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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?

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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?

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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?

Easter was two weeks ago.

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.

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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?

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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?

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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.