David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence | Video on TED.com.

There’s a lot of things that I learned from seminary, about the Bible, church history and the like, but I also learned a lot about myself and about others. One of my professors said something that stuck with me. He said, “The best way to motivate someone is to catch them trying to doing good, and praise them for it, the best way to demotivate someone is to catch someone trying to do good, and berate them because they didn’t do good enough”

I recently read the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. It’s a great book about making change in both personal and organizational contexts. In this book, Chip and Dan tell the story of what happened when researchers told a group of hotel maids about the benefits of exercise, half of these maids they just told about the benefits of particular types of exercise, the other half received the information, but were also told that by doing all the physical labor they were doing (the bending, pushing, walking and lifting that comes with cleaning several hotel rooms a day) that they were already doing pretty well at exercise. They came back a month later and found that the second group had lost an average of 1.8 pounds. The first group hadn’t lost anything.

This story has something in common with the story that David Kelley tells in the video embedded above, of the patients who after successfully confronting and overcoming their fear of snakes begin to have less anxiety in other areas of their lives. They work harder and perform better.

These stories illustrate the power that small victories (and sometimes defeats) can have on our self-perceptions and how those self perceptions can help us to do better. If we see ourselves as exercisers, we’ll probably exercise some more. If we see ourselves as people who can face our fears and come out better, then we’ll face our fears more.

If you are reading this, you probably care about changing the world. You’re probably some sort of activist or advocate and you are passionate about your cause. The big problem that I’ve often seen with those passionate about their causes is that there is a lot of good that simply isn’t good enough. Somebody wears a pink ribbon, or tweets a link to a video and we berate them because they don’t know that the organizations that they have supported don’t actually do as much good as they think they do. The problem is that we do two things when we do that. First of all we present the idea in their mind that they aren’t activists. Secondly we place the goal for doing good so far over there that the journey from here to there is overwhelming.

Maybe you should consider where in your advocacy, activism, development and ministry you can create the opportunity for small victories. Where can you build in places where people can begin to see themselves as world changers, as advocates, as ministers, and as activists. Those small victories can lay the foundation for significant victories later on.

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Then the plates start crashing.

In the midst of the struggle to keep the plates going, I start to ignore things. More precisely, I start to ignore people. I stop listening to what’s going on in people’s lives, I stop looking for ways I can be good news to the people around me. I stop making myself available for connection. How can I? I’m connected to all these other things, I simply don’t have the capacity.

Most problematically, I start to ignore God. My schedule is so tight, that I put my time of prayer, scripture reading and worship in more untenable slots. I’m so busy doing things, that I don’t have any attention that I can give to hearing God in the everyday.

The burden I’ve taken upon myself has become so much that I am unable to properly love God and love people.

I don’t know if you are like me in this way. But if you are, here are three passages that you can read and pray through. As you do so, consider the following questions

• Are there specific burdens in your life that hold you back from God and others?
• Are there ways that you are being called to show love to God and to the people around you that you are avoiding because they are burdensome?
• Are there ways that you can give up your self-generated burdens, and find rest in God?

Hebrews 12

¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Galatians 6

¹ Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Matthew 11

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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 NEW POTSC CAMPAIGN LAUNCH: LABELS LIE | People of the Second Chance.

People Of The Second Chance recently launched a campaign called “Labels Lie”. You should check the campaign out. Here’s who POTSC say they are.

We are a global community of activists, imperfectionists and second chancers committed to unleashing radical grace everyday, in every moment, for everyone.

We challenge the common misconceptions about failure and success and stand with those who have hit rock bottom in their personal and professional lives. We are a community that is committed to stretch ourselves in the areas of relational forgiveness, personal transparency and advocate for mercy over judgment.

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1. Proof of Concept: You

There are a lot of kids who are looking for people like them, and not finding those people. At least, they don’t find them in popular culture, particularly if these kids are of an ethnic or cultural minority, or if they’re gay. But even outside of those big divides, there are smaller divides where kids don’t see a lot of people like them. Like being both a football player who writes science fiction short stories or any of those “walking contradictions” one might see in a Starburst ad.

We all have those things that the rest of the world seems to say are walking contradictions and as kids, the world seems to tell us that we have to choose one or the other. You can’t be passionate about haute couture and hockey, choose one. You can’t be both a jock and a nerd, you can’t love Shakespeare and Saturday morning cartoons.

As adults, we still have those contradictions, and those aspects of ourselves that don’t fit the stereotype. And somewhere out there, there’s a kid who doesn’t believe there is anyone like them. You can be their Proof of Concept, that somehow there are people who have gone through the things they are dealing with, that it is actually possible for someone who looks and feels like them to be happy, successful or both. You can be their proof of concept that what they feel is a walking contradiction, isn’t one.

In order to be a proof of concept, you need 3 things.

1. You need to be okay with who you are. This isn’t to say that you think you are perfect, but that you realize that who you are is no worse than who anyone else is, it is just different.
2. You need to be okay with talking about who you are. This would require some vulnerability, and some courage, but you can be honest with your struggles, your thoughts, or even your contradictions.
3. You need to (at least occasionally) interact with kids. If I may borrow a metaphor, you have the opportunity to be a light, but it makes no sense to have that light hidden away.

And by the way, kids aren’t the only one who need you to be a proof of concept. Even adults sometimes need to see that it’s possible for a [fill-in-the-blank] to survive through and succeed in whatever it is you are surviving through or succeeding in. Live your identity, there are people out there who need to see you do it.

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For those of you who haven’t been to downtown St. Paul, it’s not exactly a hotbed of activity at night. There aren’t many clubs, nor are there many people. For the crowds, the parties, and most of the crime you cross the Mississippi into downtown Minneapolis. Based on my own experience, I was arguing that she would be fine.

The problem is that in the moment, I forgot that because I am male, my experience of walking down the street is significantly different from the experience of the typical female. I essentially forgot my privilege.

If you ask a group of men what they do on a daily basis to protect themselves from being raped, you’d probably get blank stares and maybe one answer of not going into really sketchy parts of town, or depending on the group you’d get a homophobic joke. Ask that same question to a group of women and you’d get a significantly longer list that includes things like where you walk, who you walk with and how you hold your keys (see the banner on this page)when you’re walking by yourself.

I know this, and I recognize it as an injustice, but somehow in the midst of the conversation, I forgot it and started arguing from my privilege of being a guy.

So why am I telling you this? It reminds me of a TEDx talk given by Jay Smooth recently where he talks about talking about race.You can click the link above, or watch the video embedded below.

Here’s the quote that got me thinking about this incident:

And in general I think we need to move away from the premise that being a good person is a fixed, immutable characteristic, and shift towards seeing being good as a practice, and it is a practice that we carry out by engaging with our imperfections. We need to shift from, we need to shift toward thinking of being a good person the same way we think of being a clean person. Being a clean person is something that you maintain and work on every day

I’m someone who cares about the equality of women and the elimination of sexism. What Jay and this discussion about Macy’s reminds me is that this isn’t stuff that you learn once and you’re set for life. It’s a matter of practice, of continuing to see the residue of sexism, privilege and other -isms, and continuing to work to become better at cleaning that residue off.

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Over the next year or so, I’m going to be putting some more work into this blog, into creating new material as well as revising some of the old material that I think is really good.  But for now, scroll down for a little FAQ on what this blog is about.

What can I expect from the new blog?

My old about page used to say that “I am passionate about loving God, loving people, and building a world shaped by these two loves.” Here’s what this means for the blog reader.

Loving God

You’ll probably see posts centered around God, faith, spirituality and the practice thereof. My faith is one of the basic motivators underneath all that I do in the non-profit world, in the church world, and on campus. You’ll probably see some posts where I explore and ask for discussion on the way we fit into the world and what that means for us and for the world

Loving People

Unfortunately, we live in a world that has been profoundly shaped by hate and selfishness. There are many “-isms” that separate us, that give us the excuse to oppress others, to mistreat others and to separate ourselves from others. I am passionate about undoing hate and doing love, and you’ll probably see some posts around that.

Building A World Shaped By Those Loves

I am about changing the world, and if you are reading this, it’s likely that you are about changing the world too. I’ve spent a lot of time working in the nonprofit sector and in ministry. You’ll also probably see quite a few posts talking about how you can work towards changing the world as an organization leader or as an individual.

I’ll probably post a number of “asides”. Things that I find interesting, unusual, or just fun that don’t fit into those categories. I hope you’ll enjoy those when they show up.

How will I know when you’ve updated the blog?

The easiest way is to subscribe to the RSS feed in your favorite feed reader.

But there were some of your old posts that I really liked. Are they gone forever?

I’ve got all the posts saved. If there’s something you really like, let me know and I can send it to you or I can republish it.

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