{"id":18833,"date":"2018-09-13T11:49:03","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=18833"},"modified":"2018-09-13T11:49:03","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:49:03","slug":"inspiring-informative-and-practical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/inspiring-informative-and-practical\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspiring, informative and practical"},"content":{"rendered":"

I won\u2019t lie.\u00a0 I\u2019m a sucker for this kind of book.\u00a0 Although the author Tina Seelig may have other \u201centrepreneurs\u201d in mind, her book Insight Out: Get Ideas out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>really can apply to a wide variety of people, myself included!<\/p>\n

She invites her readers to expand their scope by writing that, \u201centrepreneurship isn\u2019t just about starting companies.\u00a0 It\u2019s about starting anything!\u00a0 Entrepreneurship involves building the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to see problems as opportunities and to leverage resources to bring ideas to fruition.\u201d<\/a>[1]<\/p>\n

This is a book that is designed to help anyone with ideas, dreams or passions to find helpful framing for how to think, as well as practical steps to take.\u00a0 Seelig lays out her approach early on.\u00a0 She writes in the preface that her purpose is \u201cto stimulate your thinking and your actions.\u201d<\/a>[2]\u00a0 Her pattern for the book unfolds from this aim, \u201cI introduce general concepts and then offer stories to illustrate them.\u00a0 I also share my personal experiences, those of my students, and research related to the concepts discussed.\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/p>\n

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.<\/p>\n

This is a time-worn recipe for success in this genre of books.\u00a0 And Seelig does it exceedingly well.\u00a0 She is clearly an expert in her field, and her credentials speak for themselves, as does her experience, and her prolific writing and speaking production.\u00a0From her perch at Stanford University\u2019s Department of Management Science and Engineering, she has the vantage point not only to see what has already happened and exists in the world, but also the bubbling cauldron of creativity of motivated graduate students.\u00a0 This book point us ahead toward future possibilities.<\/p>\n

The stories jump off the page and make for enjoyable and stimulating reading.\u00a0 One example of how Seelig\u2019s book works is the story of Scott Harrison.\u00a0 He is a former nightclub promoter, who woke up one day and realized, \u201cI\u2019m the worst person I know.\u201d<\/a>[4]\u00a0 After a time of self-reflection, he decided that he wanted to use his life to serve others.\u00a0But after a mis-spent decade of debauchery, he didn\u2019t have any idea what that would look like.<\/p>\n

A chance opportunity to join a Mercy Ships mission to Liberia, in West Africa, gave him the first experience that would ultimately lead to him founding charity:water, which seeks to bring clean water to 800 people around the world who don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

Seelig\u2019s point in telling his story is that \u201cpassion follows engagement.\u00a0 You can best envision what you hope to accomplish after experiences that pique your imagination.\u201d<\/a>[5]\u00a0She wants her students and readers to take a risk, to set up an experiment, to get out there and try some things on for size.<\/p>\n

Seelig then goes on to draw out numerous ways that curiosity, imagination, creativity, and passion are related to each other and how they can lead toward \u201csomething more.\u201d<\/p>\n

For my own work as a pastoral leader of a local church, this book is a treasure trove of insights like this one.\u00a0 This past summer, our church ran a Ministry Fellows program, where 3 college students worked with us and learned about leadership within a church context.\u00a0 They brought new energy and excitement to our usual summer activities, and the whole church benefited by seeing them in this role.\u00a0For the students, part of the idea was just to give them a chance to see, to experience, and to have their interest piqued about what kind of future life, work and service they wanted to pursue.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that any of these students will enter full-time ministry, but this experience was part of helping them envision a future for themselves through engagement.<\/p>\n

Another example of this same principle is that this summer our church also hosted a Visiting Global Scholar, Rev. Dr. Joseph Acheampong from Ghana in West Africa.\u00a0 It was a chance for our members to learn from and get to know someone from a very different context, who is breaks their stereotypes down and gives them a broader view of the world and its people.\u00a0As I work on opening my congregation\u2019s hearts and minds toward engaging with people of different cultures and backgrounds, having Dr. Acheampong with us was a way for them to hear and see and learn as a way to prepare the ground for further growth.<\/p>\n

Selig reminds us that \u201cfor most of us, our actions lead to<\/em>our passion, not the other way around.\u00a0 Passions are not innate, but grow from our experiences.\u201d<\/a>[6]\u00a0 So, my not-so-subtle goal is that through experiences like this one, our church can grow in a passion to connect with and embrace the wider world.<\/p>\n

As with many books around topics like leadership, productivity, and creativity, the \u201ccan-do\u201d spirit of the age in Silicon Valley comes across in Seelig\u2019s writing.\u00a0 She writes, \u201cwe are each responsible for building our own lives and for repairing the broader problems of the world, and the only way to do so is with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to bring ideas to fruition.\u201d<\/a>[7]<\/p>\n

There is a motivational factor in reading this book.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t just ask us to \u201clive our best life now\u201d, but it lays out some of the practices and patterns for a life that is full of imagination, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>[1]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), xii.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), xiii.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), xiii.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), 21.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), 23.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), 27.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7]Tina Seelig,\u00a0Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2015), 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I won\u2019t lie.\u00a0 I\u2019m a sucker for this kind of book.\u00a0 Although the author Tina Seelig may have other \u201centrepreneurs\u201d in mind, her book Insight Out: Get Ideas out of Your Head and Into the Worldreally can apply to a wide variety of people, myself included! She invites her readers to expand their scope by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1337,1339],"class_list":["post-18833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-seelig","tag-tina-seelig","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18834,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18833\/revisions\/18834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}