Mark Clement

The Power Of Words

As a writer, a speaker, a director...simply as a communicator, words are everything to me. I am constantly thinking about words, indivually, in groups and sentences. How they work, what they mean and how they make me feel. Words set the tone. They tell me everything I need to know about a person. They build up and tear down. They influence and define lives. They have incredible power. Simply put...words matter.

It matters what we say, when, where and how we say it. Our words have the power to make someone's day. They equally have the power to destroy and tear down, to discourage and derail. Think back over the last 24 hours or so. How did you use your words? What health or harm did you cause? Not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but I am simply reminding myself (and maybe you too) to think twice before I speak. To choose loving and encouraging words more than not. To think hard about what I can say to any given person to make them feel better, to encourage them, to love them. How can my words make the world a better place?

The video above is a message bumper we did for First Hattiesburg's current series entitled 'Words'. The following video demonstrates just how powerful and how important choosing the right words is.

The Friday List

As you read this I'm on the beach for a LONG overdue getaway with the family.

• Check out some of my fellow Dream Year participants and what they are up to. Very cool to be part of such a unique and diverse movement.
• Speaking of Dream Year, @benarment is accepting applications for DY2011 now. Deadline is December 3. If you have a dream, do yourself a favor and do everything you can to work with Ben. It's totally worth it. CLICK HERE to see all the details. If you want to talk with me about the experience, I'd love to hook up. DM or email me and we'll hook up.
• Really great article re: the 'TRUTH' about Facebook compared to the movie. Check it here: http://ow.ly/2Pq2t
• The couple of months leading up to November elections make watching TV almost unbearable. Sick of all the negative ads. I have no idea what any of the candidates in my area actually stand for, only how bad they think the other person is. I don't want to know why I SHOULDN'T vote for them. I want to know why I SHOULD vote for you. 
• Currently re-reading A Million Miles... by Donald Miller. Third time. For anyone creating in the world of 'story', this is a must read. I have pages of notes. 
• Speaking of Don, amazing last minute campaign has raised the money needed to get Blue Like Jazz The Movie off the ground. Great post from Don HERE.
• Entering final stages of pre-production for our film 'One'. Extremely excited.

The Friday List

Crazy last couple of weeks with tons of filming and travel to Chicago and Auburn. Some interesting stuff:

• From Dentsu, the creative agency behind the incredible holographic typography, comes another 3-D stunner: Sculptures of paint reacting to sound.This is an amazing thing to watch. You can learn more about it here.

• Check out the latest music video from OK Go for the song "White Knuckles". As usual extremely creative, but I have to say it pales in comparison to their recent efforts. They just set the bar so stinkin' high. 
• Production for the movie 'Blue Like Jazz' has been delayed and may be cancelled altogether due to a lack of funding. These two guys have taken it upon themselves to raise $125k to fill the gap and make the movie happen. Click HERE to find out more and lend your support.
• This blog post from Behance about using analog tools to help you be more productive is really fascinating. 
• Barton Damer who created ALL of the hologram visuals at the STORY conference last week featured them on his blog. While this new technology looked good and was very cool, I didn't personally find it to be a 'wow'. It really only worked if you were looking at it dead on. Off to the sides it totally lost it's effect and to call it a hologram is a bit of a stretch. But I do think it's an important early step toward what will surely be a great technology at some point in the future.
• Saw Josh Garrels live at Story in Chicago last week and was blown away by his unique voice. Do yourself a favor and check him out on iTunes.
• In the midst of final casting for our upcoming short film 'One'. We're filming here in B'ham Nov. 4-7.
• The indomitable  Scott Ross and I are working on a concept for what I think could be an amazing documentary film in 2011. Could change the way you look at your pastor forever.

How Analog Rituals Can Amp Your Productivity

As a society, we are engaged in a constant pursuit to be more productive. For the most part, this is a good thing. We want to work smarter. We crave efficiency. Time is our most precious commodity, and productivity tools help us spend it more wisely. 

Over the past few years, I have observed all sorts of methods for productivity. One consistent surprise is the role of monotonous rituals and what could be described as "analog drudgery" among the especially productive. For such accomplished people, I am shocked by the apparent lack of efficiency in their daily routines.

At one point during my research for Making Ideas Happen, I interviewed Bob Greenberg, the legendary CEO of the digital agency R/GA. With high-flying clients like Nike and other household names, Greenberg is overseeing a tremendous number of heavyweight projects at any point in time. He's a busy guy and he's been leading his industry for decades. 

Despite his digital interests, Greenberg's productivity tools are entirely analog. He uses a paper agenda with a series of lists written at the top that he writes every single day. In the morning, Greenberg will manually bump uncompleted tasks from the previous day to the current day. He also re-writes the names of key clients and other areas of focus; often transcribing the same names again and again, daily, for weeks if not months or years.

When I hear about such monotonous and repetitive work, my instinct is to make it more efficient. If Greenberg used a digital system — even a spreadsheet — he could save a significant amount of time. Even better, he could use an online project management tool that automatically bumped everything to the following day for him. Scratch that; he's a CEO! Why doesn't he have an assistant that does this all for him?!

For Greenberg, it's all about feeling the granularity of prioritization. By manually bumping a certain task every day, he feels that it is incomplete. He is faced with the reality and forced to either complete the task, delegate it, or bump it again.

And it's not just Greenberg who operates like this. Many admired (and extremely effective) leaders use an analog approach to productivity as a way to stay accountable and feel connected to their decisions around how they spend their energy.

Yes, monotony and routine can be truly wearisome. They transform our colorful, over-stimulated existence into black and white. But a task left undone SHOULD be a burden. If you make your system for productivity too productive, you will become anesthetized to your responsibilities.

We are left with an important lesson: The manual labor involved with productivity is valuable. Repetitive rituals will make you pause. You will feel burdened, but you will also catch a glimpse of just how busy you are and what you should prioritize.

This post was written by Behance Founder & CEO Scott Belsky, whose new book, Making Ideas Happen, chronicles the methods of exceptionally productive creative people and teams.

No More Christian Nice Guy

Had the privilege to work with author Paul Coughlin to create a promo for his book No More Christian Nice Guy and related conferences, etc... Check it here:

Integrity

I recently came across a book called "Integrity: The Courage To Meet The Demands Of Reality" by Dr. Henry Cloud, the same guy who wrote the well known book "Boundaries". On Amazon you can sometimes 'look inside' a book and read a few pages, usually in the first chapter. The title caught my attention so I checked it out and WOW!
After the first 3 pages (all you get) I was hooked, definitely planning to pick this up. You can go online and check it out yourself but here's a brief summary for those with ADD. When asked to speak to some young adults about true success, the author (when pressed) came up with 3 quick keys that are awesome.

1. Be competent in your field. Bill Gates has to know something about computers, etc...

2. Be an alliance builder. Truly successful people build relationships, networks, alliances with those they work with, inside and outside of their organization, customers, managers, others in their field, etc... A great observation. But here's the one that puts a person over the top:

3. You have to have the character/integrity not to screw it up and own your mistakes when you make them. This is huge! How many of us have worked with people who have great skills and knowledge, and enough relational skills to put deals together at least on the front end, but there is something about them as a person that gets in the way of all that ability and talent? More importantly, how does that question apply to each of us? To me? 

What keys do you find crucial to true success?

The End Of Publishing As We Know It

With the introduction of the Kindle by Amazon over the last couple of years, it was apparent that all things publishing were about to get turned upside down. That process is now going to be drastically accelerated in 2010 by the introduction of the new Apple tablet computer and this device, the new eBook from Time and The Wonderfactory.

To get some insight into how this could affect the publishing industry, check out this post from Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson.

What do you think about this brave new world? What will it take for you to stop buying real books?

The Shack

The following is a brief 'article' from my brother Matt which he posted on facebook a while back.  Yesterday someone asked for my input regarding the book and instead of rewriting something entirely new, I thought I'd just share Matt's piece because it 100% articulates my thoughts.  Check it and I'll pass any comments along to Matt:

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a bandwagon reader. To be honest, I'm not that much of a fiction reader to begin with, but at the behest of a few friends I decided to give William P. Young's "The Shack" a read.

I was curious as to what made this book so appealing to such a great audience. It was only a few pages into the forward that I discovered the connection to every reader in the form of The Great Sadness.

That phrase struck a chord in me. I'm sure it probably struck a chord with most people because I would be willing to bet that most of us are dealing with our own Great Sadness is some way or another. Whether it be a death of a parent or close family member, abuse as a child, or any other circumstance that we deem "unfair" or wronged by (regardless of our contribution to it), The Great Sadness is unrelenting in weaving a common thread in most people's lives.

The beautiful part to me about The Shack is how it deals with The Great Sadness that Mack had been shouldering for some time. It is a stunning depiction of redemption and grace. It paints a vivid picture of how our lives can be healed from it's brokenness when we allow ourselves to adopt the paradigm of Providence.

This paradigm is best illustrated when Sarayu takes Mack to the garden. It is described as "chaos in color." Mack thinks it looks like a mess, but when he discovers that it's actually a visual of his soul, he begins to see how God sees him, full of beautiful color or a "living fractal". Although the fractal is infinitely complex, there is order and purpose in how He sees us and because of the redemptive work done through Christ, it is always beautiful.

I think that most of us don't realize how distorted our paradigm can be because of The Great Sadness in our lives. It robs us of any opportunity to see ourselves completely whole when held against the light of restoration.

For me the guilt became comfortable and the pain was familiar. It was something that became a part of me. Only recently have I decided to take measured steps to deal with it once and for all so that I won't see myself as "a mess," but rather a "living fractal." I can't wait to live in that garden.

Something else that I take away from the book is that God is not unmindful of our Great Sadness. For a preacher's kid that seems to be a pretty basic theological principle. But sometimes we need to be reminded of the simplicity of his nature.

In fact, this story illustrates that not only is he aware of our pain, but sometimes God will invite us to meet him at our most painful place. God didn't invite Mack to the church, a prayer meeting, or a bible study to do his work. Instead he chose the place that would open his deepest wounds in order for God to do his greatest healing.

The greatest point I believe The Shack makes through it's story is the power of God's relational nature. Yes, he sometimes asks us to meet him at our darkest place. Yes, he will stretch us to our limits, but it all begins with his willingness to meet us where we are. For Mack God-in-three was in the form of an African American woman named Elousia, an Asian woman named Sarayu, and a Hebrew man Jesse.

Now before any of my traditional church-going friends get their feathers ruffled and think this book is saying that God is a woman, rest assured it is not. So, put your quilted bible covers and lacy bookmarks away and relax. If the scriptures can use a donkey or a bush to speak to us or meet with us, I think it's safe to say he would personify himself as a woman if he needed to. Remember, it's just a story.

Anyway, I would venture to guess that Mack is not alone in his distant and unapproachable view of God. If I had a father like he did, I would probably be share a similar view. Fortunately I have a great dad and cannot not relate to Mack.

My favorite line in the book is when Papa tells Mack, "Life needs a bit of time and a lot of relationship." How great is it that our Creator seeks us out so that we may know him and in that relationship with him be completely whole.

I realize my soul at times is "chaos in color," but with the right paradigm I will focus on the "living fractal" within.

The Go-Giver

Just finished a great new book called The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea.  It's a simple parable about giving.  These biblical principles are timeless, but here repackaged in a new and thought-provoking way.  It's a quick and easy read.  Every leader should set aside a couple of hours to open it up and get reacquainted with the true meaning of success.