Big Is The New Small

Great TED Talk by Cameron Herold about teaching our kids to be entrepreneurs.  It goes with this verse and it’s really a new way to think about raining kids, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for life.”  Talks about traits of CEO’s like Steve Jobs, Ted Turner and more.

Cameron asks the question is your kid bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur. At TEDxEdmonton, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish — as kids and as adults.

This is a brilliant, candid and honest talk. Very reminiscent of the way I thought and operated as a child.

Watch this video and share your thoughts.

This is a video that I shot literally 3 years ago from this week.  It’s amazing how much things have changed in just 3 short years.  I took quick unedited video snippets throughout my day and pieced them altogether.

It’s amazing how much things have changed in 3 years:

• Feed The Children has gone through some difficult times and a major leadership change
• @Shaq has changed his twitter name and has retired from the NBA
• My sons are no longer little boys but rather little young men (kinda-sorta)
• I no longer have the goofy transitions glasses
• I’m no Longer at LifeChurch.tv and many of the staff are in new roles inside and outside of LifeChurch.tv

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. James 4:14 NLT

How much has life changed for you in the last 3 years?

GUEST BLOGGER: Today’s guest post comes from Chris Spradlin over at @EpicParent.  Chris provides great parenting content at (EpicParent.tv).  If you would like to be a guest blogger for BigIsTheNewSmall.com, click here.

Step Up and Lead

We live in a world that is driven by strong leaders, entrepreneurial genius’, innovative risk takers, and bold decision makers. We study the lives of pacesetters like Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Hillary Clinton, and Condoleeza Rice. We have learned the art of efficiency, empowering leaders, negotiations, confronting weak performance, leading through difficult situations, and leading from influence rather than position.

While we have become stronger and better leaders over the years, many of us have families that have been destroyed in the process!

• The divorce rate amongst couples with no workaholic spouse sits at around 16%. By contrast, workaholic marriages crumble at a 55% rate
• Children of workaholics grow up learning that promises often are not kept.
• Kids of workaholics lead the way in drug use and teenage pregnancies

While you may have flair in the board room, today I am challenging you to STEP UP AND LEAD in the living room!

5 Strategies To Help You Step Up And Lead In the Living Room…

• PUT DOWN AND PICK UP: I encourage all parents to PUT DOWN “Good To Great” and PICK UP God’s Word. Your kids desperately need you to deposit God’s Word deep into their heart, soul, and mind. You might be a success because you can lead executives through a book study but you’re a failure if you can’t lead your kids in a Bible study. Don’t try to change the world in one day, set a simple goal of making this happen twice a week.
• PRACTICE SERVANT LEADERSHIP: We all know that an effective leader serves those he is leading. As I think about this, it’s interesting to me that we serve those at work but expect to be served at home. I encourage all parents to step into the pain and relentlessly serve their families…even if you just got home from work! I have also found this to be one of the greatest parenting tools in changing my kids’ attitude and behavioral challenges. One day I was at the end of my rope with my son’s attitude. The only thing left in my bag of tricks was to spank him every day for the rest of his life and put him under house arrest until he turned 35! Instead…I opted for the ridiculous strategy of serving him. I helped him clean his room, make his bed, and asked if he wanted to have a sleep over with five of his buddies. (I’ll never do that again) What was the result? Absolute character transformation! Step up and serve your family!
• GIVE PERMISSION: So many of us try to create a culture in our work environment where our staff can be real, share their heart, and be brutally honest. I believe parents need to create this exact same culture at home. Give your kids permission to be real, share their heart, and be brutally honest! Give them permission to respectfully challenge your parenting. “Dad, you rarely keep your promises”, “Mom, you always say your too tired”, “Why do you work so much”. Give your kids permission. And this is a great time for you to shut-up and listen! Don’t hire an expensive legal team to defend your position.
• USE THE “F” WORD: If you want to get your kids’ attention, stop them in their tracks and get them to listen to you…then I encourage you to use the “F” word! “Cole, I want to ask for your forgiveness for not keeping my promise”, “Kylie, will you forgive me for yelling”, “Tifton, will you please forgive me for making you listen to my LoverBoy album”…I think you get the idea.
• PRAY: Last week I found my old skool MC Hammer cassette tape. Team Sprad pulled it out and listened to one of my favorite songs on the album…PRAY. I believe that all parents should make prayer a foundation in their home! My wife is in nursing school right now, so I am Mr. take the kids to school guy. Every morning on the way to school, I pray for and over Team Sprad. I don’t pray a weak “God help the kids today” kind of a prayer. No, I pray a bold… “God give my kids the power to change the world kind of a prayer”! If you want to lead your family…PRAY!

What did I miss? Share 1 way that you can start leading your family today.

Life is about Moments & Memories.  The things you do in today’s moments will be tomorrow’s memories.  It’s important that we embrace every single moment, understanding it’s true potential for lasting memories.  If you talk to anyone that has lost someone they loved, they will always talk about the Moments & Memories that they had with that person.  The same thing is true for the parents that look back and remember when their children were toddlers and next thing you know they are graduating from high school.

All of our moments are precious gifts from God.  Take some time today to look at your moments at work, with your kids, your friends and your spouse differently.  Realize that those special moments are special gifts that will produce special memories.  Think about your child’s 1st step, piano recital, gymnastics meet, when they made a decision to follow Christ, football games, basketball games, open house at school, trick or treating, college graduation, their wedding day and the list goes on and on.

No matter what you do, do it from the perspective of asking these two questions:  Are the things that I’m doing in today’s moments creating the right memories for tomorrow?  Am I finding the God moments even in the little things?

Below are a couple of videos from this past Saturday of my 8yo son Jayden running the ball, one is a little swing pass and the other is a trap.  I love coaching this group of boys and they have come a long way this season, as a matter of fact this past Saturday was the semi-finals and our 26-25 victory put us in the Championship Game this weekend.  Such great Moments & Memories.

After we win the Championship Game this coming weekend (prophetically speaking), I get the opportunity to drive 2.5 hours to officiate a wedding of a great couple with a really bright future.

“If you long for the perfect moment, the perfect moment will pass you by.”

Great Moments & Great Memories.

Share your thoughts on Moments & Memories.  You can also share your thoughts on my son’s two plays in the above videos.

In yesterday’s post I shared a video from Seth Godin and in which he shared one sentence that really challenged me.
He was referencing the value of daily blogging and he said, “Having to say intelligent things about what you notice in the world makes you smarter.”  That is absolutely brilliant.

I have been blogging nearly every day for the last 4 years and I can actually say that I’m definitely a better thinker because of it. According to Seth Godin, not only am I a better thinker, I’m smarter.

Seth actually put into words what I’ve thought for quite some time.  The best learning and training we have is FREE and readily available to each of us.  This learning is at our disposal and it’s not about some sort of formal learning type situation.  We actually have the ability to learn, grow and develop from every-day, all-day situations.

Sometimes, I Can’t Stop Thinking; I may even go overboard, but I’m always thinking, learning, processing and orienting my world from every single interaction.  If I’m coaching my son’s football team, I’m processing, thinking and learning from 3rd and 4th graders. When I go through a restaurant drive-thru, I’m processing and learning from my interaction and their processes.  When I read tweets and blogpost, I’m learning.  As I type these words, I’m thinking, learning and processing this revelation of thoughts to paper.  The cool thing is that these interactions become lessons, sermon illustrations, conference talks, personal mantras, chapters in books and even helpful strategies for my clients.

As humans we have approximately 3,000 thoughts per day, some questions we must as ourselves is, “Are we learning from those thoughts?” and “What are we thinking?”  If you want to grow, learn from all of your interactions today, tomorrow and yesterday.  It’s all about taking your life, your lens, your values, your experiences and processing them in connection to world around you.

There is a FREE Training Guaranteed To Make You A Better Thinker…  that training is your life, your experiences and a willingness to learn from the two.

So what do you think? 

Do you make a conscious effort to learn from your daily interactions?  Share some examples of great lessons that you’ve learned from the most unlikely situations.

I am making an announcement about the new Season for The Williams’ Family.  Before I announce what that season is and where we are going, let me rewind almost 8 months ago.  I actually made the “Big Announcement #2″ that I was going to be transitioning out of my role at LifeChurch.tv into a new season of ministry for my family.

Fast forward 8 months and I have started a consulting company Nxt Level Solutions LLC.  The short and skinny of what we do is help organizations with both external and internal growth. We do this by helping with Leadership Development, Strategy, Diversity Consulting and New Media. In a short amount of time, God has blessed us with an amazing group of organizations and individuals to work with.  We are growing and at the same time helping others go farther faster. On top of this, more entrepreneurial adventures are around the corner and I’ve been blessed to continue sharing the message of Church Diversity around the country.

As far as the new season for the Williams’ family, we are going to be (give me another paragraph).   I have received many texts, DM’s & calls about what the new season is; let me explain a little further. When we made the decision to start a new season for our family 8 months ago, one of the goals was for us to continue to grow as a family.  As we prayed about what that would look like, LaKendria and I set one of our primary goals as her being able to stay home.  Years ago we thought this would have been important when our boys were young; however we are finding that it’s important really important at their current stage.

So the New Season For The Williams’ Family is not about us going to a new place physically, but rather LaKendria is going to be staying home.  Yep straight up Betty Crocker, Soccer Mom, Family Coordinator, Supporter, Teammate, Mother, Partner, Wife & making us a better family SAHM.  She put her notice in this week and her last day will be sometime in November.

This wasn’t simply a goal for us, but a step of faith and an act of listening to God’s Whispers. God is oh so many steps ahead of us, we are happy to follow his lead.  Ecclesiastes 3:1 NCV say’s it this way, “There is a time for everything, and everything on earth has its special season.”  I’m really looking forward to this special season.

What new seasons does God have for you and your family?   He’s whispering, are you listening?

This is funny…
When was the last time that you tried something new? Remember life is about trying.

I have seen the original spoken word version of this video in the past.  This new version of the video brings some cinematography and visuals to help tell the story and poses a real question: How Bad Do You Want To Be Successful?

When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breath, you will be successful.  Most people say they want to be successful but they don’t want to give up anything.  You have to give up something, often times many things to succeed.

Want some inspiration…  Watch this video.

Share your thoughts on this video and what it takes to be successful.

I met this beautiful college freshman in 1996, we married some 5 years later and today is our anniversary.  God has blessed us more than we could ask, think or imagine.

Today is a BIG Day. Actually as you read this I’m on a cruise and we are probably somewhere in the Bahamas.  I’m enjoying time with the love of my life Lakendria and these two young men that we are both pretty fond of.

A couple of years ago, our sons Wesley & Jayden surprised us with what they called Anniversary Cafe, featured in the above video.  I have shown this video on our annversary for the last couple years, so I decided to make it a BigIsTheNewSmall.com August 4th tradition.  I’m sure they will not appreciate me showing this once they are in college…  nonetheless, if I’m still blogging in 10 years, I’ll be showing the video.

“The art of love… is largely the art pf persistence.” ~Albert Ellis

What are some special surprises that you have done for your friends/loved ones, or how have your friends/loved ones surprised you?

I’m typing this post really quick from my iPhone, while in the hot sun at the Jr. Olympics. It’s blazing hot, like 110 degrees. Wichita has has 34 days of 100+ temps.

This is year is the 1st year that my boys both competed on a competitive track club. My 12yo son Wesley had a great season, made it regionals and qualified as an alternate on the relay for the Junior Olympics.

My 8yo son Jayden qualified in a couple of events and actually got 5th place overall in the shot-put, making him a Nike Jr. Olympic All-American. The top 8 athletes in each event, garner the All-American status.

Here is what I saw and learned through Jayden’s journey becoming an All-American. All-American in an event that he knew nothing about 3 months ago. I learned a lot from this season.

7 Things It Takes To Become An All-American:
1. Teachability- Jayden was always eager to learn. He listened, he watched YouTube videos of shot-puters, he embraced new techniques & he learned. Coaches praised his teachable spirit.

2. Practice- Jayden worked hard and gave 110% almost every practice. He always asked to run w/ the sprinters, even during times he was working on the shot-put. He was open to extra practices that my wife and had put him through.

3. Resilience- Jayden always learned from his mistakes. When a kid from his team began throwing farther than him, he simply worked harder and got better and next thing Jayden began throwing farther than that kid. During the regional competition Jayden had gotten beat by a kid from St. Louis… Today, Jayden beat him.
Jayden’s first throw out the gate was out-of-bounds and he got a little shook up. Jayden came back and got better and better.

4. Growth- Throughout the season, Jayden got better and better and better and better. During the Jr. Olympics he threw his personal best for his last throw of the semi-finals and the last three throws of the finals.

5. Heart- Jayden has the heart and desire of a winner. He told us he was going to get on the podium at the Jr. Olympics, and he did. You have to have heart, desire and a will to win.

6. Commitment- Jayden was committed to both track & field events. When I was giggling about the initial possibility of Jayden throwing the shot-put, he focused & stayed committed. His commitment payed off!

7. Performance- Jayden performed when everything was on the line. During the peak of his competition, He performed, he threw his best. (I personally think he has a little more in him. We will see about next year.)

Bonus: Have Fun: Jayden competed, nut he also had fun. He enjoyed himself and acted like an 8yo. If you are not having fun and enjoying what you do, it’s time to do something different.

Share your thoughts on how these lessons play into the successes of life.