8 ways to look at six months

That’s how much of the year is gone.

Six months. Seems like years. Seems like days.

I decided to give the two of us a way to evaluate these six months. I hope it helps.  Pour yourself a cup of coffee (or something) and sit on the deck and let’s reflect a bit.

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1. I actually know more about these three people than I did 6 months ago.

________                  ________                       ________

1a. And here are three things I know about them.

2. If I add my blogs posts together, I have written this many words that wouldn’t otherwise be written: ______

3. Though I wish I’d done more, I have to admit that I’ve given this much _________ (time, money, stuff) to help other people.

4. Though it isn’t as much as I think it should be, I have talked to God _____________ times  and I stopped to listen _____________ times.

5. I’ve read about ____ (#)  topics.  ___% of them had nothing to do with my job.

6. I have told _______ and _______ how much I care about them _______ times a ________ (day/week/year).

7.  Six months ago I didn’t know how to __________ and now I do.

8.  Though the list keeps growing, I have to admit that I’ve crossed at least ______ items off my to do list every _____ (day/week/month).

Bonus: Go back and write the numbers and phrases and people that you want to be able to list on December 30.

8 ways to write the next sentence – TNS part 5

This is the last in a series of posts about “the next sentence.”

I’ve been talking about the importance of being intentional about the next sentence, whether that is the sentence after the compelling story in a speech, or the sentence after a powerful video in a sermon, or the mailing that is the followup after a major event. Call it the next step, the next party, the call to action. Call it whatever you want.

Just don’t forget it.

Here are 8 ways to write the next sentence. Of course, some of these relate to sentences, others to events. But deal with it. If you are reading this blog you are incredibly gifted at filling in gaps and reading between the lines and making sense of inferences.

I know you.

1. Write a clear outcome for your presentation. In my life as a speech teacher, I would make students write a measurable outcome: “When I have finished speaking, my audience will be able to ____.” I don’t do that anymore. Unless I want to make sure I’m actually effective.

2. Practice the story you are telling. Ever start telling a story and then wonder what your point was? Your audience was wondering, too. So take some time and tell the story out loud. Unless, of course, the point doesn’t matter.

3. Stop and look at the audience, even before the event. When we are speaking, when we are planning events, we are working with real people, people with short attention spans and learning styles not our own and bladders and broken hearts and, well, lives. I get consumed with my presentation and planning and cool graphics and neat events. However, I need to stop and look at the people who will be in the room. When I do, I often change and simplify and clarify. Of course, maybe that’s just me.

4. Create a checklist. I talked in the second post about remembering everything but an attendance list which would allow followup for an event. If we had assembled a checklist, one of us would have remembered. I am horrible at lists. All the more reason. (“cool story. check. next sentence. check.”)

5. Pray. This may not apply to you. If not, jump to number 6. I have this belief that God actually knows people inside and out. So when I’m trying to figure out the next sentence, I occasionally ask what to say. And sometimes,  I am told. And sometimes, I even have to erase something.

6. Wait. So you told an incredibly moving, incredibly appropriate, incredibly inspiring story. You can tell that it moved people, mostly because you have tears in your own eyes. So wait for a bit. Before you say that next sentence, wait. Let people think and feel for a bit. Just wait. (You want proof? Think of a really moving episode of Extreme Makeover. Lives changed, people helped. You want to sit and think about whether you are doing the same. And immediately you hear “stay tuned for Desperate Housewives.” Suddenly you realize that the network isn’t about moving your heart.

Don’t be like the network.

7. Pretend. Pretend for a moment that you actually know what you are doing. Because you probably do. I was talking with someone today about the imposter syndrome. This is best illustrated by that fear in teachers that someday while we are teaching, someone will stand up and say, “you made that up!” and we will say, “You are right. Finally, someone saw the truth about me.” It is possible however, that you do know what you are doing and if you quit thinking about your insecurity you can think about helping people change the world.

Because that’s what you are about, right?

8. Pilot. Experiment. Tell your stories to friends before the event. Have a few people for dinner before you have 1,000 people at a banquet. Occasionally have your spouse or friend read a post before you hit publish. The thing that seemed really cool inside your head may not be.

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So that’s it. A digital workshop on the next sentence. This will be an ebook soon. I’ll let you know.

For now, you can follow these links to the first four segments.

Part One: The next sentence

Part Two: How I messed up

Part Three: Teaching as a performance

Part four: Afraid of what comes next

And let me know if this helped.

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the next sentence – part two

We had a newcomer lunch. We wanted to have something for people who have started coming to church services here within the last year. It’s the first event like that we’ve had around here in at least 13 years.

It seemed like it would make sense to help people get connected, to find out more about who we are and what we believe.

We announced it out loud. We put it in our publications. We sent invitations to everyone we knew of that fit in that demographic.

We had between 20 and 30 people signed up to come. We invited a bunch of staff and a couple elders and the fellowship committee. We had 75 people. We had a great time.

And then I started thinking about the next sentence. I realized I needed to take a next step with that event. So I created a postcard to send to them with four questions.

Thanks for coming to the Newcomer Lunch. 

Those of us who are oldtimers enjoyed it. We hope you did, too.

Because this was the first time we’ve done this,
we would appreciate your help. Would you answer
these questions and drop this card in the offering plate
the next time you come to church? (or hand it to
a staff member or mail it in or attach it to a homing pigeon) 

Thanks,

Pastor Jon Swanson
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Our goal was to help you get a clearer picture of Grabill Missionary Church.

1. Given that goal, what was the most helpful part of the hour?

2. Given that goal, what one thing could we do that would make Newcomer Lunches more effective?

3. What were you expecting that we didn’t do?

4. Should we keep doing this?  Yes No

Name (optional)

It was a simple card, inviting another level of involvement.

And then we started looking for addresses. And we realized that we didn’t have a list of the people who showed up. And we didn’t have the list of people who had said they were coming. And we didn’t remember to have people sign a sheet when they filled out a name tag.

We had a great event, we had people wanting to do it again, but we had no way to follow up.

Since then, we’ve been able to build a list of the newcomers. Our people did a wonderful job of mingling and talking and learning names and building connections. And we have already gotten back several cards, with very positive comments.

The lesson? Think about what comes after the thing that you are doing now. After this story, what’s the moral? After this presentation, what’s the followup? After this lesson, what’s the application?

So what’s your story about missing out on the next sentence?

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Coming up next in this series, what keeps us from thinking about the next sentence?

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The next sentence – part one

We were planning a church service, several of us. We met every week, talking through how the songs and the drama and the readings could connect to the sermon and to the congregation. We looked at a video, a clip to drop into the sermon.  The video was really cool, really interesting, really entertaining. It seemed to be great to include.

And then Steve, the preacher, asked, “what’s the next sentence?”

“What?”

“After that video plays, what is the next sentence, the sentence that makes it make sense?”

A great question for the two of us in particular. He is a wonderful communicator. I am a spin master.  And as we thought it through, we realized that there was no way we could move people from the video to the text. There was no connection. If the video stayed, the whole sermon would have to be changed…..including the topic.

By itself, the video was great. There were a number of settings in which it would work. But that sermon on that Sunday for that audience was not the place. It would destroy what was being built.

I wrote those three words, “the next sentence” on a scrap of paper and kept them above my desk. I realized that for every illustration, for every event, for every lesson, for everything that I know captures attention, I need to think about what comes next.

How will I follow that, how can I take that attention, that emotion, that readiness to learn on the part of the audience, and help them learn? Or will I take the mood, the readiness, the anticipation and ruin it with “Wasn’t that a great story? I knew you’d like it. Anyway, back to what we were talking about.”

For the next few posts, I’m going to talk about the next sentence.

Next up? How we completely forgot how to welcome some interested newcomers to our church.

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8 ways people talking about intentional social media strategy may be right.

You know, them. The people who suggest that you can be thoughtful and strategic about this blogging stuff. I mean, the people:

1. like Joanna Young, who suggests that you can generate a month’s worth of posts in 30 minutes. She talks about creating a mindmap with the theme of your blog. I tried it one day, while driving. I wrote one phrase, “affirming words” on the middle of a post-it index card. I generated 5 post topics in four minutes. They wrote themselves quickly and they actually were thoughtful and connected and significant.
2. like Liz Strauss, who suggests that you can build an editorial calendar for different days, and that you can map out a month of blogging activities and control your blogging time rather than having it control you. A month ago I started a theme for Sundays. I’m working through the week the same way. (Note: the calendar idea is near the bottom of the post. It stayed with me for months before I realized that I could do it, too.).
3. like Chris Brogan, who suggests that you stop just thinking about your personal brand and instead, actually do specific things in social media. I discovered that I have several things covered, but that I need to be more specific about a few more.
4. like Becky McCray, who says that we need to learn to say no. Actually, Becky has said a lot of things to help me focus, but that’s one collection.
5. like Rob Hatch, who is proof that people on the other end of social media are people. There are other examples, and you know who you are, but who’d have imagined Brogan’s and Hatch’s and Swanson’s in the same physical space at the same time?
6. like Cheryl Smith who started a blog intended for public consumption but didn’t tell anyone about it until she had written enough posts to prove to herself she could. That kind of patience has borne fruit for her. (And she let me look ahead of time and helped me find some words from Isaiah that I had been trying to remember for months.)
7. like Paul Merrill, who I finally believed about turning off the comment approval. It has freed up conversation wonderfully. (In the process, I also finally got wordpress set to email me each comment so I know. It hadn’t been working before.)
8. like these faces who remind me by their daily patience and love that the core of social media is the social, not the media.

8 ways to maybe be sort of successful goalwise.

At the end of 2006, Nancy and I started walking. Together. Around the neighborhood and then around the mall. We kept walking all year long. We know for sure we went more than 600 miles during the year, though we probably went farther.

This morning we started the new year by taking another walk around the mall (or three times around the mall). Unlike most mornings, however, we treated ourselves to a cup of coffee (black) and some additional conversation, trying to list some things we are considering for the year. Out of that conversation and some other thinking, here’s today’s 8 ways list, rooted in the reality that most of us are really good at not being really good at accomplishing goals.

1. Ask yourself or your partner in accomplishing life, “list three words for the year.” Rather than giving you a roadmap, these can give your heart direction for the year.  (One of our words for the year is “smaller”, reflecting a desire to live more simply with many fewer purchases.)

2. Identify month-long rather than year-long goals.
This year I set a goal for August, for thirty days of posting. It was achievable because it was sustainable. I did the same for Advent. I’m planning it again for Lent.

3. Talk next to rather than across from a guy.
Nancy realized that part of our success in walking and talking this year came because we weren’t looking at each other. I’m certainly not opposed to looking at my wife–quite the contrary. However, it is easier to talk while side by side. (The real principle here is that we need to make progress comfortable).

4. If “purposes” or “directions” are more helpful than “goals”, great. Progress is more important than language.

5. Interact with people.
I’ve been stretched by conversations this year in ways that I never would have imagined at the beginning of the year. I think differently than I did…and so do some of the people that I’ve talked with. And the truth? Our projects may fail or fizzle, but the more we are deepening in relationships, with both other humans and with God, the less significant those projects are.

6. Let goals masquerade as things you want to do.
You think, “I want to read that particular book.” Do it. Then you will have read something, grown your world, given yourself something to talk with others about, challenged your thinking, and kept either a library or bookstore in business.  (And here are some books to consider…from my “bookstore” or I could loan them to you)

7. Tell other people about what you are wanting to do in as direct or vague a way as you want to be held accountable.
There are a bunch of people who are really tired of hearing that we’ve been walking. The more we talked about it, however, the more we knew we needed to keep going. And as we were at the mall this morning, we noticed a couple we know who have decided to walk at the mall.  So we’ll keep talking about walking.

8. Forget about lists. Just live.
(Although ironically, just living can turn into a whole collection of 8 ways lists.)

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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

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8 ways to look ahead.

Shiloh is a quiet dog. I almost wrote “quiet and thoughtful” but I have no clue what is happening in his head. At one of the four holiday gatherings at our house, Shiloh spent some time reflecting on the year behind, gazing at coffee and my lifesigns series.

That kind of looking back and looking ahead is all the rage among humans right now. I’m not ready to do my own goal setting yet, but I’m ready to suggest some words to think about.

Compared to last year or to my life so far or to lives around me that I think have been misguided or to lives around me that are well-lived, what do I want to do:

1. More. More often, more intentionally, more consistently.

2. Less. Less often, less reactively, with less intensity, with less (fewer) people.

3. Better. You know what better means for you. What do you want to do better?

4. Worse. What are you, what am I, willing to be worse at…if it will buy space for what is better? Do I want to be a worse packrat? Do I want to be a worse daily blogger?

5. Faster. What could I do faster that would create more time?
6 Slower. What could I do slower that would create more relationship?
7. Thoughtfully. What do I need to actually stop and think about? And how can I plan for that? (Gift-giving, for example)

8. Impulsively. What do I need to release from planning and strategizing?

I’ll get around to goals, maybe after the first of the year. I think that I probably want to be more thoughtful than impulsive there. But…maybe not.

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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.

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Plans

I’m cleaning. After seven years in the same office and the same (albeit morphing) job, I’m cleaning in preparation for leaving. And this is no simple task because I save potentially good stuff.

Other people describe what I do in other terms, but they are entitled to their opinions. I often have very good (though admittedly odd) reasons for saving the things I do.

For example, I have discovered several rolls of lists, sheets of flipchart paper covered with the results of brainstorming exercises with various leadership groups across several years. Those lists are now in the trash.  Here are some of the reasons:

• Most of the items were captured electronically. Saving them was in part a backup plan.
• The groups all have different people now. No one remembers the discussions and the words on the pages which were clear in the moment look like code words now.
• The plans outlined have happened (in some cases) or been abandoned (in some cases) or been amended (in most cases).
• No one else cares about the pieces of paper. I acknowledge an odd awareness of symbolic objects. I’m not big on big expenses, but a stone from a walk, a mug from a significant conversation, a small plastic cup…each of these can carry significant power to help me remember.

Here, however, is the most significant reason for throwing them away: the lists are worthless.

What happens in a brainstorming session, in a strategy session, in a planning retreat is that people step away from everything and focus on a task or idea or problem or dream. Within the silence, within the bubble, we explore possibilities. We do our absolute best to identify our strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. We prayerfully consider what the next steps should be. And we carefully list all of these musings.

As soon as we list them, however, they are irrelevant. The world they are intended to reflect has changed merely by there being a list which has attempted to give it order. And the further away from that moment we get, the more irrelevant they become.

“But we said that we would…”

Yes, but as soon as we walked back into the office, we discovered that someone died or income shifted or someone was going to be called to another job.

“But I really like that idea (that I came up with)”

Yes, but as we thought about it two days later, it was clear that we didn’t have the information we needed about the larger context. (And we didn’t know that your spouse would benefit from that action).

“But you said…”

That was not a contract, it was a brainstorming exercise. We were identifying possibilities, not promises.

I have a couple suggestions for future discussions of values and plans and purposes, for myself and others. There are particularly intended for groups that are about changing the world.
1. Make what you agree on an outcome. What do you most see as the thing, the purpose, the change, the whatever, that you want to have happen? This way, process can change, specific steps can flex, but you know where you are headed.

2. After the session is done, ceremonially burn the notes.

3. A day later, have everyone write down what they believe was best about the process of meeting, the questions that linger after the discussion,  and, most importantly, without looking at any notes, write down what was agreed upon (See 1. above).

4. Compare these notes and decide whether or not you really arrived at any agreement or whether you need to go back and reflect more.

The goal is to come up with goals, plans, purposes that everyone agrees on and about and to.  The goal is to have the agreement written on hearts and minds and behaviors…not on sheets of paper…that end up with the trash.