Pure Grace

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how organizations are able to grow wildly and others are dying a very slow death, regardless of the economy. Tony Morgan made a post about an older couple finding Christ at their satellite campus in South Carolina. Their content is definitely created for a younger demographic, but the message reached them.

Great content is definitely necessary but how does that great content reach people? Some may use the term intent, but i’ll use vision. I think it’s clear the churches or organizations(take Fox News as example, or MSNBC for that matter) that have a clearly defined vision are succeeding. Their content is reaching those that need it. i really don’t think that their success is about flashy graphics, music, or presentation. It’s clearly about vision, once the vision is lost the slow march towards death begins. Set the vision and start creating the content!

3 ways to know it’s time to quit your job!

1. You are frustrated with your work environment.
This could be lots of things, many could be out of your control. Things like co-workers dumping on you, maybe the boss dumps on you, no definition of job roles. You get the idea if your job makes you scream when you get home it might be time to move on. 
2. Your boss is frustrated with you.
This is a bit touchy because sometimes it’s hard to tell if their frustrated too… But there are signs and we have all seen them. The looks, the deep breathes, the short replies…
3. You have no desire confront either of the two above.
Good communication will usually lead to resolution of both 1 and 2 above. You may still leave your job but it probably won’t be because of frustration. If you aren’t willing to confront the frustrations then quitting might be the best option. 

Over on Dan Miller’s 48 Days blog he writes about fighting complacency and provides a list of 6 ways to stretch your limits. This is a list for those that haven’t had life throw the kitchen sink at them. I can relate, I never had to shovel snow in the winter, I never had to have a job in college, I survived with most needs met. This can lead to complacency, I completely understand.

This is a challenging concept because it requires self evaluation and personal goal setting. I know from my experience it’s much easier to look towards others or other things for success. Very few people are successful because of a handout, most dig in their heels and stretch themselves for success! Set a timeline and stretch yourself to meet it....

Yesterday’s post about Attitudes and Content Creation got me thinking even more about attitudes. Our attitudes affect every aspect of daily experience, it’s not just about work or family, attitudes affect the drive into work, the interaction with the Starbucks barista, etc. I found an article titled Attitude- by Charles Swindoll I’m reposting the article here.

by: Charles Swindoll
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.

I guess the next question is how do we keep our attitudes in check to handle what happens to me 90% of the time?

Over the past month or so I’ve been writing about content creation. I’ve been thinking about attitudes and content creation. Are professional content creators capable of creating content with a sour attitude? Content creation happens everywhere, stay at home mom’s create content by the minute, Lawyers work to find an angle for their clients, Pastors spend an enormous amount of time creating new sermons and leadership programs, school teachers create new lesson plans, and the list goes on.

Life happens and it often gets in the way of creating content, traffic tickets on the way to work, a husband that doesn’t help at home, an employee that doesn’t show up, etc. I argue that attitudes affect the quality of the content created. Professionals often have to deal with life and create content no matter what the circumstances, some are able to adjust their attitude so that it doesn’t affect the quality of content creation, others allow life to affect the content creation process. We have very little control over the curve balls that life throws, but we can control the attitude we bring to the plate. Change your attitude, change the quality of the content.