Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise

7 minute attitude adjustment… happy Friday dance party.

My peep Blaine Hogan is a hero to many because of how he generously shares his faith and creativity with brilliance, boldness and courage.

He is a hero to a some because of his famous stint on Prison Break.

He is a hero to me for choosing joy and keeping a straight face at the same time.

If I knew a new cool word for the old word “EPIC” … I would use it now.

Want better results from others? Change your M.O.

A few weeks ago I blogged about reducing the static to engage with others. I got a few comments and even more DMs and emails from people asking me how to “change an internal M.O.”

There is no “one-size-fits-all” or “five quick steps” to answer that question. A person’s M.O. is about emotional intelligence and spiritual health. The key to breaking out of our own ruts and changing our internal M.O. is self-awareness. But, our ruts are highly personal, aren’t they?

So, instead of just answering “get a therapist” (which isn’t a bad place to start), I thought I’d point to ten posts where I’ve talked about this before (trust me, there’s a ton more where these came from). Hope this helps.

10. Get feedback.  

9. Remember, everybody doesn't hate you. 

8. Learn from your mistakes.   

7. Quit trying to get it all done.

6. Get a preventative maintenance plan.

5. Create social social impact.

4. Know the difference between drawing, crossing & blurring the lines of communication.

3. Guard your heart.

2. Cultivate success. 

1. Get over yourself.

Reduce the static to engage with others…

I talk about it all the time. Sometimes the picture we draw (with words, actions or images) isn’t telling the story we think it is. You’ll never know how you’re coming across to others if you don’t draw on the wisdom of people with diverse perspectives. 

When I left my marketplace job in 2002 to join the staff team at Granger, I had a wealth of experience, tools and tricks at my disposal. But, even with all the right skills, education and knowledge, I couldn’t gain traction. My ministry and my communication effectiveness was in serious stall mode. Sure, I got some stand alone killer projects done. But, my ideas weren’t spreading and I had very little (to no) influence.

In Making Ideas Happen, Belsky lands on the culprit.

• Connecting with people across the spectrum requires us to stay connected to the needs and beliefs of those around us. This becomes more challenging when we get lost in our own creative pursuits.
• A community sourced from just one stop along the frequency spectrum can prove damaging. Without some degree of mass appeal, most ideas will falter.

Things turned around for me when I realized that, while my intentions were good, my M.O. needed an adjustment. I was overestimating WHAT I had to get done and underestimating HOW it was going to affect others. Essentially, I was my own communications roadblock.

Sometimes I’m the last person to know how I’m coming across to others. I’m trucking along TOTALLY CONFIDENT my efforts will produce an A grade, but I’m completely unaware that everyone around me is using a different grading scale. I can’t see that myself. Nobody can see it in themselves. I changed my M.O. and never looked back. 

I am exponentially more effective when I learn from people who see and think differently than me.

Don’t let discouragement pile up. Guard your heart…

For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling an extra dose of discouragement. There’s nothing dramatic going down, no crisis or cause for alarm. It was just a convergence of real life happening all around me—people I love with broken hearts, minds, bodies, relationships and lives. It started to pile up and, in my gloom, I inadvertently started to focus on the circumstances and felt very alone.

Then, one day last week, I saw something on my morning walk that flipped the switch back to a productive place. A lone flower, brightly blooming among dirt, gravel and weeds. I felt like it was God’s little metaphor…

“You GO girl! There IS hope—I am with you. Are you with Me?” 

You know, there are times in life when stress and discouragement pile up. Without intentional guardrails, burdens can creep in, take over your soul and define your reality with helplessness, fear and hopelessness.

I'm engaged in the world around me—on purpose. I don't want to lose touch. There is good to be found. Work to be done.

On the flip side, I don't want to be so absorbed I lose my compass.

I’m rearranging my schedule to prioritize these key areas first, and the rest will fall into place.

• Sleep and exercise. Meeting a friend at the gym at 5 AM every day this week will most certainly get me to bed on time at night. It’s a domino effect.
• Focus and flow. A few times a week, I’m going to turn off email for big chunks of time to still my mind and engage on important projects that yield the biggest returns.
• Read and discuss. I’m launching two new book groups, one at home and one at work to keep learning new things with the people I’m doing life with.
• Faith and fuel. I'm listening to extra message podcasts throughout the week and starting each day with a new devotional to keep my engine running undistorted.
• Marriage and family. Pre-scheduling date nights with Mark and family nights with kids.

The action items might look different depending on the season, but that’s the highlights for this reboot. What about you? What does it look like when you rearrange your schedule to flee a rut? Leave a comment ... share your story. At the end of the day, I'll randomly draw a name from all the comments (Congrats to Andy Waggoner! He won the book drawing.) and give away a free copy of Mark Buchanan's new book Spiritual Rhythm.

Proof You Should Make Time to Unplug

Man dies after 50 hours of computer gaming. This really happened. Strange story. 

Why I Cry at the Construction Site

I went to the first service last weekend in the new part of our expanded auditorium. It's a real construction site with drywall dust floating around, exposed lumber, blue tarps, the smell of glue and paint...you get the idea.

And, I cried.

I'm not known for being soft, sensitive, sweet--those just aren't the words people use to describe me. And, I'm not known for crying. But, I did. Over a building?

 

Anything but.

I'm overwhelmed at the thought of more changed lives. The magnitude of desperate people in desperate times finding hope in Jesus. Finding purpose in the local church. Each new seat is a new life. A husband, a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a son, a brother, a sister...finding a safe place to admit they need help.

Tim is a friend of mine that works at Riverside Community Church in Peoria, IL. He shared PostSecret with me. Man, what an authentic, visual representation of the human condition. That's why I cried at the construction site.

I don't want to forget that. But, I almost did.

Tonight my husband and I had a meeting at the church. We left and went to a restaurant to try to steal just a few minutes alone together. We have three kids, we're both active in ministry and my parents have been living with us for a few months. We haven't had much time alone lately. We were just looking for a few minutes together alone for a quick little breath of fresh air. We sat down in the booth to steal our moment...

And, that's when she walked up. A woman that I barely knew 6 years ago for 6 weeks. She's waiting tables now. She was excited when she recognized us and was very chatty as she took our order. She hung around and didn't leave after she brought us our drinks. She kept making small talk and telling me about her kids and her schedule at work and her grandma and her new purse and...

I tried to overcome it, but all I could think was "Come on! I've only got 30 minutes to spend with my husband. Can you please give us some privacy. We haven't connected one-on-one for a week. We've got a lot to catch up on. Don't you have other tables to take care of?"

And, then, out of nowhere, she told us that her husband wants to leave her. She got tears in her eyes as she told us about how she feels alone and desperate. She lost her smile when she told us about how she hates waiting tables, but it's what she has to do to take care of her kids. She shrugged her shoulders when she told us about working on Mother's Day. She hung her head when she told us that her and her husband have no friends and she doesn't know what else to do.

And, I saw the empty seats in our new auditorium. There are two waiting just for them. And I remembered, it's not about me.