspectives you have to view the content from. Since you are viewing the content from so many directions, I believe you ultimately are getting and even deeper view than what might be taught. You have revelation coming from all sorts of angles. 

It was cool to get to sit through the meeting and wrestle with the team that was in there. It makes me look at how I do personal devotionals. What if I took apart my personal devotions in the same way we take apart content in a creative meeting? Would having to look at it from different perspectives change the way that I thought about it? Would I gain a better understanding of what I am learning?

I guess now I just need to get a big whiteboard installed in my room. 🙂

Routine

I operate better in routine. Some may call me old because of it but I prefer having a schedule that doesn’t shift a lot week to week. 

Christmas as a student already creates a lack of routine. Your days instantly become less schedule. On top of that add interning in the church world. Christmas time can definitely create havoc on your schedule. 

Thankfully January has arrived and a new season is here. I am back on my routine with classes and my internship. Can’t wait for what this semester holds and the things I am going to learn through. 

One thing I am currently working through is realizing that not all things can be accomplished in one attempt. I discredit myself a lot of the time because I may try something new and give up if it wasn’t what I expected. 

I’m learning that in the design and writing world, it takes multiple efforts. I can’t get by with minimal effort like I may have through classes and school. Something I am realizing is that effort involves time, and time helps create a great results. Not only does this apply to work, but to anything. You have to allow yourself time to accomplish goals. Life isn’t a microwave and instant results aren’t always an option. 

Humility

Humility is a characteristic in someone I greatly admire.

A lot of the time I don’t realize I admire it. It’s a quiet characteristic in that it can go unnoticed.

Humility isn’t hard. It really only takes remembering that without Christ, your life is but a mist. Anything and everything you do is empowered by the Lord working in you. You can do nothing on your own.

Sometimes we become un-humble. Our pride fills our eyes with our importance.

My friend/boss/coworker reminded me tonight of the importance a mentor can play in your quest for humility. We need to have someone in our live that we invite to humble us. We need someone who encourages us, but also keeps it real with us.

Living with a spirit of humility can be a catalyst for the fulfillment of your calling.

When we set “me” aside, and realize how humbling it is the Lord of all creation has chosen to use us.

Do you have that person that can keep you straight? Do you have a friend who helps humble you? If not, I encourage you to find that person and invite them to help keep you humble.