It’s hard to order if it’s not on the menu….

Ok. A decision needs to be made in your life. You’re a smart person so you’ll make the smart decision, right?

…But that’s what you told yourself last time. How did that work out?

Look, nobody gets every decision right, but some people get a higher percentage don’t they? I’ve watched how some of them do it and realized they go about it differently than I have in the past.

Ever go to a restaurant where they have different menus? We were at Applebees the other day and they have their normal one and then another one with specials and drinks on them, or something (terrible memory).

I always order off the specials menu because I hate the thought of paying the same price for what everyone is getting, even if it’s what I want. But tell me I can get something similar for $2 less and I’m all over that!

It’s wildly attractive to me when something in the clothing story USED TO BE expensive but isn’t anymore. It’s just my jam because I LOVE budgeting because then I can buy more clothes for the same price.

It’s also a bit weird that if I can get a shirt for $13 that Winners forgot to remove the original $90 price tag from I’ll do it even if I don’t particularly like the shirt. Why? Because I’m it feels like winning!

But notice the human tendency to focus on the menu directly in front of us. There might be far better options, but we don’t even know what questions to ask because we are a bit proud and a bit lazy and it’s easy to do what we did last time, even if it’s not really working for us.

“Excuse me, are there any other options here?” – favourite question

“Hi! If you were me, what would you order?” – favourite question (They’ll tell you theres another flavour not on the menu yet, or combine this with that and you’ll like it more)

“So…. What’s your best price on this? You into negotiating a bit?” – favourite question.

Life is full of little tricks, but where do we learn them? Sometimes they come through experience or luck, but most of my tricks I learned from other people.

Obvious, right??

Whoa, think back to your last regret and I’ll bet you didn’t ask the right person the right question? I’ll bet you ordered off a menu with only bad options because you thought that’s all there were?

I’m doing a series about humility at Venue called Humble Beast, and I realized that first I have to convince everybody that we’re not really all that humble. We think we are of course, but if we were truly humble we would:

A. Make higher percentage decisions.

B. Quickly disown mistakes and get better.

C. Appreciate correction, and (most surprisingly),

D. Stop thinking that we’re actually humble. (We just compare ourselves to very proud people)

I recently returned from a church conference in Alabama and realized I was only ordering off the menu I had with some things at our church. It was refreshing to me to be able to give my team a tiny heart attack with some minor shifts we need to make, but they secretly like tiny heart attacks because they’d be bored if everything stayed the same!

We’re going to smooth out our worship Xperience a little with some small things in our service order and how we transitions things.

We’re going to shift some things to make it easier for young families to come (stay tuned:).

Our sound, visual, and lighting are getting upgraded (thanks to Bert Church Theatre and the awesome City of Airdrie).

But the most interesting shift happened on a twenty minute phone call that happened yesterday with a new friend. I told him a couple of our philosophies of practical things and he said “Sounds great! But have you considered ______?”

Well, I had considered them if I’m being honest because I consider a ridiculous number of things (most of which should never be implemented anywhere ever), but he put it back on the menu.

He’s right of course.

When I call next week I’ll have some more questions to ask and he can make me smarter.

Only a fool has to figure everything out the long way…