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"Just for Me" Media I grew up, literally from day one, in the broadcasting business. I was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma General Hospital in a small Oklahoma town where my mother and father owned and operated a radio station. Broadcast radio was all there was then over the air. No Television. No iPod. No Internet. I can actually remember sitting with my parents before a large radio set listening, with millions of others, to President Franklin Roosevelt speak. Broadcast delivered with matchless efficiency one message to millions. Sixty years later when I sold what was, in its essence, the business my mother and father had begun, it had morphed from radio to television into a cable TV company. It was still mostly one speaking to millions – mass media. Mass media is still there. Best seller blockbuster books, television networks, hit movies, stadium concerts, megachurches. But this unified mass media world is fast breaking up into the iPod age. We find a thousand “program your own” niches. It’s media “just for me” – what I want – when I want it. The piece you are reading now – whether on screen or printed out is niche media. Having dinner with Jeff Thomasson, an out-of-town friend, recently at the new Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dallas, I heard him say, “I get lots of emails, but I open yours right away. When I read it, I feel like you are writing just for me.” Moments later here came celebrity Chef Dean Fearing greeting us one at a time with food chatter about that night’s meal as if he were cooking “just for us.” Things are going small – going personal. Writing “Musings for Friends” makes a lot more sense to me now than selling a bunch of hundred-plus page books that people read a bit of and set aside “for later.” It’s fresh, it’s flexible, it is fast, it’s a “just for me” medium for friends. I’m going small too. I want to spend the next ten years pouring what there is of me into a few leaders who are going to make a big contribution to the lives of others. I call my version this new way of working: Bob Inc, a highly personal enterprise that seeks to get maximum multiplication by focusing on a few category changing difference makers one at a time. My other consuming interest these days is the Halftime Institute – a 24-hour experience that Tiger Dawson and I do for very small groups (8 to 10 is best) several times a year. This is not a mass movement. We are intensely focused on releasing their energy for their own long buried passions and purposes. The clarity people achieve is astonishing. People discover and bring into focus what is already there – something that has been in their lives a long, long time – something that’s yearning to happen. Just waiting to be discovered. Most people, as Peter Drucker said in the Foreword to my third book, are utterly unprepared for the Second Half of their lives. Even very accomplished people know their roles but they don’t know their strengths. Educated for years for their first job in a large organization they wake up at age 50 to find themselves confronted with a bewildering array of unfamiliar options. They don’t know the territory. As a retired admiral asked me, “What do you do when people don’t laugh at your jokes anymore?” People must learn a new task: to manage themselves. This after years of being in a law firm, a medical practice or a highly structured corporation programmed almost every waking hour for them. What about their spiritual lives? Their megachurch doesn’t help much because megachurch strength is mass programming for thousands. This Life II stuff is a custom job – redesigning the next 30 years of one’s one and only life. A recent study of 20,000 member Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago suburbs and several other megachurches brought to light some surprising results. Among its findings for these:
No doubt being in a small group helps, but our experience with over 200 highly capable Halftimers is that very few find the answers for their success to significance desire inside a church. They are looking for high challenge, high impact work. They want to make a difference in the Second Half of their lives. They want to do this work on their own terms. The research shows that at this spiritually mature stage of their lives, they don’t want to be recycled back to the learning and growing stages. They have “been there, done that.” Spiritually mature people want to be put to work doing what they do best. They are seeking to reignite their long muffled passions. In a piece posted this week (2.19.08) at USAToday.com, my friend, sociologist Michael Lindsay commented on his findings in a massive research project of hundreds of prominent evangelicals. Here’s what he said: “When most of us think of devout evangelicals, we think of people who attend church regularly and are active in their local congregations. Yet many of the most prominent evangelicals do neither. They regularly attend Bible studies and religious gatherings, including last week’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, but many can’t be found in the pews on Sunday. “I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country’s top leaders – two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half – 60% -- had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.” This is not good news, folks – not good news for the churches and, even worse, not good news for the country. Independent Sector Gallup Research shows dramatically higher rates of both charitable giving and volunteerism (to all nonprofits, not just churches) by church attendees when compared to non-attendees. What we have here is a danger to our civilization as a whole. My conclusion: people want to be engaged in meaningful work that fits their individual strengths and their sense of calling. Callings are always specific, unique and highly individual. God does not seem to call organizations. People may find their work in organizations (most of them not church organizations), but their life task, their vocation, their calling is a one-at-a-time, “just for me” affair.
What to do?
Trust me, this thing works. It is “just for you” media. A tool based on research of millions of people, this comes out just exactly you. Hand it to your wife or a friend. They will say, “that’s you.” It’s amazing. Start there. Then find a role that desperately needs the strengths that God designed “just for you.” The beginning of the success to significance transition is to clarify the “islands of health and strength” within your own personality. It’s what you bring to the party.
A request for a favor People ask me all the time, “Is there anything I can do for you?” I usually answer “just be you.” But I do have a need: Linda and I are looking for a couple to make our three-days-a-week Farm experience run smoothly. It is very important to our lives. Here is the newspaper ad we are running. If someone comes to mind, send them our way. It is sometimes hard work, but there is lots of freedom in a temperate outdoor setting (in the mid-60’s this past week and sunny). Beautiful Farm Caretakers/Managers needed Quiet Christian couple seeks fulltime caretakers for serene country home in Bullard, Texas area -- Mature couple, no dependents, non-smokers, good health, references, own transportation. Lovely pastoral area of woods and rolling pastures. 7-acre stocked fishing lake for our exclusive use. Skills required: Excellent cooking, housekeeping. Security, grounds keeping, minor repairs, errands, general management. The pastures are leased and maintained by others. Compensation: monthly salary, an allowance for health care, paid vacation, small cottage with all bills paid, utilities, local telephone, 200+ channels Direct TV. Storage facility available for excess furniture. Pleasing second career for the right couple For application, reply to this museletter or call 800.765.5323 X133 Each ACTIVEenergy.net E-newsletter is archived (see archive page on www.ACTIVEenergy.net). If this newsletter is making you think – spread the word.
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