And both of these are simply an application of what Drucker said in The Effective Executive
“To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dribs and drabs of time at [your] disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.”
Scott Belsky in Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
Perspiration is the best form of differentiation, especially in the creative world. Work ethic alone can single-handedly give your ideas the boost that makes all the difference.
Unfortunately, perspiration is not glamorous. Endless late nights, multiple redrafts, and countless meetings consume the majority of your time — all with the intention of breathing life into your projects.
Passion for your work will also play an important role. Passion yields tolerance — tolerance for all of the frustration and hardship that come your way as you seek to make your ideas happen.
Now this is interesting, because I’m writing about this right now in my book: Creativity works best when channeled within the framework of a basic schedule.
In order to channel your ability to focus — and perspire — for extended periods of time, you will likely need to develop a consistent work schedule. Structuring time spent executing ideas is a best practice of admired creative leaders across industries.
It is the only way to keep up with the continuous stream of action steps and allocate sufficient time for deep thought.
I’m not super in to “tips on managing stress” and the like. But stress is a significant reality in our era, and it’s worth learning some things about.
I just noticed that The Teaching Company — which has a host of excellent courses on all sorts of subjects, from science to philosophy to mathematics to history — has the course Stress and Your Body on sale for 70% off right now.
One of the things that looks interesting about it is the way it looks at the physical effects that stress has.
You can get it by audio download, CD, video download, or DVD.
When you go through seasons where you feel — and are — utterly overwhelmed, here’s the ultimate reason:
“For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death itself. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Obviously Paul is speaking of great affliction here. But that doesn’t mean this only applies literally when your life is in danger or at risk.
We often limit the scope of what suffering is to only large, dramatic things — and this is unbiblical, as I’ve argued elsewhere.
This passage here applies to all forms of suffering, great and small.
Even if it feels like a small thing in relation to everything else going on in the world, when you feel overwhelmed there is a purpose behind that: it is to to lead you to rely more and more not on yourself, but on God.
Stephen Covey describes these circumstances well in First Things First
A low-trust culture is filled with bureaucracy, excessive rules and regulations, restrictive, closed systems. In the fear of some “loose cannon,” people set up procedures that everyone has to accommodate.
The level of initiative is low — basically “do what you’re told.” Structures are pyramidal, hierarchical. Information systems are short-term. The quarterly bottom line tends to drive the mentality in the culture.
In a high-trust culture, structures and systems are aligned to create empowerment, to liberate people’s energy and creativity toward agreed-upon purposes within the guidelines of shared values. There’s less bureaucracy, fewer rules and regulations, more involvement.
Good words from Dan Pink.
Here’s a key paragraph:
“It is the discipline to discard what does not fit – to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort – that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life.”
Now, one qualification. I’ve seen people do this wrong — incredibly, horribly, terribly wrong.
The point is not about merely subtracting things. Some people get on this bandwagon and start chopping away, thinking they are being disciplined. They aren’t.
You need to get rid of the right things.
Lack of discipline is not merely doing a lot of things. It’s doing a lot of things outside of your hedgehog concept — the intersection of what you’re passionate about, what you can do with excellence, and (for organizations) what drives your resource engine.
I’ve seen people cut out a lot of great things that were inside their organization’s hedgehog concept and which there was staffing for, and the organization suffered. These people just didn’t know what they were doing. They got a hold of an important management concept, but they didn’t understand it rightly, and so misused it — to the organization’s detriment.
It is valuable to have a lot of things going on — as long as they are inside your hedgehog concept. The key to discipline is to stop doing the things that are outside of the overlap of those three circles.
Josh Harris, in Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last
Being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish his beliefs, his dreams, his choices, his very view of the world on the truth of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished—a Christian who cares about truth, who cares about sound doctrine.
Peter Drucker, from his article “Managing Oneself” (pdf):
Successful careers are not planned.
They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person — hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre — into an outstanding performer.
A helpful resource that fleshes this out is Daniel Pink’s The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
John Piper’s latest book, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian
Here’s a summary:
JOHN PIPER brings the light of the gospel to bear on racial issues in this groundbreaking book. Bloodlines begins with Piper’s confession of his own sins and experience with racial tensions, along with how God has been transforming him and his church. He enables readers to grasp the reality and extent of racism, and then he demonstrates from Scripture how the light of the gospel penetrates the darkness of this destructive sin. The book concludes with sections on what Jesus’s atoning death means for racial issues, interracial marriage, and prejudice. With great sensitivity and compassion, along with a careful reading of the Scriptures, Piper helps readers navigate the painful landscape of racial sin, showing that in the gospel we all have a common bloodline and that through the blood of Jesus, race and ethnicity become secondary for a common people of God.
Learn to pursue ethnic harmony from a biblical perspective, and to relate to real people different from yourself, as you take part in the bloodline of Jesus that is comprised of “every tongue, tribe, and nation.”
And here are a few endorsements:
“For years, I have yearned for a biblically sound, theologically anchored resource on race. God has answered that prayer. This is an important, foundational work and I am sure it will be used of God to remind all of us of the power and precious, priceless dignity of the gospel.”- Crawford W. Loritts Jr., Senior Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church, Roswell, Georgia; author, A Passionate Commitment
“John Piper has given us an exquisite work on the matter of race. He addresses the issue with biblical and theological soundness coupled with personal sensitivity and practical advice. This is a must read for those who wish to pursue unity God’s way.” – Tony Evans, Co-founder and Senior Pastor, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
William Wilberforce, the great social reformer and evangelical, in A Practical View of Christianity
Nor does [the Christian] churlishly refuse to associate with the inhabitants of the country through which he is passing; nor, so far as he may, to speak their language, and adopt their fashions. But he neither suffers pleasure, not curiosity, or society, to take up too much of his time; and is still intent on transacting the business he has to execute, and on prosecuting the journey which he is ordered to pursue.
