Big Is The New Small

No one ever achieved greatness by settling for average.  Seriously who wants to be average?   If you want to be great you must at least strive for really good.  Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land somewhere in space.

If you are sitting around waiting for greatness to happen, your bottom is gonna get numb because greatness doesn’t just happen.  People who are great work hard and they strive for greatness.  We must learn to dream BIG. think BIGGER.

God gives us dreams a couple of sizes too BIG, so that we can grow into them.  Are you dreaming God-sized dreams?

You Can’t Be Great Settling For Average!  You Can’t Have Great Settling For Average!

dream BIG. think BIGGER.

Why do people settle for average?

You Are Not Seth Godin! Some of you are probably reading this post and thinking, “Duh, state the obvious!”  Seriously, You Are Not Seth Godin and neither am I.  Don’t get me wrong, I definitely consider myself to be a student of the Seth Godin School of Thought.  As a matter of fact, this little ol’ blog BigIsTheNewSmall.com is an Arkansas Kissin’ Cousin of Seth’s book Small Is The New Big.

I think one of the key leadership/life/marketing lessons that we can learn from Seth Godin, is simply this, “You Are Not Seth Godin.” Instead of learning from Seth Godin or learning from [fill-in the blank], people try to be a copy-cat of that person.   Just because Seth Godin has recently Given Up On Traditional Book Publishing, doesn’t mean every other author should.  Instead authors should learn from Seth’s decision and apply those learning’s to their situation.

What makes Seth Godin remarkable is the fact that he’s Seth Godin.  He’s a bald-headed, almost action-figure-looking, brilliant, thought leader and marketer that challenges us to dream BIG. think BIGGER. Seth takes the most simple concepts and makes them profound. He states in 300 words what most people can’t state in 300 pages. He doesn’t Twitter or Facebook in the same fashion that most people do; however in his book Tribes he defines leveraging Social Media as we know it.

What makes Seth Godin remarkable is that he learns from everything and he applies those learning’s through the Seth Godin filter.  He doesn’t learn from so and so and try to become so and so.  Seth learns from so and so and through his God-Given Seth Filter, he makes concepts remarkable.  Who else can make a statement like “Very Good Is Bad” and make it make sense. You might ask, How can very good be bad?   According to Seth in one of the old TED talks, “The trouble with very good is that it’s not remarkable enough and people don’t talk about it. They tune it out.”

You Are Not Seth Godin!  That’s the point…

Focus on becoming the best “You,” because “You Are Remarkable!”

It always surprises me to see leaders who hold onto their staff with The Employee Death Grip, which happens to be a distant cousin of the iPhone 4 death grip.   The iPhone 4 receives bad frequency, bad performance and drops calls altogether if you hold it with the death grip.  Similarly, death grip employees will have bad performance, a bad connection and will leave altogether.  This grip is a feature of leaders who are unwilling to let their employees out of their grips for fear of losing the employee or losing control.

When I was a young Warden, my mentor and boss would frequently tell me this regarding my staff members. “Scott, hold onto your team loosely, because ultimately they are not yours to hold onto.” That statement has always stuck with me!

If we hold onto our employees loosely, they feel the freedom of the open hands which ultimately increases productivity and develops leaders.  Encouraging your employees to “grow and go” will result in you losing some great ones from time to time.  The harvest of the open hand abundance mentality will always be replenished.  On the other hand The Employee Death Grip scarcity harvest will quickly dry up. My team has lost a harvest of amazing team members in the last year and that harvest has been replenished with some equally amazing team members without missing a beat.

Scarcity Mentality – Not enough good to go around vs. Abundance Mentality – There is more than enough great to go around.

If you are in an Employee Death Grip situation encourage the leader to get a grip and open their hands.

Let Go! dream BIG. think BIGGER.

Share your thoughts and experiences about The Employee Death Grip.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 So if we are created in the image and likeness of God we have an amazing potential for success.

Our Success Depends On This…

We must believe that we will be successful. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 We should embrace the beautiful reality that we are made in the image of God and we can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength to do so.  We can and will be successful if we truly BELIEVE.

Success is the journey, it’s never the destination.  We must keep running, fighting, trying, clawing, scratching, loving, caring and BELIEVING.  We must never let the “Nouns” (person, places & things) get in the way of our success journey.

Our success depends upon our belief and our actions help us realize what we believe.

You were made for more — Go Get It, Go Do It, Go Be It…  Go BIG!

dream BIG. think BIGGER.

The willingness to take a risk is a direct complement to the drive towards success. If you are unwilling to take risks, you are unwilling to succeed.  Some risks may be more calculated than others, however in order to get to the success side of the mountain you have to climb a hill called risk.

We were not created do play it safe, we were created for more.  We were created to be more, get more, give more, do more and risk more.  A person can never know how much more they can be or how much more they can do, unless they are willing to get off the shores of comfort and jump into the waters of dreaming BIG and thinking BIGGER.

I believe the Roman Philosopher Seneca sums it up quite well with this quote: “It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.”

I Dare You To Risk Something! You might just realize that you’re like a box of cereal… there is a prize deep down inside.

Risk Something!

What do you need to risk?  Why are people so unwilling to take risks?

Many of us grew up hearing the phrase, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”  The reality is that statement isn’t totally true.  Winning does matter and we all have the deep desire to be a winner.  Everyone wants to win and everyone wants to be a winner: The business that you work for, your church, your children’s school, and even those who don’t like winners.  As much as I don’t like Kobe Bryant, I like the fact that he’s a winner.

The Difference Between A Winner & A Loser is the desire to win.  It does matter whether we win or lose and what matters are the things that we can control.  I described those two things in a previous post I had written titled, The Two Things That Leaders Can Control.

Vince Lombardi said it best when he said, “Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.”  If you want to be a winner, you have to want to win.  Larry Bird says it this way, “A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.”

The Difference Between A Winner & A Loser is the habit of winning and the desire to win. Winners get in the habit of dreaming BIG, thinking BIGGER and doing what losers don’t.  If you want to be a winner… Go Win! dream BIG. think BIGGER. If you want to be a loser, sit on the sidelines, complain and make excuses why you can’t win.

The Difference Between A Winner & A Loser.

What do you think?

One of the most intriguing words to me is potential.  Potential is defined as — Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent.  Having possibility, capability, or power.  The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

I was once a young leader with a lot of potential and I had a leader that was willing to take a risk on me.  His belief in me along with my potential, allowed me to me one of the youngest Prison Wardens in the country at the age of 25.  Of course his leadership rubbed off on me and I have always loved taking risks on unproven leaders with a lot of potential.

Potential is a great thing and the ability to recognize it is an even greater thing.  The greatest problem with potential is the simple fact that “Potential Unrealized Is Just Potential!”  We all have known those individuals that we have to sadly utter these words about them, “So and So had so much potential!”

We are all made for so much more than just potential; we are made to realize our potential.  If you have potential go after it, reach for it and realize it.  If you lead someone with a lot of potential, help them to realize it; encourage them to dream BIG & think BGGER.

The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become. ~Ben Herbster

Potential Unrealized Is Just Potential!

What do you think?  Share your thoughts and experiences of people with realized and unrealized potential.

There are probably a dozen different thoughts or definitions of what a Next-Level Leader is or what that word-pairing actually means.  In this post I will provide my personal definition of what a Next-Level Leader is, in addition to identifying 5 Characteristics of A Next-Level Leader.

The definition of a Next-Level Leader is this- A leader that not only elevates their personal leadership to the Next-Level, but elevates the leadership of their team members, peers and competition to the Next-Level.  They challenge those around them to dream BIG. think BIGGER

Below are the 5 Characteristics of A Next-Level Leader, Next-Level Leaders always do these things:

1.) Challenge Everything- They challenge things because they are supposed to be challenged.  They not only challenge the thoughts/methods of their leaders, but they challenge their own methodology.  They realize that their boss puts their pants on just like they do and embrace the fact that just because a person a supervisor doesn’t mean they are necessarily smarter or better leaders.  Challenging things is not about being combative, but rather raising every-one’s leadership game to the Next-Level.  It’s okay to respectfully disagree.

2.) Ask The Right Questions- They always ask the right questions… They begin sentences with “What If?, Have You Ever Thought About?, This Might Sound Crazy, but do you think we can…”  Anytime they have the opportunity to sit down with a Next-Level Leader that they desire to learn from, they have a list of questions and not a list of answers.  They take their leadership game to the Next-Level by asking the right questions.

3.) dream BIG- They are always dreaming and imagining.  Some of these dreams may seem to be a fairy-tale to some, but not to a Next-Level Leader.  A Next-Level Leader will schedule an appointment to dream, they go to Starbucks and dream, they close their office door and dream, they take a vacation alone to do nothing but dream.  They take their leadership game to the Next-Level by dreaming BIG, encouraging those around them to dream BIG, writing their dreams down and making those dreams a reality.  They dream BIG. think BIGGER.

4.) Learners- They are always learning from: books, blogs, their industry, history, other industries, culture, failures, their followers, other Next-Level Leaders.  They have a mantra something like Will Rogers’ Mantra (I never met a man I didn’t like) The Next-Level “I Never Met a Man, Woman or Situation that I didn’t learn from.”  They elevate their leadership game to the next-level by realizing that learning is fundamental.

5.) Produce Next-Level Leaders- Next-Level Leaders produce Next-Level Leaders.  Next-Level Leaders contribute to the world of leadership by truly caring about those that they lead and always developing Next-Level Leaders.  They never confuse Management with Leadership.  Managers manage people and things… Next-Level Leaders produce other Next-Level Leaders.  Simply put: ”If You Are Not Developing and Producing Next-Level Leaders… You Are Not A Next Level Leader.”  Next-Level leadership is not about how tall your tree can grow, but rather the type of fruit your tree can produce.

“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” ~Ralph Nader

What has been your experience working with a Next-Level Leaders?  Share your thoughts on any of these 5 Characteristics or Share your definition of a Next-Level Leader.

It was three years ago this month when I started this small blog with a BIG name.  I remember my first post was something about Target and it was one BIG run-on sentence.  I started off with a bootleg black background theme and after my first year I upgraded to the theme/design that you have come to know.

The number of readers here each day has gotten ridiculous, in a good way.  Each and every day there are many new people and around 3,600 of you that have subscribed.  To all of my subscribers, I want to say Thank You! Last month we had over 16,000 unique visitors, To all of my new visitors, I want to say Thank You!

I realized many months back that it was time to change my brand, look and overall feel of BigIsTheNewSmall.com.  I met with a local branding firm that does an amazing job of understanding each client, their brand and how that brand translates.  The company is @EightDay Studios, their slogan “CREATION may have stopped on day seven, but CREATIVITY lives on.”

So what you see today is months of assessment and implementation.   There are still some tweaks to be made over the next few weeks (some you will notice and some you will not), however It’s time to roll it out.  I did not realize the effort that went into customizing a theme and I still don’t have a clue about coding. Here are the details from the New & Improved BigIsTheNewSmall.com:

• After talking with John Saddington from Milk Engine, I decided to go with the Standard Theme. The Standard Theme is simple, clean, neat, built on industry standards and has some great things on the back end that I’m learning to appreciate.  BigIsTheNewSmall.com continues to grow exponentially, in spite of certain things that me and my old blog were not doing.  Get your copy of the standard theme here, it’s inexpensive and highly customizable.
• Kyle from EightDay Studios designed the logo, look, feel, brand, twitter background etc.  Kyle has actually designed the site out further than you see.  You will see the changes in Phase II.  Some of which will roll out this evening.
• Chris Ames from Milk Engine did the coding.
• Brad Huss from BigHype Media helped with some coding.
• I said “Yay & Nay” & Stayed Out Of The Way!
• Kent Shaffer from Church Relevance provided consultation on the monetization process.
• Launched full monetization w/ great sponsors already on board. Integrity Music, RentMyChurch.com, FellowShip Technologies, Ministry Strategies and EightDay Studios is sponsoring Water Is Life.

A couple of things that you can do:

• You can subscribe by e-mail, unfortunately I had never previously deployed that option.  Many people don’t use RSS, so I understand this is an important feature.  Click the mail icon at the top right side of the header.
• RSS readers, click over to the site and check us out.
• If you have not set up Gravatar/Avatar image before, please do so here. This will allow you to have an image on any blog next to your comment.  You simply go here, upload the image and you are good to go on any site. Your face is much prettier than the gray image we have in place.
• If you have linked to BigIsTheNewSmall.com, let me know in the comment section and I will add you to my rotating blogroll in the sidebar.  I’m starting fresh, so be sure to share the link information and be patient.  I will be entering them one by one.
• Check out the new and easy to read mobile version.
• Share your thoughts and questions regarding the new design.  Share functionality observations or any bugs that you may run across.  Thanks for Reading!

dream BIG. think BIGGER.

Believing that you can is half of the battle… Unfortunately believing that you can’t is the wrong half of the battle.

Men often become what they believe themselves to be.  If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it.  But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning. ~Gandhi

What do you think about the importance of believing that you can?  Share your thoughts on this video?

dream BIG. think BIGGER.