“Crush It” is all about taking what you are passionate about and can talk about longer and more deeply than anyone else and building a personal brand and business around it.  Most people think that work is something that is supposed to be loathed and hated while their hobbies and the fun things in life are just for the weekend or for time off.  Now, I won’t go on and say that I have found the perfect job or career for myself or that I love everything that I do  every day, but I don’t hold out the misconception in my mind that I have to hate work and love my play.

Another thing that Gary stresses in the book is the balance and prioritization of family time with your work.  He says that he weighs every decision in terms of currency and legacy.  That means a business deal doesn’t make sense just because it is going to yield a lot of money.  It must be something that can be done with integrity that will allow you to leave a positive legacy your family can be proud of.  Oh yeah, that also means that your work cannot take up all of your time either – you have to have time for your family to cultivate that family legacy.

I really enjoyed the book and crushed it in a just a couple of days reading.  Here are some of the quotes I highlighted in my Kindle while I read:

• I knew from my experience with the baseball card business that people want to be told what’s good and valuable, and that they enjoy feeling like they’ve been turned on to something not everyone can appreciate.

• Nothing in life ever goes exactly the way you think it will, and that goes for all of your carefully planned entrepreneurial dreams and goals.

• everyone needs to start thinking of themselves as a brand

• I want my kids and my grandkids and great-grandkids to be proud of me. This is why every decision I make is weighed in terms of currency and legacy.

• Making connections, creating and continuing meaningful interaction with other people, whether in person or in the digital domain, is the only reason we’re here. Remember that, set the tone, and build legacy.

• true success—financial, personal, and professional—lies above all in loving your family, working hard, and living your passion.

The links in this book review are links to purchase the book/Kindle through my Amazon affiliate link.

Here are some of my highlights and notes from the book:

• In the story of Huram and his two hundred pomegranates we find the artist’s mandate-five essential components of life-artistry: • Get great at something • Do something with that talent • Invest yourself in things that will last and that others will benefit from • Work for an audience of one, because sometimes our best work is seen only by God • Finish what you start.

• An artist is someone-anyone-who creates and cultivates.

• But in order to get great at something, it seems that God intends for us to build upon the foundation of skills and wisdom that he has given us, and not just daydream of skills and talents that we wish we had.

• God desires that we be known not for what we are demolishing, but for what we are building.

• A decision has to be made to be great. You cannot be great at everything, but you have to be great at something. God made you for that purpose.

• “You are great when you serve”

Here are some of my notes and highlights from the book:

•    Christians make a difference in this world by being different from this world; they don’t make a difference by being the same.
•    Color blindness is the apt metaphor for some: They miss the rich-hued splendor of the spiritual vision of life and see only the colder, duller world of black and white. —OS GUINNESS
•    eternal, and “what is seen” replaces what is unseen (Hebrews 11:3).
•    consider how air conditioning forced people off of their front porches where they would gather and talk together into the cool seclusion of their air conditioned homes.
•    In this windowless world, God, transcendence, and mystery have become less and less imaginable. All of life is “rationalized.”
•    become less and less imaginable. All of life is “rationalized.” (because of technology)
•    Our generation is crying out for something different, something higher, something beyond this world.
•    People in today’s world are desperately reaching, not just upward, but backward. They yearn for a day gone by when things seemed more constant and less shallow.
•    To be truly relevant, you have to say things that are unfashionably eternal, not trendy.
•    Back in the 1950s, when my grandfather was becoming a well-known preacher of the gospel, a famous actor pulled him aside and said, “Billy, don’t ever try to compete with Hollywood, because Hollywood will always do it better than you. You give the world the one thing Hollywood can’t—the straightforward, timeless truth of the gospel.” For more than sixty years, that’s exactly what he did.
•    Even if we start out strong—on fire for God after a profound conversion experience—we’ll quickly lose steam if we don’t have a compelling vision fueling us to press on and strain forward against all opposition.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4
•    As Richard John Neuhaus observes, “Christianity in America is not challenging the ‘habits of the heart’ and ‘habits of the mind’ that dominate American culture.”
•    God has called Christians to play a role by celebrating what’s good and true and beautiful, working for change in what isn’t, and looking forward in hope to God’s redemption of all things.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4
•    When we operate according to the idea “If we build it, they will come,” we fail to take into account this distinct nature of new covenant ministry and mission. Instead we’re called to operate with this mind-set: “God is building; therefore we should go.”
•    In becoming Christians we don’t need to retreat from the vocational calling we already have. Nor do we need to justify that calling, whatever it is, in terms of its spiritual value or evangelistic usefulness. We simply exercise whatever our calling is with new God-glorifying motives, goals, and standards—and with a renewed commitment to performing our calling with greater excellence and higher objectives.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4Note: in my job as a divorce attorney it is hard because i know God hatesthings that cause sin and harm the institutions he set up such as marriage but i think he intends for christians to help thosein need. a parallel example would be that God hates poverty or starvation but not those that help people who are hungry or poor.
•    The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself.
•    all of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.
•    real encouragement is the verbal affirmation of someone’s strength, giftedness, or accomplishment, along with the realization that God the Creator is the ultimate source behind whatever’s being affirmed.

Here are a few of my highlights and notes from the book:

• Media and technology are kind of like Stretch Armstrong: They extend our reach—our words, sounds, images, and even our selves—beyond our normal limits.
• a medium is anything that stretches, extends, or amplifies some human capacity.1
• When we fail to perceive that the things we create are extensions of ourselves, the created things take on god-like characteristics and we become their servants.2Note: refer to greek myth of Narcissus who fell in love with his own image in the water. His falure to understand the medium of a water mirror gave the medium extraordinary power …even power to destroy him.
• This conversation initiated a crisis of faith for me. I began to realize that I had all the answers to the questions no one was asking.
• As McLuhan once observed, “We shape our tools and afterward our tools shape us.”
• Information alone is strength without coordination. We become a danger mostly to ourselves when we have it. Understanding is the ability to coordinate that raw information in meaningful ways. Understanding creates a certain enthusiasm. We can direct our knowledge toward potentially useful ends—but we may also be a danger to others. Wisdom, however, is knowing how, when, and why we use our understanding; wisdom is settling into our understanding without being too enamored by it.
• If we are not alert, the Information Age may stunt our growth and create a permanent puberty of the mind.
• If a picture is worth a thousand words, then images must communicate information more efficiently than words.
• it’s the medium, not the content, that changes us.
• Images give and take away.
• Instead, our beliefs are judged by their fruit—how they change the world while we’re here.
• Direct service to people around us heals our feelings of helplessness and apathy. It is quite possible that the needs in some far-off place are greater. But you aren’t there. You’re here, and there are needs galore in your own backyard. We do what we can, where we are, and watch the world change life by life.
• That intimacy is preserved in that relationship as long as the information remains exclusive. The moment it is available to anyone and everyone is the moment intimacy begins to evaporate.Note: in contrast to Facebook where 400 of your closest friends find out verything at the same time
• In a virtual community, our contacts involve very little real risk and demand even less of us personally.
• Authentic community involves high degrees of intimacy, permanence, and proximity.1
• there is a big difference between being “in touch” and truly connecting with others.
• Reconciliation comes in the context of clear communication, meaningful listening, shared understandings, civility, openness, and a lot of patience.
• The most effective method of conflict resolution always establishes clear rules and boundaries on process long before the content of a dispute is ever discussed. The process is almost always designed to help people gain distance from intense emotions, usually through structured listening and sharing, controlled feedback, and language coaching. When done well, the process will serve to de-escalate emotional tensions long enough to make space for rational dialogue, which greatly increases the chances of resolution. This is another way of saying that the medium is the message. The very way we disagree sends a message, and that process determines the outcome as much or more than the content of our disagreement.
• How we disagree matters more than what we disagree about.
• There is an elastic relationship between access to information and power. In the simplest terms, power is derived from information control. Whenever people have exclusive access to information, they are granted a certain degree of authority, which is why doctors, lawyers, and mechanics receive such deference.
• when Jesus says the Spirit will teach you “all things” that means there is more to come, more that Jesus didn’t say, more insights, expanded knowledge, deeper realities. Jesus is pointing us to a God who keeps communicating an ever-evolving message. That is why the Spirit is given.
• Second, when Jesus says the Spirit will “remind you of everything I have said to you” it means what Jesus said back then is still valid.
• Certainty can be a great friend of arrogance.
• Daring humility shuns boredom, complacency, and endless arguments. Daring humility is honest enough to admit that we see things in a mirror dimly, and bold enough to live a life of deep conviction anyway.
• Jesus is God’s perfect medium—and the medium is the message.
• The church is God’s medium and message.
• Instead of simply resisting or caving in to cultural forces, we are invited to study and understand them. Only then will we learn to use them rather than be used by them.

A group blogging project is going on discussing Flickering Pixels at Church Crunch by John Saddington and a whole host of other bloggers.  Here is a link to the review of the first chapter over a Church Crunch.

Here are some of the things that jumped out at me as I read the book:

• Sharon Hull says, “A  dream is the seed of possibility planted in the soul of a human being,  which calls him to pursue a unique path to the realization of his  purpose.
• 1. BE WILLING TO BET ON YOURSELF: You may succeed if nobody else believes in you, but you will never  succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.
• Joyce Meyer wisely states, “God will help  you be all you can be, but He will never help you be someone else.”
• Both vision and strategy are  important, but there is a priority to them. Vision always comes first.  Always. If you have a clear vision, you will eventually attract the  right strategy. If you don’t have a clear vision, no strategy will save  you.
• The problem is that people get  stuck on the how. They don’t see how they could accomplish more,  so they throttle back their vision, convinced that they must be realistic.   And what they expect becomes their new reality.”
• It sounds overly simple, but a primary reason that most people  don’t get what they want is that they don’t know what they want.
• It’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day process of life that  you lose sight of the big picture. However, when your dream is  clearly in sight, it helps you get your priorities straight.
• The Greek philosopher Aristotle observed, “We are what we  repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” Your
• We quickly realize that between the  dream’s inspiration and its manifestation, there’s going to be lot of  perspiration!
• Playwright George Bernard Shaw asserted, “I’m  sick of all the reasonable people: they see all the reasons for doing  nothing.” Passion makes us unreasonable.
• In other words, the conditions will never be perfect for you to go after  your dream. In fact, conditions may not seem all that favorable. Move  forward anyway. Be tenacious in your commitment to action.
• But what finally helped them turn the corner was advice from  a teacher named Scolastico, who told them, “If you would go every day  to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually,   no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”  From that advice, the authors developed what they call the “rule  of five.” Every day they did five specific things that would move them  closer to their dream of selling books.

I think you will enjoy being challenged by this book.

During law school I got much better at reading and got where I enjoyed it.  But mostly, I wanted to be able to read the things that I wanted to read.  In 2008, I decided it was time to start reading more and as one of my “personal development goals” I was going to read every month. I think reading is very important and it is a great way to get inside the head of some of the greatest thinkers of today and of history.

I got started late in 2008, but was able to pull off the average.  Here are the 12 books that I read in 2008:

1. The Servant Leader by Ken Blanchard
2. No More Mondays by Dan Miller
3. Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
4. Chazown by Craig Groeschel
5. Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado
6. No More Mondays by Dan Miller (Again)
7. Essential Church by Thom Rainer and Sam Rainer
8. Entrepreneurial Faith by Kirbyjon Caldwell and Walt Kallestad
9. The 9 to 5 Window by Os Hillman
10. Caught Between a Dream and a Job by Delatorro L. McNeal II
11. The Upside of Adversity by Os Hillman
12. Wide Awake by Erwin Raphael McManus

In 2009, my new reading goal is 24 books.  I will be doubling my reading load for the year, but so far I am right on track.

I was recently in a “discount” bookstore and picked up a copy of Chazown by Craig Groeschel.  I listen to the Lifechurch.tv podcasts every week and really enjoy Craig and his teaching.  I also learn a lot from his blog posts every day.  I didn’t really know what the book was about, but I knew I liked the author so I picked it up. I generally take a couple of weeks to read a book, especially when it is over 200 pages because I can never seem to get a whole lot of time in one sitting to get too far through a book.  But I read Chazown in a few hours.  I just couldn’t put it down.  I was captivated.

Chazown is a Hebrew word for “a dream, revelation or vision” and it is based on the scripture in Proverbs 29: 18, “where there is no vision, the people perish.”  That “vision” in Proverbs 29: 18 is the Chazown.  I am constantly reading and looking for books about passion, vision, and calling.  I guess it is because I want to try to make sure I am doing what I am supposed to be doing in my work life, home life, spiritual life, etc.  I have read several books on this topic and it seems like I am just thirsty for this information.  These books are just really easy reads and this book was no exception.

One thing that really struck me was that it was heartfelt, honest and comes from experience.  Craig truly knows God’s call on his life and wants everyone else not to have to look back on their life and realize that it was wasted.  That is probably my greatest fear – that my life would be wasted.  I have drifted some and wandered trying to get to my true calling and I have taken spiritual gift and personality tests to see what I would be good at, but I could never seem to come up with what my true calling or vision was for my life.

Chazown is one of those books that gives you the theory and the background, but it goes one step further in that is gives you practical advice on where to learn the required information about yourself.  It also gives you a strategy for analyzing what you learn about yourself based on your core values, spiritual gifts/passions, and past experience to determine God’s chazown that is for YOU.

Finally, Chazown shows you have to get your entire life aligned around your chazown.  You may be required to make some difficult decisions, you will definitely have to prioritize and cut out some of the “worthy” things you spend your time on in order to focus on your chazown.  Chazown focuses in on five aspects of your life that must be in alignment in order for you to truly fulfill your chazown: your relationship with God, your relationship with others, your personal finances, your physical health, and your work life.  There are some helpful questions to help you judge how well you are doing in each area and some great tips on how to get started on matching up how you actually live with your chazown and getting closer to God’s true calling for your life.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.  Whether you think you have it all figured out or not, you will learn from this book and you will learn how to get closer to your true calling or chazown.  But it takes action and putting the principles to work – not just reading the book.

When I graduated from college, I started working for one of the largest engineering design and construction firms in the country.  Things were great: I had an extremely good income (one of the highest in my graduating class) and it was located in my home town – plus plus.  After I got working there, however, I seemed to find myself dreading going into the office.  Then, I talked to some of the guys that had been in the business for a long time and learned that the business was extremely cyclical and people get laid off all the time.  There was a cycle: people went from one engineering firm to the next every few years because while one company had work the others did not.  I was scared to death.  It got me thinking that I wasn’t secure at the company because I had not control.

I have a cousin who is a pediatrician.  He is very successful and owns his own practice.  That was my inspiration to go to law school.  I wanted to be able to have control.  No matter what, I would be able to start my own practice and control my own destiny.  I didn’t put a lot of effort into choosing law school over some other graduate education program or into some other type of business venture.  It just sounded good.

What Dan Miller preaches is that you should choose your work based on your passions, skills and abilities.  That you should choose what you do based on what you love.  I’m still trying to get there.  Trying to find an intersection between my passions, skills, abilities, my calling and my work.  Based on what I have learned from Dan’s weekly podcasts, newsletters, articles and books I am trying to design my ideal lifestyle and make my “work” satisfy that.

I think everyone can have some self-employed income no matter what they do every day for a “job.”  There are ways to make some additional money so you can make ends meet, get ahead, buy that plasma TV or replace your current income.  No More Mondays is a great place to start if you feel like you are called to work for yourself and be your own boss, but you aren’t sure what to do.  I would advise you against doing something just because you think it can make you some good money, but by following the principles in Dan’s materials, you can find work you love.