Master Hack for Super Productivity

Dr Dave Martin  [ http://davemartin.org/ ] hosted a Periscope last night about overcoming failure and I thought this was a brilliant statement:  'You can either learn from mentors or mistakes.'  He also stated that everyone who is uber successful has a coach and that having a coach compresses your learning curve time and minimizes the pain of costly of mistakes. 

Some believe that the best way to learn is by trial and error.  The challenge with that thinking is that you only have so much 'gas in the tank' to run trials on your ideas until you are left on empty dragging a gas can down the highway.  There's a better way.  Find someone who has done what you are trying to do and learn from them.  Buy their time if you must and ask tons and tons of questions.  The answers you get could save you a dozen years and a million bucks or even more. 

Tony Robbins [ tonyrobbins.com ] calls those little answers that change the game, 'distinctions' and those are the keys that unlock the handcuffs that could be holding you back.  We can grow faster and get more done than we thought possible if we will find the right coaches and be coachable -- i.e.  do what they tell you to do, how they tell you to do it, when they tell you to.  No, I'm not saying that you have to be a robot but you don't always have to re-create the wheel to become successful.  You can borrow success hacks from those who have gone before and duplicate their results.  However, the further you 'innovate' from their original pattern of success the more you are wining it by trial and error.  Your choice -- lots of time and pain to arrive at a thriving solution or platform or get lots of coaching and secure a team of wise advisors and you can minimize your learning curve and pain and amp your odds of the success you are aiming at.

When I planted a new church I spent years reading books by people who weren't church planters but who had cool ideas about how things should be done and I got our launch team to buy into those same ideas and we almost killed our new church on the jagged rocks of theory based thinking.  It took some time to get our team re-directed into reading and learning from successful church planters and leaders who had done/were doing what we wanted to do.  And, it took me nearly five years of blood, sweat and tears before I found a solid team of practitioners who would welcome me into their tribe and accelerate our efforts and help us become more successfully than we could have ever been without a team of mentors . 

The biggest mistake that I was making was reading and taking cues from books and authors who hadn't really done what they theorized and listening too much to the volunteers on our launch team who assumed that they knew all about how to launch a church and help her succeed because we had all been in church for most our our lives.  So, we assumed that we automatically knew what it would take to reach our full potential as a church.  That simply wasn't true and those two things almost cost us the entire enterprise.  And, that mistake, was fully mine as a leader.

The shift came when I realized what was happening and I stumbled into the coaching and experienced team of people to learn from over a lunch with the Campus Pastor of Seacoast Dream Center a few years ago.  Thanks Sam Lesky!  Your conversation in a Mexican restaurant in North Charleston probably saved Phos Community Church!!

The crew that I found is called the 'Association of Related Churches' that was founded by  Gregg Surratt, the innovative pastor of Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina.  [ ARCchurches.com ] and then once I was learning from the team of other pastors affiliated with the ARC I met Matt Keller [ http://mattkelleronline.com/ ]  and the crew Next Level Coaching including Darian Rains and Kyle Jackson.    Learn more about Next Level Coaching here:  http://nextlevelchurch.com/coaching

The coaching I have received from Matt Keller, Darian Rains, and Kyle Jackson over the past couple of years has accelerated my growth as a leader and the growth of our church in dramatic ways.  To go further faster choose great coaches! 

There may not be a shortcut to success but it sure feels like it when you have great coaches sharing success hacks and strategies with you and keeping you from doing 'stupid stuff' that hurts you and your organization. 

Here's to YOUR Highest Success,
Jeff Fuson