At work today, I was commenting about my poor results the past week. I had just got off the phone with a company that was in no shape the buy what I was selling. They're a large, nationally known company whose product is directly tied to new home builds. Bad time for
I eat at Chipotle. Too Much.
One time, I ordered 2 burritos for my wife and I. I was standing at the check out and realized that I had left my debit card at home.
Now know this ... I'm a regular. I'm the mayor of my local chipotle on Foursqure and I'm the Duke on
If you've got a weak core, it's gonna show. If the soil of your identity is filled with poison, fruit isn't going to take root. You'll have no growth and no harvest. You could try to develop an organization of trust, but your core will shine through, sabbatoging your
Maybe the hardest part about being a Christ follower isn't the trials or the joys, but it's the mundane. The mundane routines of life are the places where faith seems to be least relevant. When we're in crisis, it's hard NOT to turn to prayer. When we're blessed beyond
The guy living a lie to his girlfriend. I’m sad for him.
The girl who acts like she’s so confident to overshadow how terrified she can be. My heart breaks for her.
That tweeter who retweets Seth Godin, Rick Warren & Dave Ramsey every morning. I wish more for you.
When we put on a show, we’re hurting. We don’t feel comfortable, we can’t be ourselves. We live lies. And living a lie is one of the most exhausting existences of all (remember when you were a kid and told that lie and stressed about it for the next month…).
I’m not mad at liars. I’m not going to expose them for the fakers they are. I hurt for them. I’d wish they could be secure enough to be honest.
Being your genuine self is one of the most freeing things you can do for yourself. It’s also a HUGE gift for the rest of us. You’re special/weird/unique/different/gifted and there’s no one like you!
A follow up to yesterday’s posts on setting yourself apart through intention.
Here are some practical applications for your relationships, work & life.
1. Put down your phone and talk to your wife.
2. Close your Facebook browser and read a book.
3. Set periodic reminders to text or call your friends/family.
4. Pack a healthy lunch with intentions to skip fast food.
5. Budget. Stick to your budget.
6. Take 5 minutes to make a list of friends you’ve lost touch with. Set reminders to call, email or Facebook them to reconnect.
7. Write down the top 5 areas of life you want to devote time to (marriage, kids, work, friends, networking, exercise, etc.) and put time on your calendar dedicated to those things.
8. Say “NO” to more.
9. Stop watching TV for a week. Plan how you’ll spend that time.
10. Pick a topic you’d like to learn more about and subscribe to a blog on the topic. Read a boom on the subject as well.
School trains you to default to getting the questions right. College trains you to study for finals and show up to class (sometimes). You job trains you to clock in every day and work past 6.
After an amount of time, you’ll ask for a raise and a promotion. You’ll accrue vacation days. Pension. Etc.
Mundane. Routine. Default.
Intentionality is what separates the default-livers from the artists.
The more intentional you are with your relationships the further you’ll be from the default (right now, the default is divorce).
Be intentional in your time management and you’ll be able to do more in a year than most get to do in 5.
Intention in your focus will keep distractions from sucking your creativity dry (I wander how many times Steve Jobs checked his Facebook timeline?).
To the extent that you’re able to apply intentionality to your life is the extent that you’ll be able separate yourself from the competition.
Each week I check out new releases and sometimes the Album artwork is so beautifully designed that I end up giving it a listen. Below are my favorite 5 Album Covers from today’s new releases.
So anyone who is a subscriber to this blog is going to notice, but I’ve changed a lot. I used to post multiple times a day. I used to post all about church and youth ministry and whatnot.
That is going to change.
Because my life has changed.
I’ve got a new job, a new career & a new area of focus.
This site is going to be dedicated to honest business, marketing and leadership. It’s going to get real.
I’m going to highlight stories of leaders, companies and marketing campaigns that exude “authenticity.” I’m going to help people understand how to leverage the internet to be genuine and connect with an audience that truly gets what you’re into.
So in an effort to be 100% real, I’m going to take my own advice.
Maybe you liked the old AdamLehman.us but the new stuff doesn’t sound that interesting to you. Then do this:
And if the new stuff sounds awesome, go subscribe!
The site is going to go through a massive redesign (courtesy of the sexiest graphic designer I know). The content is going to shift (I may delete a lot of old stuff).
*This is a result three core influences that it’d be a crime for me not to share:
Chris McAlister has helped me get a better understanding of how I’m uniquely wired.
Bryan Allain’s eBook gave me tools to systematically rework my blog in a way that will make me proud.
The company I work with NuGrowth Solutions provides B2B sales and marketing support. They’ve given me so much encouragement and support and guidance.
Chris put this video together for the ChurchWith.Us blog. It’s a reminder that our work doesn’t have to come from a place of short-term excellence, but can be an overflow from long-term health.
31 Short Chapters. An Action Step Each Day. After a month, you’ve got the core to having fun, hitting your blogging groove and watching your audience grow.
Marketers and sales folks are rarely known for being truth-tellers. Quite the opposite actually. Folks are so skeptical of marketing and sales professional that companies use the title “business development” instead of sales.
The nature of business seems to tempt people into short-term thinking. Over-promising (or flat out lieing) can lead to ruined relationships. Close friends of mine have sworn off all products from Apple, HTC, Dell or Blackberry because their experience didn’t live up to the expectations set from the outset.
You can avoid the broken trust that comes with these experiences. Tell the truth.
Your tweets, blog posts, emails & status updates should tell the truth. Be honest.
I’ll show you an example of honesty vs dishonesty (from my perspective).
Take Apple’s long-form commercial for the iPhone 4s. Apple’s commercials, as of late, have simply been examples of functionality in their products. They show you the product in action. Sure they may speed up the transitions between apps or put some diverse, attractive actors in the scenes, but the focus is the product.
Now take one of the least honest commercials I’ve seen in a while. Droid is obviously positioning themselves entirely opposite of Apple here. They occupy the same market and are competing against the same customers. Obviously some ad executives decided that it’d be a good idea to fail to showcase anything. This TV spot drives me bonkers.
