There’s No Such Thing As Talker’s Block
If you spend too much time listening or reading Seth Godin, he’ll mess you up. Lately, I’ve been reading (re: listening to the audio of) his book “The Icarus Deception.” If you’ve ever thought of yourself as creative (or even better if you’ve not), this book is great for pulling back all the excuses you have about not pushing the boundaries of your creative work. And while I don’t agree with all of it, I highly recommend the book.
Several times throughout the book, Seth hammers away at the idea of writer’s block. According to his research, before the writing of books and novels became a widely accepted and revered profession, there was no such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s block only became “a thing” when writing became a revered art form. When the stakes got high, the fear of writing something wrongly kicked in among writers and ever since, writer’s block has existed.
The other critique he made was this: “There’s no such thing as talker’s block.” Think about it. No one spends two or three days or weeks without talking because there’s nothing to say. But many people, too many people, stop writing because of the fear of committing their words to paper.
The solution, according to Godin, is to write daily and publicly. The point of the exercise is not to overwhelm your audience, but to slowly and persistently learn to stop fearing committing words to a page. And that, dear reader, is why I’m writing today. Today, I’m going to commit to write daily and publicly.
That will mean a few things for you. My writing may be more than you’ve asked for. That’s okay. Don’t unsubscribe, just don’t read every post or feel like you have to. Or, journey along with me. It’s up to you. My posts will be shorter. My motto, at least for a season, will be “less but better.” Also, my content may drift a little bit from what I typically write about on here. I’m trying to decide whether to open another blog of some kind or keep it all here. The jury’s still out. I welcome your feedback. Lastly, there will definitely be less pictures, hyperlinks, and various cool things. These take time and distract from real writing. Those type of posts will happen, just not every day.
Finally, thanks for being part of the journey. This blog is nowhere near as fun without the feedback you provide.
How Much Input Do You Need?
If you’re not familiar with Seth Godin, he’s a blogger/entrepreneur/programmer/marketer/genius who daily challenges what you think about everything.
Seth, as far as I know, is not a believer in Jesus. But what he writes is brilliant and you would have to write off much of the book of Proverbs in order to not pay attention to what he writes. Often I take one of Seth’s business or marketing thoughts and apply it to my walk in the Kingdom. The parallels are uncanny.
Anyways, jump over today and read Seth’s short post entitled “In and Out.” It’s worth the read. Basically Seth asks the question: “How much information do you need before you begin to do revolutionary things?”
Let me rephrase it a little differently, in light of our shared Kingdom priorities:
How many healing conferences are you going to attend before you start to pray for people with cancer?
How many times will you read through the Bible before you start a 2 & 3 or LTG with someone?
How many books on evangelism will you read before you go and start talking to lost people?
Or, if you want to get personal about it: How many house church books and conferences am I going to go to before I start planting and multiplying house churches?
The thing is, in the West, we prefer to know everything and then obey a little. Jesus would prefer us to obey all of the little we know.
So here’s my impromptu exhortation to you today. In what area do you know way more than you should but are doing very little with the knowledge? Obviously we want to wait for God’s sending and there are character issues that need to be addressed. But is that what’s really holding you back?
Or is it fear?
Photo Credit: Seth Godin by Joi
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Pursuing Glory 