I did not get to sit in on as many of the sessions the second day of Catalyst but what I did catch was good. Plus, as mentioned in a previous blog post there was some great music from Steve Fee and Aaron Keys.

The morning started with a talk on leadership from Dave Ramsey. If you know me then you know that I am not a huge Dave fan. I will not go into the reasons here but I was able to set them aside and sit in on his session. He did a great job talking about the 5 things that can kill an organization:

1. Poor Communication
2. Gossip
3. Unresolved Disagreements
4. Lack of Shared Purpose
5. Sanctioned Incompetence

His definition of “gossip” was interesting as well - “Complaining to anyone that does not have the power to resolve your problem.” I had never thought of it that way before. I think there will be some changes put in place at InternetSafety.com over the next couple of weeks based on his talk.

Overall the conference was great and we were able to talk with a ton of pastors and youth pastora about Safe Eyes. I am looking forward to going back next year.

I am still at Catalyst but it is winding down. I will post the full details later but I just sat in on a 5 song set by Steve Fee. It was incredible. I also managed to score a copy of his CD to put on my iPod. Aaron Keyes played this morning as well and he did an awesome job. Steve and he are opposite styles but I enjoy both. As a bonus I got a chance to meet Aaron Keyes and talk with him for a few minutes. He has used Safe Eyes and we hope that we can get him to start promoting it when he travels.

I have been looking forward to this conference for a couple of months now. Not only will it be a great audience to promote my company’s product to but I also get to sit in on great leadership sessions by people like Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, and Craig Groeschel. Then, on top of that I get to hear great music from people like Steve Fee and others. It is great combination of work and fun all rolled into one.

Andy Stanley started the morning with a home run. He talked about how a leader must first handle forgiveness, family, and finances in order to be effective… great stuff. Steve Fee opened Andy’s session with 3 songs and one of them was new… BONUS!

Steven Furtick talked about how between The Promise and The Payout you have to endure The Process. While he applied it to church planting it is equally applicable to business and life in general.

Finally, Craig Groeschel spoke to the leaders that are burned out in their current role and have lost “it”. While it did not apply to me right now it was obvious that there were plenty of the other 12,000+ people in the room that they needed to hear this. Plus, I can tuck it away in case I ever need the advice he gave.

Overall it was a great first day. Andy is on again tomorrow as well as others I look forward to listening to. Oh yeah, great response to Safe Eyes as well.

I had a chance to hang out with several couples from my church tonight and listen to Pastor JR talk about his vision and passion for Acworth. It reminded me again why my wife and I chose to stay and get involved in Freedom Church. Not only does Pastor JR have a real passion for what he is doing but he is also a real person. This may seem like an odd thing to say but my past experience has been tainted with pastors whose biggest weakness they could admit was speeding and eating too much ice cream. This always left me wishing that I had a pastor that understood what the average person, like me, deals with day-in-and-day-out.

Tonight Pastor JR nailed it on the head. He said, “its not the big things that I struggle with, its the little things.” That is so true. I have never struggled with murder or stealing, but it is hard to read my Bible every day and to not get too frustrated with the kids when I am tired. Those are the real things that I struggle with. It is great to know that I am “normal” and that my Pastor is “normal” as well, and that he knows where his struggles are and therefore knows where mine are too.

Running Update: 3 miles tonight… 27:10!