Category Archives: Leadership Development

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Your NEW things!

I’m often tempted to look for something really NEW to write or tell others.It’s so exciting to encourage others like that. God has written on our “wall” of life more than once about NEW things. Belshazzar isn’t the only one you know who has that experience, and they aren’t always ominous. Daniel 5.

1. I suppose that a lot of NEW things are out there every day, from someone’s perspective at least. I’d like to think that a NEW thing is springing up for you, as God has said at times. I hope that we can all perceive it when the NEW thing does spring up. The changes required will be worth it! Isaiah 43:18-19 18 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.

2. Revelation 21 tells that God will make all things NEW someday, again.
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

3. What NEW thing is springing up around you? What will you need to let go of from the past where you sometimes dwell or linger? Let us know how we can help, contact us today.

Remember this, too. Inspiration leads to Motivation leads to Foundation leads to Implementation leads to Sensation leads to Inspiration.

Let’s all press on together to the NEW things that God has in and for our lives!

Blessings, JD!

Help others with NEW: CitiIMPACT          Bridging HOPE         VOLUNTEER

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How to WOW with your vision.

Join me in this podcast with Michael Hyatt.
WOW!

Click Here or read on!

In this episode, I talk about “The How of Wow.“ If you are going to be successful in getting the attention of the market, you will need to start with something remarkable. In this episode, I define wow and how you can create it by answering five questions.

This Is Your Life Podcast, Episode #016

If you have read my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, you know that the first section of the book is called, “Start with Wow.” This is the first step in building a platform. Why? Because of something David Ogilvy said two generations ago: “Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.”

CLICK TO LISTEN

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download

EPISODE OUTLINE

The purpose of marketing is to prime the pump. But if people aren’t wowed by your product and want to use it, they won’t recommend it to their friends. In other words, you won’t get word-of-mouth promotion.

You can’t spend enough money or be clever enough to overcome a lack of word-of-mouth marketing. It just won’t work. This is especially true in the world of social media, because it accelerates the word-of-mouth process. Why? Because of two facts:

  1. Everyone now has a megaphone.
  2. Everyone is connected to everyone else.

So what is wow? Here’s how do I define it:

Wow is the gap that exists between your prospect’s expectation and his or her experience.

  • If that gap is negative—your customer’s experience doesn’t live up to his expectation—he is disappointed. This is the opposite of wow.
  • If that gap is positive—your customer’s experience exceeds his expectation—he is wowed.

I first noticed this a few years ago when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone back in 2007. As I reflected on his presentation, I came away with three insight into wow:

  • Insight #1: Create products you would personally use.
  • Insight #2: Create products that solve problems in unexpected ways.
  • Insight #3: Create products that exceed your customers’ expectations.

My premise for this episode is this: Wow can be engineered. Not perfectly. Not every time. But once you understand what wow is simply a function of exceeding your customer’s expectations, you have a much better chance of making it happen.

You can create wow by asking five QUESTIONS.

  • Question #1: What is the product or experience I want to create or transform into a wow?
  • Question #2: How will the customer or prospect feel as a result of this experience? (In other words, what is the specific outcome you want to create?)
  • Question #3: What specific expectations does the typical customer bring to this experience?
  • Question #4: What does failing to meet customers’ expectations for this experience look like?
  • Question #5: What does exceeding customers’ expectations for this experience look like

Here’s the bottom line, if we want to win in today’s competitive marketplace—if we want to build a powerful platform, we must start with wow. Without it, we can’t achieve our full potential.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

  1. Question #1: “Blessing Mpofu asked, How do you constantly create new and fresh material to become a thought leader?”
  2. Question #2: Claire Dias-Ortiz asked, “How can you best turn blog content into the early draft of a new book?”
  3. Question #3: J.D. Smith asked, Where should the Wow be located, on your homebase or in the outposts? Should it be from the author’s perspective or the listener or readers’?
  4. Question #4: John Richardson asked, “Is there such a thing as too much wow?”
  5. Question #5: Joseph Lalonde asked, “When you are releasing a new product, how do you gauge what your customer’s expectations are?”
  6. Question #6: Mary DeMuth asked, “How does creating wow tie in with doing your one thing well?”
  7. Question #7: Rebecca Livermore asked, “How can I come up with ideas that are creative and unique?”
  8. Question #8: Tor Constantino asked, “How do you know when you have created wow?”
  9. Question #9: Wanda Ball asked, “If I am not getting comments and traffic, how do I know if my content is wow?”
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DEFINING Questions

When I’m working towards defining what is needed in my life to help those who have needs in their lives, I ask myself these questions. It’s pretty much a monthly exercise for me.

1-If it’s in your heart to do, and you know you couldn’t fail, what would it be?

2-What are the obstacles to doing it, then?

3-Now what?

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A 40 Year Journey learning FORGIVENESS.

  • June 8, 1972 Charleston, WV Graduation Day for George Washington High School

Later the same day these photos were taken with my mom & dad, I was among hundreds of fellow GW graduates receiving our diplomas. As I’ve written this piece, I’ve realized with some irony that my dad was 40 years old the day I graduated.

After some growing up “trials” as fellow students, we made it!

We had our dreams and fears, but mostly we all had a measure of HOPE for the future.

  • Unknown to me that day, and millions of others around the world for some time, was the atrocity playing out for a little girl in North Vietnam, 9 year old Kim Phuc. She definitely was NOT experiencing HOPE that day as the napalm bomb burned her clothes off and her skin away. The terrible phrase attached to her life was “Napalm Girl”. Her story is told here: (The Long Road to Forgiveness)

Her world famous photo was taken (AP photographer Nick Ut) as she fled from a napalm bomb attack in Vietnam, a turning point in the era of that horrific war. Her story, in the link above, is compelling in its forgiveness attributes. That forgiveness set her free to live with hope. One day while visiting a library years after the attack she “found a Bible.For the first time I started believing my life had a plan.”, she has said.

40 years, more than once, has proven that HOPE often is realized through times of strife being overcome by the key of forgiveness. Forgiveness may need to be of ourselves for actions, inaction, or failure; or forgiveness may need to be towards others’ actions, even atrocities, against us. It can even be as simple, and difficult, as not harboring resentment towards God for things that happen like disasters in life of many forms.

Lives have changed or do change dramatically over 40 years.

  1. I’ll likely attend a Graduation Reunion later this summer. My dad, who was 40 when I graduated, is now gone on to heaven. I lived my life in the grace of forgiveness on many fronts yielding HOPE.
  2. You can see in the story that Kim Phuc has lived out HOPE. (The photographer, Nick Ut, received a Pulitzer Prize for the photo.) Forgiveness was the key that unlocked her door to HOPE.
  3. Moses lived past his failure to allow God to use him to change the course of history. Moses really understood forgiveness in big ways. And he was a way God brought HOPE to millions.

Many people on this earth have little knowledge of HOPE. You do have some knowledge of HOPE, though. Or, you certainly can know it.

How will we catalyze HOPE for ourselves and others? Let’s try beginning with the key of FORGIVENESS. Accepting Christ’s forgiveness for ourselves is the best place to begin.

Luke 6:27-28 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Let us know how forgiveness has or will unlock your doors of HOPE!

Blessings! JD

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40 years in the Furnace

It takes a long time for things to simmer, and then, there it is!

Be sure to check in for 3 stories of 40 years in the making, tomorrow.

In the meantime you can make a lasting positive impact by serving others.

Sign up today: Volunteer Teams & Mission Teams One place is where Billy Graham, the chef, operates a disaster relief kitchen with CitiIMPACT. Seriously! His dad is named Bill Graham also, he is Mayor.

Change the life of an impoverished family forever. Your one child sponsorship affects up to 8 people in each family for the good. Sponsor a child’s destiny.

Child Sponsorship Sustains Life

Blessings,

JD