Mikes Recent Musings

EXPLORE THE BUSINESS OF GRANT PROPOSAL WRITING

2012-01-28T14:24:00.000-06:00

By Gail R. Shapiro

Many professional writers are asked to help charities write proposals for grants. How do you get started as a professional proposal writer?

Most of us began by volunteering to raise funds for a non-profit organization with which we already were involved. Others started by answering an ad for a grant writer. (Note: this term often is used incorrectly. The one who writes the proposal is a "grant proposal writer," the one who gives the money writes the grant). Many times, little or no compensation is offered by small or start-up non-profit organizations asking for proposal writing help. You obviously can choose to volunteer your time, either to get more experience in learning how to write proposals, or because you love the mission of the organization.

But for those who dream of becoming a paid professional in the field, it's important to understand that grant proposal writing is not simply creative writing. It takes training, as well as technical knowledge, both in non-profit management as well as in the "business" of your client's organization. It can also require knowledge of the funders in your particular geographic area, as well as each one's specific focus and priorities.

Most grant proposal writers are hired by non-profits, schools, and agencies. Many others are free-lance consultants working for a regular group of clients or taking occasional assignments. Beware of offers to pay you a percentage of monies raised! Working on a percentage basis (or small fee plus percentage) not only is not advantageous either to the client or the writer, but it also violates the Code of Ethics of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (www.afpnet.org), to which many of us belong. It is unlikely that a professional who cares about advancing philanthropy and donor-based fundraising would work on a commission basis. In addition to being unethical, it devalues your time and skills.

Most proposal writers charge by the project or by the hour, as it is difficult to tell ahead of time how long it will take to prepare a proposal, particularly if one has not worked before with a particular client. Much depends on what the client already has prepared, how cooperative they are about getting information to the writer in a timely way, whether this proposal is a top priority for them, and so on.

Before you accept even a volunteer position as a proposal writer, be sure that the program or project for which the client is requesting funds is fully developed, has a feasible budget, and a good evaluation component. Developing this material is the duty of the program staff who will be implementing the project or program. Missing any one of these components means that, in addition to being a proposal writer, you will be expected to serve as: program developer, evaluation specialist, and maybe even budget developer.

An experienced proposal writer normally has some knowledge of all these components and skills. If you are called upon to do more than write the proposal itself, make sure you are properly compensated. If you don't have experience in these areas, then volunteering with a NPO may be a good place to start one's career. Keep copies of all proposals you write, even those that are not successful. You can learn as much from failures as from successes.

Always be mindful of your client's confidentiality and proprietary information - grants are competitive, and the agency most likely will not want their work shared with others.

While the field is competitive, there is always room for good people in any profession. If you are not directly involved in providing vital services to a specific population to help them improve or change their lives, or in making your community more livable or beautiful, or in protecting our environment, then obtaining money for those who do this work is a great contribution to make to the world. We wish you well in your endeavors.

Carla C. Cataldo and Gail R. ShapiroExcerpt adapted from:Get That Grant, The Quick-Start Guide to Successful Proposals

BIOGail R. Shapiro, Ed.M, and Carla C. Cataldo, M.P.P., offer consulting services to non-profit organizations. Together they have 55 years of experience writing successful proposals in education, health, human services, transportation, the arts, and other fields. They have taught hundreds of students nationwide how to write polished, winning grant proposals.

Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List | Poynter.

2012-01-21T11:29:00.000-06:00

Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List | Poynter.

Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List

by Roy Peter ClarkPublished June 30, 2006 2:32 pmUpdated Aug. 2, 2011 2:38 pm

Use this quick list of Writing Tools as a handy reference. Copy it and keep it in your wallet or journal, or near your desk or keyboard. Share it and add to it.

I. Nuts and Bolts

1. Begin sentences with subjects and verbs.
Make meaning early, then let weaker elements branch to the right.
2. Order words for emphasis.
Place strong words at the beginning and at the end.
3. Activate your verbs.

Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.
4. Be passive-aggressive.
Use passive verbs to showcase the “victim” of action.
5. Watch those adverbs. Use them to change the meaning of the verb.

6. Take it easy on the -ings.
Prefer the simple present or past.
7. Fear not the long sentence.
Take the reader on a journey of language and meaning.
8. Establish a pattern, then give it a twist.
Build parallel constructions, but cut across the grain.
9. Let punctuation control pace and space.
Learn the rules, but realize you have more options than you think.
10. Cut big, then small.
Prune the big limbs, then shake out the dead leaves.

II. Special Effects

11. Prefer the simple over the technical.
Use shorter words, sentences and paragraphs at points of complexity.
12. Give key words their space.
Do not repeat a distinctive word unless you intend a specific effect.
13. Play with words, even in serious stories.
Choose words the average writer avoids but the average reader understands.14. Get the name of the dog.

Dig for the concrete and specific, details that appeal to the senses.
15. Pay attention to names.
Interesting names attract the writer ï¿½ and the reader.
16. Seek original images.
Reject clichï¿½s and first-level creativity.
17. Riff on the creative language of others.
Make word lists, free-associate, be surprised by language.
18. Set the pace with sentence length.
Vary sentences to influence the reader’s speed.
19. Vary the lengths of paragraphs.
Go short or long — or make a “turn”– to match your intent.
20. Choose the number of elements with a purpose in mind.
One, two, three, or four: Each sends a secret message to the reader.
21. Know when to back off and when to show off.
When the topic is most serious, understate; when least serious, exaggerate.
22. Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction.
Learn when to show, when to tell, and when to do both.
23. Tune your voice.
Read drafts aloud.

III. Blueprints

24. Work from a plan.
Index the big parts of your work.
25. Learn the difference between reports and stories.
Use one to render information, the other to render experience.
26. Use dialogue as a form of action.
Dialogue advances narrative; quotes delay it.
27. Reveal traits of character.
Show characteristics through scenes, details, and dialogue.

28. Put odd and interesting things next to each other.
Help the reader learn from contrast.
29. Foreshadow dramatic events or powerful conclusions.
Plant important clues early.
30. To generate suspense, use internal cliffhangers.
To propel readers, make them wait.
31. Build your work around a key question.
Good stories need an engine, a question the action answers for the reader.
32. Place gold coins along the path.
Reward the reader with high points, especially in the middle.
33. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Purposeful repetition links the parts.
34. Write from different cinematic angles.
Turn your notebook into a “camera.”
35. Report and write for scenes.
Then align them in a meaningful sequence.
36. Mix narrative modes.
Combine story forms using the “broken line.”
37. In short pieces of writing, don’t waste a syllable.
Shape shorter works with wit and polish.
38. Prefer archetypes to stereotypes.
Use subtle symbols, not crashing cymbals.
39. Write toward an ending.
Help readers close the circle of meaning.

IV. Useful Habits

40. Draft a mission statement for your work.
To sharpen your learning, write about your writing.
41. Turn procrastination into rehearsal.
Plan and write it first in your head.
42. Do your homework well in advance.
Prepare for the expected — and unexpected.
43. Read for both form and content.
Examine the machinery beneath the text.
44. Save string.
For big projects, save scraps others would toss.
45. Break long projects into parts.
Then assemble the pieces into something whole.
46. Take interest in all crafts that support your work.
To do your best, help others do their best.
47. Recruit your own support group.
Create a corps of helpers for feedback.
48. Limit self-criticism in early drafts.
Turn it loose during revision.
49. Learn from your critics.
Tolerate even unreasonable criticism.
50. Own the tools of your craft.
Build a writing workbench to store your tools.

All of these tips are available via podcast through iTunes.

To purchase a copy of “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer,” visit your local or online bookstore or click here (as an Amazon affiliate, Poynter will receive a small cut of the profit). You can contact the author at: rclark@poynter.org.

The Inevitable path

2012-01-20T07:11:00.002-06:00

The current situation: (from Time)

"In other words, by focusing primarily on fiscal austerity and liquidity support, Europe has entered a race to the bottom. The more budgets get cut and taxes go up, the weaker economies become. That makes it harder to meet fiscal targets or stabilize debt, leading to more cutting and tax hikes and even slower growth, and so on and so on. Economies enter recessions (which is already happening across Europe), making reform more difficult and spooking investors, causing borrowing rates to rise and putting more pressure on national finances. It’s a deadly spiral. By simply imposing more rules on fiscal policy – the basis of a German-inspired vision for a more integrated euro zone – Europe’s leaders are setting targets many members can only meet through extensive suffering, and thus, the new drive for reform of the euro zone can make the debt crisis worse, not better. What’s missing in the reform equation is the other side of integration – not just more dictates and rules, but deeper policy coordination to spur growth and help weaker economies. Instead of an “austerity union” now being pursued, the euro zone needs a true fiscal union, one that doesn’t just penalize rule-breakers, but also uses tax and budgetary coordination to assist debt-ridden economies return to health. That could include a “eurobond” or other methods towards at least partial debt consolidation. Along with a beefier bailout fund, the euro zone must engage in policy changes across its members to reduce imbalances and aid less competitive economies find growth."

Your Three Investing Opponents - Thoughts from the Frontline Investment Newsletter - John Mauldin

2011-12-26T15:20:00.000-06:00

Your Three Investing Opponents - Thoughts from the Frontline Investment Newsletter - John Mauldin:

The worse we are at any specific skill set, the harder it is for us to evaluate our own competency at it. This is called the Dunning–Kruger effect. This precise sort of cognitive deficit means that areas we are least skilled at – let’s use investing decisions as an example – also means we lack the ability to identify any investing shortcomings. As it turns out, the same skill set needed to be an outstanding investor is also necessary to have “metacognition” – the ability to objectively evaluate one’s own abilities. (This is also true in all other professions.)

Unlike Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, where all of the children are above average, the bell curve in investing is quite damning. By definition, all investors cannot be above average. Indeed, the odds are high that, like most investors, you will underperform the broad market this year. But it is more than just this year – “underperformance” is not merely a 2011 phenomenon. The statistics suggest that 4 out of 5 of you underperformed last year, and the same number will underperform next year, too.

Underperformance is not a disease suffered only by retail investors – the pros succumb as well. In fact, about 4 out of 5 mutual fund managers underperform their benchmarks every year. These managers engage in many of the same errors that Main Street investors make. They overtrade, they engage in “groupthink,” they freeze up, some have been even known to sell in a panic. (Do any of these sound familiar to you?)

'via Blog this'

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method

2011-11-15T21:46:00.001-06:00

From ehow.

The snowflake method of writing a novel is a scientific approach to writing a book and was invented by Randy Ingermanson, an award-winning author of fiction. This method shows how to write a novel that resembles how a mathematical snowflake is created by repeatedly adding more steps in a structured manner. By starting with small ideas, writing them down and then adding to previous steps, you can soon have a novel ready to send to a publisher.

- 1Write a summary of your novel in one sentence. Take an hour and write out your one sentence summary. This sentence will be how you hook an editor into buying your novel. Therefore, it should be the best you can think up.
- 2
  Turn your sentence into a 5 sentence paragraph that outlines the beginning, conflicts and the end of your novel. Next, give each of the major characters a one page biography. Put down what motivates each of them and the conflicts they will endure.
- 3
  Go back to the paragraph in step 2. Turn each of the 5 sentences into individual paragraphs. All of the paragraphs should have some excitement and conflict with four of them ending with a disaster and the last paragraph telling how the novel ends. Then, take a day or two and write a page long character synopses for all the main characters. Write a half page synopses for any supporting characters.
- 4
  Take your one page synopsis from step 4. Turn it into a 4 page synopsis. You'll do this by expanding each of the paragraphs into 4 individual pages over a period of one week. Next, take another week and expand the biography you created in step 4 for all of your characters. Now is the time to sort through the story lines to see which are workable and revise anything that needs it.
- 5
  Use a spreadsheet to make a list detailing all of the scenes you'll need from the 4-page synopsis. Create a line for each scene. List the point of view character in one column and a description of the scene in another column. You can also add a chapter number for each scene and list them in a column.
- 6
  Expand each of the lines on the spreadsheet into a multi-paragraph description of the scene. If you find no conflict by the end of a scene, either rewrite it so there is conflict or cut out that scene. After you finish the steps above, take a break and catch your breath. Next, gather the pages you worked out with the snowflake method. Type them into a novel.

The Truth about Marketing

2011-10-19T04:53:00.002-05:00

From Here.

1. Do all the thinking for them

The worst mistake you can make when asking anyone for anything is telling them to “Think it over.”
Here’s why: people already have too much to think about.

And so the best strategy is to not ask them to think.

Be specific. Explain your reasoning. Offer proof. Tell them what to do next and why.
If you do it right, it won’t feel like asking at all. It’ll be more like advising.
And they’ll say yes. Not because of magical powers of persuasion, but because you’ve thought through everything, and it’s a no-brainer.

2. Start an avalanche

Pushing over a small rock is easier than pushing over a boulder, but the boulder is a lot more likely to cause an avalanche. So while it’s more work in the beginning to get top people to help you, it’s actually less work in the long run, and the results are far, far greater.

3. Ask for an inch, take a mile

Whenever you’re asking for anything, never start by asking for everything upfront. Instead, start small. Make it easy to get started. Reduce the risk if it flops. Let them see the results for themselves.And when it goes well, ask for more. And more. And more.
You might think that’s unethical, but if everything is going well, why not push for more? It’s not manipulation. It’s common sense.
For instance:

If you want to write a guest post for a popular blog, start by pitching the idea in one or two paragraphs, and then send them an outline, and then write the full draft of the post

If you want do a JV promotion with a leader in your field, start by asking them to email your launch content to only 10% of their list, and than 50% of their list, and then 100%, and then a direct mail campaign

If you want your customers to give you case studies, start by asking for a 1-3 sentence blurb, and then ask for a half-page testimonial, and then talk about doing a two-hour webinar going in depth about their success

No one likes to risk everything upfront, and by offering progressive levels of commitment, your chances of getting them to say yes go through the roof.

4. Always have a real deadline

The keyword is “real.”

Real urgency is easy to create. With a little thought, you can build it into your marketing. For example:

Instead of leaving a free report on your blog forever, tell everyone it will only be available for seven days, and then you’re going to start charging $7 for it. Not only will you get a lot more downloads, but other bloggers will be a lot more likely to promote it during the window
Instead of letting JV partners dictate when they will promote your product, schedule a launch, announce it to your list, and then forward partners the announcement, inviting them to participate
Instead of asking customers for testimonials whenever they get around to it, show them the timeline for an upcoming launch, including a specific date to send out testimonials. You need it by then, or you won’t be able to include it

Will some of them bow out, saying they are too busy right now, and they’ll catch you next time?
Sure, but it’s better than never getting started it all. And if you let other people dictate timelines, that’s exactly what will happen.

5. Give ten times more than you take

It’s about generosity so overwhelming they can’t say no.

6. Stand for something greater than yourself

That’s the power of standing for something bigger than yourself. It makes people care.
And it applies to everything:

Instead of writing yet another how-to post, take a stand on an important issue, arguing with both passion and unassailable logic
Instead of starting yet another me-too consulting business, create a movement, working tirelessly to change the lives of your customers
Instead of selling yet another step-by-step manual, sell a philosophy, filled with heroic examples to inspire your customers

Those are the types of things people want to talk about. They feel grateful just for having the chance to help you spread the word.

7. Be completely and utterly shameless

You want to know what separates a great marketer from a mediocre one?
Shamelessness.

By shamelessness, I mean this:An unshakable belief that what you are doing is good for the world and the willingness to do anything to bring it into being.
When you believe in your content, you don’t publish it and forget it. You promote it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, working tirelessly to spread the message to everyone who needs to hear it, and refusing to rest until they do.
When you believe in your product, you don’t balk at sales. You revel in it. Not because you’re greedy or desperate or egotistical, but because you know your product will help them, and so it’s your duty to get them to buy. Whatever it takes.
When you believe in your charity, you don’t beg for donations. You demand them. You grab people by the shoulders and look them in the eyes and tell them what you’re doing is changing the world, and it’s time for them to step up and do their part.
It’s not about money. It’s not about glory. It’s not even about legacy.
It’s about falling in love. It’s about being enchanted. It’s about seeing a vision so beautiful you can’t help but fight to make it real.
Do you have a vision like that? Something worth getting up every day and fighting for?
If you do, you can accomplish damn near anything.

Elmore Leonard's Rules of Writing

2011-10-01T19:47:00.000-05:00

From: http://www.kabedford.com/archives/000013.html

In keeping with recent posts featuring prominent authors' tips for writers, here's Elmore Leonard's famous Ten Rules of Writing. Leonard is a crime writer, and quite possibly among my top three favourite writers ever. Looking over these rules, I can see I've got a lot of trimming to do in my own work. Too much "hooptedoodle", it would appear. Link.

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle

from the New York Times, Writers on Writing Series.

By ELMORE LEONARD

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday,” but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range.”

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character—the one whose view best brings the scene to life—I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in “Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”

“Sweet Thursday” came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

How to Draw Caricatures: The 5 Shapes | Tom's MAD Blog!

2011-06-03T17:13:00.001-05:00

How to Draw Caricatures: The 5 Shapes | Tom's MAD Blog!

16 things to check when you edit

2011-05-04T18:47:00.003-05:00

From www.thinkingandmaking.com

Be vicious when you edit. Vicious. Follow these recommendations with zealous fervor. They help your writing say what it should in a way we’ll understand.

1. I think, I’d say, im my opinion, what I’ve found, in my experience… Yeah. We know. You wrote this. These are your thoughts. If they’re not, provide a reference. If they’re yours, the byline is enough to remind us.

2. Delete all adverbs and adjectives unless they’re absolutely, totally, inherently necessary. Each unnecessary word weakens your impact and clarity.

3. Remove prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases are less important than your main point. If it’s not important enough to deserve its own sentence, it’s not important enough to read.

4. Active not passive. Kill “to be” verbs. All of them. Always.

5. Kill -ing words. Restructure your sentence so the -ing is an active verb.

6. Lead with the bottom line up front: BLUF. Then include an example, re-state the bottom line, include an illustration, and when you end restate the bottom line. For every point you make, follow this pattern. That’s bottom line, example, bottom line, another example, and then the bottom line (again).

7. Telegraph and signpost what you will say and why we care. We’re not reading mystery novels. We want to know who died, how, who killed them, and why we care up front. That way, we know why we want to read before we begin.

8. Use clear, informative headers. Cute or artsy might be pleasant on the first read, but when we reference it later, the cute header makes it a pain to find things. What you’re writing is worth going back to, right?

9. Introduce new terminology in the intro. If you’ve created a new term or applied a new phrase to describe something, define it at the beginning, and use the new terminology throughout your writing. Readers need the entirety of your piece to learn and assimilate the new phrasing.

10. Typically, sometimes, often times, usually… Yeah. We know. You don’t have to tell us.

11. Say “you” and “your”. Don’t use nouns when talking about your audience (like “User Experience Practitioners”). And don’t use “one”. Speak to us.

12. Ditch clunky words. Instead of “via”, write “using”. Instead of “upon”, say “on”.

13. Remove cliches and common phrases. Every time you take a common phrase shortcut, you’re telling us it’s not worth our time.

14. Use contractions. Write with proper grammar, and people will read. Write like you talk, and people will listen.

15. No pronouns. Repeat the noun over and over again. If you get tired of that, use synonyms.

16. Delete your best lines. We don’t care about poetry, wit, or slyness. We care about what you want to say.

After you edit…

The finished piece should be so tight, terse, concise, and clear that it’s boring.

Boring.

Then sand off the rough edges.

Write like you talk. Where the concise feels awkward, add conversational. Where tight lacks nuance, tease details. Where terse is cold, be warm.

The first 16 recommendations remove fluff and force you to think and communicate. Once you’ve finished editing’s intellectual work, go back and make sure you write like you talk. Writing begins a conversation. If we feel like you’re talking to us, we’ll listen.

Knock It Out of the Park Speech Preparation

2011-03-07T09:33:00.002-06:00

Here's a great article for speakers in the HBR Blog by Dan Pallotta

Checklist: (read the article for details)

Know your goal.
Memorize your speech.
If you don't want to knock it out of the park, don't follow rule 2.
Practice the transitions.
Don't fear silence.
Never, ever, ever use PowerPoint as your speech notes.
Give something of yourself.
Be yourself.
Don't speak in abstractions.
Feel what's happening in the room
Make eye contact until it scares you.
Don't miss your own talk.
Come from a place of love for your audience.

The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through: Handoff Checklist

2011-01-26T11:16:00.002-06:00

From a Harvard Business Review blog article by Peter Bregman.
He got it from a HBR IdeaCast podcast by Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and author of The Checklist Manifesto.

When the ball gets dropped, it's usually because of handoff failures. Here is a simple checklist to prevent those failures.

Handoff Checklist

* What do you understand the priorities to be?
* What concerns or ideas do you have that have not already been mentioned?
* What are your key next steps, and by when do you plan to accomplish them?
* What do you need from me in order to be successful?
* Are there any key contingencies we should plan for now?
* When will we next check-in on progress/issues?
* Who else needs to know our plans, and how will we communicate them?

A Different Breed of Cat

2010-12-22T10:54:00.001-06:00

Reader's Digest November 1964; Vol 85, No 511
"We Are a Different Breed of Cat.
Sir" about the United States Air Force Academy by John G. Hubbell.

My Favorite Quotations

2010-11-12T11:32:00.001-06:00

“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Lewis Carroll

"Championships are won in the off-season." - Charles Daugherty quoting a t-shirt

"The [obvious] issue is never the [real] issue. - Kim Pagel
...
"Be slow to attribute to malice or guile, that which can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, or muddling through." - My modification of Hanlon's Razor, stolen from Heinlein's Razor, stolen from Napoleon.

"If you are going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk" -Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

Anything by Lazarus Long. e.g "Never try to teach a pig to sing- it wastes your time and annoys the pig." and "A motion to adjourn is always in order."

"The product is Service. You only sell hardware to provide installed base." - Probably from Barb Gatti

"My ancestors did not fight and claw their way to the top of the food chain so I could eat tofu and bean sprouts." - motto of PETA [People Eating Tasty Animals]

"Eighty percent of success is showing up" - Woody Allen

"If you can't fix it, then feature it!" - Gnarly old Collins Program Manager [probably Jim Lockwood]

"It's not really flying unless you are upside-down at least once." - Me

"The worst case is [simultaneously] being out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas...unless you add inverted." - Old pilot's aphorism

"The last red pen always wins." - Me

"In the long run, we are all dead." - JM Keynes

"The markets can be irrational longer than you can be solvent." - JM Keynes

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
--Dilbert

"Don't ask the question if you cannot stand the answer." -unknown

"I never saw an emergency that was improved by screaming" - an ER doctor

"Maintain control, analyze the situation, take the proper action" - Air Force basic flight manual

"When playing poker, if you cannot tell who the mark is...it's you." - Bob Sevier

"You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other Allied Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her Armed Forces." - Roosevelt to Eisenhower. An example of a proper command from political authority to the military. Then get out of the way.

Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgment. - Will Rogers

Government spending does not have a multiplier effect on the economy. It is at best neutral. What creates growth is private investment, increases in productivity, and increases in population. That's it. Tax increases have a negative multiplier.
- John Mauldin

Government Imapct

2010-10-30T10:03:00.000-05:00

By John Mauldin
Government spending does not have a multiplier effect on the economy. It is at best neutral. What creates growth is private investment, increases in productivity, and increases in population. That's it. Tax increases have a negative multiplier.

My Favorite Books

2010-10-26T05:39:00.001-05:00

The Bible (NIV or NASB),
Getting to Yes, Getting Past No,
Winning Teams, Managing Transitions,
Atlas Shrugged, any Heinlein except Job,
My Utmost for His Highest, Herding Cats,
Don't Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart,
Shogun, Whirlwind, Noble House,
Dune, The Foundation Trilogy,
The Five Points of Calvinism,
Practicing the Presence of God,
The Mote in the God's Eye, Godel Escher Bach,
The theory of Games and Economic Behavior,
The Light and the Glory, From Sea to Shining Sea, The Civil War:A Narrative (triology),
Real World Intelligence
The Pyramid Principle
E.M. Bounds on Prayer

My Favorite Movies

2010-10-26T05:34:00.002-05:00

Casablanca, Gandhi,
Animal House, Patton,
Honeysuckle Rose, Star Wars I-III,
Apocalypse Now, Sin City,
The Searchers, African Queen,
In Harm's Way, Streets of Fire,
Gladiator,
Hero (AKA Ying Xiong 2002 in Chinese with English subtitles),
Curse of the Golden Flower
Godfather I+II+III, Lord of the Rings,
All Monty Python, both Blues Brothers,
Casino Royale, Saving Private Ryan,
Big Trouble in Little China,
anything with Diane Lane,
anything with Kathleen Turner,
Once Upon a Time in America,
Mash, Blazing Saddles,
Flashdance, Death Hunt,
Swimming to Cambodia,
Real Genius, Top Gun,
The Man Who Would Be King,
Driving School, Urban Cowboy,
The Name of the Rose, Young Frankenstein,
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

My Favorite Music

2010-10-26T05:28:00.003-05:00

Reveille, First Call, Charge
In My Quiet Room (Harry Belefonte Album )
Beauty and the Beast (Ann Margret / Al Hirt Album)
Teach Me Tiger (April Stevens)
One Trick Pony (Paul Simon)
Rhapsody In Blue
Scheherazade
Gus: The Theatre Cat (Cats!)
Memories (Cats!)
I Don't Know How to Love Him (Jesus Christ Superstar)
Everythings Alright (Jesus Christ Superstar)
Man of La Manca (Linda Eder)
Another Suitcase in Another Hall (Evita; Madonna)
I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You (Evita; Madonna)

One of the root problems

2010-10-23T21:01:00.001-05:00

from an opinion article by Phil Kerpen

Published October 22, 2010 in FoxNews.com

Prosperity depends on economic freedom. An abundance of historical and international evidence shows that countries that embrace economic freedom—including labor mobility, free trade, low tax rates, low government spending, and strong property rights—have significantly higher living standards than less free countries.

For the past ten years, the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have measured economic freedom and charted the connection between economic freedom and prosperity. In the 2010 edition of their report, they noted: “The positive relationship holds true at all levels of economic freedom but becomes even more dramatic as economic freedom increases.”

10 Tips for Giving an Important Speech

2010-10-21T10:09:00.001-05:00

Get ready to fearlessly step onstage in front of a large audience.

By Alyssa Danigelis | Oct 19, 2010

The better part of a million dollars was on the line. Every year the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge in Amsterdam gives away 500,000 Euros for the best idea for a green product or service. In 2008, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre presented their alternative to synthetic building materials.

"In terms of a high pressure talk, that was probably the hardest in my memory," Bayer says. He practiced the talk out loud in front of his computer, making changes to his slides as he went. In the end the talk was a success. Bayer's team won the coveted check.

Since then, Bayer has became CEO of Ecovative Design, a company he co-founded that makes green packaging materials derived from fungi near Troy, New York. He's been invited to give many more speeches, including at the annual Pop!Tech conference in Camden, Maine, and the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference in Oxford, England.

With self-directed, local "TEDx" talks taking off, more communities will be inviting local innovators to speak. Presenting at this kind of event is an opportunity to capture the energy of a packed auditorium and translate it into a boon for business.

Those preparing for this kind of talk have heard "practice, practice, practice" and "less is more," but there are still speakers who make audience members fight to stay awake. With that in mind, experienced presenters offer these key steps for rallying a large, influential audience of peers around a central idea.

1. Be Your Passionate Self

Audiences are perceptive. They can even sense enthusiasm from back in the nosebleed seats. "Even if you're reading off the slide but you're really excited about it, the audience will give it to you," Bayer says.

Nan Crawford is an executive coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area who primarily works with female leaders on their presentation skills. Crawford coached Elayne Doughty, a psychotherapist who was raising money to go to the Congo and participate in the international V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls. Doughty expected she would need to do several events to raise enough money for the trip, according to Crawford.

"I coached Elayne on her stories," she says. Crawford drew out what had grabbed Doughty about the cause, asking her when and how it had captured her attention. She also framed fundraising as an opportunity to shift away from fear and invite others to invest in a solution.

"She gave an impassioned presentation," Crawford says. At the end of the first event, Doughty surpassed her fundraising goal by 25 percent.

Dig Deeper: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Presenters

2. Tell a Helpful Story

Speakers are usually advised to try to know their audiences. Taken a step further, Crawford suggests that speakers make sure they understand not only who is in the audience, but also the challenges the audience faces. Then, the talk should address those challenges with a personal and powerful story that resonates.

Daniel Pink, author of the books A Whole New Mind and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is a former speechwriter for Al Gore. He says he's seen the opposite happen too many times. "The biggest mistake is people think it's about them rather than about the audience," he says. "They spend too much time talking about themselves."

Instead, an effective presenter will focus on the challenges without giving a laundry list of accomplishments. Anthropologist, filmmaker, and National Geographic explorer Elizabeth Lindsey is frequently invited to speak about leadership through an anthropological lens. "The more we talk about the things that matter to us, and less about our achievements, people breathe a collective sigh of relief," she says. "All of us want to be better. Human nature is always seeking advancement."

Dig Deeper: Get Publicity and Bolster Profits Through Public Speaking

3. Use Fewer Words Than Usual

Less really is more when it comes to big talks. But putting that into practice is far easier said than done. Giving a talk is an opportunity to amplify your message in a way that books and articles can't. Being a different outlet, it has different requirements.

"If all you have for me is information, invite me to buy your book," Crawford says. "But when we stand in front of an audience we have an opportunity to share not just our information but our energy."

For Bayer, seeing how slowly he can give his talk helps him communicate better. "Typically what feels best to the communicator is to give as much information as possible," he says. "But what you really want to do is tell them the idea in a simple way three times or more. If you blast them with detail they get this mushy feeling in their heads."

Pink emphasizes that speaking is a relatively small window, and the audience has a limited attention span. "It's far easier to make seven small points than one big point," he says. "You have to think to yourself, what do you want to leave people with, what do you want them thinking, and what do you want them doing?"

Dig Deeper: Writing and Organizing a Winning Speech

4. Engage the Audience Early

Don't wait for a Q&A at the end to go for audience participation. Start right away, Crawford says. Ask questions so that audience members can stand up instead of raising their hands. Invite them to take a minute, turn to a neighbor, and share a thought. Ask one person to describe theirs.

"Great, how many people share that same concern?" Crawford suggests asking. "Sometimes when you ask that question everyone will stand." Getting responses can help focus a talk, even for an extremely large audience.

Pink describes watching symphony conductor Benjamin Zander give a presentation years ago. "He actually used his piano and brought the audience into the talk, had the audience do things, and made a lot of brilliant points about leadership and humanity," he says. "It wouldn't have been the same if you had read a transcript of it."

5. Make the Stage Home

Get on the stage where the talk is scheduled and practice there as soon as possible, Crawford says. Move around on the stage and go sit in the back row so that the setting becomes familiar.

The organizers will probably want to do a sound check, but see if they will allow it earlier than just a few minutes before the talk. "Even if you can sweet-talk the hotel staff to let you in the night before, that experience of being in the physical space is really important," Crawford says. Walk in as if you're walking into your living room and sitting down on the sofa. Gaining that level of comfort will help calm nerves.

6. Go Beyond Memorization

"A lot of times people look at this and think it's some exalted task with some magic to it," Pink says. "But it's like playing the piano, or laying bricks, or hitting a good tennis serve. It's about knowing what you're doing, doing it for the right reason, and practice, practice, practice."

Bayer practiced what he was going to say in Amsterdam until he could time it down to a second, although he cautions that knowing every line by heart is less important than making sure the message is clear and focused.

"Start developing early," he says. "You don't even have to put slides into PowerPoint, but think early about what it is you want to communicate. You should be able to summarize it in a few words."

Dig Deeper: How to Improve Your Presentation Skills

7. Turn Nervousness Into a Boost

When Crawford coaches speakers who get fluttering stomachs, she asks them to think about their fear in a different way. "There's a physical sensation in our body that's associated with nervousness. The danger is when we think, 'Oh my god, I'm nervous,'" she says.

Call that fluttering something else, she says. Crawford advises her clients to think, "That's the fire in my belly. When I'm done presenting, everyone in this audience is going to have a fire in their belly to make a difference."

Elizabeth Lindsey knows that nervous feeling well. "When we name it, and we speak our truth, we rally," she says. Whenever her heart is pounding through her chest, Lindsey thinks about the elders in her native Hawaii who raised her and didn't have the platform she's been given, she says.

"Even though I'm afraid and even though I feel at times that it would be easier to be in the audience rather than on stage, I know the work that I'm doing is not mine. It's the work that has been given to me," she says.

8. Look With Purpose

Crawford uses her theater background to help clients work on stage presence. In addition to moving around the space and using the whole body to convey the message, she suggests that presenters pay particular attention to their eyes. Instead of "scattering seeds" by scanning one part of the audience and then another, she recommends "planting bulbs."

"I want this idea to bloom in this one person's mind," she says. "Maintain eye contact for one full thought — it might be a phrase within a sentence or two sentences." That eye contact also looks great on camera if the talk is being recorded.

During eye contact with specific audience members, Crawford asks her clients to pay attention to what that person looks like, what they're wearing. A moment ago they were nervous, but as soon as they start describing hair or the color of a shirt, that anxiety level drops, she says.

Dig Deeper: Polishing and Rehearsing for a Perfect Presentation

9. Leverage Fellow Speakers

Look at the roster and reach out to the speakers you're excited about, Crawford says. "You have an opportunity to build that relationship far earlier than people imagine."

Everyone has been invited to talk for a reason, and that can open new doors. Ask the organizers for contact information if you don't have it, Crawford says. Plan to meet interesting speakers for one-on-one time during the conference, whether it's at a dinner or just for a quick conversation.

"If you're sharing the stage you at least have that in common, if nothing else," Crawford says.

And, who knows, maybe knowing your company will only make you feel more comfortable and able.

10. Choose Your Moment to Inspire

Sometimes one has to say no. The idea of presenting should be energizing and enlivening, not draining. Presenters who say yes when they should have declined can cause unnecessary stress for themselves, and for the event organizers.

When the reason is bad timing, offer to present at the next talk well in advance. Sometimes the audience isn't what you're looking for. If you say no, do so candidly, Crawford advises.

"We have this opportunity to spark an idea," she says. "We're lighting fires in the minds of others."

The rewards for a successful talk can be enormous, and not just financial. After giving a presentation once, Lindsey says a woman from the audience approached her. "She said, 'I'm a grandmother and I will never have the opportunity to travel to the parts of the world that you will see, but I want you to know that I go with you wherever you are.'"

The Five W's of Marketing

2010-10-18T08:35:00.000-05:00

When developing a marketing program, it's not enough to know who, what, when, where, and why. You need to keep them in order, says Steve McKee

By Steve McKee

You've heard of the Five W's: who, what, when, where, and why. They're the elements of information needed to get the full story, whether it's a journalist uncovering a scandal, a detective investigating a crime, or a customer service representative trying to resolve a complaint. There's even an old PR formula that uses the Five W's as a template for how to write a news release.

Most of the time it doesn't matter in what order the information is gathered, as long as all five W's are ultimately addressed. The customer service rep's story may begin with who was offended, while the journalist may follow a lead based on what happened. The detective may start with where a crime was committed while details of who and what (not to mention when and why) are still sketchy.

The Five W's are helpful in marketing planning as well. But unlike in other professions, the development of an effective marketing program requires that they be answered in a specific order: why, who, what, where, and when. The reasons may not be obvious, but by following this pathway you can avoid a great deal of confusion, trial and error, and blind alleys, preserving your company's precious time and resources.

Many marketers instinctively begin with questions about what and where, as in "what" their advertising should say or "where" it should appear. That's what gets them into trouble. They may have some success putting their plans together by relying on intuition and experience, but both can be misleading in a rapidly changing marketing world. These days it's easy for anyone to become confused by (or fall prey to) the latest and greatest trends and tactics.

First, Why Marketing?

Smart companies begin by asking "why"—why are we expending our limited resources in marketing? Why do we believe they're better invested here than in other aspects of our business? These questions, properly considered, force company leaders to clearly define their business and marketing objectives and confront their (often unrealized) assumptions before they get too far down the road.

In some cases they may have unrealistic expectations of their marketing efforts. In others, they may be looking to advertising to solve a non-advertising problem. In still others they may be reflexively reacting to a competitor's moves, or to any one of a number of other marketplace or internal dynamics (see "Who's to Blame When Growth Stalls?"). Beginning with the "why" can be challenging, but starting here is critical to ensuring that your subsequent efforts are on target.

The second question is "who"—who is essential to our achieving our goals? To whom should we be directing our message? Whose hearts and minds must we win in order to succeed? The answers to these questions should be derived from the business objectives identified above so that the target audience(s) for your effort are clearly related to them.

For example, a marketing plan meant to generate significant new top-line revenue would likely focus on new customer attraction. An effort that's meant to enhance margins may concentrate on improving your brand's value equation among existing customers. And a plan to enhance your company's price/earnings ratio would focus on prospective investors and industry analysts as its primary target. The better any company defines its "who"—and the more it can know about their lifestyles, behaviors, attitudes, opinions, wants, and needs—the more effectively it can address the remaining three W's.

Branding Issues

Next comes "what," as in what it is you need to offer your target audiences in order to accomplish your objectives. This, of course, encompasses a host of business decisions, from product to pricing, policy to packaging, and everything in between. But it is also where key branding issues are addressed, including positioning, differentiation, and a determination of the personality dimensions that are appropriate for both the brand and the task (see "Building a Better Brand").

To be sure, as market conditions and customer needs change, the "what" of your offering will be a continually evolving proposition. But by having a solid understanding of the "who" and "why" of your efforts, you'll be more likely to get, and keep, the "what" right.

Finally, the last two W's can be addressed as you dive into the specifics of campaign planning. The questions now revolve around where and when the best places and times are to communicate your "what" to your "who" in service of your "why." At this stage you'll be required to make many tactical decisions, but if you've effectively addressed the first three W's you'll have the context and perspective you need to make the final two work as hard as possible on your behalf.

In some ways the principles of marketing are simple, but their simplicity can be deceptive. Beneath them often lie hidden complexities that you ignore at your peril. The common way of citing the Five W's—who, what, when, where, and why—rolls off the tongue and is a great mnemonic device. But if you want to optimize your marketing efforts, think why, who, what, where, and when. The order makes all the difference.

Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland and author of When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You're Stuck, and What to Do About It. Find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sad, But True

2010-10-11T22:42:00.001-05:00

Guy goes into a bar, there's a robot bartender.

The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini."
The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "168."
The robot then proceeds to talk about physics,
space exploration and medical technology.

The guy leaves, but he is curious...
So he goes back into the bar.
The robot bartender says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini."
Again, the robot makes a great martini gives it to the man and says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "100."
The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser and John Deere tractors.

The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting,
so he thinks he will try it one more time.
He goes back into the bar.
The robot says, "What will you have?"
The guy says, "Martini," and the robot brings him another great martini.
The robot then says, "What's your IQ?"
The guy says, "Uh, about 60."
The robot leans in real close and says,
"So, you people still happy you voted for Obama?"

Public Speaking Tips

2010-08-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

Even if you don’t speak professionally, you will find Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker, helpful in navigating any speaking situation.

Most people listening to presentations around the world right now are hoping their speakers will end soon. That’s all they want. They’re not judging as much as you think, because they don’t care as much as you think. Knowing this helps enormously. …The things speakers obsess about are the opposite of what the audience cares about. They want to be entertained. They want to learn. And most of all, they want you to do well. Many mistakes you can make while performing do not prevent those things from happening. It’s the mistakes you make before you even say a word that matters more. These include the mistakes of not having an interesting opinion, of not thinking clearly about your point, and of not planning ways to make those points relevant to your audience. Those are the ones that make the difference.

No matter how much you hate or love this book, you’re unlikely to be a good public speaker. The marketing for this book likely promised you’d be a better speaker for reading it. I think that’s true on one condition: you practice (which I know most of you won’t do). Most people are lazy. I’m lazy. I expect you’re lazy, too. There will always be a shortage of good public speakers in the world, no matter how many great books there are on the subject. It’s a performance skill, and performance means practice.

The easiest way to be interesting is to be honest. People rarely say what they truly feel, yet this is what audiences admire most. If you can speak a truth most people are afraid to say, you’re a hero.

All good public speaking is based on good private thinking. …This means the difference between you and JFK and Martin Luther King has less to do with your ability to speak—a skill all of us use hundreds of times every day—than it does the ability to think and refine rough ideas into clear ones.

Avoiding Boredom. A speaker must set the pace for the audience if he wants to keep their attention. … Think of your opening minute as a movie preview: fill it with drama, excitement, and highlights for why people should keep listening. Be confident in what you say and do. If your talk consists of several problems important to the audience, and you promise to release the tension created by those problems by solving each one, you’ll score big.

Types of interview questions with examples

2010-08-16T21:16:00.003-05:00

(from Steinar Kvale, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks California, 1996, p. 133-135)
a. Introducing questions: “Can you tell me about....?”, “Do you remember an occasion when...?” “What happened in the episode mentioned?”,...

b. Follow-up questions: Direct questioning of what has just been said, nodding, “mm”, repeating significant words, ....

c. Probing questions: “Could you say something more about that?”, “Can you give a more detailed description of what happened?”, “Do you have further examples of this?”,...

d. Specifying questions: “What did you think then?” What did you actually do when you felt
a mounting anxiety?”, “How did your body react?”,...

e. Direct questions: “Have you ever received money for good grades? When you mention
comptetion, do you then think of a sportsmanlike or a destructive competition?”

f. Indirect questions: Projectove questions such as ‘How do you believe other pupils regard
the competition of grades?”

g. Structuring questions: indicating when a theme is exhausted by breaking off long
irrelevant answers: “I would now like to introduce another topic:...”

h. Silence: By allowing pauses the interviewees have ample time to associate and reflect
and break the silence themselves. With significant information.

i. Interpreting questions: “You then mean that....?” “Is it correct that you feel that...?”Does
the expression.... Cover what you have just expressed?”

Nine Stages of Giving

2010-08-16T08:07:00.002-05:00

From Brad Leeper

Clipped from: http://www.xpastor.org/articles/leeper_generosity_new_normal.html

A consumer – a person that utilizes the church resources, but does not have the spiritual maturity to give. We want as many people as possible to enter the journey here, as this entry point often is their first step into engagement with God. We do not want them to stay here, but to grow in their understanding of God. Based on my frequent analysis of church-giving data, about one half of your people are here. Many never get past this stage.
Minimal giving – people give because there is some level of emotional attachment, because they are growing spiritually, and because they are asked to give. Consistently reviewing church-giving data finds about 25% of your people park here.
Involved giving – a person gives consistently because he or she is involved and has a strong emotional and spiritual motivation to give. Most churches have the standard 25% of people engaged at this level.
Giving as much as possible – rare, but you will find that person or couple that choose to live purposefully to fund Kingdom work. All income levels can embrace this value.
Giving to maximize tax advantages – giving as much as possible to legally take advantage of charitable tax laws.
Giving beyond regard to tax advantages – these people give because they want to give and sometimes in places that do not always provide a giving statement for tax purposes. For example, a family chooses to consistently give to the single parent family that is financially strapped.
Giving a percent of wealth – a person realizes how much he or she can give away and still live contentedly in our culture. A person does not have to be wealthy to give a percentage of their wealth. Some prefer different terminology, such as “becoming a percentage giver.” Every season, the family or person chooses to give an increased percentage to the church.
Capping wealth – I still remember the first successful businessperson who explained to me how he lived on a budget and capped his personal income well below what he could have received. He gave away the balance. I was stunned that someone could even think this way, countering the American dream.
Estate giving – while still leaving an appropriate amount to heirs, a person determines to give the bulk of the estate to the church and Kingdom purposes.

Five Marketing Plan Questions

2010-07-14T12:57:00.001-05:00

Here are five questions your marketing plan should answer:

What/who are your targets?
What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking?
Where do you find them?
What or who influences them?
How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?

Phony Psychic Techniques

2010-07-02T22:31:00.002-05:00

From The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland.
See also Mind Control Wiki, 38 elements of cold reading

First is the Rainbow Ruse—the “statement which credits the client with both a personality trait and its opposite.” (“I would say that on the whole you can be rather a quiet, self effacing type, but when the circumstances are right, you can be quite the life and soul of the party if the mood strikes you.”)

The Jacques Statement, named for the character in “As You Like It” who gives the Seven Ages of Man speech, tailors the prediction to the age of the subject. To someone in his late thirties or early forties, for example, the psychic says, “If you are honest about it, you often get to wondering what happened to all those dreams you had when you were younger.”

The Barnum Statement, the assertion so general that anyone would agree.

“I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don’t know very well.”
“You have a box of old unsorted photographs in your house.”
“You had an accident when you were a child involving water.”
“You’re having problems with a friend or relative.”
“Your father passed on due to problems in his chest or abdomen.”

The Fuzzy Fact, the seemingly factual statement couched in a way that “leaves plenty of scope to be developed into something more specific.” (“I can see a connection with Europe, possibly Britain, or it could be the warmer, Mediterranean part?”)

The Diverted Question takes a piece of solid information and extrapolates unspoken details that are very likely to be correct. The solid piece of information could come from a direct question, or noticing the type of car the client drives or any friends they might be with.

Some psychics are well versed in how an expensive purse is different from a lookalike knock off purse. This says volumes for the reading.

"I see that you have a keen eye. First your eye is always set toward quality. You know what a good name brand is worth but your eye is also very shrewd to finding the best deal."

The Russian Doll is a way of "peeling the onion" so to speak, when a statement doesn't give you hit.

"I'm getting the impression of that you're making a move right now. Does that make sense?"

"No."

"Oh this could be not you per say, but someone close to you."

"No."

"Oh, not so much a physical move but really a transition... a major change of sorts."

"Well, my brother-in-law is finally getting a job."

"That's why this sticks out in my mind so much, this is long overdue!"

It took three attempts to get a hit and the misses fall by the wayside.

The key to the Russian Doll is if something doesn't match up then expand it into a different context.

The Jargon Blast can often be described as the "baffle them with bullshit" tactic. It does two things. First it establishes you as an authority in your method of reading (astrology, tarot, palmistry, etc.) by spewing out terms of your field most people have not put in the time to learn.

Secondly, as you use these terms to describe the reading the client will put whatever meaning to it that best fits.

"The two of swords is a card of the mind. In fact, it means that there is a decision that that is being weight. The five of wands goes well with this as it indicates there is a struggle... not a major one... but a bothersome one. These are conjoined cards which means that the struggle is affecting this decision. I don't know if this makes sense to you."

You are welcome to throw in completely unrelated jargon like "form a divergence" or "Conjoined cards"

The Good Chance Guess is a guess that has a better-than-normal chance of being correct. Example You were quite active as a child and people were concerned about your well being. You have a scar on your left knee. (BTW, you would be surprised how accurate that guess is!)

The Vanishing Negative
“Moving on to career matters, you don’t work with children, do you?”

No, I don’t.

“No, I thought not. That’s not really your role.”

Of course, if the subject answers differently, there’s another way to play the question: “Moving on to career matters, you don’t work with children, do you?”

I do, actually, part time.

“Yes, I thought so.”

Push Statements – stories that are made up out of whole cloth and usually don’t make sense to the client. The client goes away and ultimately tweaks the story until it fits something in their lives. The point being that he is such a good psychic that he even knows stuff that at first doesn’t make sense.

Fine Flattery statements are designed to flatter the client in a subtle way likely to win agreement. Usually, the formula involves the client being compared to “people in general” or “most of those around you”, and being declared a slight but significant improvement over them:

I have your late sister with me now. She tells me she wants you to know that she always admired you, even if she didn’t always express it well. She tells me that you are… wait, it’s coming through… yes, I see, she says you are in many ways more shrewd, or perceptive, than people might think.

Psychic Credits are character statements which credit the client with some form of psychic or intuitive gift, or at the very least a receptivity to others who possess such gifts:

This card, the King of Wands, is generally indicative of a perceptive or even a psychic ability of some kind. Of course we all have these gifts, but they do vary from person to person. In your case, it’s the second card in the higher triad, which is devoted to your personal profile. This suggests you have very strong and vivid intuitive gifts, and good instincts which will serve you well if you learn to trust them.

Sugar Lump statements offer the client a pleasant emotional reward in return for believing in the junk on offer. In general, the Sugar Lump relates to the client’s willingness to embrace the psychic ‘discipline’ involved in the reading, and to benefit from the insights thereby gloriously revealed:

Your heart is good, and you relate to people in a very warm and loving way. The tarot often relates more to feelings and intuition than to cold facts, and your own very strong intuitive sense could be one reason why the tarot seems to work especially well for you. The impressions I get are much stronger with you than with many of my clients.

The Greener Grass element is based on the fact that we all retain some fascination with the options in life that we did not take. You could say they form their own sub-set of the Jacques Statements referred to above:

I see indications of material success and professional advancement which are a credit to you, and which reflect your own drive and ability to get things done. You are the sort of person who delivers results, and this characteristic has brought its rewards. However, it has also brought its penalties. Although you would not necessarily advertise them too openly, I sense some feelings here of a potential desire for more domestic security, and a more stable home life. I would not go so far as to say this has been a serious problem for you, but I believe your loyalty to your career has not always delivered the returns you expected.

Forking. If the client seems to reject the initial statement, the psychic can develop the same theme in the opposite direction, like this:

But this tendency is one you have learned to overcome, and these days it rarely comes to the fore. You have learned to accept yourself, and to be reconciled with your own special mix of gifts and skills. You have learned how damaging it can be to be too self-critical, and all credit to you for having matured past the self-critical stage.

Contractions in Postmodernism

2010-06-27T13:25:00.002-05:00

Rosenau (1993) identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

Leadership Guidelines in Turbulent Times

2010-06-24T09:51:00.001-05:00

Great article

In January 2009, founder and chairman of India’s Satyam Computer Services—the “largest publically traded company you’ve never heard of”—Ramalinga Raju confesses to massive accounting fraud and resigns. In a five-page letter to the board, he described the problem saying, “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.” In an instant, he left behind him, chaos, distrust, and plummeting moral among his more than 53,000 employees. But Riding the Tiger is not about how the Enron-like tragedy occurred, but how a leading through learning strategy calmed the chaos and helped the company recover and rebuild.

Authors and former Satyam employees Pricilla Nelson (Global Director of People Leadership) and Ed Cohen (Chief Learning Officer) share the take-away lessons learned on the road to recovery and renewal. Step one was what they eventually called the “Lights On” strategy. That is “deciding exactly what must be done to keep the business moving and doing only that which is critical to help the organization stabilize.” They describe 6-steps—beginning with hold everything and build an adaptable stop-stop-continue plan—based on the two pillars of learning and communication.

Nelson and Cohen write, “Learning is critical for stabilizing the organization, providing guidance to leaders, communicating with employees, and keeping the business open.” Communication is critical. “The leaders who lead out loud—those who maintain transparency, approachability, and integrity—are the ones with whom people want to work, in good times and bad.”

Venkatesh Roddam, Director of VenSat Tech India was the CEO at Satyam BPO (a Satyam subsidiary), reflects on the resilience at Satyam, “To be faced with a crisis the magnitude of what Satyam dealt with and then one year later to be reborn and vibrant in a new avatar speak volumes about the value of a strong leadership culture. This resilience is the result of years of painstakingly implemented leadership strategies.” The authors stress the need for developing leadership guidelines in order to leverage learning and to assist leaders with the complicated people and relationship dimensions of the business. You can use these 12 guidelines as a basic for coaching conversations:

Understand that we will never get back to normal: While it is comfortable to want to seek the status quo, “normal” in times of a crisis is constantly changing. Leaders need to move on to seek better ways of doing things, letting these new ways become the new normal.
Take care of one another: Listening reduces anxiety. Provide regular updates on what is happening across the organization and expand inclusivity.
React…pause…respond: The right response will be made once information gathering, integrity, an open heart, and seeking to understand have been considered.
Talk—even when you don’t believe there is much to say: Overcommunication is essential during turbulent times. Consistent and continuous messaging prevents rumors from spreading and demonstrates the leaders’ approachability and transparency.
Be visible—now is not the time to play hide-and-seek: People become fearful when the leader goes into hiding. As a leader, be present, inform comfort, and provide strength for others.
Maintain integrity and high value morals: Current circumstances should not influence or distort your definition of integrity and other core values.
Optimize costs, with retention in mind: Make cost optimization decisions keeping employee retention in mind. This allows leaders to assess risk and make more informed decisions.
Be a brand ambassador: The organization needs people who are brand ambassadors. As brand ambassadors, you are responsible for representing the organization both internally and externally in a positive manner. This means you must refrain from making statements that might cause further turbulence.
Assess and rebuild trust: Rebuilding an injured organization requires making difficult decisions that not everyone will understand. For this reason, you and other leaders must continuously asses and rebuild trust.
Remember, leaders are human, too: Though there will be difficult times during a crisis, as leader, it is important to remain composed.
Think like a child: Try to live “in the moment,” not allowing business to consume every moment. Work/life balance can exist, even in a crisis.
Take care of your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being: Don’t put any aspect of your well-being on hold. While change and uncertainty at work are draining, you cannot allow them to take over your life.

The authors say that 87% of businesses fail to recover from devastation such as this because they have “not correctly aligned their priorities for recovery, and more importantly re-growth. Too often the immediate focus is put on salvaging customer relationships and brand identity. The relationship with employees does not receive the same priority. Leaders do not communicate as much as needed leaving them wondering what the future holds for them and their colleagues. This dichotomy results in major turnover, far more than companies in crisis can withstand, and ultimately contribute to their failure.”

Things Not to Write In an E-Mail

2010-06-15T10:05:00.002-05:00

This is from Planet Money at National Public Radio.

Every e-mail you write could wind up in court. Everybody knows this, but people still act like it will never happen to them.

If you can't help yourself — if you just have to write that incriminating e-mail — you can at least avoid a few obvious red flags.

The lawyer appointed to figure out what went wrong at Lehman Brothers used lots of different search terms to mine 34 million pages of documents from the bank, Bloomberg News recently pointed out.

The searches are described in great detail starting on p. 158 of this section of the examiner's report. While some are technical — phrases like "mark to market," and the names of banks, auditors and the like — others are pretty general.

One search in particular targeted a bunch of words and phrases that anybody might use in an incriminating e-mail. They are:

stupid
huge mistake
big mistake
dumb
can't believe

cannot believe
serious trouble
big trouble
unsalvageable
shocked
speechless
too late
uncomfortable
not comfortable
I don't think we should
very sensitive
highly sensitive
very confidential
highly confidential
do not share this
don't share this
between you and me
just between us

GE General Electric Programmable Clock Radio 7-4885

2010-06-05T17:30:00.004-05:00

A great old radio.
I owned one for many years, until the keypad died, which is the usual end of this model.
It had two alarms and digital keypad entry for both the alarm and radio frequencies.
It also had multiple station memory.

They don't make them like this anymore.

Persuasion Through Mimicry

2010-05-27T07:28:00.001-05:00

February 12, 2008

Mind

You Remind Me of Me

By BENEDICT CAREY

Artful persuasion depends on eye contact, but not just any kind. If one person prefers brief glances and the other is busy staring deeply, then it may not matter how good the jokes are or how much they both loved “Juno.” Rhythm counts.

Voice cadence does, too. People who speak in loud, animated bursts tend to feed off others who do the same, just as those who are lower key tend to relax in a cool stream of measured tones.

“Myself, I’m very conscious of people’s body position,” said Ray Allieri of Wellesley, Mass., a former telecommunications executive with 20 years in marketing and sales. “If they’re leaning back in their chair, I do that, and if they’re forward on their elbows, I tend to move forward,”

Psychologists have been studying the art of persuasion for nearly a century, analyzing activities like political propaganda, television campaigns and door-to-door sales. Many factors influence people’s susceptibility to an appeal, studies suggest, including their perception of how exclusive an opportunity is and whether their neighbors are buying it.

Most people are also strongly sensitive to rapport, to charm, to the social music in the person making the pitch. In recent years, researchers have begun to decode the unspoken, subtle elements that come into play when people click.

They have found that immediate social bonding between strangers is highly dependent on mimicry, a synchronized and usually unconscious give and take of words and gestures that creates a current of good will between two people.

By understanding exactly how this process works, researchers say, people can better catch themselves when falling for an artful pitch, and even sharpen their own social skills in ways they may not have tried before.

“Really good salespeople, and for that matter good con artists, have known about these skills and used them forever,” Jeremy Bailenson, a psychologist at Stanford, said. “All we’re doing now is measuring and describing more precisely what it is they’re doing, whether consciously or not.”

Imitation is one of the most common and recognizable behaviors in the animal kingdom. Just as baby chimps learn to climb by aping their elders, so infants pick up words and gestures by copying parents. They sense and mimic peers’ behavior from early on, too, looking up at the ceiling if others around them do so or mirroring others’ cringes of fear and anxiety.

Such behavioral contagion probably evolved early for survival, some scientists argue. It is what scatters a flock well before most members see a lunging predator.

Yet by drawing on apparently similar skills, even in seemingly trivial ways, people can prompt almost instantaneous cooperation from complete strangers.

In a recent experiment, Rick van Baaren, a psychologist at Nijmegen University in the Netherlands, had student participants go to a lab and give their opinions about a series of advertisements. A member of his research team mimicked half the participants while they spoke, roughly mirroring the posture and the position of their arms and legs, taking care not to be too obvious.

Minutes later, the experimenter dropped six pens on the floor, making it look like an accident.

In several versions of this simple sequence, participants who had been mimicked were two to three times as likely to pick up the pens as those who had not.

The mimicry had not only increased good will toward the researcher within minutes, the study concluded, but it also prompted “an increased pro-social orientation in general.”

That orientation applies to far more than dropped pens. In a study due out in the spring, Robin Tanner and Tanya Chartrand, psychologists at Duke, led a research team that tested how being mimicked might affect the behavior of a potential client or investor.

The team had 37 Duke students try out what was described as a new sports drink, Vigor, and answer a few questions about it. The interviewer mimicked about half the participants using a technique Dr. Chartrand had developed in earlier studies.

The technique involved mirroring a person’s posture and movements, with a one- to two-second delay. If he crosses his legs, then wait two seconds and do the same, with opposite legs. If she touches her face, wait a beat or two and do that. If he drums his fingers or taps a toe, wait again and do something similar.

The idea is to be a mirror but a slow, imperfect one. Follow too closely, and most people catch it — and the game is over.

In the study, the researchers set up the interviews so each student’s experience was virtually identical, except for the mimicking.

None of the copied participants picked up on the mimicry. But by the end of the short interview, they were significantly more likely than the others to consume the new drink, to say they would buy it and to predict its success in the market.

In a similar experiment, the psychologists found that this was especially true if the participants knew that the interviewer, the mimic, had a stake in the product’s success.

“This is somewhat counterintuitive,” Dr. Chartrand said in an interview. “Normally, you’d expect when people realize that someone was invested in a product and trying to sell it to them, their reaction would be attenuated. They’d be less enthusiastic.

“But we found that people who were mimicked actually felt more strongly about the product when they knew the other person was invested in it.”

Any amiable conversation provides ample evidence of this subconscious social waltz. Smiles are contagious. So is nodding, in an amiable conversation.

Accents converge quickly and automatically. A country chime or an Irish whistle can seemingly infect the voice of a New Yorker in a 10-minute phone call.

“I especially find myself falling into a Southern accent, which is crazy,” Mr. Allieri, the telecom executive, said. “I’m from Boston.

“But I think what good salespeople really do is pick up on physical cues and respond to them without thinking much about it.”

It is one thing to move like a naturally synchronized swimmer through the pools of everyday conversation without thinking, however. It is another to deliberately employ mimicry to persuade or seduce.

Dr. Bailenson, the Stanford psychologist, has been testing the effects of different forms of mimicry by programming a computer-generated figure, an avatar, to mirror the movements and gestures of people in a study.

He has found that his subjects pick up the mimicry when it is immediate and precise. If the avatar is slightly out of sync, however — waits four seconds, for instance — then the mimicking goes unnoticed, and the usual rules apply. The virtual creating comes across as warm and convincing, as if controlled by another human.

“The point is it’s a delicate balance to get it right, and I suspect that people who are good at this know how to do it intuitively,” Dr. Bailenson said.

Or they have developed ways to engage their skills indirectly.

Veldon Smith, a musician and legendary salesman living in Centennial, Colo., who spent 30 years in the automobile parts business before retiring a few years ago, said:

“One thing I always did, I learned as much as possible about a client before I visited, what their problem was, what they were worried about. Then I would go in with a story about myself being in the same predicament.

“So when I walked in, I was in exactly the same frame of mind as the customer. I was immediately on the same wavelength. Everything else kind of flowed out of that.”

One reason subtle mimicry is so instantly beguiling may be that it draws on and, perhaps, activates brain circuits involved in feelings of empathy.

In several studies, Jean Decety, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, has shown that some of the same brain regions that are active when a person feels pain also flare up when that person imagines someone else like a loved one feeling the same sting or ache.

A similar process almost certainly occurs when a person takes pleasure in the good fortune of a friend or the apparent enjoyment of a conversation partner, Dr. Decety said.

“When you’re being mimicked in a good way, it communicates a kind of pleasure, a social high you’re getting from the other person, and I suspect it activates the areas of the brain involved in sensing reward,” he said.

Social mimicry can and does go wrong. At its malicious extreme, it curdles into mockery, which is why people often recoil when they catch of whiff of mimicry, ending any chance of a social bond. Preliminary studies suggest that the rules change if there is a wide cultural gap between two people. For almost everyone else, however, subtle mimicry comes across as a form of flattery, the physical dance of charm itself. And if that kind of flattery doesn’t close a deal, it may just be that the customer isn’t buying.

Everyone has the right to be charmed but not seduced.

A Systemic Reason for Constant Price Increases.

2010-05-27T07:07:00.002-05:00

This article, from Kate Lister at Open Forum, explains why companies would much rather raise prices than cut them, even if it costs them customers:

May 26, 2010 -

The quickest, easiest way to increase your income is to raise your prices. If you're worried about losing customers, do the math. You'll be surprised at how many you can lose and still make more money.

Here's an example. It's a bit dense with numbers, but stick with it. This is an important concept and one that will give you a distinct advantage over those who don't understand it.

Let's say your product or service sells for $200 and your cost is $150. Now you raise your price by 5 percent to $210 per unit and, as a result, you lose 10 percent of your customers.

Before

Price Per Unit: $200
Cost Per Unit: $150
# of Customers: 1,000
Gross Income: $200,000
Direct Costs: - $150,000
Gross Profit: $50,000
Gross Profit Margin: 25%

After

Price Per Unit: $210
Cost Per Unit: $150
# of Customers: 900
Gross Income: $189,000
Direct Costs: - $135,000
Gross Profit $54,000
Gross Profit Margin: 28.5714%

You're actually making $4,000 more profit with 100 less customers!

In fact, in this example, you could lose almost 17 percent of your business and still break even from a 5 percent price increase ($50,000 / 28.6% = $175,000).

# of Customers: 833
Gross Income: $175,000
Direct Costs: - $125,000
Gross Profit: $50,000

The same math shows why it's a very bad idea to offer discounts, figuring you'll make it up on volume. A 5 percent price decrease in this same situation would require a 25 percent increase in sales just to stay even.

Before

Price Per Unit: $200
Cost Per Unit: $150
# of Customers: 1,000
Gross Income: $200,000
Direct Costs: -$150,000
Gross Profit: $50,000
Gross Profit Margin: 25%

After

Price Per Unit: $190
Cost Per Unit: $150,
# of Customers: 1,250
Gross Income: $237,500
Direct Costs: - $187,500
Gross Profit $50,000
Gross Profit Margin: 21.0526%

That's an extra 250 customers you'll somehow need to woo with your new low prices!

If all that hasn't convinced you to raise your prices and NOT discount, consider that price buyers:

Are your least loyal customers
Complain more than premium price buyers
Expect more than premium buyers
Will blab about the deal they got to your full price customers

In a prior life, I owned a vintage airplane ride business. It was so popular we could hardly keep up with demand. We often had to turn customers away. Adding planes wasn't really an option as there aren't many of them around any more. Finding pilots whose spouses allowed them out to play with airplanes in their spare time wasn't easy, either.

Putting a spreadsheet to work, we did just the kind of math shown here to evaluate how much business we could afford to lose and still break even. Over the next two years, we eventually tripled our prices before we started to see any fall off in demand. Then we carefully tweaked them until we found that "just right" price that allowed us make the most amount of money with the least amount of work.

Having fewer customers saved us money in other ways. There was less wear and tear on the airplanes, less oil and spark plug changes, less frequent engine overhauls, fewer phone calls/staffing issues, a reduced need for pilots, and generally an easier time making money.

By this point, you're hopefully wondering about your own pricing strategy. Here's a tip. If no one's complaining about your prices or if you have more work than you can handle, you're due for a price increase, or two, or three. Back up those higher prices with a better product/service, better customer service, friendlier staff, or other value-added strategies, and you'll never have to worry about price wars again.

It's always easy to lower your prices if you find you've gone too far. Better yet, keep your prices high to maintain the perceived value of your product or service and offer frequent-buyer coupons, limited-time only-discounts, bulk purchase offers, or other such programs that increase the per customer purchase, and/or lower your unit or fixed costs.

Price wars, discounting, and other price-based competition may make you busier, but as the numbers show, busier is not always better. Unless you "make it up on volume" you'll be out of business and a whole lot more tired than if you'd just left your prices alone.

We'd love to hear your pricing successes (or failures). Has raising your prices worked for you? How about lowering them? Sharing is good. Do tell.

Over the past thirty years, Kate Lister has owned and operated several successful businesses and arranged financing for hundreds of others. She’s co-authored three business books including Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley, 2009) and Finding Money—The Small Business Guide to Financing (2010). Her blogs include Finding Money Advice and Undress4Success.

First Vietnam Questionarrie from Alex Jordan

2010-05-12T20:21:00.001-05:00

Howdy,

Glad to help. Most answers are shown with the questions.

I was a recon pilot in Vietnam. I was based at Pleiku, Vietnam and Nakom Phanom, Thailand. I flew missions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
After I returned to the U.S., I flew transport missions to Vietnam monthly. I few enough of these to be credited with a second tour.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Mike

Michael L. Pearson
1907 Oak Knolls Ct SE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52403
mlpearso@aol.com
H: (319) 362-1023 C: (319) 573-9188

-----Original Message-----
From: Toby and Elaine JORDAN <rejordan79@msn.com>
Sent: Mon, May 10, 2010 9:23 am
Subject: Alex needs some Homework Assistance!

Hey all - last week Alex got an assignment in U.S. History & asked us to help him find some people to answer some questions. We as parents totally spaced and forgot about it! The assignment is due Wednesday morning, so if you are able to help by either answering the questions or finding/knowing someone that can, we'd appreciate it if you could just e-mail back the answers to us by Tuesday night so he has time to put everything together into a report.

Alex needs to ask questions of a Veteran from each of these 3 wars: Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II

The questions are:

1) Why did the U.S. enter the war?

Big Picture Answer: to stop the spread of Communism. Communism was making gains in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. George F. Kennan sent a message, known as The Long Telegram, to the State Department (1946), followed by an anonymous article in Foreign Affairs magazine that outlined the "Containment Strategy" which became the official plan for the conduct of the Cold War. There was a fear that, if the Communist expansion was to continue, all of SouthEast Asia would "fall like dominoes."

Public opinion was greatly influenced by two popular books at that time:
1) The Night They Burned the Mountain (1960), by Tom Dooley, a medical missionary in Laos, and
2) The Ugly American (1959), by Eugene Burdick and David Lederer.
These books described the injustices going on in SouthEast Asia and the failures of U.S. foreign policy. They raised the idea that "something must be done."

Shorter Answer: Muddling through. France had tried to regain Indochina, including Vietnam after WW II. They failed, losing the key battle at Dien Bien Phu. They asked the U.S. to take over. Eisenhower agreed. Kennedy introduced military advisors. Johnson expanded to a full scale war, using the dubious Gulf of Tonkin incident as his excuse.

2) What were the goals of the war?

To contain Communism and prevent the Domino Effect

3) How were you treated by people when they learned you were in the service?

Very well.

4) How were you treated in uniform?

Very well. But I was almost always in or near a military base.

5) How were you received in the countries where you fought?

Very well. I did not interact much with the people in Vietnam. In Thailand, the people were half pro-US and half pro-Ho Chi Minh. But they treated us well because we were the big dog with lots of power and money.

6) Do you feel the government was honest about its war goals?

For the most part. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was phony, but the strategy had been well laid out.

The tactical strategy prevented a military victory, out of fear of the Chinese and Soviets.

The press continually mis-characterized what was going on. Especially, Cronkite.

7) How did you feel when the war ended?

Glad to get out of it. It was a waste without a victory strategy.

8) Has the government shown its appreciation for your wartime efforts? If so, how?

I got some medals (Distinguished Flying Cross and 5 Air Medals).
I got paid every month.

That's all I expected.

Thank you so much for helping! - Alex, Toby & Elaine

2nd Questionarie from Alex Jordan

2010-05-12T20:14:00.005-05:00

No problem. See my answers below. Pictures attached.

Michael L. Pearson
1907 Oak Knolls Ct SE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52403
mlpearso@aol.com
H: (319) 362-1023 C: (319) 573-9188

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Jordan
To: mlpearso@aol.com
Sent: Wed, May 12, 2010 6:47 pm
Subject: One more favor?!

Mike - can you answer some more?! I actually had 2 assignments. One was to interview a Vietnam Vet, Korean War Vet & WW II Vet & compare their answers (that's the one that you ans. already).

The other assignment was to ask questions of a Vietnam Vet & someone who lived during the Vietnam war but was not a soldier. My mom's cousin already answered the part of the non-soldier. A guy my Dad works with was going to do the Vietnam Vet part, but apparently he was uncomfortable answering some of the questions because of what his role was in the war?? Could you possibly take a few more minutes and answer these other questions? Thanks - Alex

From: rejordan79@msn.com
To: rtjordan@rockwellcollins.com
Subject: Vietnam Vet Interview -
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 06:54:38 -0700

Needs to interview two people and compare answers - 1 a Vietnam vet & 1 someone that lived during the Vietnam war era but was not a soldier.

For non-soldier:

1) What were you doing when the Vietnam war was going on?

2) Why were you not involved in service?

3) What are your views on the war?

4) Did you protests against the war?

5) How do you feel about the veterans who served?

6) Did you have any friends or relatives in the war and how did you feel about that?

7) What was the purposes of the war?

For Vietnam vet:

1) What was your rank?
2nd Lieutenant, promoted to 1st Lieutenant, then to Captain

2) What was your daily routine like? (Example: duties)
Get up about 5 a.m. Shower and shave. Eat breakfast at the Officer's Club. Go to the Operations center, where I would meet with the crew. We would get a weather briefing, then an intelligence briefing (where were the antiaircraft guns and any other threats and escape and evasion [E&E] procedures), and a mission briefing (what are we supposed to do that day ). Then I would brief the crew on what procedures I expected them to follow. Pick up weapons (.38 cal. pistol), radios, and extra batteries. Then take a crew bus (it looked like a UPS truck) to the flight line. Pre-flight the aircraft, looking for mechanical or electrical problems.
Fly the mission for 7 hours. Start-up, take-off, climb, cruise the mission area, do the mission, cruise home, descend, land, reset the aircraft. Debrief intel on what we saw and did.
Crew bus back to the barracks. (2 people in a room with 2 beds, a desk, two lockers, and a refrigerator.) Shower, go to an on-base Chinese restaurant for dinner. Possibly watch a movie at an out-door theater or watch a [very bad] band at the Officer's club. Check mail, then write a letter home. Sometimes, go to town via the 5 cent bus.

3) What was the food like?
Standard restaurant fare. The Chinese restaurant offered "Kobe" beef, but it was really water buffalo.

4) What was the most difficult time?
Hard to choose. Weather was a major problem for the monsoon half of the year. The most difficult was probably when I was chased by a Mig fighter out of Hanoi. I was the only plane in northern Laos at the time, when the radar picket plane told me that a "fast-mover" had launched from Hanoi, North Vietnam, aiming for me. I was unarmed, except for my pistol and he could fly about 10 times faster than me. There was a thunderstorm nearby, so I went inside of that. He could not follow there. The radar plane sent an RF-4 from Cambodia in my direction. The North Vietnamese radar saw him an pulled their plane back. The RF-4 was also unarmed, but they did not know that.

5) What did you think of the country? (ex: surroundings, people, weather, standard of living)
The surroundings were standard 3rd world. The people were friendly, possibly because they had to be. The weather was tropical: beautiful 6 months of the year and daily thunderstorms during the monsoon season. They did not have moving weather "fronts" as we do. Storms would grow in one spot, every afternoon, and dump a lot of water on that one spot. The standard of living was low, but adequate for most. The samlar (pedicab) drivers could live on 5 cents per day, cooking rice in the streets. A local could live in a western style house, wearing western cloths, for about $35 per month.

6) What stands out the most in your memory?
Again, hard to choose. The weather was really tough during the monsoon. We usually had to penetrate a thunderstorm to get home in the afternoon and they were big, tough thunderstorms. One time I had to shut down one of our two engines before flying home. According to the charts, I could hold 5,000 feet on one engine. As I went through the storm, I noticed my altitude was 11,000 feet and I was still going up as fast as the indicator would display. The planes were very old and leaked so badly that we wore ponchos in the cockpit and could hardly see the instruments. It was a tough flight.

7) Did you have any contact with Agent Orange?
I watched the C-123 "Ranch Hand" aircraft spraying below us. I tried to stay clear.

8) Are you glad you went and would you do it again?
Yes. It was the great adventure of my life.

9) What did you think of the people back home protesting?
I thought they were very mis-informed. They were basically supporting the enemy. We lost because of them.

10) Has the Vietnam vet been treated fairly?
Yes, until recently. The Obama administration requires vets to get their own health insurance, even if they were wounded in combat.

11) Was it worth it?
Yes. See answer 7.

12) Do you think there was other options in which the way the Americans fought the war? (ex: nuclear weapons, more troops, all out victory)
Absolutely. The politicians dictated every move and made no attempt to actually win the war. Once the politicians start a war, they should get out of the way and let the military end it ( as was done in WW II.)

13) What was the purpose of the war?
The purpose was to contain Communist expansion in Asia and prevent the Domino Effect.

Alyssa scores big at the Celebrity Dance competition in Ames

2010-03-07T15:26:00.003-06:00

Alyssa has been at the Celebrity dance competition in Ames this weekend.

On Friday, 2 of her dances got Platinum (highest rating, very nearly perfect); her solo was the 2nd highest score of the day.

Saturday, she got 2 more platinums AND was invited to the National Competition as a faculty staff member, not as a competitor. She goes to Phoenix for a week of Intensives and training, then they fly her to Miami where she will be a Celebrity Crew staff member, giving both performances and instructing competitors.

What a great resume builder.

Kenny the Sales Weasel

2010-02-23T23:12:00.000-06:00

Video.Mus.Ge

Generic Repair Process

2009-11-19T12:54:00.002-06:00

Things break. Stuff happens. Here is a one-size=fits-all repair process [in order]:

Turn it off, then on. For computers try a restart, then hard reboot.
Rap it sharply with the heel of your hand or the heel of your boot (brogan maintenance)
[I know, we are talking about repair and not maintenance]
Unplug it and replug it
Take it apart and reassemble it. Discard remaining parts.
Use outside repair [store, manufacturer, or on-site repairman.]
Read the instructions.

Words I can't remember.

2009-11-06T08:20:00.004-06:00

1. Anabasis: (from Greek ana = "upward", bainein = "go") is an expedition from a coastline up into the interior of a country. Katabasis, or catabasis, (from Greek κατὰ, "down" βαίνω "go") is a descent of some type. Katabasis may be a moving downhill, a sinking of winds, a military retreat, or a trip to the underworld. It may also mean a trip from the interior of a country down to the coast, and has related meanings in poetry, rhetoric, and modern psychology.

2. Amanesis: An oral history, given by a patient to his doctor. Heteroanamnesis is an oral history given by someone other than the patient. The process is outlined in a Wikipedia article.

Shortage of Short Greeks Ruining Us

2009-10-19T13:53:00.001-05:00

By Mike Royko
The Chicago Daily News published this column on Dec. 5, year unknown.
This is classic, found all over the Internet. I found it here.

The moment we sat down for lunch, I knew it was a mistake. It was one of those cute new yuppie-poo restaurants with ferns and a menu that listed calories.

I knew it was an even bigger mistake when five minutes passed before the busboy dropped the silverware and napkins in front of us.

About 10 minutes later, I snared a waitress as she was hurrying by and asked: "Is there any chance we can see a menu?"

"I'm so sorry," she said. "We're short-handed. One of the girls didn't show up today."

When she finally brought the food it wasn't what I had ordered.

"There are some problems in the kitchen," she said. "We have a new cook."

"Never mind," I said. "I'll eat it, whatever it is. But what about the beer?

"Oh, I forgot, you wanted a beer," she said. The beer arrived just in time to wash down the last bite of the sandwich.

When she brought the check, which was wrong because she charged me for what I ordered instead of what I got, I asked: "Who runs this place?"

"The manager?" she said. "He's in the end booth having lunch."

On the way out, I stopped at the manager's booth. He was a yuppie in a business suit. He and a clone were leisurely sipping their coffee and looking at a computer print-out.

"Nice place you have here," I lied. "Do you own it?"

The young man shook his head. It was owned by one of those big corporations that operates restaurants in far-flung office buildings and health clubs.

He also proudly told me that he had recently left college with a degree in restaurant and hotel management.

That explained it all. His waitresses were short-handed, his cook was goofing up the orders, the customers were fuming, and what was he doing?

He was having lunch. Or, as he'd probably say, he was doing lunch.

I don't want to be an alarmist, but when this nation collapses, he and those like him will be the cause.

First, we had the MBA - especially the Harvard MBA - who came along after World War II and took over American industry. With his bottom-line approach, the MBA did such a brilliant job that the Japanese might soon buy the whole country and evict us.

But we're told not to worry. Now that we don't manufacture as much as we used to, we'll be saved by the growing service industry.

The problem is that the service industry is being taken over by people like the restaurant manager and his corporation. They go to college and study service. Then they install computers programmed for service. And they have meetings and look at service charts and graphs and talk about service.

But what they don't do is provide service. That's because they are not short Greeks.

You probably wonder what that means. I'll explain.

If that corporation expects the restaurant to succeed, it should fire the young restaurant-hotel degree holder. Or demote him to cleaning washrooms.

It should then go to my friend Sam Sianis, who owns Billy Goat's Tavern, and say: "Do you know a short Greek that wants to manage a restaurant?"

Sam will say: "Shoo. I send you one my cousins. Jus' got here from the old country."

Then he'd go to Greek Town and tell his cousin, who works as a waiter, that his big chance had come.

When the next lunch hour rolled around, and a waitress failed to show up for work, Sam's cousin would not sit down to do lunch. He would put on an apron and wait tables himself.

If the cook goofed up orders, Sam's cousin would go into the kitchen, pick up a cleaver, and say, "You want I keel you?"

He wouldn't know how to read a computer printout, but he'd get drinks in the glasses, food on the table, and money in the cash register.

That simple approach is why restaurants run by short Greeks stay in business and make money. And why restaurants that are run by corporations and managed by young men who are educated beyond their intelligence come and go. And mostly go.

So if you are ever approached by a stockbroker who wants to sell you shares in any of the giant service corporations, tell him not to bother showing you the annual report. Just ask him one question.

"Is it run by short Greeks?"

If he says no, leave your money under the mattress.

How to Improve Your Vision in Five Easy Steps

2009-10-17T05:32:00.001-05:00

Matthew E. May (In Pursuit of Elegance) found here.

Sep 22, 2009 -

In my previous post, The Art of Visual Thinking, I told the story of how Kerry Morrison catalyzed the renewal of Hollywood underway through her ability to paint a vivid picture of the present and the desired future. In this companion piece, I explain how to hone the visualization skills of your team with a practical exercise.

The first part of the activity is a “heads up” that draws out the dream of the team. The second part of the meeting is “sleeves up,” to focus energy on a real world strategy that achieves the dream. The exercise is designed to be fast-paced, highly interactive, and visually oriented. Here’s how it works:

Hammer out a vision: Our Company R.I.P. (forty-five minutes) The goal of this activity is to get to the big picture and bring the future to the present so that it can be addressed. The traditional approach is to write a success story for the media as if it were some number of years or months in the future. But a better way, albeit unconventional, is to draft a detailed corporate obituary.

This is what Kerry Morrison did in her interview since Hollywood already was dead at the time. The outcome is a much more realistic and vivid picture of perfection, but in exact reverse. What would the article say about your organization’s demise? What would the headline read?

Remove obstacles. (forty-five minutes) Understanding what the goal or vision isn’t is often more important than understanding what it is because this process outlines the restraints and obstacles. The reality is that restraints always rule. For most people, painting the disaster scene provides more accessible mental images because they’ve seen these situations before. When the roadblocks appear in the future, they are more easily recognized and effectively addressed.

To do this, make a master list of all the items identified in the obituary—the company “killers.” To the right of each deadly factor, list the countermeasure. What is the opposite of the ailment? How will each obstacle be overcome or avoided? These now become the critical success factors that form the framework of the future vision.

Set goals. (thirty minutes) For each success factor, list a key objective or measurable goal. Use the list you just developed to spark a discussion of the major goals. Combine ideas, wordsmith, refine, remove—whatever is needed to arrive at what the group agrees is a comprehensive list of goals incorporating all the critical ideas from the visioning exercise.

Prioritize. (thirty minutes) There’s nothing sophisticated here: have each individual write down what they believe are the three most important goals. Then go down the list and ask for a show of hands indicating how many chose each item as the number-one priority. Tally the votes to identify the top five.

Form projects. (thirty minutes) Now turn the top five priorities into key projects, assign a champion, and put thought into who does what by when. Don’t make this exhaustive and detailed logistics planning, but rather high-level action planning.

You now have working template from which future planning can be conducted. Companies spend days in off-site retreats developing visions and strategies. You can do it in about three hours if you follow this procedure.

Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, and blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Grant Writing Tips

2009-10-13T14:41:00.002-05:00

Notes from a Federal Reviewer as found in a Grantstation article.

by Sandra Jewell, Grant Writing Consultant and Writer

The Objective (Peer) Review

"The applications have arrived and the objective review begins."

The central procedure in the federal funding cycle is the objective, or peer, review, which is carefully, legally, designed to maintain the integrity of the decision making process.

Before the peer review panel meets, non-voting (technical) reviewers from the branch sponsoring the RFA vet each application to ensure its compliance with the goals of the branch.

Because objective review is so crucial to the ethical strength of the process, the peer reviewers who score the application are never from the branch soliciting the proposal because the likely applicants are generally constituents of that branch, sometimes known personally to branch staff.

The grant writer would do well to remember that funding decisions rest largely in the hands of reviewers who almost certainly have no direct experience with the subject area.

There are other important issues to remember when replying to an RFA:

First, no one is ever hired by an agency specifically to review grant applications. Reviewers take time away from their day jobs, usually in other parts of the agency, to do this as a service to the soliciting branch. They also know that their branch will need reviewers for their own RFAs.

The reviewer is often given three to five applications to evaluate within a brief time frame. Before the review panel meets, s/he first must invest the considerable effort needed to get up to speed with a new subject area and with the needs of the funding branch as documented in the RFA and any supporting materials. The next step is to read and score the applications, each of which can easily require a full day, and then to spend one or more days participating on the panel.

The entire review process is a massive investment of time and emotional energy and can leave reviewers bleary eyed.

It’s been said that half of all grant applications are poorly written, which may be an underestimate. And to be honest, almost all applications make for tedious reading for reviewers who, as mentioned earlier, are rarely more than temporarily and peripherally involved in the subject.

There are several strategies to consider when developing a response to an RFA that will reinvigorate a reviewer:

First, to help ensure that a proposal ends up in the fundable range, which will generally be well above 90 points on a scale to 100, present a great, new, idea. Reviewers love to have the possibility of helping along a creative and significant initiative.

Although grant writers may have little control over the proposed project, they have considerable control over something equally essential: its presentation. If a grant writer can create an application that is professional, well written, and responsive without being terminally colorless, reviewers will be grateful. More important, they’ll pay attention.

Here are a few more suggestions:

Many requirements are included in an RFA but one of the most crucial is unwritten: Responders must convince the reviewer that the proposal is important. Every word in the application should be strictly, concisely, targeted to that goal. That means that the writer should diligently avoid unexplained assumptions and field-specific jargon.

Conversely, there is no point in over explaining anything that is common knowledge. Reviewers may regard too much irrelevant verbiage as a loss of focus within the proposal and, worse, have their own attentiveness derailed by insignificant details.

No matter how good the idea, it’s not going to sell itself. So, right up front in the beginning paragraphs of the narrative, tell the reader why this proposal is worth doing. Never assume that the reviewer knows or will spend extra time filling in gaps that should be part of the presentation. If applicable, spell out what is known, what is unknown, and where the proposed activities fit. Bring the reviewer up to speed at the start or risk the possibility of permanently losing traction.

Don’t underestimate the potential for confounding the reviewer in the dozens of pages of detail that comprise the usual application. Eliminate cross references that require diversions to another part of the proposal and, where feasible, include an abstract-type summary of each section.

Applications that do well are concise and clear. They flow. They have none of the confusing juxtapositions and inconsistencies that so often baffle and frustrate reviewers. They tell why the project activities are needed, what the applicant expects to achieve, and the methods that will be used. They explain how their progress will be assessed and what happens if and when federal funding ends. Depending on the RFA and agency goals, reviewers often expect funded proposals to be eventually self sustaining.

The application should be internally consistent. Nothing is quite as unmistakable, or as jarring, as an application put together by a number of writers with different writing styles. To get the money in cases like this, someone must do the editing.

In terms of style, another extreme is the application transparently created by a coolly disinterested, professional grant writer. Occasionally an application is so slick it reads as though it was untouched by human hands, sort of like a house decorated by Holiday Inn. Proposals that sound as though humans are only an after thought rarely do well in the review process.

Where Have All The Leaders Gone?

2009-09-29T20:55:00.000-05:00

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 years old and has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.

Lee Iacocca Says:

'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the heck is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course..'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the dang, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore..

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving.

We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble.

Our borders are like sieves.

The middle class is being squeezed every which way.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.

Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen.. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC news or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America . In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I've learned one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a "Call to Action" for people who, like me, believe in America '. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough.'

Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!!

Perry Noble: I Principles for Leading a Team

2009-09-17T16:03:00.001-05:00

Perry Noble article:
I recently sat down with all of our worship leaders here at NewSpring Church for two hours…it was seriously an amazing series of conversations.

At one point, Lee McDerment, our worship leader at the Anderson campus asked me, “What are some things all of us need to keep in mind as we lead teams.” I gave a decent answer … but after I got back to my office I began to write my thoughts down … and here are eight things I believe that every leader needs to keep in mind when leading a team.

#1 – You will never effectively motivate someone with feelings of guilt
I’ve made that mistake as a leader before, thinking if I could just get someone to feel bad they would do a better job … WRONG! No one has ever brought about significant change in the world because guilt propelled them to do so. AND … if a leader finds himself always motivating by guilt … he will also soon find himself without anyone to lead. NO ONE likes going on a guilt trip.

#2 – People don’t respond to need – they respond to vision
When a leader talks about a need, some people will respond. BUT, when a leader can cast a compelling vision about what SHOULD BE – and with God’s grace and our participation, WOULD BE – CHANGE HAPPENS! Many times a team leader will drift off course – NOT because they are lazy and/or pathetic, but because maybe they have forgotten why they do what they do – and a shot of vision will cure that every time.

#3 – A person cannot be held accountable for unspoken expectations
Another mistake I’ve made in the past as a leader is assuming people could read my mind and so when they didn’t do what I thought should have been done I would get angry with them. After some very confusing looks and some really tough conversations I began to realize that I was expecting things out of people that I hadn’t clearly explained! Our job as leaders is to give clear, realistic expectations and then resource the people to make those things happen.

#4 – Keep short accounts
The Bible says in Ephesians 4:26-27 that we are to not let the sun go down on us while we are angry. In other words, we should act with URGENCY when it comes to conflict among the teams we lead. Unresolved conflict is like cancer that begins to eat away at the body. It must be dealt with OR its destruction will bring about death. Many leaders RUN FROM conflict because it is uncomfortable, but I’ve learned the hard way that we must embrace a little discomfort now or A LOT of it in the future!

#5 – Don’t be afraid to set high standards
One of the problems I’ve discovered when it comes to leadership in the Church is that some people are perfectly fine with setting the bar of excellence really low ... and then allowing the people they lead to crawl under it. I know leaders who literally fear that if they set high standards that people will get offended. However, the thing I’ve learned around here at NewSpring is if we DON’T set high standards people do not feel challenged … which leads to boredom! (BTW … I said “high standards,” not “unrealistic ones!”)

#6 – Beware of the all-star
One of the things that cripples any team is when it has an all star who believes ministry simply cannot take place without them. And when a leader begins to believe that about an individual on the team then they will often fear what might happen if the all-star left rather than what would happen if the presence of God left!!! Every “star player” who truly has an intimate walk with God understands that it’s the TEAMWORK that makes the DREAMWORK – period.

#7 – Each team member is a human being
The leader who views the team he leads as people who are assembled to do what he wants them to do – and that’s it – sucks as a leader! A leader MUST care about the people he leads and NOT just the tasks they perform. If a team member sees themselves as merely a tool in the leaders hand rather than a valued team member … they will soon be looking to join another team.

#8 – Ask questions
One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is assuming that they have to have the answer to every question that comes their way. (BTW … NO leader is that good!) One of the things I am realizing more and more is how incredibly gifted and talented the people around me are … and over the past several years I’ve asked this question in so many meetings when someone presents an issue to me, “So, what do you think we should do?” Often times the person already has the solution planned out … which saves me (and everyone else on the team) all kinds of time and energy! The reason God blesses a leader with a team is so that leader can harness the collective wisdom of everyone involved and make the best decision.
Besides … people ARE going to share their opinion somewhere … a leader might as well be the first to hear it … because it can save a lot of problems in the future.

One more thing … the only reasons a leader might not ask questions is because he is insecure (thinks doing so will show weakness), full of pride (thinks he is better than everyone else) or fear (because he knows the answer he is going to hear from the team is the right one – but not the one he prefers!)

Perry Noble is the Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, Greenville and Florence, South Carolina. At just nine years old the church averages over 10,000 people during weekend services and is launching another campus in Columbia, South Carolina this year to reach even more people.

4 Comments

I enjoyed your “8 Principles to leading a team”.
I’m not a pastor, I’m a production supervisor at a large machine tool company and a Coach on my son’s basketball teams.
Team building is a specialty of mine.
A few observations…
Vision isn’t just important, it’s vital.
Developing a vision for a team and effectively communicating it and enrolling the right people into it IS leadership to me.
Set high standards and clear expectations, yes…then hold people accountable to the commitments they make regarding a project. I prefer people to step up for jobs and then own them. And most will push to see if they are going to be held accountable or allowed to slide through assignments.
It’s human nature.
If I’m firm, fair and consistent with following up, the team will keep the momentum.
If not, the project will die.
Treat team members as human beings, ...yes.
To me that means learning about and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. What do they bring to the team and when do I have THEM take the lead? Everybody should feel the heat/thrill of leading meetings, developing ideas, or running a fast break. I need to be able to move the chess pieces around and then step aside and watch them run with the ball. And, if it goes sideways, use that as a teachable moment. Pick them up, dust them off and compassionately walk them through the decisions made and let them see where the mistakes were made and how to correct them.
“What could you have done differently?”
Ask questions?
Absolutely…and then LISTEN attentively.
Your vision should be big enough to allowing some improvisation on the method of getting there.
Agendas are made to be broken.
Go with the flow of ideas that come from your team members and check your ego at the door.
The team is greater than the sum of its parts…and that includes the leader!
You’re really just the facillitator to the process of problem solving.
When teams find their solution and contribute to the process, they get so fired up you may find yourself reigning them back in.
That’s motivation!
That’s what jumped out at me as I read your work.
Hope this finds you well and leading from the heart!
Rick Roman
Comment by Rick Roman - Sep 07, 2009 @ 11:11 A

Chapter Summary Excerpts from If God Is Good..

2009-09-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

Used with permission From epm.org

Posted in: Randy's Books

By Randy Alcorn

Chapter Summary Excerpts from

If God Is Good…

by Randy Alcorn

SECTION ONE

Understanding the Problem of Evil and Suffering

Chapter One: Why is the Problem of Evil and Suffering So Important?

Chapter Two: What is the Problem of Evil and Suffering?

If God is all-good, then he would want to prevent evil and suffering. If he is all-knowing, then he would know how to prevent it. If God is all-powerful, then he is able to prevent it. And yet…a great deal of evil and suffering exists. Why?

The problem of evil has found a prominent voice in what may seem the most unlikely place…the Bible. No other book asks so bluntly, passionately, and frequently why God permits evil and why evil people sometimes thrive while the righteous suffer. Barely have the first two chapters of the Bible described the original creation, saying, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” before a terrible shadow falls—evil and suffering burst into the world.

Chapter Three: What is Evil and How Does it Differ from Suffering?

Evil, in its essence, refuses to accept God as God and puts someone or something else in his place. The Bible uses the word evil to describe anything that violates God’s moral will. The first human evil occurred when Eve and Adam disobeyed God. From that original sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. Although suffering results from moral evil, it is distinguishable from it, just as an injury caused by drunken driving isn’t synonymous with the offense.

Chapter Four: What are Some Possible Responses to the Problem of Evil and Suffering?

Besides the irrational solution that evil and suffering do not exist, and the atheistic solution that God does not exist, the most popular ways of addressing the problem of evil minimize one or more of God’s attributes, especially his power, knowledge, or goodness. In contrast, the Bible never shrinks God but always magnifies him.

To glorify and magnify God is not to make more of him than he is; that’s impossible. Rather, it’s to affirm his greatness, attempting to do justice to his infinite majesty and power and wisdom and love, even though inevitably we’ll fall short.

To address good and evil without gazing upon God is fruitless. Good flows from the life connected to God. Evil flows from the life alienated from God.

Chapter Five: A Closer Look at Central Issues in the Problem of Evil

Believers share common ground with unbelievers. We feel mutual horror at the reality, depth, and duration of human and animal suffering. We share a conviction that this kind of pain is terribly wrong and that it should be made right. In this way, evil and suffering serve as a bridge to the biblical account and its promise of redemption.

Paul insists that our sufferings will result in our greater good—God’s people will be better off eternally because they suffer temporarily. From Paul’s perspective, this trade-off will in eternity prove to be a great bargain.

In fact, the argument for the greater good may be the strongest biblical case for God permitting evil and suffering. However, it requires trust, since the promised greater good is future…If Paul is right, then by eliminating temporary evil and suffering, God would also eliminate eternal good.

SECTION TWO

Understanding Evil: Its Origins, Nature, and Consequences

Chapter Six: Evil’s Entry into the Universe: A Rebellion of Angels

Scripture addresses when evil came into being, but not how…God has chosen to remain silent on this question, which may mean something significant. If evil is irrational, how can its point of origin be rationally explained? Perhaps God does not offer any explanation because evil defies explanation. It might make sense to an all-knowing God but no sense at all to us.

In cultures where everyone realizes there’s a supernatural world, demons make themselves known as false gods to intimidate people, demanding worship and exacting retribution. In modern Western cultures where people routinely deny the supernatural, demons often accomplish their purposes more effectively by flying under the radar and working covertly. If we had eyes to see, we’d realize that all around us, fallen humans become the unwitting tools of evil spirits, harming themselves and others, and living wretched lives, sometimes quietly under the facade of social respectability.

Chapter Seven: Humanity’s Evil and the Suffering it Has Caused

Somehow, as the first human couple weighed their alternatives, evil entered their hearts. Adam and Eve rebelled, choosing to violate God’s explicit command. They trusted a fallen creature’s logic, rather than their Creator’s goodness, when he’d given them no reason to doubt him. They ate, the curse fell on them, their pain greatly increased, the earth became a world of hurt, and they forfeited paradise.

A just and merciful God chose a measured punishment for the first human sin: suffering. Had God meted out the full and immediate punishment, the first humans would have died on the spot (see Romans 6:23). In that case, there would have been no redemptive history—no human history at all.

The history of the human race, in every culture and time, demonstrates the dire consequences of living life as we prefer rather than as God commands.

Chapter Eight: Inherited Sin and Our Sin Nature

The sin nature refers to our fallen state that distrusts, dishonors, and rejects God.

The sin nature compels us to love ourselves. In our reckless pursuit of self-gratification, we impose upon ourselves gnawing emptiness rather than the joy and contentment that comes in loving God and others.

Though we naturally resist the biblical revelation about our sin natures, we find freedom when we recognize its reality.

To view evil accurately, we must see it above all as an outrageous offense against God.

We tend to minimize our sin because we fail to see its real object… because we do not see God and see how our sin hurts him, we don’t see either the frequency or the gravity of our offenses. We imagine our sin has no effect on him.

We couldn’t be more wrong.

Chapter Nine: A Deeper Consideration of What Our Sin Nature Does and Doesn’t Mean

Apart from Christ…I am Osama bin Laden. I am Hitler. Only by the virtue of Christ can I stand forgiven before a holy God. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s biblical truth. Unless we come to grips with the fact that we’re of precisely the same stock as…Stalin and Mao, we’ll never get over thinking that we deserve better. Evil done to us will offend us, and having to suffer will outrage us. We’ll never appreciate Christ’s grace so long as we hold on to the proud illusion that we’re better than we are. We flatter ourselves when we look at evil acts and say, “I would never do that.” Given our evil natures and a similar background, resources, and opportunities, we would.

Chapter Ten: Natural Disasters: Creation Under the Curse of Human Evil

Earthquakes and tsunamis are not moral agents and therefore cannot be morally evil. A tidal wave is not malicious—water cannot have malice any more than it can have kindness.

The best answer to the question “Why would God create a world with natural disasters?” is that he didn’t. Many experts believe the world’s atmosphere originally acted like an umbrella, protecting its inhabitants from harm. But now the umbrella has holes in it, sometimes protecting us, sometimes not. While Barbara Ehrenreich blames God for death and disaster, Scripture blames human evil for the cataclysmic Fall and consequent distortion of a once-perfect world (see Romans 8:18–22).

People who have survived disasters often say they understand on a far deeper level the biblical truth that this world as it now is—under the Curse—is not our home.

SECTION THREE

Problems for Non-Theists: Moral Standards, Goodness, and Extreme Evil

Chapter Eleven: A Case Study: Bart Ehrman, a “Christian” Who Lost His Faith

Even Christians who do not outright reject their faith may quietly lose confidence and commitment because of their struggle with this issue. Christian students in every university, including Christian ones, face frequent, impassioned arguments against biblical teachings, whether from professors, fellow students, or textbooks. Knowing a few Bible stories proves insufficient when facing an issue of the magnitude of evil and suffering.

We all trust something. When we abandon trust in God’s revelation, we replace it with trust in our own feelings, opinions, and preferences, or those of our friends and teachers—all of which can drift with popular culture, including academic culture.

Ehrman’s story should challenge us to come to the problem of evil and suffering with a Christian worldview rooted in a well-informed belief in the reliability and authority of God’s Word. If we vacillate on that conviction, we will first reinterpret the Bible, then outright reject it.

Chapter Twelve: Non-Theistic Worldviews Lack a Substantial Basis for Condemning Evil

I have talked with individuals whose ethics have evolved over time, who now believe that any consensual sex between adults is moral. Adultery is consensual sex. So is it moral? Well, yes, some convince themselves, so long as they commit adultery with a person they genuinely love. But how moral is this same adultery in the eyes of the betrayed spouse?

Choosing moral behaviors because they make you feel happy can make sense, in a Bertrand Russell/Sam Harris sort of way, but what if it makes you feel happy to torture animals or kill Jews or steal from your employer?

Such hopeless subjectivity is no moral framework at all…if there is no God who has revealed his standards and no God who informs our consciences—then surely any morality we forge on our own will ultimately amount to a mirror image of our own subjective opinions.

Chapter Thirteen: The Unbeliever’s Problem of Goodness

From a non-theistic viewpoint, what is evil? Isn’t it just nature at work? In a strictly natural, physical world, shouldn’t everything be neither good nor evil? Good and evil imply an “ought” and an “ought not” that nature is incapable of producing.

We have no logical reason to take good for granted; its existence demands an explanation. Setting aside the issues of …how life can come from nonlife, great goodness and nobility pose a serious problem: why would we expect to find such goodness in a world that came about through blind force, time, and chance?

The atheist who points out the horrors of evil unwittingly testifies to good as the norm. When we speak of children dying, we acknowledge they usually don’t. When a natural disaster hits, 99 percent of the world remains untouched. Though fallen, nature still contains more beauty than ugliness.

Chapter Fourteen: The Unbeliever’s Problem of Extreme Evil

The atheistic worldview simply cannot account for superhuman evil. Death, yes; suffering, yes. But calculated, relentless, exhausting brutality toward the weak and innocent? The death camps? The Nazi doctors? The Killing Fields?

Why commit evil just for evil’s sake, or why take pleasure in inflicting suffering? All pragmatic, naturalistic, and evolutionary explanations of such evil prove inadequate.

The Bible, on the other hand, speaks of an unseen realm full of powerful spirit beings that project their cruel and malignant thoughts and wills on humans. These beings, far more powerful than human beings, also exceed humans in their evil. These malevolent beings push us to expand our evil beyond the boundaries of what could be expected even of fallen humans.

No naturalistic worldview can explain extreme evil. Since non-theists believe in nothing outside of the visible realm, they must explain such evils on the basis of human perversity alone.

SECTION FOUR

Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Evil and Suffering

Chapter Fifteen: Is God’s Limited Power a Solution?

If God lacks power, his good intentions are inadequate. Probably you already have friends who can’t control the universe. Do you really need another one, named “God”?

Those who believe in a God of limited power might respond, “It isn’t that God can’t do anything, just that he can’t do everything.” But what can he do? If God is doing the best he can, then he doesn’t permit evil and suffering, rather he is overtaken by them, since he can’t stop them. Why frustrate God with prayers he can’t answer, since if he could, he already would have?

Limiting God may appear to get him off the hook for life’s difficulties. It might make us feel warmer toward him. But this is a god of man’s invention, not the God revealed in Scripture.

Chapter Sixteen: Is God’s Limited Knowledge a Solution?

A loving God took a calculated risk, open theists suggest, but had he known the horrible things that would occur—the rapes and killings and tortures and abuse—he might never have created this world as he did. Hence, proponents of open theism argue, God cannot be held responsible for his creatures’ evil, since he could not foresee it.

Open theists suppose we should find comfort in believing God has not ordained our suffering from eternity past. I find it easier to trust a God who has known all along and planned how he will use the tragedy for his glory and our good, than one who just found out about it but chose not to stop it anyway.

Open theism is not only biblically wrong; it’s a shallow answer to the problem of evil.

Chapter Seventeen: Is God’s Limited Goodness a Solution?

A good man does not knowingly allow his neighbor to beat his child. If he had all power, he would not only stop the man from beating the child, he would not allow him to begin beating the child in the first place. Such an appraisal is completely apt regarding humans.

But we err in judging God by our standards.

We can envision a dog recognizing his master as good when he feeds and walks him, but questioning his goodness when he doesn’t let him have a Hershey bar. He might even write a book (Dog’s Problem?) or go on the lecture circuit telling everyone why his master isn’t good.

The existence of evil does not contradict God’s goodness, since God can ultimately use evil to bring about a greater good.

Chapter Eighteen: Is God’s Limited Love a Solution?

While few critics make a philosophical argument that God lacks love, many, when personally facing evil and suffering, interpret the terrible things happening to them to mean that God doesn’t love them after all. Doubt about their salvation may grip them, causing despair.

God’s attributes, while varied, work together in complete harmony. If in our eyes his holiness contradicts his love and his justice conflicts with his mercy, then that is our problem, not his. The almighty God who created us is the same holy God who condemned us as sinners and the same loving God who went to extraordinary lengths that we might go to Heaven. God’s self-consistency demands the simultaneous and full expression of his holiness, his love, and all his other attributes.

SECTION FIVE

Evil and Suffering in the Great Drama of Christ’s Redemptive Work

Chapter Nineteen: Evil and Suffering as Seen in Scripture’s Redemptive Story

God’s redemptive plan was not an ad-lib response to unanticipated events. From before the very beginning, God knew the very worst. And the very best it would one day bring.

God wrote the script of the unfolding drama of redemption long before Satan, demons, Adam and Eve—and you and I—took the stage. And from the beginning, he knew that the utterly spectacular end would make the dark middle worth it.

You may feel your choices have been reduced to whether you want Jell-O, or a window opened, or an extra blanket. On the contrary, your choice of whether you will trust God and worship him today reverberates throughout the universe, honoring or dishonoring your God. It also has enormous implications for eternal rewards God promises us in the next life.

Chapter Twenty: If You Were the Author, How Would You have Written the Story?

As a member of the real-life story’s cast, you might wish for a world untouched by evil and suffering. That’s understandable, because life is hard as the story unfolds; and it will be hard until it culminates or you leave the stage, having played your part.

But if you sat in the audience, which story would you prefer to watch? And if you wrote the story, which version would you prefer to write? And even as a cast member, having endured such difficulty, ten thousand years from now at the ongoing cast party in honor of the Writer and Director, when grand tales make the rounds at dinner tables on the New Earth—which story do you think you would cast your vote for?

“All’s well that ends well” is a cliché, but there’s truth in it. There’s no substitute for a happy ending.

Chapter Twenty-one: Jesus: The Only Answer Bigger than the Questions

The Cross is God’s answer to the question “Why don’t you do something about evil?”

But what if God did do something about it? What if what he did was so great and unprecedented that it shook the angelic realm’s foundation, and ripped in half, from the top down, not only the temple curtain but the fabric of the universe itself?

A powerful moment in the movie The Passion of the Christ occurs when Jesus, overwhelmed with pain and exhaustion, lies on the ground as guards kick, mock, and spit on him. A horrified woman, her hand outstretched, pleads, “Someone, stop this!”

The great irony is that “Someone,” God’s Son, was doing something unspeakably great that required it not be stopped.

Had someone delivered Jesus from his suffering that day, he could not now deliver us from ours.

SECTION SIX

Divine Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice: Accounting for Evil and Suffering

Chapter Twenty-two: God’s Sovereignty and Its Reach

God didn’t devise his redemptive plan on the fly. Evil didn’t take him by surprise. God isn’t the author of evil, but he is the author of a story that includes evil. He intended from the beginning to permit evil, then to turn evil on its head, to take what evil angels and evil people intended for evil and use it for good. In the face of the lowest evil, God intended to show his highest good.

It is possible to plan for something you know is coming without forcing that thing to happen. God didn’t force Adam and Eve to do evil, but he did create them with freedom and permitted Satan’s presence in the garden, knowing they would choose evil and knowing that what he would do in his redemptive plan would serve a greater good.

Chapter Twenty-three: “Free Will” and Meaningful Choice

God is intelligent, creative, communicative, and free to choose. To be made in his likeness likely includes having these attributes, though on a finite level. We think because he thinks, we speak because he speaks, we create because he creates, and we choose because he chooses. These things all come from God and comprise part of what it means to be human.

God sovereignly created angels and human beings and gave them freedom to choose. He knew what choices angels and humans would make under what circumstances. While he could have intervened to stop them from sinning, he wanted them to choose freely, not under constraint. Furthermore, he planned to use the evil and suffering he foresaw to reveal himself in Christ and his redemptive plan.

Chapter Twenty-four: This World’s Structure is Necessary for Meaningful Choice

Meaningful choice requires a cause-and-effect system in which choices generate consequences.

I’ve heard people argue that a good and all-powerful God should miraculously intervene every time someone intends to do harm.

If God disarmed every shooter and prevented every drunk driver from crashing, this would not be a real world in which people make consequential choices. It would not be a world of character development and faith building. It would not be a world where families put their arms around one another to face life’s difficulties. It would be a world where people went blithely along with their lives, content to do evil and put up with it, feeling no need to turn to God, no incentive to consider the gospel and prepare for eternity. In such a world, people would die without a sense of need, only to find themselves in Hell.

Chapter Twenty-five: Meaningful Human Choice and Divine Sovereignty Working Together

Our problem is both our unwillingness to understand and our incapacity to turn our wills toward God. Once we grasp the depths of this problem, we will fully appreciate the wonders of his grace. Without that insight, we might imagine ourselves in Heaven congratulating one another that we had the savvy and strength of will to turn to Christ. But God leaves no room for such boasting.

God’s amazing grace doesn’t end at our conversion. Even the regenerated human will depends upon the divine will to live as it should. Philippians 2:12–13 speaks both to those who understate and those who overstate the role of the human will: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” We must will and work, and God must will and work.

Chapter Twenty-six: Further Thoughts on God’s Sovereignty and Human Will

We can believe in God’s sovereignty and still lock the door. “If a man is lazy,” says Ecclesiastes, “the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks” (10:18).

These verses don’t attribute sagging rafters and leaking houses to God’s sovereignty. They lay responsibility on people to take action. Students who don’t study and set the alarm to get up for class aren’t trusting God; they’re just being irresponsible.

No contradiction exists between praying, “Lord, please protect us and the children on this drive,” and then putting on seat belts. Prayers for healing do not conflict with the common grace of medical treatment…why should we choose between the two? Believers understand that [medical treatment] before, after, and while we pray for the sick helps them in two vital ways.

Chapter Twenty-seven: The God Who Brings Good Out of Bad

God’s glory is the highest good of the universe…permitting evil and suffering—and paying the price to end them—will all ultimately reveal his character and cause his people to worship him forever.

If we recognize God’s sovereignty even over Satan’s work, it changes our perspective.

You might not know whether demons, or human genetics under the Fall, or a doctor’s poor decision, or God’s direct hand have brought about your disease, but you know as much as you need to—that God is sovereign, and whether he heals you now or waits until the resurrection, he desires to achieve his own good purpose in you.

If the world is as random as some theologians suggest, it would seem that people, demons, and luck determine our destinies. We can drive ourselves crazy with such thoughts—or embrace God’s higher purpose in painful and even tragic events.

SECTION SEVEN

The Two Eternal Solutions to the Problem of Evil: Heaven and Hell

Chapter Twenty-eight: Heaven: Eternal Grace to Unworthy but Grateful Children

Here, we have bodies and work, rest, play, and relate to one another—we call this life. Yet many have mistakenly redefined eternal life to mean an off-earth disembodied existence stripped of human life’s defining properties. Eternal life will mean enjoying forever, as resurrected (which means embodied) beings, what life on Earth at its finest offered us. We could more accurately call our present existence the beforelife rather than calling Heaven the afterlife. Life doesn’t merely continue in Heaven, it emerges at last to its intended fullness.

How will we feel when the great shadow departs forever?

How will we feel when everything happy comes true, and everything sad comes untrue?

We will feel, perhaps, like it couldn’t get any better than that.

But each new day will prove us wrong.

Chapter Twenty-nine: Hell: Eternal Sovereign Justice Exacted upon Evildoers

When most people speak of the horrors of Hell, they talk as if it means the suffering of innocent people. That would indeed be terribly unjust—but nowhere does the Bible suggest the innocent will spend a single moment in Hell.

We rarely see ourselves as worthy of Hell. After all, we are not Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Bundy, or Dahmer. Guilty people can always rationalize sin. Hell exists because sin has no excuse.

Hell is not evil; it’s a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil.

We cry out for true and lasting justice, then fault God for taking evil too seriously by administering eternal punishment. We can’t have it both ways. Sin is evil… To fear and dread Hell is understandable, but to argue against Hell is to argue against justice.

SECTION EIGHT

God’s Allowance and Restraint of Evil and Suffering

Chapter Thirty: Why Doesn’t God Do More to Restrain Evil and Suffering?

God may already be restraining 99.99 percent of evil and suffering. God may also be preventing 99.99 percent of disasters.

Why haven’t tyrants, with access to powerful weapons, destroyed this planet? What has kept infectious diseases and natural disasters from killing 99 percent of the world’s population rather than less than 1 percent? How much evil and suffering is too much? Could God reduce the amount without restricting meaningful human choice, or decreasing the urgency of the message that …we need to turn to the Redeemer before we die?

Suppose we rated all pain on a scale of one to ten… God could reduce the worst suffering to level three, but then level three, now the worst, would seem unbearable. Any argument that judges God’s goodness strictly by his elimination of pain will, in the end, not leave us satisfied if he permits any pain at all.

Chapter Thirty-one: Why Does God Delay Justice?

God’s is not a vending-machine justice in which a coin of righteousness immediately produces reward or a coin of evil yields swift retribution. Packaged theologies seek to neatly account for everything, but as Job, Psalms, and the prophets repeatedly demonstrate, that’s not how life works.

Yet God doesn’t delay justice so long as we often imagine. The wheels of justice may seem to turn slowly, but they turn surely. Some rewards of goodness and punishments of evil come in this life. And though ultimate rewards and punishments await the final judgment, considerable justice, both reward and retribution, gets dispensed immediately upon death, when God’s children immediately experience the joy of his presence and the unrepentant suffer the first justice of Hell (see Luke 16:19–31). This means that the maximum duration of injustice experienced by any person cannot exceed his life span.

Chapter Thirty-two: Why Doesn’t God Explain His Reasons?

Sometimes we make the foolish assumption that our heavenly Father has no right to insist that we trust him unless he makes his infinite wisdom completely understandable to us. This lays an impossible demand upon God, not because of his limitations, but because of ours. A physicist father bears no blame because he can’t explain quantum mechanics to his three-year-old.

We lack God’s omniscience, omnipotence, wisdom, holiness, justice, and goodness. If we insist we have the right, or even assume we have the capacity, to understand the hidden purposes of God, we forfeit the comfort and perspective we could have had in kneeling before his vastly superior wisdom.

He is infinite; we are finite. He is the Creator; we’re the creatures. Shouldn’t that say it all?

Chapter Thirty-three: Understanding that God is God and We are Not

Of all there is to know in the entire universe, how much do you know? Let’s say you’re the smartest human being who’s ever lived and that you know one percent (of course, nobody knows nearly that much). Now, is it possible that in the 99 percent of all there is that you don’t know, there exists or will exist enough goodness and happiness in the universe to outweigh all the evil and suffering?

Is it possible that in the 99 percent you don’t know, a good God exists who has legitimate reasons for not making his purposes clearer and for not forcing people to recognize his existence? Is it possible that some rational explanation exists—if you were smart enough to understand it—for why this good God permits evil and suffering?

We reveal a staggering arrogance in assuming God owes us an explanation for anything.

SECTION NINE

Evil and Suffering Used for God’s Glory

Chapter Thirty-four: Pain and Suffering in God’s World

Worse things can happen to us than dying young of a terrible disease. We could live in health and wealth, but if we die without Christ and go to Hell—or if we know Christ but fail to draw close to him—this is immeasurably worse than the disease that gets our attention and prompts us to look to him.

When Nanci and I passed through a particularly difficult period of our lives, we felt like we’d “done our time,” as if we shouldn’t have to face more difficulty for awhile. But that’s not how it works…As everyone living with ongoing disabilities, diseases, and heartaches knows, in this life God does not parcel out a certain amount of suffering, so once it runs out we’ll face no more. But the promise remains: “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:32).

Chapter Thirty-five: Apparently Gratuitous Evil and Pointless Suffering

Not seeing the point in extreme suffering doesn’t prove there is no point. Evils such as rape and murder certainly look gratuitous. But are we qualified to say they really are? Didn’t the violent, excruciating death of Jesus, when it happened, appear both gratuitous and pointless in the extreme?

Behind almost every expression of the problem of evil stands an assumption: We know what an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being should do.

Since detailed past, present, and future knowledge is unavailable to us, we sometimes consider accidents random and pointless. We do not see that God has and will accomplish good purposes through them. Some good actions may result in great evils, while one tragic death may save the world from tyranny. Who but God is in a position to know such things?

Chapter Thirty-six: How the Health and Wealth Gospel Perverts Our View of Evil and Suffering

This false worldview breeds superficiality, seriously misrepresents the gospel, and sets people up to believe, when evil and suffering come to them, that God has been untrue to his promises.

In some cases, pleasing God results in suffering.

Suffering shouldn’t surprise us. God has promised it. One of the great tragedies about the health and wealth gospel is that it makes God seem like a liar. When people believe that God promises to keep them from suffering, God appears untrustworthy when suffering comes.

If you are a Christian, God will deliver you from eternal suffering. And even now he will give you joyful foretastes of living in his presence. That’s his promise.

SECTION TEN

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Chapter Thirty-seven: How God Uses Suffering for His Glory

If you don’t understand that the universe is about God and his glory—and that whatever exalts God’s glory also works for your ultimate good—then …You might consider God egotistical or cruel to test us for his sake. But the testing he does for his sake accrues to our eternal benefit.

God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to him, force us to depend on his grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, impart wisdom, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in times of sorrow, increase our faith, and strengthen our character.

God doesn’t simply want us to feel good. He wants us to be good. And very often, the road to being good involves not feeling good.

Chapter Thirty-eight: How God Uses Suffering for Our Sanctification

People’s suffering from natural disasters, diseases, wars, and accidents demonstrates sin’s horrors. If life in a fallen world didn’t sometimes show us such dreadful consequences of sin and its curse, we might look at sin and wonder, “What’s the big deal?” Without a sense of the misery it produces, we’d have no motive to turn from it.

Sometimes we may resent God for imposing unwanted difficulties on us. If we see through the lens of eternity, however, that resentment changes to thanksgiving for making us better and ultimately happier people, even if it costs us temporary pain and extreme inconvenience.

The point is not the degree of evil intended against us, but our faithfulness in suffering. So regardless of why we suffer, God can use it to deepen our faith.

Chapter Thirty-nine: How God Uses Suffering to Build Our Character

You may think, I refuse to accept that suffering can prove worthwhile, but your rejection of God’s goodness will not make you better or happier; it will only bring resentment and greater pain. Accept health as God’s blessing and its absence as God’s severe mercy.

Suffering uncovers our trust in God-substitutes…God laments, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug …broken cisterns that cannot hold water’” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Let’s be honest: virtually everyone who has suffered little in life is shallow, unmotivated, self-absorbed, and lacking in character…And yet we do everything we can to avoid challenges, both to our children and to ourselves. If we succeed in our avoidance, we’ll develop in ourselves and our children the sort of character we least admire.

Chapter Forty: Suffering Can Give Birth to Joy, Compassion, and Hope

God permits rebellion while guaranteeing its failure. And what will rebellion buy in the meantime? A loss of joy—and for those who do not surrender to him, a permanent loss of joy in the world to come,

We harm no one through bitterness as much as we harm ourselves. Someone told me, “Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” In the face of evil and suffering, responding to God or others with bitterness, distrust, and accusations bears no good fruit. Responding in honest brokenness and turning to God in submission, faith, and trust yields untold riches of peace and comfort.

We are no substitute for God. But we do serve as his ambassadors. I heard Christian Counselor David Powlison say that although God alone is the blazing sun, we can be three-watt night-lights. In darkness even a tiny light can bring hope.

Chapter Forty-one: God Uses Our Suffering for the Good of Others

We want to serve from the power position. We’d rather be healthy, wealthy, and wise as we minister to the sick, poor, and ignorant. When those preaching God’s Word have little personal familiarity with suffering, the credibility gap makes it difficult for them to speak into others’ lives. But our suffering levels the playing field.

God uses the suffering we try to avoid to spread the gospel and build his kingdom. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24).

SECTION ELEVEN

Living Meaningfully in Suffering

Chapter Forty-two: Finding God in Suffering

A woman self-consciously told one of our pastors that before going to sleep each night she reads her Bible, then hugs it as she falls asleep. “Is that weird?” she asked. While it may be unusual, it’s not weird. This woman has known suffering, and as she clings to his promises, she clings to God. Any father would be moved to hear that his daughter falls asleep with his letter held close to her. Surely God treasures such an act of childlike love, for his Word represents his person.

The believers described in Faith’s Hall of Fame (see Hebrews 11) all endured severe tests. None of them had an easy life. Yet they all clung to their belief in God’s promises, trusting his goodness, and believing “that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6, NASB).

Chapter Forty-three: Finding Help in Dark Times

Knowing that suffering will one day end gives us strength to endure this day.

Hope provides the light at the end of life’s tunnel. It not only makes the tunnel endurable, it fills the heart with anticipation—a world alive, fresh, beautiful, without pain, suffering, or war. A world without disease, without accident, without tragedy. A world without dictators or madmen. A world ruled by the only One worthy of ruling (see Revelation 5:12).

Though we don’t know exactly when, we do know for sure that either by our deaths or Christ’s return, our suffering will end. From before the beginning, God drew the line in eternity’s sand to say for his children, “This much and no more, then endless joy.”

Chapter Forty-four: Finding Grace to Ease Others’ Suffering and to Endure Our Own

To ignore someone’s pain is to add to that pain. Instead of fearing we’ll say the wrong thing, we should reach out to hurting people. Many times it’s better just to put our arms around someone and cry with them; people almost always appreciate it when you acknowledge their loss. Yet so long as your heart is right, saying something is nearly always better than ignoring them.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, msg). This truth applies to every aspect of our lives, including the manner, timing, and duration of our dying.

Chapter Forty-five: Discovering Death’s Curse and Blessing

The last thing most people want to think about is the last thing they’ll do: die.

Death is life’s greatest certainty.

No exercise program, diet, or therapy prevents death. Corpses don’t get cosmetic surgery. Even the young die from overdoses, accidents, and diseases. Famous athletes and Hollywood stars alike wind up in nursing homes. Suffering and old age are the great equalizers.

Two things stand between where we live now and that marvelous world where we’ll live forever: death and resurrection. If we never died, we’d never be resurrected. We’d never enjoy a glorious eternity with Christ and our spiritual family.

So while death is an enemy and part of sin’s curse, because of Christ’s death and resurrection, it’s the dark passage through which we enter the brilliance of never-ending life.

CONCLUSION: Final Thoughts About God, Goodness, Evil and Suffering

In the end, Jesus Christ is the only satisfying answer to the problem of evil and suffering.

In fact, I’m convinced he is the only answer.

In this world of suffering and evil, I have a profound and abiding hope, and faith for the future. Not because I follow a set of religious rules to make me better. But because for forty years I’ve known a real person, and…because he willingly entered this world of evil and suffering and didn’t spare himself, but took on the worst of it for my sake and yours, he has earned my trust even for what I can’t understand. I and countless others… have found him to be trustworthy.

He is “the Alpha and the Omega…the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13).

When it comes to goodness and evil, present suffering and eternal joy, the first Word, and the last, is Jesus.

Permissions: Feel free to reproduce and distribute any articles written by Randy Alcorn, in part or in whole, in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way or charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. It is our desire to spread this information, not protect or restrict it. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: by Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, 39085 Pioneer Blvd., Suite 206, Sandy, OR 97055, 503-668-5200, www.epm.org, www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

Delegation Tips

2009-09-07T12:22:00.003-05:00

Excerpted from NYT.

This interview with Deborah Dunsire, M.D., president and chief executive of Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What leadership lessons did you learn when you first started managing others?

A. When you desperately want to do well, and I am a person who’s typically worked hard and done well, sometimes that desire translated into overdoing it on the leadership side. If something went wrong, I would get too anxious about it or think I had to fix it personally.

As I’ve stepped further and further outside my comfort zone to the job I’m in now, I’ve had to focus more on the work of leadership and not focus on being the person who solved the details of the problem.

In my first management position, sometimes if something didn’t go well, I would feel I had to get personally involved, in some ways duplicating what the person who worked for me was doing. I had to learn to step away from that and ask myself what I could uniquely do.

The focus on the work of leadership means asking yourself: “What do I add? What can I bring that others cannot access without me?”

Q. How did you learn that lesson?

A. The light bulb didn’t pop to full intensity right away. But I heard gentle feedback that, “You’re in my sandbox and we’re not accomplishing a lot being in here together.” I’ve also heard feedback from a team I worked with that said, “Gee, we know you’re good at this stuff and you’ve done it, but sometimes we need to kind of bang our heads a little bit more without you fixing it.”

So I learned to step away sometimes and, in the right situation, allow a person to stub their toe. You don’t allow them to do that if the chairman’s coming for a presentation. But in a safe situation, it’s O.K. to allow them to present their work with a flaw that you can see clearly, because you’ve done this more times than they have, and letting them learn from that.

It also came at a time where I was more confident in my own leadership, so that by allowing that to happen I wasn’t failing. I learned to separate the fact that everything had to go perfectly for me to feel that I was being the leader I needed to be.

Also, I grew to understand more and more that the job of leadership is developing people, and that it involves not doing everything for them, but sometimes allowing them to stub their toe. The work may not come in perfectly, but the learning was much more effective, and people felt empowered to own the outcome in a different way. Putting that into practice was very hard for me because it’s very hard for me to see a problem and not try and fix it.

Q. You say it’s important to be patient. On the other hand, the speed of business keeps getting quicker, and the competition isn’t resting. How do you resolve the two forces?

A. I think it comes down to a fundamental premise, and that’s having the right people on the bus. There’s a need to have the right people with excellent experience and good judgment, because all of us are going to always be faced with things we’ve never seen before. And your experience, combined with good judgment and high integrity, will allow you to react to situations you’ve never seen before. So I always look at who’s leading the function. My trust in those function heads is very important.

Shanker's Rules

2009-09-02T22:30:00.000-05:00

1. Speed is life.
2. Train like you plan to fight.
3. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.
4. When all else fails, select guns.
5. Know the opposition
6. When things go wrong, get aggressive.
7. Always know when to get out of Dodge.
8. Always know how to get out of Dodge.
9. Honor the threat

Telling Great Stories

2009-08-14T15:20:00.002-05:00

From Ruben
Every great story needs the following.

A leading character [Protaganist]
- Every character needs a goal that can be seen.

Conflict - Barrier
- Outer conflict that can be seen
- Inner conflict that an actor can portray

Setting
Relationship

Audience must care
- must root for the main character
- the main character must be identifiable with the audience
** Jeopardy or Danger
** Empathy / Pity
** Likeability
** Authority. Main character is best at what he does.
** Affinity between audience and main character

Know your own role as your own protagonist and the customer's role as his own protragonist.

Magic Persuasion Words

2009-08-14T14:31:00.003-05:00

From Kevin Hogan on Youtube:
Use these words in persuasion.

Because
- Causes lead to effect
- Gives rationale for action

Now
as in "Do it Now"

Imagine
does not cause resistance

Please and thank you
- Thank in advance

The other persons name
- use it only once, maybe twice
- use it at beginning and end of conversation
- ask their name if you don't know it or cannot pronounce it

Control words:
- people need a locus of control, otherwise they feel danger
- Control, In charge
- Need to convince them that can cause control and have an effect.

Finding a Freelance web designer

2009-07-21T21:13:00.002-05:00

The original web page is HERE
Be prepared, though. When you post your project needs on an auction site, be clear about what you need and want. If your guidelines are vague, then you won’t receive accurate bid proposals from freelancers. Also be prepared to sort through many proposals to narrow down who you’d like to work with. It can be overwhelming to sift through many different proposals to find a freelancer that you like best.

Here are a few tips for finding a freelancer for your project:

Make sure bid proposals provide as much detail as possible. Has the freelancer indicated accurate pricing, what he or she will provide, the turnaround time for delivery, and the terms of payment? Every bid proposal should include those basics.

Keep an eye out for samples or portfolios. A good freelancer provides samples of his or her work for you to look over, so that you can review the style and ability of the individual.

Does the freelancer communicate well? Doing business is about customer service as much as it is about skills and talent.

Is the freelancer’s personality compatible with yours? This is important. If you don’t feel comfortable or enjoy discussions with the freelancer, you’re not going to be happy working with the person.

Does the person show interest in your project? A freelancer who is interested and motivated will do a better job than someone who sounds bored or makes you feel he or she is doing you a favor. There are no favors in freelancing. You’re helping the freelancer earn income, and the freelancer is helping you build what you need. A client/provider relationship is about two people helping each other.

Does the freelancer give the impression of being competent? Competency is important, and so is confidence. Anyone who sounds unsure probably isn’t skilled enough for your project.

Is the freelancer polite, and does he or she have good manners? Does he or she thank you for the opportunity to bid and possibly work together?

Last (but not least), find out what the freelancer’s policy is if you’re not happy with the work provided. You should have some form of recourse in case you’re unsatisfied with the final result.

How much do I pay a writer?

2009-07-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

Canadian rates can be found here: CLICK HERE

For both freelance writers and those that hire them, that frequently asked question lacks a simple answer. Fees charged by professional writers vary according to the work involved. Many factors affect payment including:

the type of assignment (e.g., magazine article, speech, marketing report)
the writer's skill, background and experience
rights licensed to the client
the number of words and/or time the project requires
the number of interviews and research needed
the types of rights being purchased

PWAC's information reveals large pay variations between markets and locations. For instance, writers tend to earn more in large cities than in other areas of the country. There are also large variations between writers: a very experienced, established writer can charge more for her work than someone just starting out. Therefore, the rates below are general guidelines only. You'll need to negotiate the exact fee depending on the particulars of the assignment.