Exponential – Behind the scenes

I am here in Orlando with the Catalyst team at the Exponential Conference. We are doing some interviews with some of the speakers and leaders who are here for upcoming Catalyst podcasts. There have been some pretty fun and interesting moments here over the last two days. Have been hanging out with Mark Batterson, Todd Rhoades, Scott Hodge, Chris Elrod, Jay Hardwick, Ed Stetzer, Dave Ferguson, David Putman, Vince Antonucci, John Burke, Bobby Triplett, Efrem Smith and many others. 

Was looking forward to hanging with Matt Chandler later today but some unfortunate things happened with some folks in his church and looks like he won’t be able to make it down. 

Obviously, lots of influential bloggers here at this event. We had some fun this afternoon doing some live video feeds with some of the speakers. Planned to actually do an interview myself, but we were so engaged with other speakers and authors in interviews that didn’t get around to doing an interview with me. 

You can find alot of fun behind the scenes stuff from Exponential on Scott’s, Todd’s, Chris, or Jay’s blog. 

New Stats from Ed Stetzer

Wow. You will want to check this out- brand new research from Ed Stetzer on the current realities of the Southern Baptist Convention churches and where things are going. You definitely need to check this out. 

Miserable Jobs

Got to spend some time on Friday of last week with Patrick Lencioni, best-selling author and management expert. Pat was speaking at Maximum Impact on his most recent book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. 

So Ken and I decided to take a few minutes on the upcoming edition of the Catalyst Podcast to discuss what we would consider our most miserable jobs. I only mentioned one on the broadcast, but thought I would list a few more here. 

1. Hay Hauling during the summer in Oklahoma.

2. Building/fencing fence in Oklahoma, Colorado, and all points in between. Especially barbed wire fence. And sidenote- I was struck by lightning while working on a barbed wire fence in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. 

3. Sandblasting oil tanks, and then repainting. Again in Oklahoma in the summer. The problem with sandblasting on hard surfaces is that the sand actually kicks back off of the hard surface and onto your skin. Not good.

4. Stock boy at Reasor’s Grocery Store. It actually wasn’t that bad, but definitely despised having to close the store, which meant you had to mop the entire floor, by hand. No motorized mops- all by hand with an old fashioned mop and broom. Misery. 

5. Poop scooper upper- while working at Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado. When you have 150 horses, 200 head of cattle, and a lot of alfalfa and grain, lots of poop gets formed. And the only way to clean it up in the corrals and in areas where guests walked was by rake and shovel. 5 years of poop scooping every day. Wow. 

What about you? 

Essential 2 Life

Spent the morning on Saturday with some great folks from Essential 2 Life, a very worthwhile organization focused on serving urban youth in downtown Atlanta. Kevin Carroll spoke to around 50 inner city high school students, each whom have been invited to be part of a special leadership program called Fifteen. Kevin actually stayed an extra day after Maximum Impact so he could spent time with these kids. My good friend Vince Hungate founded the organization several years ago, and is doing great work. In fact, many have taken notice, and the entire public school system of Atlanta wants to incorporate programs from Essential 2 Life in high schools all over the city.

Maximum Impact: Advance

Yesterday was a great day of speakers and leadership training. Maximum Impact: Advance was held here in Atlanta at 12 Stone Church. It was a change for me- the last 4 years, I had directed the event, but was able to enjoy the event this year from a whole different perspective. Some of the highlights from the day:

- spending more time with Kevin Carroll, who we had at Catalyst a couple of years ago and was a big hit with the Maximum Impact audience as well, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd. Kevin is doing some incredible things around the world through sports and play. Specifically, his involvement with the Homeless World Cup, which this year will be held in Australia in December, is pretty incredible. 

- meeting Dick Vitale, the longtime hall of fame college basketball broadcaster with ESPN. He was an inspiration. I have long been a fan, and his work with the V Foundation makes him even more inspiring. 

- Bill Taylor, the founding editor of Fast Company, and co-author of the book Mavericks at Work. Bill is a great guy and had some really great things to say- very practical content. 

- John Maxwell was great, as always. He also interviewed Dan Cathy, the President of Chick-fil-A, and got to spend a few minutes with Dan backstage and of course, he had a plethora of Chick-fil-A sandwich cards to hand out to folks. I love being able to walk in to the local Chick-fil-A restaurant and hand the person at the register a card for a free chicken sandwich signed by Dan Cathy. It makes the conversation interesting. Dan did mention that the cookies and creme milkshake has 800 calories, and it takes me running 7.5 miles to burn up those calories. Yikes!

- Always great to see and catch up with Valorie Burton, who did the “coaching moments” at the event and interviewed a number of the speakers backstage after their talks. Valorie is a great author, speaker and communicator. 

- Andy Stanley spoke on Making Vision Stick, and also did a short Q and A during a lunch with some of our Catalyst VIP’s who we had invited to attend. It is always engaging to spend time with Andy. We talked about a few ideas for Catalyst this year, as well as the one day leadership training events we are doing over the next couple of years with him and Craig Groeschel. 

- It was fun to meet Andy Andrews, who is a very popular speaker, writer and entertainer. He is hilarious. 

- Spencer Tillman was the emcee of the event. I met Spencer three years ago for the first time, but I have known him for a long time, since he was an All-American running back at the University of Oklahoma and a hero of mine growing up, plus is the current college football analyst on CBS Sports during the football season. Spencer was at OU when I was in middle school, and I can remember watching games on TV and a few in person during Spencer’s career at Oklahoma. Most notably, his touchdown run against Nebraska, as well as his incredible play against Penn State in 1985 National Championship game in the Orange Bowl. He has become a good friend. 

- Patrick Lencioni, the best selling author of many leadership and management books, did a great job of speaking on the Three Signs of a Miserable Job. He also got a polaroid picture in the Catalyst Vanagon as the Roadtrip made a special stop at Maximum Impact for a few minutes to catch up with a few of the attendees and speakers. 

- You can download starting Monday the executive summaries from the speaker sessions on the Maximum Impact website. 

10 minutes with 5 people

If I had 10 minutes with 5 people, choosing from anyone currently living, who would it be? You may be surprised.

1. Billy Graham- I would love to know how many times he has presented the Gospel over the course of his life. 

2. Michael Jordan- We would definitely play a game of horse, or hit golf balls on the driving range.

3. Larry King- who is his greatest interview ever. 

4. Tiger Woods- the current most famous athlete in the world, and one who has defined my generation.

5. John Wooden- I’ve actually spent some time with him before, but would love to spend more. Maybe the greatest coach ever. 

Q on Newsweek website

Check out this post in Newsweek from Eboo Patel, who is Muslim, runs the Interfaith Youth Core out of Chicago, and was a speaker at Q last week. It was a stimulating session to say the least.

Also, another bit of coverage from Q on the Portfolio.com website, managed and owned by Conde Nast. This coverage includes a short video as well.

You can find a summary of each session on Scott Hodge’s blog. He took major notes from each session. I tried for the first 3 sessions, but couldn’t keep up. Scott- you deserve a starbucks gift card for that!

Who is your Steve Williams

Saw a great story on ESPN this evening on the E:60 documentary style show that features several notable reporters who go behind the scenes with famous (and sometimes not so famous) folks. One of the profiles this evening was on Steve Williams, the most famous caddie in all of professional golf. Steve caddies for Tiger Woods, and has been on the bag with Tiger for 12 majors, and over 50 PGA tour titles in 9 years. Pretty impressive record. Interestingly, they work well together, but also are really good friends away from the office (or the course in this case). Steve is a no-frills, shoot straight kind of guy, which I am sure helps in working with and trying to give direction and assistance to the most famous sports figure in the world. He keeps Tiger grounded. 

I think we each need a Steve Williams in our life, a caddie to tell us when to back off a shot, someone to tell us to hit the 7 iron instead of the 6 iron, to trust it, and that you are the best in the world and have made this 8 foot putt before, so no problem, just sink it.