Mondays are for mistakes.

Today’s mistake: choosing to be right rather than solve a problem.

Here’s the story: the first Sunday of each month our church heads to a restaurant after services.  We have a standing reservation for about 50 people
We’ve been doing this for years.  1st Sunday of the month.  12 first Sundays a year.  For several years.  The only times we miss are for Vacation Bible School and when a holiday (like Easter or the 4th of July) falls on a 1st Sunday.

Two months ago I am on my way to the restaurant when I get a text from a Hillcrster saying the restaurant doesn’t have us down.  I immediately think there’s a mistake and I’d clear it up when I arrived.

And it turns out there was a mistake.  On my end.  The front-end people and the manger explain we didn’t booked the room and so we don’t have a room. 

It’s at this exact moment where I have a decision: I can choose to solve a problem or I can choose to be right.

Yep.  I opt for the latter and I double down on being right and winning the conflict.

I start with the obvious “there’s got to be a mistake”.  The manager counters he doesn’t have us down.  I can move on to solving the problem or be right.  I stick with being right.

My second move is historical: “we’ve been here on the first Sunday of the month for years”.  The manager replies with I checked the books and we haven’t had you down like in forever. Oh how I really, really wanted to ask to see the book . . . ! 
Another opportunity to solve the problem.  I stick with being right since it’s clearly a winning strategy for me.

My final move insinuates the manager is new.  I ask if there’s been a recent change (like in the last month!) in management.  No, the manager explains.

It was a bad strategy.  I wasn’t going to win the argument, and even if I would have won (whatever that means), I still had a problem to solve.   I needed to make sure we had a reservation moving forward.  I also needed to make sure we were still welcome as this pastor (me!) was displaying conduct unbecoming!

There are so many situations like this in life where you and I can choose to be right or choose to solve a problem:  With your parenting.  With your marriage.  With your coworkers.  Your boss.  Your clients.  Your customers.  Your students.  The customer service rep on the phone or at the checkout.

​Will you choose to be right or to solve a problem?
            

How can I help a school with no time?

We looked at this last week from my (or your) perspective (how can I help a school when I don’t have time?). 

Today, we look at this from an organization’s perspective (we’d love to help out a school but our church or business doesn’t have the time). How can a church or business help a school when it feels like it doesn’t have the time?

Every church and business can do something for a school.  It may not be a full PTA-like partnership, but everyone can do something. 

Here’s four questions to help busy churches and businesses get started:

Do we want to do this?
Does the business or church want to do this?  Is there a desire to help a school?  If this isn’t something you want to do, you won’t make time for it.  Any change begins with wanting to change.

How can we do this?
What can this look like?  This is the next question and determines how much time your business or church can give a school.  If you want a PTA-like model, you’ll need more time.  If you adopt a classroom, you’ll need less time.  Thinking about how you want to help a school sets up a better experience for you and the school. 

Is our leader committed to this?
A really important checkpoint here.  The owner/pastor/leader sets the example for helping a school.  He or she may have to use some of the time tricks from last week to free up time to help a school.  When the church or business leader finds time to help a school, they communicate it’s possible for everyone to find time to help a school.

How do we start?
The last question is how to start.  If your business is going to mentor students, get going on the paperwork.  If your church wants to help a school with supplies, call a school to begin the conversation.  If you’re interested but don’t know where to start, contact me.  I’d love to help you start helping a school.  

I am not proud of this mistake: I’ve spammed people.  Thousands of people. 
Last year, in an overzealous and naïve way to promote my book (full disclosure: there will be many more Monday mistakes about my book!), I spammed churches.
I spammed schools. 
I spammed pastors. 
I spammed principals. 
I thought because I found email addresses online I could send people unsolicited email.  And I must have sent over 10,000 emails last fall.  Seriously.  Not an exaggeration. 
Most were ignored. 
Some came back undeliverable. 
Some signed up (I wasn’t a complete hack; I offered my e-book for free in exchange for their newsletter signup). 
And some took time to tell me what I was doing was not good. 

Rather than listen, I pushed on.  I justified my efforts.  I told myself this was part of the process get the book out there.  The resistance and negativity and rejection were signs I was doing the right thing.

Nope.  I was wrong. 

They were signs I should stop doing what I was doing.

I began to see it in books I was reading and authors I was following about the temptation to spam people and to not give in.  I can be a slow learner so it took time for me to get past my desire and my pride and admit they were right.

If you’re reading this because I spammed you, I am sorry.  I shouldn’t have done it and I have stopped.  I appreciate you being part of this community and look forward to working with you in the future.

If you’re reading this and you’re wanting to unsubscribe, I get it.  I used to be dejected every time I got an email notice someone had unsubscribed, but I get it now as most of the people leaving the newsletter were people I spammed.  I sent you email you didn’t want about something you weren’t interested in to generate interest in my book.  I apologize.  I completely understand you clicking unsubscribe, but if you stick around, I’ll be grateful and I think you will be, too.

If you’re reading this and enjoy what you read, the ideas we send out, and the content we bring to you and the community we’re building, please invite others to join this community.  Invite a pastor or a principal.  Send this link to a teacher or a business owner.  I know they’ll be helped, encouraged and resourced as we together help schools.   

​And I promise to not spam again!

How can I help a school with no time?

Really frequently asked question here.  There’s two ways to look at this:

1. From my (or your) perspective (how can I help a school when I don’t have time?).  How can you or I help a school when we don’t have time.
2. From an organization’s perspective (we’d love to help out a school but our church or business doesn’t have the time).  Today we’ll answer the question from the perspective of you or me- the person who wants to help but doesn’t have the time.  Next Friday we answer this question from the church or business perspective.

You and I not having time is a myth.  An excuse.  An illusion.  It’s not true.  We make time for what is important to us.

This sounds harsh, but in a culture where you and I, on average, consume 2 hours of social media a day and watch 5 hours of TV a day, saying we don’t have time is an excuse. 

If you struggle to find time to do anything you want to do- exercise, work on a project, journal, read a book, volunteer at a school- a simple exercise for you and I to find time is a time audit.  For the next week, write down everything you do OR write down what you do when you control your time.  If your job is structured and you work the same hours or shift each day, no need to write down that time.  We’re focused on the time you control- time before and after work.   

If you wake up at 6 and spend time on your phone until 6:30, write it down.  Record how long you watch Netflix or TV at night.  Jot down each time you’re on your phone.  I bet each of us can find at least a half hour to do something we want to do but tell ourselves we don’t have the time.  You may even find an hour or more of time!  Use the hour to go for a walk.  Hit the gym.  Read a book.  Take a class.  And yes, help a school.

I am not saying you have all this extra time to help a school.  Not everyone has a job where they can get over to a school during the school day to mentor or read with an English language learner.  I get it. 

But it’s ‘time’ we put away the “I don’t have time” excuse. 

Next week we’ll talk about ways churches and businesses can help school when they fell like they don’t have the time.    

​Today’s tip: Boss’ Day
Tomorrow is boss’ day.  It’s a great day to do something for the principal(s) who lead your school.
3 ideas:

• Food- great way to appreciate your principal on boss’ day is food!  Drop off donuts.  Pick up pizza.  Deliver some coffee.  So many possibilities here and services like door dash and grub hub make this super easy.
• Flowers- send some flowers.  Send some balloons.  Send over bouquet of candy.
• Encouragement- costs nothing and might be the most meaningful.  Send thank you cards to your school’s principals.  Send an email with encouragement and appreciation.  I imagine most of the email a principal receives is either neutral or negative, so flood their inboxes with positive thoughts and encouragement.

Other ways?  Let us know in the comments!    

Mondays are for mistakes and some mistakes I’ve made become almost mythical.  In today’s mistake, I may have forgotten some exact details but the story remains.

I call it the purple coat story.  Truth is the coat may not have been purple.  It could have been pink.  Or blue.  But for me it’s the purple coat story.

The first year working with our school we did a winter clothing drive.  We even tried to be smart about it. We asked the school for specific sizes of coats, boots, snow pants and other winter gear.  We took the size information and made a neat little bulletin board.  Our church people took an item off the board, went shopping, and dropped off the items to me.  I’d take the items over to the school and pretty much felt like Santa Claus dropping off these awesome brand new coats.
And boots.
And snow pants.
And gloves.
And hats to our new school partner. 

It felt good to help kids who needed these items. 
It felt good to help kids be able to go outside for recess and not get frostbite. 
It felt good to provide for a real need for kids who literally lived right in our backyard.

It didn’t feel as good a couple days later when the principal called and said we had a problem.

I was expecting the “thank you so much” call. 
The “what would we do without you” call. 
The “this is the most generous and awesomest thing ever” call.

Instead it was the “we’ve got a problem” call.

Our good deed of donating winter gear had created numerous headaches for the school and a bit of class warfare between students.   One student wanted a purple coat like her friend got instead of the black one she got.  Thus the purple coat story. 
Another student wanted the same brand of snow pants his brother got. 
And that was only the beginning.   I later learned some students would go home with the snow pants or boots and then forget to bring them to school . . . they still couldn’t play outside!

My mistake? Thinking about me and what worked best for me (and my church) and not what worked best for the school.  The mistake wasn’t the kids needed winter gear.  They did.  The mistake was in how I fulfilled the need.  I thought I was helping the school by getting the size information so our people could pick up exactly what was needed.  But what I thought was administrative wisdom was a mistake! 

Today we don’t even do a winter clothing drive.  And it’s not because there’s anything wrong with them, we’ve just learned to rely more on the school.  They tell us if there are needs.  If there are, we send over a gift card or two so they can go out and make the purchase.  Rather than one big drive where we dump a bunch of items at the school for them to manage, we’re a bit more in step with each other. We rely on the school’s expertise and knowledge so when they identify needs, we resource them to best meet those needs. 

How do I keep helping a school fresh and exciting?

Really, how do you we anything in life fresh and exciting?

If you’ve helped a school for a number of years, this is a frequently asked question: how do we keep this exciting? 

How do we stay engaged with helping a school?

My first response is a mental magic trick and it works in all kinds of situations.  It works if you don’t like your job.  It works if you’re having a relationship issue.  It works if you’re struggling with your diet, your finances, or your time.

The trick: tell yourself (and those you lead): “I get to” instead of “I have to”.

If you lead a church or business partnership with a school, it’s all about the incredible privilege of what you and I get to do:

• You get to provide a meal at conferences.
  
• You get to read with an English learning student.
  
• You get to provide school supplies for cash-strapped teachers.
  
• You get to mentor a student and be one of the possible few positive adults she looks up to.

There’s other good and practical things about how to keep helping a school exciting.  You can invite the school to share with your business or church about the partnership.  You can partner with a different school.  You can invite another business or church to partner with you.

But it starts with “I get to”. 

Try it out in your own life:

• Overwhelmed by a busy schedule?  Say “I get to” about something on your calendar.
  
• Don’t like your job?  Say “I get to go to work” instead of “I have to go to work”.
  
• Feeling broke?  Say “I get to pay this bill” instead of “I have to”.

We communicate gratitude when we say “I get to”. 

We communicate obligation when we say “I have to”. 

​Guess which perspective is more fresh and exciting?!
 
 
 
 

My family has been hosting a high school student from Germany the past few weeks.  And while I was initially opposed to the idea, it’s been fun hosting Johannes (whom I jokingly refer as “The German”!).  His English is very good and one of the funnier things he says is when he’s playing soccer on the Xbox.  Whenever someone scores a goal, the game shows the replay.  Johannes doesn’t like this feature so whenever he gets scored on, before the replay can even come, he says “skip it” in his German accent. 

It’s pretty hilarious and now we find ourselves saying ‘skip it’ in all kinds of situations.

Skip it.

When it comes to helping schools- and any worthwhile endeavor in life (your health, your finances, your relationships, etc)- there are many times we’d rather skip it:

• If you mentor a student, there are times you want to “skip it”.  Times when you’d rather not give up your lunch hour to hang with a student who’s going through something difficult.  Show up anyway.
  
• If you volunteer as a reading buddy, there will be times you want to “skip it”.  Times you’d rather not leave work to listen to a student struggle with reading.  Show up anyway.
  
• If you’re a business or a church who has worked with a school for years, there will be times when you want to “skip it”.  Maybe skip something you’ve always done.  Skip out on the partnership altogether because it doesn’t feel as exciting as it did when you first started. 

The power in helping a school or achieving any worthwhile goal in life comes not from skipping it, but from showing up when we don’t want to. 

​When we don’t feel like it. 

Mondays are for mistakes!
In my community it’s parent-teacher conference time. Several churches and businesses provide meals for teachers during conferences.
And we do the same.  We’ve done tacos.  Enchiladas.  Sloppy joes (or maybe you call them taverns?  Manwich?  Barbecues?!).  We did pulled pork sandwiches last week.
A few years ago our school had morning conferences. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to do something different and provide breakfast!
There are so many ways breakfast should have been foolproof.  Donuts or bagels being two easy options.
We went with egg bake.
Pans of egg bake.  I am sure we provided other items but the highlight was definitely the egg bake.
Our team made it up the night before and it was my job to bring the egg bake over to school before conferences.
My mistake: I served cold egg bake.  I didn’t keep it in the oven long enough.

You had one job, Stroh!

The worst part was I didn’t know I had served cold egg bake until a couple days after conferences when I asked a teacher how the egg bake went over.  And you know when you ask a question expecting a great response?  You smile.  You’re upbeat.  You’re expecting gratitude.  That’s how I asked the question.   

As soon as I asked, I knew immediately something went wrong.

The teacher was gracious.  She wasn’t complaining.  But I asked the question. 

The egg bake was cold. 

What's your biggest cooking failure?  Let us know in the comments below.