I love Robin’s approach here because as of late I’ve been switching my focus. Even though everything I do is about helping people, I found I was ‘too busy for people because I’m too busy helping people’, when ‘helping’ is admin and emails rather than face to face connection and encouragement.

Isn’t this just everyone’s story – we’re too busy helping people to help people.

I am a pastor at my church, I run Like Minds, I engage with you all here, and I do a bit of speaking, all of which are about helping people. In fact, I have pretty much wound down my consultation because I want to spend more time helping people.

But here’s the kicker – I so often found that in all my work trying to help people (admin for our sunday service, preparing the Like Minds conference, thinking about what to speak about), I actually had no time left to actually sit face to face and help people! It’s the dilemma that I was putting paper before people.

This must be some form of torture, to spend all your hours trying to move a bottom line that you never actually touch or confront.

So, I’ve been spending a good amount of time directly with people as of late, and it’s been so much more fruitful. I’m putting people first, paper second.

Now, the trick is to get some balance and engage with you all here more – I’ve missed you over the last 10 days.

Your Leading Thoughts

• Have you come up against the same wall in your life? (I expect you have)
• How have your overcome it – OR – what help do you need from us to help you overcome it?

One of the gems from the Like Minds Summit back in February was short term execution with a long term goal. In other words, it was “there’s where we want to be, but let’s execute this first.”

So, essentially, there’s no “then,”, there’s only “now.”

Your Leading Thoughts

1. Do you have similar traits when you get too confident and become complacent? (Or is it just me?)
2. When did you learn that execution was more important that ideas?

Photo by juicyrai

If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch direct on YouTube.

Hello friends – I am back from Spain (36°C) to the glorious English summer of clouds and rain. Certainly I am very, very rested and relaxed. I did no work except on the first two days, and for the majority of the holiday I didn’t even know what time it was as my watch and phone were out of sight!

A year ago after my summer holiday I said I felt re-envisioned, which was just before we launched Like Minds. This time, I feel like I’ve got a bit more re-prioritised.

Getting perspective, getting away and seeing things with fresh eyes, is a wonderful byproduct of a holiday. I find that month-on-month, we add things into our life that often are very unproductive, but we take them on because they demand our attention, and we get into the tradition of doing things for the sake of doing them. Many times we don’t even see this happen.

Or we find we are putting disproportionate amounts of time into the things that don’t yield the return that we should be putting more time into.

What I’ve found is that because a holiday STOPS you doing the little things like this, you are forced to reconsider what the priorities are.

Your Leading Thoughts

• I’m keen to know how you get perspective and how you find holidays help you.

Here’s a thought to kick off the week: is it easier to obtain than maintain?

For example: I find it easier to start and lead something, than managing it once it has been bult. Like Minds is always growing (check out our latest addition) – so I’m not so much maintaining it as I am obtaining new ground every month.

This is a hack I use. I know that I have energy and motivation to obtain, so I always focus on growing the things that I’m leading – or setting targets to obtain.

Faye, however, is far better at maintaining – so in many ways we compliment each other. Of course, we also can both step into obtain or maintain at any point if it is really required of us. This balance has been so useful for everything we do as a team.

Your Leading Thoughts

My question is – to you guys who participate and engage here – which are you? Can you obtain and maintain, or just one? What tricks do you use?

Photo: Like Minds Summit at Villa Kataya

Rich’s comment was so good, and so encapsulated the journey that I’ve been on over the last 2 years (and in particular, the last 2 months), that I’d like to share it with all of you. Consider it a lesson in “No.”

The question to ask yourself as you read is, like Apple, what should you say “no” to, so that you can “yes” to?

If you need more advice on a “strong no” when you’re done with this, then watch this video from Robin Dickinson on the subject.

How Rich Quick Learnt To Say No

By Rich Quick

It’s something I’ve discovered over the course of my business career anyway. The power of “no”.

I come from a sales background. Salespeople love the word “yes”, it makes them money.

I also trained to be a teacher – and both my parents were teachers. (Good) teachers also love to say “yes”. Yes, I can help you. Yes, you did do well on your homework.

So, “no” come unnaturally to me.

When someone asks me if I can drop my prices to help them out, I want to say “yes”.

When someone asks me to do a quick fix to their site this afternoon or work over the weekend, I want to say “yes”. (money’s money, after all).

And when they want me to do something that’s a little bit outside my expertise, like a custom CMS or some social media consultancy? I want to say “yes”, of course.

But actually, I’ve found that the more I say yes, the more likely I am to let people down.

So, someone phones me up and asks me to do a quick change to their site this afternoon. No problem, I say. But then the other project I’m working on gets pushed back.

Or I say “yeah, I’ll do a custom online shop for you”, but then there’s a problem that I’ve not come across before – because it’s outside my comfort zone – and the project ends up costing more that we’d expected and taking longer.

So I’ve actually found that “no” is often better than yes. Especially if it’s followed up by a good recommendation.

No, I can’t do a custom online shop. But let me give you the number of a company who can.

No, I can’t fit your work in this week, because that would mean pushing back another client’s work, and that would be unfair.

No, I don’t want to advise you on social media strategy. Give Scott a call instead.

It’s about managing expectations.

It’s better to keep 3 people happy, than to let down 3 people out of 5.

This is what I think Apple are doing with the iPad.

What’s better: To release an iPad that can multitask .. but keeps crashing. Or to release one that can’t multitask (yet) and never crashes?

It’s about managing expectations.

Apple don’t want to be the IT guy who says he’ll be in this afternoon and doesn’t come in for 3 days. They want to be the guy who says he can’t do it for 4 days and sticks to his word.

Photo courtesy of nicholas nova

I’ve agonised over leaving the blog blank while I get my thoughts into gear, or whether to throw out an update, but in realising that I myself go on and on about social media being relational, I can’t not practise what I preach. So, here goes with my first ‘keeping you in the loop’.

Of course, I’m not embarrassed or ashamed about this. In actual fact I’ve received loads of support from you all on my latest projects:

1. He Saved The Day – our church’s first men’s conference, from Friday 9th to Sunday 11th October. I’ve helped run loads of women’s conferences but this is the first mens’ one, so it is hard work really thinking through what it is that men want and need to get out of a conference.

2. Like Minds – my first social media conference, a week after He Saved The Day, on Friday 16th October. This is really stretching me beyond what started out as a small idea and has become an international event. The thrill on this is going from an event that existed in concept, to one that now has great speakers, great sponsors, and great buzz.

I’ve also had the pleasure of writing two guest posts, the first on ‘Brand Experience: Real Differentiation‘ for Exeter’s Alder and Alder, and then a post on ‘Innovation Over Tradition‘ for Josh Chandler.

On top of that, I’ve got a few other things brewing, as well as some serious business thought with help from Jim and Robin, as I documented the other week, meaning in all, I’m quite a busy boy.

And, on top of that, I have the unfortunate confession that whilst my GTD system has held up under intense pressure before, these last two weeks since being back from holiday have been a hard slog and my system has not quite kept it together, and has become (in my English understatement) a little bit overgrown.

What I’m realising in all of this is how vital it is to deliver the basics well. And in times like this, you need good disciplines to help you focus on delivering those basics well, and not get caught up into the hype of activity and buzz without being firm in your foundations.

And I’m also realising that you really do need strong convictions that have become actions to set daily routines that help keep you focussed, on target, and performing the necessary tasks with excellence.

I do have some really great things to write about this week, so do keep in touch. And if you’re a reader and have never commented, then do me a big favour, and make me feel loved.

• 90% of the congregation are there on a Sunday
• 90% of our visitors come on a Sunday
• 100% of our income comes on a Sunday
• 80% of our teaching is given on a Sunday
• 70% of our pastoring work is done on a Sunday

Sunday is my favourite day of the week because everything from Monday to Saturday is building up – to Sunday.

When is your game day?

Action. The most precious human resource in the world. It is the people who have acted upon social injustice that have changed our world. Those who started with doing just something that have shaped our history. It those who acted upon a dream, a vision, who pulled what was previously thought impossible into the realm of realirt.

Amidst the commoditisation of content, the measure of clarity is its ability to provoke this invaluable resource.

If I could say one thing to every person (and particularly, every blogger) in the world, it would be this: you are educated above your level of action, and before you learn or blog another thing, I want you to simply use the information you already have and unleash your actions.

But because I can’t, I’ll share with you how I have learnt to help those around me activate action. It’s all about an IDEA:

Inspire – show them what part they can play, not necessarily in the whole world, but in their world.
Decision – help them see it starts with a decision to do.
Example – point them to a great example. Better yet, be the example.
Action –  ask them write down right there and then the next step… and commit to do it.

As one wise man succinctly put it two thousand years ago, “don’t merely listen: do.” Here’s to a generation of acters.

But, we don’t. And it is the same with the western consumer world in general. We have stuff, more stuff, and stuff for our stuff. Never before have there been more books and websites (aka free information) on how to get out of debt, but never before have there been so many people in debt.

It is no new thing for us to realise, then, that the former king of the internet is now nothing more than a commoner. A commodity. Content has fallen and a new sovereign – the original sovereign – takes their place.

Today’s king is clarity. The type of blogger / tweeter / thinker who is able to communicate a thought succinctly and simultaneously rouse from their reader the most precious resource the human race has: action.

I mention Chris Brogan above because he is an excellent example of clarity. He causes action. Another is Seth Godin. And another is Olivier Blanchard. It is my opinion that we are educated beyond our level of action. These thinkers don’t educate us through content. They cause us to act through clarity.