In his book Adapt, Tim Hartford talks about the process of adapting to failure. Hartford contends that it’s not only okay to fail, but that it’s necessary; that “success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right the first time.”

The creative mind fears failure. So much of our identity is tied to – and found in – our art. In this, we fear failure will take away our influence, voice, equity, or stature. Basically, we get full of pride and think it’s all about us and we don’t want to look bad. It’s okay – that’s natural. But real success is found when we’re comfortable knowing that failure is part of the process and when we realize tho we respond to failure is more important than how we hide it.

Being creative gives us a different lens. We see things in a way not everyone can. But because of our uncanny connection to our art, we often have blind spots that hinder our own self critique – or worse, we are so hard on ourselves and we never allow our art the space to
win.

Hartford continues, “When you’re fixing your own mistake, you’re challenging a status quo that you yourself made. That’s a terribly difficult thing to do, but it’s a brilliant skill if you can acquire it.”

• So breathe.
• It is okay.
• We’re all going to fail.
• When we do, we’re going to get back up.
• We will adjust.
• We will adapt.
• We will move quickly.
• We will choose responding and avoid reacting.
• We will challenge the status quos that exits around us – especially our own.
• Then, we will fail again.
• And again.
• And again.
• Right up until we succeed.

Have you embraced the fact we are all going to fail our way to success? How have you gotten comfortable with this concept? Are you building a culture where failure is permitted?

Leadership comes with a cost and when we’re leading volunteers, it requires us to be our best. Our volunteers have their own jobs – they’re giving their time because they care about the mission we’re on. They don’t need drama, they need leaders who are going to encourage them. As leaders of volunteers, we have to remember we’re representing not just ourselves but our organizations and all they stand for. We have to treat our volunteers and their time with a lot of respect. Here are a few things to remember when leading volunteers:

• Be thankful for what they can do. They don’t have to do it, so be grateful for them. They are giving time, energy, resource, and value to our organization. Never take that for granted.
• Create clear expectations. Don’t let them wonder what the win might be. Clarity of expectations allows everyone to have a great experience.
• Remember as a leader you have the inability to give up. As a leader, it’s important to know when to stop, but it’s never permissible to give up.
• As a leader, you set the tone. Setting the tone requires us to avoid the fray and stay above the emotion. Our tone will determine the pace, attitude, and engagement of our team.
• Leaders can’t give in to our feelings. Leaders understand the power of responding and avoid the temptation to react. Passion is vital to success, but ill-advised emotion can cost our teams so much.
• Influence requires investment. Sometimes you won’t want to have the conversation. Do it anyway. Sometimes the price to be paid for a project is going to be massive. You have to pay it. Invest in people. Care about them and what they care about. Send a text. Drop them a note. Shoot them an email. Make a phone call.
• Being a leader requires us to listen more than we speak. And when we speak, we must speak with vision. Vision is contagious so share it as often as possible. And no matter what, always avoid the temptation to dip into conversations that are not constructive or healthy. You are a leader, live above the fray.

What would you add to this list?

Sometimes it is important to remember how good we have it. It’s amazing what happens to our attitudes when we filter life through the lens of gratitude. There is so much we should be thankful for like:

• the chance to create
• opportunity
• obstacles
• being different
• not fitting in
• being misunderstood
• being afraid
• ministry
• the influence creativity provides
• the responsibility creativity requires
• great friends
• amazing family
• great organizations
• bad circumstances
• limits
• constraints
• purpose
• possibility
• passion
• hustle
• the people who doubt us
• those who cheer for us
• the haters
• the lovers
• the ones we confuse
• high expectations
• the chance to make art and history…every. single. day.
• permission to fail
• the drive to never be safe
• the chance to do something that has never been done

What are you thankful for?

Ideas are a dime a dozen.

More than likely, we’ll have more good ideas than we will margin to execute them. Sad, but it’s true.

So if we have a surplus of ideas, why not give them away?

Some people will say if we give our ideas or our secrets away, the competition will catch up. It’s possible, but not probable because the equation to success is much better than simply having an idea.

Every idea worth anything is unique and special, but no idea comes to life on it’s own. Most people don’t have the motor necessary to see their ideas come to life – this is why success is limited. Successful ideas, however, share four intangible qualities: passion, experience, creativity, and execution.

• You have passion. You care a ton about what you do and if you don’t, you care a ton about something you have not started to do yet. Go get started and work in your passion. When I was in the music business I realized that to remain successful I was going to have to have a passion that was out of this world. My dreams started being more about church then they were about music. It was time to go live in passion.
• You have experience. Your toolbox is full and unique. Use it today to make your ideas uniquely you. Your experience gives you the ability to understand how these ideas will unfold and the strategy necessary to see what is required to make them their best.
• You are creative and your creativity is a resource. Typically, resources – or lack thereof – are the first killer of any idea. Never let resource define you. You were created to create. Resources can be found or fabricated. The less resources we have, the more necessity there is for us to be creative.
• You can execute. This is the biggest intangible of them all. Ideas without plans and purposeful execution never have a chance to succeed. Execution is hard, takes a lot of work, and is far from sexy. It’s what separates the dreamers from the doers. You are both.

Do you have an idea that needs to be shared? Are you ready to do what it takes to make that idea succeed because you can, and you will?

“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.” -Rita Mae Brown

So often we discount our ability because of our insecurity.
We find excuses and reasons we should not be our best and hide behind them leaving our potential to spiral out of control.

If we believe we have been created in the image of the Creator, then we must also believe we have the ability to be creative. That may not mean we are all artists, but we all have access to creativity.

Through life and as we create we discover that there is instinct behind doing it – an intuition, if you will. The better we get at creating, the stronger and more precise this intuition becomes. But beware: with creativity comes the temptation to get lazy. When we hope more than we work, we’re not doing the necessary tasks to build our creative muscle and develop our instincts.

The equation is simple.

Show up.
Refuse to be intimidated by the work.
Stop listening to the voices.
Be diligent in doing our best creative work.
When the work gets hard, work harder.
Refuel.
Keep going.
Step away.
Give it space.
Come back.
Refine it.
Deliver it.
Start again.

Are you ready to overcome your fear and insecurity? Are you ready to deliver your best creative work? Hustle so that your creative muscle can get stronger, your instincts more intentional, and your ability to change your world to develop.

We need you.

We are really bad judges of our own creations.

As creative people, we are often very insecure about our creations. We walk through life and see all the great art being created arounds us and wonder: “how did they think of that? Where did that idea come from? I could never think of that! I would never be able to create that.” We see awesome people doing awesome things and just know that they are geniuses and we’re hacks.

But that lie is just not true. What is obvious to us may actually be magical to everyone else. The thing is, magic happens when we are busy doing our work.

When our focus becomes on being magical, the magic will never happen. But when we are occupied with doing our jobs, we are able to do what we do best. As we do our work, we start to create things and the by-product of our constant creation is to develop WOW moments for other people.

At some point, even the most amazing ideas have seemed obvious to their creator. That never stopped them from continuing to create. Maybe what is obvious to us can actually be amazing to everyone else.

Derek Siver, founder of CD Baby, has recently released a book entitled: Anything You Want where he talks about this concept and also drives home the point that often times we are bad judges of our own creations. We judge our ideas, our art, and our work through a different lens than our peers.

So, stop doubting. Stop believing the lie that you are not able to create WOW art. What is obvious to you may change the life of someone else. Go create and let the world decide while you are working, focused, and doing your thing.

Have you ever had an idea that felt obvious to you but blew someone else away?

We are all looking for an edge that will separate them from the noise in our communities.

Oftentimes, the key to breaking through the noise is to embrace the spirit of innovation that has driven change for years and the art of doing something new or different. When we do new and different things, it helps us to break through the typical creative patterns.

When Seacoast church became a multi-site, that was innovative.

When Hillsong started turning out songs from their ministry, it was innovative.

LifeChurch giving away resources at no cost is innovative.

Courageous Church giving away free breakfast and starting their church via social media was innovative.

So, how do we make our church or organization innovative?

We all find our God given individuality and build off of that first. Without know who we are we can’t ever truly innovate. From there these ideas could start the process for us:

• Create, don’t copy. Copying is easy. Creating is difficult. If we want to innovate, we have to do some difficult things. We have to create our own original works. What works for someone else may or may not work for us. If we are going to innovate, we have to identify the things that make us uniquely us; what makes us designer originals. When we get busy copying, we stop creating and without creation, there is no innovation.
• Have a clear mission. Not only having clear mission, but being committed to that mission forces us to point our organization towards innovation. We must know what we are willing to compromise on and what is non-negotiable. Our mission is the rudder of our organization. Our mission is the filter that every decision must pass through in order to be executed. Our mission keeps us on track and we will never innovate if we are not on track.
• Fall in love with the mission, not our method. When we do things, especially successful things, we must refuse the temptation to fall in love with our methods. We should always be looking for new ways to do the things we do every day. Innovation requires us to think about what is next, not what is now. When we love our methods, we stop trying to figure out what is next. We can never rest on our achievements. We have to always be striving for what God has next for us and how we can accomplish that differently and more effectively.
• Change our lens. The greatest innovations come from people who see things differently. When we are being our innovative best, people will wonder what in the world we are doing. Figuring out how to do things differently, looking at problems and opportunities differently (or non-conventionally) often give us the ability to be innovative. Innovation often makes people question before they accept. Don’t be afraid if what you are proposing seems like it is “out there” or not going to be accepted. If it was easy or not scary, everyone would do it.
• How can we do this better? These are six words that breed innovation. Study our systems and process then ask “How can we do this better?”
• Allow creativity to thrive. Innovation shines when our best ideas win. From the Senior Pastor to the intern, the best ideas matter. Find them, cherish them, and share them. Focusing on our best ideas allows us to be prepared when #2 on this list hits and we realize innovation means we have to change everything…again. Beating our best stuff is the best compliment for our creativity. We should not be worried about what other churches do. We need to be worried about what we are doing to be better – how we are beating ourselves and the best stuff we have ever done. When creativity thrives, we can see we are growing because we are being better than we have been before.
• Be intentional. We don’t drift into innovation. Being innovative takes intentionality and a culture that strives to make a mark in art and in history. Innovation should be a by-product of doing our work to the best of our abilities. Passionately staying on mission provides the opportunity for innovation to thrive. Innovation develops out of the simple processes that we are using to be better and be our best.
• Shake the haters. When we create great stuff, it will have lovers and haters – but it won’t live in the middle. The middle is where we are ignored. When we are so focused on people’s opinions, we drift from our message and our mission. People come to our churches for what God is doing in them. Ironically, we quickly fall victim to these same people who loved what we have done differently to make us uniquely us and try to change us to what they want church to be. Shake The Haters. Stay on mission. Fight to keep our DNA pure.
• Innovation is kin to revolution. What is the one thing we can do that no one has ever done before? What is the one thing our community needs that no one is giving them that fits in our mission? Doing THAT thing is innovative and will make a mark.
• Accept rejection. Not everyone is going to like us, and that is okay. When we are being innovative, we are going to be rejected. We must believe in what God has called our church to be…at all costs. Live in the confidence of all that God has called you to be – that is innovative in its own right.
• Innovation does not require infinite resources. Innovation creates momentum – this can be done without a ton of cash. Don’t rely on what funds you do or don’t have. It’s about ideas, not cash.
• Get the right crew. If we want to innovate, we have to have the right people in our organizations. Hire people who will be owners of your vision, not renters. Give them space to own. As they buy in and develop, partner them with people who will help them continue to remain an owner. Being an owner does not mean that someone has all the experience. It means they have all the motivation. Sometimes, experience can hamper innovation.
• Be a hustler. Innovation might happen tomorrow, or it could take years. But hustlers understand that we are working towards a goal, not just for the moment. Hustlers are always asking questions. Hustlers never feel they have arrived because they know there is more that can be done. Are all the people in your city saved? If you answered no, there is more work to be done. Keep working, keep pushing, and keep trying to get better.

These ideas won’t change what you do, but they might challenge what you do and allow you think with innovation as a lens. So, let’s innovate. In our communities, our churches, and our world. We may never be LifeChurch, Elevation, or Mars Hill, but we can be our absolute best “US” in our community, and that is what really  matters.

Do you feel you are working in an organization that can change YOUR world? Are you ready to innovate? What would you add to this list?