I think sometimes artists have to be reminded that they have permission to create. We want ideas to appear inside light bulbs over our heads but the reality is, ideas are waiting to be uncovered by the ways we approach our work. Ideas are around, waiting to be discovered, it is our job to make sure we are setting ourselves and our teammates up to win, capture these ideas, and transition them to momentum inside of our organizations. Here are a few reminders of how to get in the right posture to be our creative best:

• Create in community – Don’t be a lone ranger. Input & diversity help us be better creatively.
• Document every idea – Write it down. Take a picture. Don’t take ideas for granted. When we don’t capture them they will fly away.
• Change the Canvas – Find a new spot. Go offsite. Work in a different office. Visit a coffee shop. Change the canvas to change the perspective.
• Listen – Allow music to create atmosphere. Change it. Turn it up. Listen to something you know and something new.
• Talk – Talk to people in different departments or organizations. Get new and varying perspectives.
• Re-frame – Find new ways to look at your project or ideas. Redefine your challenge from time to time.
• Go Back To The Question – Why are we doing this? What are we trying to accomplish? How will this be used? Where will this be used?
• Change The Routine – Change something in your routine. Drive a different way to work. Use a different entrance. Sit in a different seat.
• Sprint – Write down as many ideas as possible in 5 minutes.
• Pump The Gas – When you face resistance ask how you can make something better out of this situation?
• Beat the Early Bird – Be the first one in the office. Arrive before anyone else and get a start on the day that changes your perspective.
• Readers R Leaders – Read a blog (you already are), read a book, read a magazine.
• Trust What You Know – You have refined your instincts so trust them.
• Get Up – Be willing to get up and walk around every 20 minutes to keep perspectives fresh.
• Don’t Be A Ball Hog – Invite your boss and co-workers into conversations about projects and ideas.
• Press Pause – Take a break from ideas or projects in order to see more clearly what you actually are creating.

This is just a starter list. What have you found that works best for you? Share with the rest of us!

A few years ago a young producer in Australia had the idea of taking old Disney films and remixing them with tracks he had created. Quickly they became YouTube sensations. So much so that Disney brought him in and asked him to start creating teaser remixes for films that had not yet been released. POGO found a way to take art, remix it, and turn it into something of his own. He took a chance and started creating based on his idea, not because someone told him to and not after he received permission. He let his ideas and his art creating the opportunity.

Here is the first piece pogo created 4 years and 9 million YouTube views ago:

And the first one he was hired to do for Disney:

And my fave:

Pogo had a dream…and he chased it. He followed his passion. He created his art and from his art he found a new career that changed his life.

Why do we allow fear to rob us from creating our art? Why do we feel we need permission to create when really our art creates permission for others to feel? It’s time to be brave.

What idea are you holding on to that need to be exposed? What have you held of creating waiting for permission when it has already been given to you and is just waiting for you to act?

Your art just might save someone’s life, but not if you are too afraid to share it with the rest of us.

We envy the overnight success.
We marvel at the campaign or idea that sweeps in and succeeds effortlessly.
We’re amazed by the product that changes the way we do life almost overnight.

None of these successes actually appear out of nowhere. Behind every single one of them is a lot of work.

In order to do anything great we have to remember: It takes Hustle. It takes Passion. It takes Execution

Daniel Coyle writes in his book, The Talent Code, about how important it is to focus on the small things, not the “hail marys,” in order to create success behind our creative team and creative ideas.

We can apply the same concept to how we manage our creative teams. We have to remember that we’re not going to wake up to success one morning – we have to build success day by day, task by task, execution by execution. It’s up to us to build success.

• Little is Big – Are we focused on only the BIG parts of the creative process, or are we digging into the details regardless of size? It’s not about the massive unveil, but the execution we implement leading up to that moment. Every action, step, and decision is a chance to create a win or suffer a loss. Consistency builds upon itself and when we’re able to replicate wins, we move towards success methodically – step by step.
• Identify Game Changers – Who is paying attention? Who is listening, focusing, and creating momentum on our teams or in our organizations? Who has hustle? Who is anticipating and problem solving, not just identifying problems? The people who’s names you filled in after these questions are the ones we must pay attention to, they’re the people who are going to do the most with the opportunities that come their way. They create trust.
• Blueprints vs Renderings – Architectural renderings look great, but they can’t build buildings. Blueprints can. Blueprints aren’t as sexy as renderings, but they create steps to success. Stay focused on the fundamentals. Without them, we have a lot of sparkle but very little substance. Idea fundamentals remind us to ask if our ideas communicate our desired story. Do they create emotion? Do they force conversation or questions? WIll people like and connect with our ideas?

These are just three steps to build success – there are so many more. Do you have a concept you would like to share?

In 1976, psychologist Silvano Arieti wrote a book entitled “Creativity:The Magic Synthesis.” Arieti specialized in two fields: creativity and schizophrenia. The two fields are probably not as far apart as we would first believe. Arieti’s book summarized nine conditions that he felt were necessary for creativity:

• Isolation. Being alone allows us to find ourselves, as well as to be open to new kinds of inspiration.
• Inactivity. We have to find time to get out of our routines. We need time to focus on “inner resources”.
• Daydreaming. Creating the space to allow ourselves to explore our thoughts and dreams; to just freestyle and not have the pressure of constraints to limit or stagnate our creative process.
• Free thinking. Finding ways to allow our mind to wander in any direction. Doing this gives us permission to explore topics that are not in our normal routines or thought processes. Doing this helps us find connection points between things we may not have connected and concepts we wouldn’t naturally link up.
• State of readiness to catch similarities. Seeing things from our creative lens and not our analytical lens; looking at things differently.
• Gullibility. Suspending judgment allows us to explore ideas without treating them with prejudice.
• Remembering and replaying past traumatic conflicts. Conflict creates more and new creative concepts.
• Alertness. Having our antenna up allows us to the ability to find relevance in things we may not normally be recognizing.
• Discipline. Finding the ability to do the work necessary to realize and then, systematically plan the execution of our ideas.
• We all love the times we are “in the flow” – when creativity is flowing and we are just able to ride the rhythm. But often that rhythm is broken. Especially when we are busy, tired, or under stress. Being intentional with these nine tools can help us rejuvenate our creative process and find that rhythm we are looking for to create our best work.

When do you find yourself needing to create creativity?
Have you identified any other practices that work for you when you need to create creativity?

Share what is inspiring your Monday.

Creativity is a muscle. When we work it out, it gets stronger and when we fail to exercise it, we get weaker. The act of creating takes sweat and effort. A series of studies done on some of the most creative “geniuses” in history has identified a few trends common in extremely creative people that innovate and create ideas to influence change in their fields. Here are eight exercises that can make us creatively stronger:

• Think Visibly. – Don’t just rest on language. Allow space, pictures, diagrams, and technology to enhance how we see communicate and articulate. Find ways to tell stories via pictures instead of words. Images will change how people relate to our art and will change the way stories are told.
• Don’t just talk, produce – We won’t always create masterpieces. However, masterpieces will never exist if we don’t create. Creativity takes reps, and lots of them. We always see the highlight reels of creative teams, but we don’t see the number of attempts, the failed ideas, the edited content, the stuff that never sees the light of day. Great creative elements and ideas are the result of lots of failed, dorky, bad, and poorly executed attempts to create something good.
• Create Connections- Some of our most creative ideas come from combining things that don’t naturally live together. Creating connections between opposites is a fantastic exercise for enhancing our creativity. Work to connect unconnected items in an effort to get creatively better.
• Change the Lens – Don’t be afraid to tear a problem or situation apart. Sometimes deconstructing a situation and rebuilding it can help us identify solutions. Changing perspectives can help us find solutions not always visible at first look. This process takes work and often takes some patience, but when done correctly will uncover ideas and results that can make lasting impacts.
• Suspend Reality – We live in a real world, but creativity thrives in imagination and possibility. When we’re able to suspend reality and cut off the voices that try to rationalize our creativity, we’ll find new creative roads to travel. Without reality, we see new possibilities.
• Dream in Metaphors – Metaphors are ways to articulate story in more accessible ways. People may not remember data, but they remember stories. When we share our ideas in metaphors, we learn to be more creative and more complete in creating our thought processes.
• Get Back Up – Failure provides the opportunity to try again. When we try again, we have a chance to be more audacious, more creative, and more gritty with how we create. Leveraging fear and failure makes us better than we could dream possible. Failing also allows us to ask questions and remove data that doesn’t work from the equation.
• Press Pause – Create and work hard…then press pause. Step away. Give creativity room to breathe. Then come back. The chance to get away from our creative process, idea, or project will allow us to come back and see it in a new light. It will give us the chance to identify areas or elements we may have missed. Pressing pause is the least attractive option because it forces us to beat deadlines and create margin. But, when it does, it makes us so much better.

Do you employ any of these exercises in your life? Are there any other exercises you might add to the list?

Part of the pressure of being someone who is creative is understanding timing.

When is it time to share our new idea? When is it time to push for innovation? When is it time to impose new ideas, brands, concepts, and help create change? The sexy answer is all the time, but that’s not entirely possible.

Here are a few identifying factors to when timing is right to fight for change:

• When we understand that risk is involved and it starts with you. However, knowing you can create champions to help you carry the weight of that risk is a bonus.
• When there’s a problem that needs to be solved.
• When there’s an opportunity to be better or improve.
• When we can change the mind of people who will oppose, or prove them wrong.
• When we identify that in the next 3-5 years what we are doing today won’t work anymore.
• When momentum is slipping.
• When the status quo is making life boring.
• When complacency has set in and urgency has escaped.
• When resources aren’t available.
• When crises occurs.
• When expectations stop being met.
• When we copy more than we create.
• When we’re more focused on check lists than we are on art.
• When we have more habits than ideas.
• When we’re scared.

We all can contribute to this list based on our own specific experiences.
What would you add to this list?

With the pressure to create, we know when things are good – it’s an instinct.

As time progresses, we start to settle. With each passing day, the timelines, work loads, pressures, and opinions pose the risk of taking over our instincts. Excuses tempt us to settle for less than our best. With each passing day we risk the drift of complacency taking over and we start to settle.

When we settle, a couple of things happen:

• We lose a small piece of our DNA.
• We sacrifice greatness for good or good enough.
• We misstep on expectations.
• We devalue the end user.
• We lose focus.
• We risk momentum being lost.
• We waste opportunity.
• We cheat ourselves and our friends.

Don’t Settle.
It’s not worth it.
If you can’t be proud of it, dig in and fix it.

We have the honor of being chosen to create and we disrespect that honor when we don’t give our absolute best.

I am a proponent for “shipping” as described by Seth Godin, but you should not ship raw material. There has to be enough of YOU in your art that you can be proud of it and feel like what is shipped is a good representation of who you are. It’s part of the paradox that makes us crazy artists. When is enough, enough? When we refuse to settle.

Your art is worth it.
We need it.
Don’t Settle.

How do you avoid the trap of settling?

If we plan to create our best art, create community, create great experiences, or make connections, we have to be open.

Open to differences.
Open to people who don’t think like us.
Open to people who don’t look like us.
Open to people who don’t sound like us.
Open to a great day.
Open to beings wrong.
Open to another idea.
Open to correction.
Open to criticism.
Open to push back.
Open to setting up, breaking down, and trying something new.
Open to making adjustments if things aren’t working like we thought.
Open to a tough day.
Open to things that might scare us a little.
Open to changing things.
Open to walking in someone else’s shoes.
Open to looking at our church or service through the eyes of someone
else – someone who may never have been in our world before.
Open to grace.
Open to mercy.
Open to whatever happens.

Being open allows us to experience, welcome, love, try, change, and adjust.

Being open provides an atmosphere where grace excels, status quo starves,
and creativity thrives.

Being closed is the equivalent to maxing out. If we stay closed, we will soon be closed for good.

How do you find ways to stay open?

We’ve all made errors. As much as we hate to admit it, errors often lurk in our past attempting to keep us from creating our absolute best art. Novelist James Joyce once said:

A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.

In order to overcome excessive obsession with our errors, we have to learn how to transition our mistakes into opportunities. In his book, The Musicians Way, Gerald Klicstien shares three assets of making errors:

1. Errors Are Not Failures – Failure is a lasting loss. Errors are not permanent unless we give them permission to be so. As much as errors try to be more than errors, we have to keep them in perspective.

2. Errors Are Not Shameful – Errors only become shameful if we allow them to live with us and do not move past them. Shame says that we’ve placed our value in our art and not in who we’ve been created to be. When we believe our errors change our value or cause us to be inferior, we’ve forfeited our true identity for a counterfeit. Errors tells us what we need to learn, not who we are or who we should be. We need to use our errors to make us better.

3. Errors Are Information – Once we move past the emotion and negativity of an error, we can then clearly see that errors provide data. Errors, in their natural form, have no emotion – but as artists, we often project emotion on our errors. When this happens, we devalue the data that is waiting to be discovered.

As artists, we tend to agonize over our mistakes rather than using them to make ourselves better. We need to make sure that we’re leveraging our errors, not giving them strongholds over our lives, emotions, or ability to produce. We are more than our errors or successes.

How do you leverage your errors to make yourself better?

Equity in an organization is so important. Creative teams can create all day long but if the rest of the organization does not trust them it does not matter. Further, when equity erodes, it creates a barrier between creators and the products they are creating. Without a distribution source creative ideas and products become creations for vanity.

So how do we protect our equity? What traps can we avoid that will damage our equity inside of our organizations? Here are a few:

• Believe the hype – Never read our own press. Good or bad. Remember the work, the process, and the team. When we start to accept the praise we set the expectation that we must also accept the failure. Find the balance. Celebrate the wins and learn from the losses, but don’t over believe the good or the bad. That roller coaster will kill you.
• Stop creating and start repeating – New creations keep us fresh. Not just us, those whom which we work also get fresh with new ideas and creations. When we fall into the trap of repeating and reusing elements we risk future creativity and innovation. This one little short cut can retard the creative culture of our organizations or churches.
• Stop learning – We can’t stop learning. Do research. Find out what other people are doing and what is working. Don’t copy them…but study your industry. Know where art is going and how technology can be leveraged for your benefit. Read and read a lot! Keep learning to stay sharp and creative.
• Become difficult – If we become a pain in the butt, people don’t want to work with us. Sure, for a while your talent will force them to put up with you but eventually the pain of trying to work with us will pass your talent and leave us lonely. Always treat people how you would want to be treated. The quote “People judge themselves on intention and others on action” is hauntingly true in the lives of artists. Extend grace to the level we would want to receive grace.
• Refuse to be flexible – Flexibility and creativity go hand in hand. When we stop being flexible we strangle creativity and process. Fight for ways to be flexible it creates space for creativity.
• Blow Deadlines – This one is tricky. Most projects have a due date and hitting that date is the “deadline”. However, when we fail to plan we hurt our best creative ideas. Managing time is about the entire scope of the project, not just the last 48 hours. Find ways to work further out on projects so they get space to breathe. When this happens we will have a better chance at creating our best work, not just our fastest.
• Over promise under deliver – It will hurt us every time. If we make a promise…keep it. And never make promises that we don’t have control over.
• Stop asking questions – If we don’t ask questions we ignore possibilities. Questions make every project better.
• Look for the NO CANT. – This is the first hint of negative thinking. We should be looking for the “yes and” not the “no can’t”
• Fall victim to the trap they are always right. – Other people have experiences and good input. Listen to them. We don’t have to always be right…we just have to always be willing to adapt.

Create great stuff and create it with a great attitude. We are blessed with the gift to create for a living. What an honor. If you start to see these traps popping up take time to make corrections you could be headed down the wrong route.

What are some ways you have found that cost you equity?

It feels like it was six months ago.

I wanted to take a moment and share with you two of the elements from our Easter Celebration.

This piece was an opener that rolled into “God Is Alive.” We shot this piece at Ocean Way studios in Nashville. Ocean Way is a historic recording studio; a tremendous venue.

Untitled from Cross Point Church on Vimeo.

Pete did a masterful job talking about how the Church is the bride of Christ, waiting on her Groom. This song is by The City Harmonic and was performed live at all of our locations.

Holy // Wedding Dress from Cross Point Church on Vimeo.

We also built this site to help people invite their friends.

I am so proud of our team. Matt Singleton did a great job on these videos, Kyle Reed built an awesome website, Matt Warren pulled together amazing bands and teams, and Jarrod Morris lead a team of worship leaders and special singers through a very intense set. It was a GREAT Easter at Cross Point.
I would love your thoughts. Also, share some of your elements.

Share What Is Inspiring You.

Focus is where attention and work meet to create momentum. The mind of a creative person shifts and changes based on the intake of data and scenery. Focus can be hard to find sometimes.

Alexander Graham Bell once said:
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

Our world today is not built for focus. Multi-tasking has replaced traditional attention for most people.

The Harvard Business Review recently released an article discussing the advances around the subject of focus. This study revealed that the brain can actually be taught to ignore distractions, as well as be more productive, focused, and creative.

According to the study, there are three exercises that will teach our brains to focus and be more creative:

TAME THE FRENZY. – Frenzy happens when anxiety, anger, or similar negative emotions put us in a position where we feel we’re out of control. The part of the brain that processes problem solving – an important part to creative processing – is hyper-stimulated by negative emotions. According to the HBR study, in order to be our creative best we should have three positive emotions to every one negative emotion. Exercise, sleep, and laughter are three easy ways to protect ourselves from leaning towards the negative. Also, it’s important to identify patterns that drive us to a negative. Starting meetings or conversations with positive topics, compliments, reflection, or humor can often set the tone for positive thinking. As we know, negative thinking always attempts to steal our creativity.

APPLY THE BRAKES. – Our brains are created to scan. Even when we’re focused and working on a project, our brain is scanning – which attracts distractions. We can apply the ABC method to our process in order to help us know if we should engage or brake on certain tasks: become aware of our options, breathe deeply, choose thoughtfully. By using this filter, we will find our focus becomes more laser like – which will enhance our creativity.

SHIFT SETS. – Shifting Sets is a principle where all of our focus is turned from the current project to a new one. Completely stopping work on a project will give us space, change the pattern, and allow the brain to refocus. Further, leaving a project gives us a new perspective when we come back to it later. A key to this task is a defining shift. Between tasks, it’s recommended to not only shift projects, but to shift our bodies. Change rooms, take a walk, exercise, change music or lighting…do something intentional to adjust the work space.

Hopefully these three exercises will help us regain focus and become more creative.

What are some of your favorite exercises for adjusting and focusing creativity?

What if tomorrow morning you woke up only to realize someone had withdrew half the money in your bank account?

Negativity is trying to do that to our creative account every single day.

There’s a big difference between critical thinking and negativity. Critical thinking is done to help produce a better result. Negativity is used like a cold, wet blanket to stifle and cover our creative energy.

Negativity never walks through the door announcing its arrival, it sneaks in via a trojan horse.

Here are just a few places where you can find negativity hiding out:

• In our calendar and pace of life.
• In being critiqued or challenged to be better.
• In our boredom with the status quo.
• In excessive meetings.
• In our inability to do enough of what fills us up.
• In stress.
• In conflict between co-workers.
• In excessive problems.

But you don’t have to fall victim to the traps of negativity. We have a responsibility to fight negativity by fostering creativity. When you feel yourself leaning to the negative, it’s time to act. In these moments, you must realize you’ve stopped looking at the opportunities in your environments that are begging for your ingenuity and ideas. These ideas will help create new solutions only YOU can provide. God has gifted you with the ability to be creative. You not only can see problems and solutions differently, you thrive on these opportunities. So, it’s time that you start to:

• Schedule time to be creative.
• Look for the opportunity in meetings to impact decisions and direction.
• Bring a different solution or angle to the conversation.
• Refuse the status quo and delegate tasks that become boring…or change them so they can provide energy.
• Embrace other opinions and the opportunity to get better every single day. There is nothing like the fuel of a hater.
• Look at meetings different. View them as a chance to share ideas, help others’ ideas, or move the needle in the organization.
• Schedule meetings with creativity. Times to read, write, dream, or whatever it is that fills the tank.
• Pray.
• Extend grace in relationships the way you would like grace extended to you.
• Problems are opportunities waiting to be uncovered.

No one expects “SUNSHINE” all the time. But when negativity starts to stifle creativity, it robs you of your ability to be all God has created you to be – and that’s what we need you to be so we can be our best.

What are some of your methods for fighting negativity?

The impact that Walt Disney has had on our world is unmatched. His ability to dream, innovate, and execute still leaves us amazed. Compartmentalizing his creative process was one of the tricks Walt Disney used to create greatness. The three steps in the Disney Creative Process are “the dreamer”, “the realist”, and “the spoiler”.

Stage 1 – The Dreamer
This stage is filter free. It was created for fantasizing and dreaming. All of the ridiculous, fantastic, absurd and hair brained ideas live in this space. This is the fun stage. This is where ideas roam free and we say “why not” rather than “no way”.

For us, we invite a very diverse group into this stage. We want anyone who might have an idea and even some folks who don’t know if they have ideas to be a part. Since nothing is out of bounds in this stage, we encourage crazy talk. We build environments that support absurdity and we encourage people to get out of their heads and work. The dreamer stage is for dreaming, not acting.

Stage 2 – The Realist
This is where edits take place. During stage 2, dreams become practical. This is the stage to find out how we can make these dreams reality.

Here, we have a much smaller group – limited to 2-4 people. This is where we edit, refine, and morph ideas into something that can be exercised. Some bad ideas find legs in this meeting and some good ideas get catalogued for later. This is also where we adapt the Disney model. We hope to come out of this stage with one over-arching idea; one executable plan we can pitch in order to move forward.

Stage 3 – The Critic
In the Disney model, this is where holes are punched in the winning ideas. The ideas that made it past this stage became the ideas that Disney would turn into reality.

For us, this is where we go to Pete or our communicator and make sure that what we have crafted can connect with what God is giving them to communicate. Pete is far from a critic – and we have adapted the process – but for us, art makes no sense if it doesn’t connect with Pete first, our team second, then our community. If the idea we came out of stage 2 with doesn’t work in stage 3, we revert back to stage 2 and find another idea that may work. There’s usually a very small, select group of people in this meeting.

Walt Disney intentionally compartmentalized his process so that reality would not crush dreams. At the same time, he knew that there would need to be time for reality and even more time for examining and dissecting good ideas so they could become great.

Disney also created spaces for ideation. Each stage had it’s own room that was created for the intended stage.

Different Rooms for Different Stages

There is additional information that Walt went further, moving from one room to another as he shifted thinking. Using spaces specifically for each stage. This is where the 3-door principal got its name. Behind each door was a room that would produce a direct and intentional response.

For us, stage 1 almost always takes place off-site. We try to find a location that fits the theme of our series. For instance, we did a series that ended up being titled “Unseen”. It was about spiritual warfare. So we held our stage 1 creative meeting in a cemetery. Stage 2 usually happens in an office with a whiteboard and stage 3 in a completely different office.

The intention is to make sure that each stage of the creative process has its own space to exist. Each stage keeps individuals in one intentional state of mind for each time.

Of course, each stage has some unique things that help make it work. We put on our Disney Villain mask and stole this idea in an effort to make our creative process work.

What is your creative process? How do you come up with your best ideas?

Recently, I discovered a post about the idea of Idea Magnets. Idea Magnets are people who attract ideas and other creative people around their projects and thus, create amazing content repeatedly. Idea Magnets are necessary on any creative team that’s going to grow and enhance organizations. They’re necessary because they bring out the best in others. They also balance inspiration and implementation. Here are eleven characteristics of Idea Magnets:

* They’re always absorbing diverse and interesting points of reference. They collect all the time and this allows them to always have content ready to share and ideas in the bucket.
* They ask rich questions. They understand how questions uncover the real problem and solution.
* They prefer to listen before they talk.
* They generalize opportunities and challenges in an effort to find places from which to develop and create new possibilities.
* They are connectors. They connect people, problems, solutions, and resources. Sometimes these are obvious connections and other times they are far from obvious.
* They drift from foreground to background in group settings. This allows them different perspectives. It also can depend on how they’re feeling, how inspired or engaged they are, or how uncomfortable the setting has become.
* They embrace the opportunity to add by employing an intentional “and then” philosophy that enhances creative thinking.
* They are encouragers of other creative people and ideas.
* They’re active at cheering for others to win.
* They continually stretch what is possible and have a vision for accomplishing the “impossible.”
* They understand when it’s time to change course, stop, or end an idea. This takes bold confidence and leadership. Idea Magnets tend to see this end before the masses.

Have you identified any Idea Magnets in your life? Are there other characteristics that you think would benefit Idea Magnets?

Empty Promises Book Trailer from Cross Point Church on Vimeo.

While reading the other day, these words rocked my world:

“Approval Addiction is essentially an act of abandonment. Instead of finding your value and worth from your Creator, you have essentially given up your heart for adoption. You have given it away to others for love and approval, making them responsible for your feelings.”

As artists, how does this happen to us?

We emotionally LIVE and DIE based on how people respond to WHAT WE DO rather than WHO WE ARE.

If people don’t like our songs…we have no value.
If a service doesn’t go well…we feel we’re destroying the organization.
When we build a campaign and it misses…we think we’ll be rejected forever.
A piece of art is created and we love it, but it’s turned down or doesn’t connect…and we instantly feel like we’ve been personally attacked.

It’s a slippery and extremely unhealthy slope we live on.

This is not how God intended us to live. Our value and approval can only be found in who He created us to be…not in the stuff we create.

And I get it – the balance is ever so delicate: in order to create great art, we have to be connected to it. Just remember that our value and worth is given to us FROM our Creator, not from the things we’re creating.

Walk in that freedom today…

If you would like more info about this topic.. CHECK OUT THIS BOOK. It WILL rock your world.

See You Sunday

Eventually, we all have a sometime.
Embrace it.
Learn from it.
Celebrate it or bury it – but whatever you do…

NEVER. EVER. GIVE. UP!

Because Sometime is going to come and when it does we need you and the gifts you bring to change the world.
Even if it is one persons world.

P.S.
Jenni Worte a KILLER POST over at SUNDAY.TV & Carlos killed this one.

In art or leadership, there is a silent powerful force that is rarely exercised…the power of the pause.

In art, we often find ourselves under strict deadlines that move us into creative production mode – where ideas come, get executed, then ship out. While I’m a fan of shipping, there is a big part of the process missing here: the pause. It slips in right after ideas and right before executions. Taking a pause – putting the idea down, walking away, and then revisiting – often allows us to see more and better options for our ideas. Allowing them the space to breathe gives our ideas the chance to become healthy and full.

In leadership, pausing allows us not to get caught up emotionally. So often, “decisive” leaders create wow decisions in split seconds. Creating a pause – a chance to diagnose the data, explore the options, and think through the response – can create even better decisions; ones that limit big mistakes because we’ve allowed ourselves time to digest before we decide. Most of the time, taking a minute to pause will not cost us anything but the frustration of people trying to complete their check lists.

Obviously, prayer matters massively.

We can’t allow the pause to turn into procrastination. Pause is just enough time to allow space for our decisions and ideas to get better, not for us to create excuses not to ship and move. Pausing makes us better, procrastination kills us.

Have you incorporated the pause into your creative or decision making process?

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The nature of art is about taking risks.

We want to create things that have never been created, do things no one has done, and try things that have not been tried. When we become audacious, it forces us to accept that taking risks leaves us exposed to what some may call “failure”.

Anyone who has “failed” understands the apprehension of taking risks the next time opportunity arrives; it can be scary. There are two things that will paralyze creativity faster than any others:

1. When we haven’t defined success.
2. When we haven’t defined failure.

Clarifying success and failure help create targets. This process also contextualizes expectations. As we start projects, bringing clarity to what success and failure look like will help us take the right risks and create our best projects and art.

Do you clearly define success and failure?

Do you clearly define success and failure? Could you share a story of your success or a time you failed?