Tag Archives: action

Cat Skinners 

The bright post on the outside office wall catches my energy eye each whistling morning. Cat Skinners titles the picture of an animated lion on hungry hunt. What department is Cat Skinners? Not IT or Mail or Imaging or Client Sevier or Marketing or Print Production or Finance or Planning but Cat Skinners. PETA is mad somewhere. Do they really skin cats behind the doors of this office complex?
There is more than one way to skin a cat. I think of that motto as I imagine a modern day cat skinner. Is this the problem solving department? Do they take complicated issues and make them simple?

Maybe, being a cat skinner is like being a mule skinner. These early day truckers hauled and worked with mules. They could get the onery critters to do the work. Stubborn, mule headed beasts of burden resistive to direction and taming were tamed and taught and made functional under the care and cajoling of the mule skinner. What others could not do, they did.

Both is the answer. Do you have a Cat Skinner department? Are you in it?

The original poster was in our client services team of grafacceńt, a digital print publishing group born of innovation. It was a joy birthing and developing and leading this powerhouse team. They found solutions where solutions could not be found. Love the product. Love the client. Love the team. That was our motto. We lived it.

Yesterday, I put the poster up again. Our team at SOLUM is doing it. Love the program. Love the clients. Love the team.  Allie, Danny, Danny, Matt, Dawn, Ashli and Phil. Here we are at it. More are joining the team.

A judge and a businessman came to me at separate times yesterday. Both commented, “Tell me about the Hope Program. People are telling me how much they appreciate it.” One was on the phone from another state. 

We did not have a title for what we do, we just do it. The streets have given us a title, the Hope Program. People have hope restored and families healed. I like that. My title came from the streets. The Think Doctor came from those we serve. That is stronger than a university acclimation. We love the people. Our Cat Skinners love the product of good thinking and hope. Our Cat Skinners love the people we serve. Our Cat Skinners love each other.

Get a Cat Skinner attitude. Prod problems into possibilities. Coach calamity into calm. Anchor anxiety into assurance. Find a way where there is no way. Get a few folks in your work place to walk that walk and you will find new joy in your journey.

Manage Well : Go On Through

To go through a problem is to conquer it and create new paths. Go through. Don’t go around it.

Ps:95:8: Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: .

 A winner goes through a problem.

training

  A loser tries to go around a problem.

Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Problems are life. Sound like the last chapter?  You are right.  It is not the same though.  What makes a winner a conqueror, an overcomer, is the problems they face and conquer.  You will have problems.  1Pt:4:12:” Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:”

The question is will you go through or around?

Going around.  The children of Israel spent 40 years going around their problems.  When they were offered the land of opportunity, they chose to stay away and not deal with their problems.  What was their problem?  Discord, lack of submission to leadership, unbelief, selfishness… basically just a lot of reliance on themselves and little on God.

Going through.  After that 40 year phase, a new set of children rose up and went through their problems.  They stuck together, defended each other, and took the blessings by going through their problems.

Going around.  The United States is full of men and women going around their problems.  Insecurity, lack of knowledge on how to be a dad/mom/husband/wife, lack of commitment, irresponsibility, self fulfillment keeps them from sticking with their families and spouses and friends.  It’s easier to go around.

Going through.  My heroes are the ones who overcome their insecurities, lack of knowledge, lack of commitment, irresponsibility, and self fulfillment, replace it with security in Jesus, knowledge from the Word, commitment to what counts, responsibility even when it hurts, and other fulfillment, and stick with the program.  It is not easy.  It is incredibly rewarding.

Hebrews 4:14: Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.15: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.16: Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Principle is principle is principle.  Relationships, work issues, projects, and hobbies all present problems.  When you allow others to help in the process, you prosper quicker.  Sometimes they have the solution you need.  Always, Jesus has the solution you need.

Take Inventory

Where do you have a problem that you have circumvented but not solved?

Are you ready to do what it takes to solve it?

Have you ever felt like getting mad at God because of a problem?  Did you go around the problem or through it?

Overcoming.  As I write this I am praying for five relationships where someone has come to me in the last week and asked for prayer.  They are GOING THROUGH!.  Anger, alcohol, and accusations make for hard lives. You can GO THROUGH.  You can overcome.  It takes both involved in the relationship, but it can be done.  Who are you praying for?

 Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Risk It! Find A Way

A winner says, “Let’s find a way.”     A Loser says, “There is no way”

Rv:2:7: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.training

A winner says, “Let’s find a way.”

A Loser says, “There is no way”

Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

 Problems are life.  A great book written some years back is entitled, “Eating Problems For Breakfast.”  Another great book published years ago was “Lateral Thinking”.  Both of these books challenge us to remember that problem solving requires getting outside our normal boxes of thought and thinking different thoughts.  When we are ready to do that, we can see incredible solutions to plaguing problems.

Recently in the children’s department of a large church, the problem of space for growth came up.  The main area for elementary kids would only hold about 150 chairs, crammed uncomfortably with bad visibility.  There had to be a way.  After 15 years of looking at the problem, no one had a real viable solution.  It took getting outside the box.

Walking through another room planned for remodel a worker struck on an old idea with a new twist.  A choir loft seating about 75 adults was going to be torn out.  Why not split the loft and reassemble it in the kids area as bleachers?  The new use of an old item would make room for 100 new kids.  Not only that, but it took up little used space in the room and changed the room to a more exciting place for the kids and allowed over 250 kids to be in the room with all of them having good visibility.  Add to that another idea of doubling the lumens in the lighting and the whole idea gelled.  Unusable, dim space was turned into light, great space because some folks though outside the box against 15 years of  “no way”.  (Sunbonnet: The cost was only a few dollars as the labor was volunteered along with some great carpet to cover the bleachers. The cost of purchasing bleachers and installing a new lighting system would have been over $10,000.)

 1 Pt:1:7: That the trial (testing by presenting of problems)of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

This principle applies in all areas of life.  Tests, trials, opportunities, problems, glitches, frustrations, whatever you call them come up. Persistent prayer and thought can bring new light (couldn’t resist) and a different way to attack the problem.  Faith pushes through to solutions.  Fear stares at the problem and gives up.

Take Inventory

Do you have a long term problem that needs fixing?    How can you persist again and say, “There has to be a way!”?

What can you do today to get past the idea that you have to live with that old problem?

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

 Pray To Be A Problem Solver

 Father, quicken my mind and heart.  Encourage faith in me to believe again for something on which I have given up hope.  You are so real and alive and active in everything that is.  Stretch my faith.  Let me be like the one who said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief.”.  Give me the courage to try a new approach and see Your had displayed.