Becomming comfortable with being wrong.

There is a company that created some software that I used for quite a long time in my day job.  They are called 37 Signals and they create the project management software called BaseCamp .  I am also familiar with them because they wrote a book called Rework,  which I cannot recommend enough.  Even thought most of the principles in that book are business related there are a few gems in there that can definitely be applied to youth ministry. This post is not about that book, or them, but I wanted to give you some context.

On their blog a couple weeks ago they mentioned that the CEO of Amazon came into their office and talked to them.  You can read the post here . Essentially what Jeff Bezos said to them was that what he has found in life is that the people that are willing to change their mind the most often end up being right the most often.  While that sounds kind of obvious on the surface, changing one's opinion about something is a very difficult process.  Drilling deeper into what I think this means is that the people who are self aware, understand that they may be wrong from time to time, and are willing to make the changes in their thinking patterns are generally the most adjusted, smart and generally right people.

In Youth Ministry there be many times where your assumptions will be challenged, long standing opinions on things will fall and stuff won't work out like you thought.  Practice opening up your opinion on things and be willing to be wrong.  Generally it is your ego that gets in our way, and learning when to check that will take you a long way.  When faced with a challenge to a long standing opinion, try and take stock of the entire situation, all the knowledge you have and try to figure out if it is a hill you are willing to die on.


A quote from Jeff Bezos

"If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time."

Work on climbing out of the details, looking at things in the bigger context and be willing to admit you're wrong.  It's OK to not have all the answers, but it's not OK to pretend you do.