Do Hard Things - Final Post
Thank you all for your comments. It really helps to know that I am on the right track, and Kent, I am sorry if you don’t like it, I don’t really like it either.
This last post is about a few of the teens in our youth and college group at church. As I have said in previous posts we are doing a book study with them on Do Hard Things. We found out on Thursday afternoon that the Christian Book Expo was going to be in Dallas, beginning the very next day, Friday. We found this out because we are followers of therebelution on Twitter www.twitter.com/therebelution. These guys are the authors of Do Hard Things and were actually going to be in Dallas for the Christian Book Expo.
What a great opportunity for the people in the study to be able to meet and talk with the authors of the book that has had such an impact on them. We started planning, remember we only had about 24 hours and 6.5 hours of that I was going to be asleep. Friday morning we had three of our teens say that they could go, I am confident that they don’t regret it.
Whitney Herrington, a 17 year old, Nate Giesecke, a 16 year old, and Tiphanie Uland, a 19 year old asked Alex and Brett Harris (the authors of the book) if they could talk with them about the event we were doing. Alex and Brett sat down and these teens, Whitney, Nate and Tiphanie, spent 45 minutes discussing VertigoEvent with these guys. The main spokesperson of the group in this discussion was Whitney, and we found out afterwards she was scared to death. You wouldn’t have ever known.
They all did great, they literally “Did Hard Things”. How intimidating it must be to speak with the authors of this book, who have done some incredible things and tell them about your idea. But they all three did it. They stepped up and got out of their comfort zones.
At lunch we went to the West End, a homeless man came up and asked for some change for lunch and he was invited to eat with us. He accepted and I watched at lunch as these three teens sat and talked with him like he was an old friend. (You can read more about the homeless man encounter here: baldgoat.tumblr.com)
We went back to the convention center to listen to Brett and Alex talk about there books to a room full of teens, parents, youth ministers, college staff, etc. During their talk they mentioned Whitney, Nate and Tiphanie and the incredible job they are doing. They gave a complete spill on VertigoEvent. It was incredible, these teens had effectively, stepped out of their comfort zones, and spoke passionately about an event they believe in.
Later that afternoon, these teens spent hour after hour talking with publishers, and vendors about this event. They told about Sam’s Place and the Deaf Orphans it would impact. It was amazing to see the growth in these teens. They wouldn’t allow us to even listen because they didn’t want us to butt in.
I couldn’t be more proud. These teens aren’t going through the motions, they are doing hard things, and they absolutely love it.
