A mountain of POTENTIAL

Listed in Frommer’s 500 Places to Visit with Your Kids Before They Grow Up and cited by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of “35 Natural Wonders in the United States You Must See Before You Die,” Stone Mountain Park is located east of downtown Atlanta. The five square mile park is Georgia’s most visited attraction. Home to the world’s largest piece of exposed granite, Stone Mountain Park offers a variety of attractions and entertainment.

Stone Mountain wasn't always an attraction though, it was used as an Indian meeting place, a Fort, a Quarry, and now a world renowned tourist attraction.

I think we would all agree that the highest and best use of Stone Mountain would NOT be a cotton field. Let me explain.

I read a story about some farmers who were once the owners of Stone Mountain. But it seems that they determined that since you couldn’t grow cotton on this big rock, it wasn’t much use to them. So, they traded it....... for a shotgun – something much more useful. I guess they just didn’t have a long-range vision for the tourist trade.

The lens through which a farmer would view the world is growing things. Not much grows out of granite, except the yellow daisies found in the shallow soil of the outcrops. At least a shotgun fits into the hunter/gatherer worldview, for these farmers a "stone mountain" wasn't doing much to feed them so a shotgun would be much more profitable. This at that moment, put the mountain at its highest and best use possible.

"Highest and best use" is a concept of real estate appraisal. It holds that the value of property is directly related to the use of the property. The highest and best use is the reasonably probable use that produces the highest property value. The highest and best use may or may not be the current use of the property. Growing cotton was not the highest and best use for Stone Mountain.

Some would call "highest and best use" for people "potential". The root of “potential” is “potent,” which means to be able or powerful.

Here is the question, are you in your "highest and best use" in what you are doing?

It is easy to get sidetracked by circumstances (it happened to me yesterday) and not focus on the end goal!

All of us have a unique opportunity to use our abilities, personality, and experience to achieve greatness and as one of my friend's says "to awaken the hero within".

So, today is a new day and I am going to try and stay focused and not look at my "stone mountain" of problems but look for solutions, to work toward my potential and live toward my "highest and best use".

I encourage you to do the same:-)

Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he's called you to be, pray that he'll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something. If your life honors the name of Jesus, he will honor you.
1 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (The Message)

Life changing moment

Adopt

1. To take into one's family through legal means and raise as one's own child.
2. 1. To take and follow (a course of action, for example) by choice or assent: adopt a new technique.

George was born of slave parents on July 12, 1864 in Diamond Grove, Missouri. One night a band of raiders attacked his family and stole George and his mother. Days later, George was found unharmed but his mother was never found.

And then an incredible thing happened George was adopted! Because was small, he was not suited for work in the fields but he did possess a great interest in plants and was very eager to learn more about them.

On the farm is where George first fell in love with plants. He had his own little garden in the nearby woods where he would talk to the plants. He soon earned the nickname, The Plant Doctor, and was producing his own medicines right on the farm.

George was encouraged by his adoptive parents and became the first Afro-American to enroll at Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa. Following his graduation from Simpson College, he attended Iowa State Agricultural College where he earned a master's degree in 1892.

So, here is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say in his famous radio broadcast.

This man, George, was George Washington Carver. He did something no one else had done. From peanuts, he developed more than three hundred synthetic materials including: milk and cheese substitutes, dyes, and soap. He also found 108 uses for the sweet potato and 75 uses for the pecan. Over his lifetime, he created 118 products including rubber and dye from 28 different plants.

So here is our question for the day?

What if George had not been adopted and encouraged
to be all that God had created him to be?

I believe our life would be less enjoyable and absolutely less innovative.

I have some friends Steven and Maris Bush and they are in the process of adopting a child named August and I would like for you to consider helping them.

Here is how:

1. Steven is a great photographer and is selling prints on his website to raise the last amount of money. Click here to view the photos and BUY! These prints will be 8×10, and they will cost $35.00. This price includes shipping. If they can sell 140 prints…they will have the rest of the money!

or

2. Just donate HERE

3. Pray for them if you can't afford to buy a print or donate at the moment.

They are one of many couples who are trying to give a child an encouraging and a place of faith to grow and be all that God created them to be......who knows who the next George Washington Carver, Mozart, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jordan, Stevie Wonder, Nelson Mandela, Billy Graham, etc will be......

it could be someone YOU help adopt!

When we serve others, we more fully reflect the image of God… We may never be more like God than when we’re serving from a purely selfless motivation. — Erwin McManus

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Imagine this is a SEED!

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who can't see past what they know or the way they have always worked within in a system?

You haven't? Oh, then you haven't talked to anyone in the media industry (music, movies, books, art design) lately have you?

Now don't get me wrong, I know it is tough out there and the entire distribution system is under massive change.

But what industry has not had major change at some point?

I think it is easy to get stuck because we like for things to work the way they always have and sometimes they do.....for a while. But then someone throws a wrench in the whole system and comes up with an innovation. Most of the music industry's started with an "i"; internet, ipod, itunes, and iSteve (Steve Jobs that is)....you get the idea:-)

I think we tend to be like the ants in the Pixar movie A Bug's Life (iSteve was involved in that also). A Bug's Life tells the story of Flik, an individualist, an independent thinker, and would-be inventor among a colony of ants that is being oppressed by a gang of grasshoppers. The only insect capable of throwing a kink in the food chain. The ants have a system and it produces the same thing the same way every year (sound familiar?) and they have to produce a quota for the grasshoppers and also put just enough away for the ants to live on through the winter.

I think we are sometimes like the Queen of the ant colony. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when the Queen says:

This is my lot in life. It's not a lot, but it's my life.

Isn't this typical? We feel we can't change it or we just don't want to, so we settle for the way it is.

I love the following dialogue in the movie that speaks to using your imagination to spur on innovation.

Flik: Here, pretend this is a seed.

Dot: But it's a rock.

Flik: I know, I know, but let's for a minute pretend it's a seed, lets use our imaginations. You see our tree? Everything that is in that giant tree is contained inside this tiny seed. All it needs is some time, a little sunshine and rain, and voilá!

Dot: This rock will be a tree?

Flik: Seed to tree, you have to stay with me. Now, it may seem that you can't do anything, but that's just because you're not a tree yet. You just have to give yourself more time. You're still a seed.

Dot: But it's a rock.

Flik: I know it's a rock! Don't you think I'd know what a rock looks like? I've spent a lot of time around rocks!

Dot: You're weird, but I like you.

Point: Do you only see rocks or can you imagine the seed?

Gary Hamel in his book Leading the Revolution , says, most executives in an industry are “blind in the same way” – both to what is happening and to what they don’t see happening. In order to perceive new things, leaders must be willing to try innovations beyond current competencies!

Put another way, if it is comfortable it is probably not profitable!

You need to ask yourself:

· Is my dedication to the core "old way" killing the ability to innovate?

· How can I discover new ways to communicate and develop
new products, marketing, sales, even live my life, etc...?

· Do I have the courage to lead and not walk behind the other ants?

You can do it! oh, by the way there is a place to go for an endless supply of innovation and new ideas and it happens to be the One who created your imagination.

For we are God's workmanship,created in Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

MY LOGO

I have had the great opportunity to spend the last couple of days in New York with a friend who is running a non-profit. He asked if I would help him think through the branding and imaging of the organization. I love these types of meetings because you are able to dream big and most of the time the ideas take on a life of their own and ultimately you end up with a more clear vision of a brand and how to tell its story.

We discussed at length all they were trying to accomplish and talked about core values and mission and of course spent a lot of time on what the branding logo of the organization should "say".

Branding means a lot of different things to different people and there is not a lot of history on what the real story is but what we do know is that up a grassy mountainside ages ago, a big Norse farmer was getting a bit annoyed about having his cows stolen. In a fit of Viking desperation, he started to burn his initials into his cows to stop them being nicked. Brandr, the Norse word for fire, became our operative verb.

Interesting isn't it? An industry that would dominate marketing was born not from the desire to differentiate or connect with consumers, but from the simple need to mark ownership and origin.

So here are the questions we asked:

Does your brand logo get the reaction you want? Do customers think differently or act differently when they see your logo as opposed to your competitor? Should it?

While I firmly believe that a logo can trigger an emotional response attached to a brand, this goes a little farther than I would have expected: According to this post in the Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog, researchers at Duke have found that exposure to a particular logo (in this case, Apple or IBM) can result in behavioral changes. People who were flashed the Apple logo for 30 milliseconds (too fast to be consciously seen) performed more creatively than those who saw the IBM logo.

This begs the questions--

will thinking about the Nike logo make you run faster?
Will thinking of the Harvard University logo make you smarter?
Will pondering the Weight Watchers logo help you lose weight?

I don't know, but if it is true.....what is your logo inspiring when people look at?

In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A NEW BLURB

blurb - a short promotional description of a book, film, or other product

In the process of creating and marketing products, there always comes the point where you have to give a description of the product. It never fails, the sales, distribution, PR, and others will say...."Can you give me a blurb about the product?"

I looked at the word this week in an email and of course the creative part of my brain said, "Where did the word blurb come from anyway?"

A little digging pegs the word as an American original. Coined in 1907 by the humorist Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) to mock excessive praise printed on book jackets. Apparently Burgess said the copy on the book jacket of one of his books was the work of a "Miss. Belinda Blurb." And thus the blurb was born. Burgess was quite a character in his time. He was a writer of humorous verse including the infamous "The Purple Cow."

I NEVER saw a Purple Cow,

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

He was also an illustrator and engineer who taught at the University of California, Berkeley until he was fired for toppling over statues he considered eyesores. ????

Ok, enough about that, here is a thought.....have you ever invented a word?

Should you?

55% of searches are done with Google...most people no longer use the phone book.

The bad news is that just about everyone is quite bad at searching (did you know that one of the 100 most popular searches at Yahoo is "Yahoo"?)

What this means is that when you launch a product, people are going to go to Google, type in its name and expect to find it. What it also means is that when people want to find YOU they're going to go to Google and try to find you.

I am thinking about this today and think you should also if you are about to launch a product, website, blog, or just about anything.

So, let's do it....let's create something not yet seen....or Googled:-)

By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see. Hebrews 11:3 (The Message)

UNREASONABLE!

Have you ever had one of
those "unreasonable" days?

I had one today.....
not saying everyone was unreasonable and
definitely not saying that I was reasonable all day by any means!

We all live there sometimes!


Unreasonable....or pick one or more:

absonant, absurd, biased, excessive, exorbitant, extravagant, fanatical, fatuous, foolish, headstrong, illogical, impractical, inappropriate, incongruous, inflexible, inordinate, irrational, mad, obstinate, paralogical, preposterous, senseless, silly, stubborn, unconscionable, undue, unfair, unwarranted, unwise, illogicality, incoherence, irrationality, unreasonableness, unsoundness, outrageous, obscene, preposterous, ridiculous, shocking, unconscionable, out of bounds, out of sight

Beyond all reason!

Here is the road, the path, the course, the map:

Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. -James 3:17 (The Message)

On the journey.......

Perspective...hmmm I need more!

A different view or perspective can bring

truth or solutions to the surface very quickly....

by the way, children are the best at this.....

they are untainted by "the right way"!

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the trip?'

'It was great, Dad.'

'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked.

'Oh yeah,' said the son.

'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?' asked the father .

The son answered:

'I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.'

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.'

He is now rising from affluence to poverty. - Mark Twain

MORPHOO...the way of the future!

I woke up this morning thinking of all the things I "have" to do;

tomorrow.......this next week,
which then quickly this escalated to
strategic planning for this fall
and then for next year.

Always the danger in this for me is that this thinking leads me past my current "to do" list to all the things I need to do and then to the things I am not doing in my life, and to the things that "might" happen. The things I could be doing better.... which leads to the issues that I have failed to do and as you can see it leads very quickly, at least for me, to a downward spiral of failure

and all of this before I even got out of bed!!!

Now I may be the extreme, but I think most of us can get overwhelmed pretty quickly with what we should be doing and where we have failed and end up in the land of self defeat.

John Ortberg has written a book titled "The Life You have always Wanted" in it he says:

I have struggled (and still do struggle) with those same things. But I have also discovered that it is possible to live the life I've always wanted to live. You see, the Bible insists that the transformation of the human personality really is possible. It is never easy. It is rarely quick. But it is possible. I see it happening in people, occasionally even in myself. It happens any time people become intensely serious about learning from Jesus how to arrange their lives. It happens any time people set their focus on learning to live as Jesus would live if He were in their place.

Part of what goes on with this is what John Ortberg calls the discipline of SLOWING. We know all about the lifestyle of RUSHING right? We rush from one moment to the next, from one appointment to the next. With every moment, our life gets more hurried....How do we become what we are supposed to be and live our life to the fullest?

Well let's consider "morphing." The word "morph" comes from the Greek word "morphoo", which means "the inward and real formation of the essential nature of a person." The kind of spiritual transformation God wants each of us to experience is a complete "remaking" of our nature. So, He gave us a model an example, He wants us to see, feel, think, and do what Jesus would if He were in our unique place. What makes such a transformation possible? I have used this verse recently but I think it fits perfectly with the "morphoo" life...Romans 12:2 (The Message) says this:

Fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I want to live the life of "morphoo" to be moving toward what God has for me.....I hope you do to!

I may even have a tshirt made that says,

"MORPHOO THE WAY OF THE FUTURE"

....ok maybe not.

Yogi Wisdom...not Yoda

Yogi Berra was one of the great ballplayers. As well as a top Yankee hitter and catcher, he also spent years as a successful team manager. Yet Yogi will also go down in history for his odd comments. He once picked up a carry-out pizza. The clerk asked if he wanted the pizza sliced into six or eight pieces. Yogi replied, “Better make it six, I’m not that hungry.”

Most of his comments were not that idiotic. In fact, Yogi’s witticisms are actually clever, full of hard-won insight. When Yogi was asked questions his wisdom contained kernels of philosophy that apply to life, marketing, and interacting with others.

Maybe Yogi had a different take on life because he actually looked at the questions from a different viewpoint. So, what kind of lesson can we learn from Yogi Berra? Simplicity, honesty and humbleness. This is sometimes hard to do in a culture that is anything but simple, most of the time has a problem being honest, and being humble is not a virtue in marketing.

Here is what the book of James says about wisdom:

Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. James 3:13

And here is another nugget from our friend Yogi:

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."
-Yogi Berra

THE TRUTH ABOUT INVISIBLE

WORLDVIEW: (wûrld'vyōō') The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.

Typically a worldview will address the big questions of life, such as "What is ultimate reality?" (metaphysics); "How do we know?" (epistemology); and "Why does it matter?" (ethics). A worldview is the filter we use, consciously or subconsciously, to interpret our world and what happens in it.

When your story aligns with my worldview,
we have something to discuss.
When it doesn't, you're likely to be invisible.
-Seth Godin

How many times have you not listened to someone or they have not listened to you because you have drastically different opinions?

one minute your there and then.....

POOF!

YOUR INVISIBLE!

I don't want to be invisible. Most humans don't want to be invisible! We want to be heard, to be seen, to make an impact!

We want to tell our stories, market our products, and develop relationships.

So, what do we do? How do we become visible?

Some basics:

1. Start with the truth.

2. Identify the worldview of the people you need to reach.

3. Describe the truth through their worldview.

Then you will be..... VISIBLE.

Not today, but sooner or later, the truth wins out. Negative or positive, the challenge isn't just to tell the truth. It's to tell truth that resonates with the people you are trying to reach to be visible in their universe.

Go ahead and try it.......BE VISIBLE!

Your EST FACTOR

I missed a phone call because of EST.....that is Eastern Standard Time because I was on CST.... that is Central Standard Time. Those three letters made a big difference.

Now, the EST I am talking about today is not Eastern Standard Time.....it is actually not an acronym it is a suffix.

I saw this creative tip recently and I think it is one of those simple and practical tools that can help us think outside the box and be more deliberately creative in how we communicate with anyone in our marketing but these three letters can make a BIG difference.

What can EST do for you?

EST can help you define the uniqueness of YOU, YOUR COMPANY, or YOUR PRODUCT. The term “unique” comes from the Latin word, unicus, which means “the only one.” The ongoing challenge for you or me is to define the uniqueness for whatever we attach our creativity to...and then communicate it.

Can you have some examples? sure:

Richest. Biggest. Roughest. Saltiest. Craziest. Scariest. Shortest. Slowest. Smallest. Softest. Wackiest. Steepest. Stickiest. Longest. Luckiest. Stingiest. Purest. Quaintest. Straightest. Strongest. Teeniest. Tiniest. Toughest. Truest. Warmest. Weakest. Wildest.

Practical example: Which on of these sentences are you more attracted to?

1. Michael Phelps is a great swimmer!
or
2. Michael Phelps is the fastest swimmer in the world!

Will you call Johns company based on the first statement or the second?
1. John's company can reach a lot of pet owners.
or
2. John's company has the largest database of pet owners in the state.

EST WINS!!

So, your marketing challenge is the combined answers to the following three questions:

1. What’s the ONE THING you, your product, or your company does that nobody else does?
2. How could you reposition that uniqueness in the form of an EST?
3. How many different ways could you leverage that EST in your communication so you become KNOWN for it?

REMEMBER: Everyone possesses inherent uniqueness.

How will you communicate yours?

“Each one of you has something no one else has, or has ever had: your fingerprints, your brain, your heart. Be an individual. Be unique. Stand out. Make noise. Make someone notice. ”

- Jon Bon Jovi

Starting to THINK......

If you did something strange like enter "starting to think" in your google search engine, you would be amazed at what people are "starting to think" about.

For example:

"I am starting to think my tatto was a mistake"

"I'm starting to think about what is next..."

"I'm starting to think it is just me....."

"I am starting to think that striped tshirts are a new classic item"

"I am starting to think about summer camps"

"I'm starting to think about my future....."

You get the idea.....there are a lot of people thinking out there!

It is actually what comes natural.

This is what God created us to do.....we analyze, we ponder, we dream, we plan.

We all want our life to count for something more, to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and God calls us to step into each moment by shifting out of neutral and to start to think. You see, I believe that God has created you and me to do something.

And doing this requires initiative.

You have to think!

Now, some of you may be thinking....."I am not a good thinker"! You may feel more like Winnie the Pooh....think, think, think, and nothing seems to happen. I have GOOD NEWS for you! That is where you can rely on God!

Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God." 1 Corinthians 1:26 (The Message)

Now GO and THINK and DO and CREATE
and be all that God has planned for your life!

One last thing, if you are looking for where you should start your thinking:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

making an impact

Sir Isaac Newton in his first law of motion, declares, "An object will stay at rest or continue at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force."

translated... Unless you add a force to them... things that are still, stay still. Things in motion stay in motion.

What am I adding motion to in my life?

I have been thinking through this today on all of the projects we are working on, the people we are interacting with, and my family.

Hmmmmmm...there are definitely some things that have motion, (maybe more like spinning my wheels) and then there are things I need to push through and get them moving!

In our near past, our "motion options" were limited by where we lived, our family, our religion, or social status. Then came globalization, customization, personalization, and infinite diversity. We can now drink a Triple Mango Mocha Vivanno with a double shot of Caramel-Macchiato-Infused Soy Milk (ouch). All while creating a pair of running shoes from scratch at Puma.com while answering emails, and getting text messages from around the world......all of a sudden it seems nothing is impossible.

Ok, so I put some things in motion......I think the real question is, where is the impact? I know I can get lost in the entire "too many options life" and end up at the end of the day having been very busy "with motion" but honestly not having accomplished much?

It reminds of a great quote by Benjamin Franklin:

"Never confuse motion with action."

So, what do I do? how do I turn this motion into action?

Here is what Paul says in Romans 12:1:

Here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. (The Message)

Fix attention on God,
recognize His voice
and then quickly respond

.....sounds like a plan!