Jeff Calloway

website of a husband, father, writer, follower of Christ, and Apple enthusiast

Ignoring Your Critics – Seth Godin

On April 1, 2009, In Coaching, People, Weblogs, by Jeff Calloway

I really enjoy Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is an entrepreneur, agent of change, and he blogs as well. His latest book, Tribes is a must read for anyone who is involved in any organization. He posted a few days ago on Ignoring Your Critics and I want my readers to be introduced to Seth’s blog [...]

head-clickme2 I really enjoy Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is an entrepreneur, agent of change, and he blogs as well. His latest book, Tribes is a must read for anyone who is involved in any organization. He posted a few days ago on Ignoring Your Critics and I want my readers to be introduced to Seth’s blog and thinking. Enjoy!

If you find 100 comments on a blog post or 100 reviews of a new book or 100 tweets about you…
and two of them are negative, while 98 are positive…
which ones are you going to read first?

If you’re a human being and you’re telling the truth, the answer is pretty obvious: you want to know which misguided losers had nasty things to say and you want to know what they said. In fact, if we’re being totally truthful, it’s likely you’re going to take what the critics had to say to heart.

That’s a shame. The critics are never going to be happy with you, that’s why they’re critics. You might bore them by doing what they say… but that won’t turn them into fans, it will merely encourage them to go criticize someone else.

It doesn’t matter what Groucho or Elvis or Britney or any other one-name performer does or did… the critics won’t be placated. Changing your act to make them happy is a fool’s game.

Here’s a surprising thought, though. You should ignore your fans as well.
Your fans don’t want you to change, your fans want you to maintain the essence of what you bring them but add a laundry list of features. You fans want lower prices and more contributions, bigger portions and more frequent deliveries.

So, who should you listen to?
Your sneezers.

You should listen to the people who tell the most people about you. Listen to the people who thrive on sharing your good works with others. If you delight these people, you grow.

Tagged with: critics • seth godin

Christmas Loneliness

On December 18, 2007, In Weblogs, by Jeff Calloway

Some of us are alone this Christmas and its so discouraging to be alone. In the Charlie Brown Christmas special; Charlie Brown checks his mailbox but there’s no Christmas cards for him. And he remarks, “I know no one likes me but why do we have to have a holiday to emphasize it!” Statistics tell [...]

Some of us are alone this Christmas and its so discouraging to be alone. In the Charlie Brown Christmas special; Charlie Brown checks his mailbox but there’s no Christmas cards for him. And he remarks, “I know no one likes me but why do we have to have a holiday to emphasize it!”

Statistics tell us that Christmas time is a very lonely time of the year for many people in America even though they are surrounded by family and friends. But if you’re lonely, what does God have to say to you? He wants to say first, “I understand exactly how you feel.” Jesus, the Bible says, “was tempted in all points as we yet he sinned not.” He understood every human emotion. There were times when Jesus was lonely. Even in the closing moments of His life when He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, knowing that the next day He would be crucified on the cross, He takes His three best friends. Even Jesus had a need for human companionship. He takes His three best friends — Peter, James, John — and says, “Tarry with me a while, while I sweat this thing out!” And they fell asleep on Him. Jesus comes back and says, “Can’t even you wait with Me an hour?” And He felt all alone.

How do you deal with loneliness? Normally we do the wrong things. People will try all kinds of things to overcome their loneliness. Some people will try being a workaholic. They think if they stay busy they’ll overcome their loneliness. They’ll work and then fall in bed late at night totally fatigued. They get up in the morning and they’re still lonely. Some people think they’ll cure their loneliness through things, materialism. They surround their life with beautiful objects — nice clothes, nice cars, nice art objects, a beautiful home. But you cannot purchase happiness. It doesn’t last. I could put you on a desert island and tell you that you could have every single thing that you want — anything. Except people. How long would you be happy? Not very long. Why do you think solitary confinement is the most devastating form of punishment. We were made for each other. Some people will try to overcome their loneliness by having an affair. Some people get drunk, take drugs, go to bars. Some people do nothing. They just sit around and have a pity party and say, “Poor me!” Loneliness will paralyze you if you let it.

A lot of our loneliness is really a spiritual vacuum. We have a God shaped vacuum in our lives and when we try to fill it with anything else besides God it’s like filling a round hole with a square peg. It doesn’t fit! But when you invite Christ into your life and ask His Spirit to fill you, He puts His presence in you, a presence that will never, never leave you. Some of you may be thinking, “Nobody loves me. Nobody cares for me. Nobody even knows I exist.” I know somebody who does. His names is Jesus Christ.

Tagged with: loneliness

God is Happening in North America

On October 2, 2007, In Weblogs, by Jeff Calloway

This past weekend our family had the great opportunity to be commissioned as missionaries with the North American Mission Board in Atlanta. We met missionaries doing everything from church planting, inner city ministry, chaplains, collegiate ministry, to truck stop ministry. To hear the stories… They were rich with the power of God at work in [...]

This past weekend our family had the great opportunity to be commissioned as missionaries with the North American Mission Board in Atlanta. We met missionaries doing everything from church planting, inner city ministry, chaplains, collegiate ministry, to truck stop ministry.

To hear the stories… They were rich with the power of God at work in places like Newfoundland, Phoenix, Seattle, San Diego, Nova Scotia, Oklahoma, South Dakota and all across North America. It was encouraging as always to hear God stories of believers doing the work in new, refreshing ways. We developed new friendships with Hispanic Church Planter Enrique, who we gave the nickname John Wayne. Ty is from Dayton and is doing collegiate ministry with Baptists in Ohio. I could go on about the friendships.

The one thing we all had in common is our faith through the risen one – Jesus. God is on the move in North America, but believers must be in the trenches now more than ever. In a country that has 300 million people of whom 225 million are not yet believers, the task of introducing the 225 million to Jesus looms larger than ever.

My thoughts on this cloudy, cool Wednesday morning from northeast Ohio.