gettin' through it...

So I almost didn't make it today.

(the picture--by the way--is the view from my balcony at the end of 'day one'...)

Part of it was barely sleeping last night.  I just kept getting woken up and when I'd stir my racing mind would take over and I'd be overwhelmed with thought after thought connected to the interviews I was to do today.

Three hours of sleep the night after a 15 hour travel day followed by 12 high-profile celebrity interviews in one day does not make for a happy camper.

My neck muscles are so tightly wound it's insane.  Add to that a 10-day old sinus infection that just won't quit and you can imagine how 'awesome' it was to be me today.  Lucky for me my Director's wife is here and happens to be a registered massage therapist.  

(she fixed me up good, thanks Nik...)

Oh, and did I mention the kind of focus that's required to interview someone 'well'?  Lemme' tell you, you can't 'mail' those in.

The upshot was a morning that nearly paralyzed me.  As we sat at our local French Bistro eating our egg sandwich with red potatoes chased down by fresh coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice surrounded by William Morris' finest (the bistro is down the street from WMA's Beverly Hills headquarters) sitting in the sun burning up time on their PDA's and looking resplendent in their business-best (even their girls look hot) I thought to myself, "Gee, you know, I should be enjoying this..."

But I was filled with dread.

Normal, typical, 'stage fright'.  I get this way every time we do this which is hilarious considering  I've been interviewing people since I was 19.

At the root it comes down to the fact that I don't feel 'worthy'.  I feel--in some silly way--like George Hamilton or Cedric the Entertainer or Anita Pointer or Nigel Lythgoe are somehow 'better' than me.

It's insecurity, it's pride, it's silly.

But the fear--in the moment--is real and it makes you eat no more than 2/3's of your fabulous sandwich and makes you want to run for the hills.

That's a part of a performers' life.

"What if they don't like me?"  "What if we don't connect?"  "What if it's a waste of time?" "What if they reject me?"

All these thoughts and more race through your mind, seeming like voices insisting that you're going to fail.

And in that moment you have a decision to make.

Cave or rise.

Admit defeat or stand up and do what you've been made to do.

No matter what it is that you do with your life I'm sure you face similar fears to mine.  I figured I'd admit to you how hard my day was today because of one simple thing.

It ended well.

The interviews went great, and even Cedric the Entertainer (AND his publicist, which is always the toughest part...) were really happy, impressed and encouraging.

And that same result can and will be yours, by times, as you decide, with me...

To rise.

T

my life...

So I'm in Beverly Hills.

One 15-hour trip later.

Seriously, we were in-transit for 15 hours door to door yesterday from the time I left my house west of Toronto, drove to Buffalo, got stuck behind a full 'search and seizure' of a car at the border, got onto our delayed flight to Philly, arrived in Philly, waited for three hours, got on the plane, sat on the tarmac for another hour and almost a half, flew five and a half hours to Los Angeles on a totally packed U.S Airways (my least favorite) plane, landed at LAX, taxied, waited for the gate guy to let our plane pull up to the jetway, got off, found a cab, drove at breakneck speed into Beverly Hills and checked into our...

Hotel.

(at the equivalent of 2:00am our time)

Fifteen hours.

Oh man.

Then we walk to our favorite little French pastry shop for breakfast this morning and my wife calls me freaking out because the bank is up to its usual shenanigans and the kids are driving her nuts and I didn't call her during my layover ('cause my Executive Producer was feeling 'talky' and we were deep in conversation the whole time and I didn't think to call 'cause I thought she'd said she'd be out most of the day...) and she thought I was dead and I'm in Beverly Hills and she's lonely and she hates when I travel and I didn't call.

Sheesh.

I told my EP it's like I hit my wife's three 'hot buttons' (money issues, me away= her alone, and being non-communicative) all at the same time.

Classic.

Sorry baby.

Sometimes I just get into my own headspace and don't think about anything but getting through it and that makes me act in ways that harm those around me.

'Total depravity' anyone?

Yes, that's me.  Basically selfish and inconsiderate left to my own devices.

Today I'll sit on that there balcony pictured above and study for my interviews, ten tomorrow and twelve (if you can believe it) on Thursday.

Then I'll do another 12-14-hour day flying home Friday, get to bed by 2:00am and be up at 8:00am for a family photo session with my extended family Saturday morning at 9:00am.

It's like I keep saying and keep reminding myself and maybe you.

You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing your best moment by moment and try not to stress about the rest.

I'm thirty five and have been doing my bi-vocational (preacher/producer) thing for basically 16 years now and I still feel like each day is a stretch, each day is a learning curve, each day brings with it some joy and much sorrow and stress and I never 'really' feel like I'm getting anywhere which is why you and I need to be so very sure that we're doing the thing we're called to do 'cause imagine if you took all of the above and the common denominator under it wasn't 'calling' but 'rat race'.

I can't imagine.

Here's hoping you can't either.

T

spend it with your wife...

I was thinking about my last post, in fact, I've been thinking about it quite a bit yesterday and today and so have some of my readers--and they've been letting me know about it.

I got a few "Which one am I?  Am I the lazy one?" phone calls yesterday and today.  Funny. Fortunately none of said callers were the ones I was thinking of.

Anyway, the title of the post struck me again just now.

The whole question of how one should go about living one's life.  And I thought...

"You should live it with your wife."

That's mine up there.  Taken less than an hour ago on date night downtown.

She's cute right?

And she's mine, and I love her and we're happy together.

And, just like that, I thought about those of you who aren't yet married, haven't yet made that lifetime decision but have someone in your life who you love.  You just haven't taken the leap yet.

I thought I might share my perspective with you.  Thought I might say that a man who finds a wife finds a good thing.

If you choose well, and spend your life in her service, she'll make almost everything better.

Just in case you were toying with the idea of 'manning up' and popping that question or calling that girl back or asking her out for the first time.

I say, 'go for it'.

You 'aint gettin' no younger...

T

how to spend your life...

Well lookie what we have here...

Gifts.

(from under our tree 2008)

And, chances are, you have a few of 'em.

Gifts.

Things that you've been gifted to do.  Special abilities or talents.  A thing you can do better than almost anyone else you know.

Know what yours are?

Here's the thing.

Can you make money off of doing that thing you've been gifted to do?  Does there currently exist in the World (or does there seem soon to be) a way for you to take the thing you do and get it out there in the World to people who will give you money in exchange for you taking the time to make and give them that thing?

If your answer is 'yes'--hooray for you--you have the chance to live a life fulfilled.  

'Cause you and I both know it's much better to spend your life doing something you love in exchange for money than to spend it punching someone's else's clock trading away nothing but the hours of your life for pay.

But, even if your answer is 'yes', you have something to worry about.

What if you're good at more than one thing?

What if you're 'called' or 'gifted' to do something but 'talented at' or 'able to do' many things and (to make matters worse) what if the things you 'can' do are higher paying or more fame or ease inducing or praise begetting than the thing you 'must' do?

What if you exchange calling for perceived success/riches/fame/acceptance and ease?

You're in trouble if you do that.

So, if you have a 'gift' make sure you keep it in front of your eyes all the days of your life and just decide to 'do' that gift regardless of every other pressure that rises up to try and assail you.

Now, what if you have a 'gift' but can't make money off it?

Well then, find the best, most fulfilling 'job' (where you trade your skills and time for money) you can, do it well and find ways in the rest of your life to exercise your 'gift'.

You'll probably be alright if you do that.

But...

What if you have a 'gift' but you're lazy or fearful?

What if you so fear rejection that you just can't find a way to take that step of faith out into an arena where you display your gift for all to see?  Well, if you never try--you're right--you'll never get rejected but you'll be sure to fail because to never try is to fail.

But if you're lazy?

Imagine, someone clearly gifted to do a thing that no one else can do.  Imagine that person knew they were gifted and others knew it too.  Imagine though that that person decided that instead of making the sacrifices necessary to pursue their gifting they'd prefer to just take it easy, spend time on the couch and lying in the sun, eating out and lazing away their days in contemplation.

Do you think they'd be happy?  I don't think so, because to be truly called to a thing and never do it seems a denial of an essential truth of your personhood (never mind of your Maker...) and that kind of rejection can't be easy to live with no matter how 'nice' your life seems otherwise.

More importantly, can you imagine how impoverished their circle of relationships, and in the case of someone exceptionally gifted, their community, country and perhaps even an entire culture would be because they weren't able to 'man up' and do the thing they were placed on the planet to do?

I have two friends I'm thinking of as I write this.

Both are gifted.

One is doing what it takes (and suffering mightily for it) to make a way in the World with his gift.

The other is lazing away his days, thinking about things, but never stepping up to the plate and hanging 'em out there.

I learn from each.

The one inspires me.

The other inspires fear in me.

The end result--for me--is a deepening humility wherein I buckle down and commit and re-commit to being and doing who and what I've been made to be and do.

How 'bout you?

T

the best laid plans...

Planning is a funny thing.

I spent most of today doing it.  I find it to be a weird combination of visioning--dreaming of what 'might' be--and preparing, so that you'll be able to 'do' what needs doing to see the dream made reality, and waiting--because, at root, you don't have everything within yourself needed to make the 'thing' you're planning happen--and mundane workmanlike toil.

In-fact, the workmanlike aspect of achievement cannot be overstated.

If you think back over the things you've done for which you're most grateful and that--in your estimation--made the greatest impact on those around you, chances are you'll agree with me that most of the work that went into making that 'thing' happen was simple, one-step-at-a-time, non-rocket science type, simple work.

Like working an assembly line.

I did that for a while.  In fact, last time I was out of the pulpit for two years I spent several months of that 'hiatus' working as a 'temp' at a local Pepsi plant.  I'll never forget sitting in the temp office, doing an ESL test (my first degree is English/History) and feeling like I'd truly hit rock-bottom.  Anyway, I got hired, and started out painting the yellow steel posts that dotted the plant--posts intended to protect the machinery from the forklifts and their insane Mario Andretti-wanna' be drivers.

I was painting the things to get 'em pretty for the CEO who was about to tour our plant.

Once all the painting was done I got 'promoted' to sweeper.  And so me and the two other temps who'd been hired at the same time got to sweeping.

And that's where I really started pulling away from the pack.

See, the two other dudes were lazy.  They didn't really work hard.  When we were painting it was hard to track our progress.  The posts were scattered all over the plant, many of them hidden in nooks and crannies and out of the way corners so that the supervisors couldn't watch us at all times.  So long as each day it looked like more posts were getting painted (most of them by 'you know who') no-one really cared.

But when we started sweeping, well, all the sweeping took place in the main public areas of the plant for these were the areas the CEO was most likely going to tour.  So for the duration of our nine hour shift, we swept areas totally populated with the other plant workers and supervisors. And, that said, I still find it amazing that my two fellow temps continued to 'laze out'.

Seriously, the one dude, a tremendously fat and disgruntled former post-office worker (no joke) simply placed the end of the broom stick atop his belly, wedged in between two rolls of fat, and strolled around the plant all night, 'sweeping'.

I wasn't the least bit surprised to see him fired two nights later.

Me?  I swept like a madman.  No boasting here--I was, after all, the lowest of the low at the plant and that's nothing to boast of--I simply figured that if I had to work in a Pepsi plant for nine hours in the middle of the night I might as well work as hard as I could in the hopes that the time might pass a little quicker.

Wouldn't you know it, the CEO visit came and went, the other two temps got fired and I got promoted (for real this time) to 'machine operator' where I began running the machine that made all the 24 can cases of Pepsi product for the Greater Toronto Area.  The woman who had run the machine before me had been 'scalped' a month previous as she bent beneath the machine to try and clear a 'jam' without shutting it off as protocol demanded and one of our supervisors had been running it since.

Turns out he'd been watching me sweep, decided to take me under his wing, taught me the ropes over two nights and then let me at it.

"Mr. Machine Operator" that's me.

The point being that good things come if and as you work hard, simply, humbly and with a workmanlike attitude.

So as you plan your life--as I'm currently planning mine through the end of 2010 and beyond--don't get discouraged by the enormity of the task--"How will I ever paint all those posts?  How will I ever sweep all this?  When will I ever get promoted?  When will I get out of here and back to producing and preaching?"--just put your head down, get some vision, start dreaming, get studying so that you'll be prepared when the time does finally come and, while you're waiting, stay full of faith.

Because He who called you is faithful.

T

where ideas get their start...

For those of you who are show-biz oriented and/or just generally interested in the creative process I thought it might be cool to post a glimpse inside my head.

But since I can't photograph the inside of my skull I figured I'd go to the next best thing, the first stage of an idea past my cranium.

There it is.  

Four blue post-it notes all in a row.  On them the outline and time-breaks for four segments of a new half-hour prime-time nationally distributed bio-documentary television program I'll be producing this year for release the first week of September 2009.

It's called 'UNSCRIPTED' and will take you on a half-hour journey through the life, struggle, art and work of an entertainer you know and possibly admire.

We'll look at their early years, their first big-break, their darkest moment, and the legacy they hope to leave behind as a result of their life and work.

We've had 104 episodes picked up.

The first few guests will be:

George Hamilton

Nigel 'So You Think You Can Dance' Lythgoe

Peter Graves

Richard Bergi

Bob Newhart

Hector Elizondo

Paul Michael Glazer

Cedric the Entertainer

Glen Campbell

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis

Kathy Ireland

Bruce Jenner

Vicky Lawrence

Pat Boone

Florence Henderson

Steven Cannell

Jose Eber

Erin Brockovich

Anita Pointer

Lou Gosset Jr.

Smokey Robinson

We'll start shooting content in L.A next week.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

The key for me and you to remember here is that these things are always 'one step at a time'. It's important to stay very humble and relaxed and to let the process unfold.  There's no point stressing out too much about the future or about what will go wrong.

If I've learned anything in my career as a Church Planter and Producer so far it's that these things we try to do--things that are ideally rooted in a life-less-ordinary and are therefore somewhat off the grid in terms of normal rhythms and expectations--tend to take on a life of their own and what you and I have to do is stay faithful to what we feel we've been called to do and just keep doing it.

One post-it note at a time...

T

the long haul...

So, a more show-biz-oriented post for you right here.

Just heard today that it looks like we've got a contract--or deal memo--signed to begin co-development on a new dramatic TV series that we've been incubating for some time.  The deal is with an established production company that helped create a major dramatic series that's currently running on CBS.

They're the real deal.

Here's what's post-worthy about this.

It's taken a million years to get to this point.

Okay, not a million, but a very long time.

It was 2002 when I decided that I needed to start leaning how to write for the screen.  I finished my first screenplay summer 2003 then wrote three more before writing one that got produced as a feature-film that I also directed.  The script that started us thinking in the direction of the TV series that's now under consideration was one we found more than three years ago.  We purchased the script two years ago--or maybe a year and a half ago.  We worked on that idea for a good six or seven months then decided to go in another direction.

I started workshopping the concept we're signing on this week summer 2008.

We built a mock-trailer for it fall 2008.

We showed the mock-trailer to the producer we're now entering into co-development with January 2009.

Four months later we're signing an agreement to develop the thing together.  

What that means is we'll workshop the idea 'till the point where our partners (with their deeper experience in pitching U.S networks and cable carriers) feel it's ready to 'go out with' after which they'll start working to find a home for the series.

Before that they'll probably put some feelers out to see if the parties they're considering approaching will be more inclined to consider our pitch if we 'attach' some elements--like a star actor or another more established TV production company or producer--to the pitch.  If they get a 'yes' to that, they'll work to get the attachments done.

Then, we'll start shopping.

Then, we'll either get interest or we won't.

If we do, we'll probably go into an extended 'refining the pitch' process which will either culminate in the series being picked up or not.

If it is, we'll go into pre-production for six months or so then start producing.

And so on, and so forth.

The point for you is that if you have a dream of doing something unique, that has mass impact and that is less-than-run-of-the-mill, you're going to be at it for a very long time.

Spiritual marathon shoes are what's required 'cause...

It's a long haul.

T