Show Notes
Why do talented people seem to fail and unskilled people succeed? In this episode, we explore what it looks like to use talent to the maximum and think outside the box.
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Camp Guys podcast. I'm Jay Oliver, the exec director here at Crowders Camps. Again at the table, I have no Oliver. What's up, Noah?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: What's up?
[00:00:44] Speaker A: I have B. Hicks back at the table, our creative director here at Crowders Camps. We got a great topic for you today. I hope you're on a plane flying somewhere or you're in your car drive you. You're in a car driving to work today because how. Why do talented people fail and unskilled people succeed? That Great question. You got some people that are so talented and they end up failing and you have some people that are unskilled but yet they find success. Listen what Acts 4:13 says now. When they saw the boldness of Paul and John, they perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men. But they marveled at them and they realized that they had been with Jesus.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: It's a great scripture. Marcus Washing said this. Those at the top of the mountain didn't fall there.
Whoa.
They didn't just fall there. They climbed there.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Every single one of you camp leaders, if you're older than 30 years old, I want you to remember the layaway system at Kmart Roses Walmart. You used to could go in, fill your shopping carts full of stuff and go and put it on layaway. And. Well, b. Do you know what layaway is?
[00:01:57] Speaker C: I'm 27. So that was. I remember Kmart.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: I definitely don't know. I'm 27.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: You know what layaway is, though?
[00:02:02] Speaker C: I know what layaway is. Yeah.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Okay. So you were able to make payments on your merchandise. So it was yours. They was going to hold it for you. And you, you were able to make payments.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: That's cool.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Right? So you. You had a certain time, you had to get it out. I think it's like 60 or 90 days. But layaway was a cool thing. Success is one thing you can't pay cash for.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Come on.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: You have to buy one installment plan at a time. You got to make payments on success every single day. Whether it's our time with. You know, if you're going to be a spiritual spirit filled leader for your camp ministry, you got to make that payment. How you make that payment. You got to spend time in God's word. If you're going to be a great creative marketing person, you got to make that installment payment. Why? How? Going to YouTube and learning how to do a new design or new process. If you're Going to be a great, experienced director. You got to watch the Mr. Beast games, you know, you got to be able to be. To see new ideas.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yes, for sure.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Of this going on. And by the way, all you camp leaders out there, if you've not watched the Beast Games, you gotta watch the Beast Games.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: So many great tribal games.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: I'm waiting for all of them to come out. I gotta binge through it.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: You're a binge guy.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: Binge.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Guys.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Talking about you want a nugget? That's the nugget for today, guys. You want the most simplest wreck games ever. The Beast Games.
You probably heard of squid games. If you ain't watch squid games, that's another whole ball game. You. It might be. I might have to say that's rated R. But the Beast Games, I'm telling you, this guy's come up with some major creative stuff. You need to go check out that and M. Mr. Beast. Guess what? North Carolina.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Had no idea. Homeless from North Carolina. Maybe he'll sponsor the podcast today.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: I didn't want him to find me and get him on. Get me on episode for.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: As long as I've been watching him.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: We went to ecu, East Carolina University. Am I telling the truth?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: That's fact checked. And you talking about installment plans. I mean, he started out as a YouTube influencer and next thing you know, he's giving away $5 million for the Beast Games. It's crazy. All right.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: Don't do that for your rec games, by the way.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Don't give away $5 million for your recording. I, number one, do what you love and love what you do. Find something that you loved so much you'll gladly do it for nothing, and then learn how to do it so well so that somebody's happily going to be happily happy to pay you for it.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Think about it. Almost every person on our staff literally has come from that scenario.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Be used a camper here.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: You've loved camp since camp.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: I mean, you love Crowders camps.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: I mean, he was here as a camper, camper leader. Was your camper the first year and the camper leader.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: So my timeline is I was a camper in 2016, summer staffer in 17 and 18, and then a volunteer with my youth group until 2021.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So the whole time he's been investing. Noah, you started here. Well, you started back in the day in 2005 with me a long time ago. But yeah, 2014. You started as a Chicken coop. Water. Water bottle filler.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: I was water boy. I was better than Adam Sandler with a hose pipe.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: None of you were paid, but you were happy to do whatever you asked.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: To do is ministry. We were pumped about ministry. But see, people love Jesus.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Now look at the success, right? Yeah. Right. Find something you love, do it for. Be willing to do it for nothing because you love it. And then eventually a way will come up to be paid for it. Gary Vee, who's also influencer on Social, he said this one time, he said, if you want to go work for somebody, just call them up and say, hey, I want to work for you for free. And I think his videographer did that. And when it was time for Drock to leave, Gary Vee couldn't let him go. He had to keep him on because he had done so much content, so much great work that he was irreplaceable at that time. Most of us in camp ministry. I hope right now you're in love with camp ministry and not misery. Camp ministry.
I want to do a show about feeling defeated. I know some of you out there, you probably feel defeated. You're not growing as fast. Fast as you want to. Maybe the board told you no, you're not able to build. You don't have the funds. People are not giving.
You had a terrible giving season, you know, at the end of the season, the end of the year in 2024, and you may feel defeated. Don't fall back in love with that camp ministry that you first fell in love with. So, number one, do what you love. Love what you do. Number two, create a compass to keep you on course. Great achievers all have principles that guide them through life and decision making. Every single one. When you. When you're designing something, you got principles. There's certain things you're going to do and not do, Right?
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: He's not going to go back to a 1990s clip art book and pull it out, you know, and stick it on one of our designs. He's got. He's got principles. Noah, you know what it takes for us to run our program of excellence here. And there's certain things we won't back down, and we're not going back to number one. Do what has never been done. That's one of mine. I want to do what's never been done.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: I want us to create such a ministry that youth pastors, pastors and ministry leaders across America say, I cannot live without Crowders camps.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: I don't Know what our summer would be like without Criders camps? I want kids to miss us if they can't get in in time and registration. Yeah, but they. By the way, if you're a student that didn't get into Criders camps and you're listening to somehow, some way, you know you can still be an intern.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: You can come for free and be an intern with us. Number two, serve your way to success.
I believe that's been a guiding principle for my life. I've not bullied anybody to do anything in life. I've wanted to serve people around me and I want to serve them. And I think serving other people is a great way to success.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: No matter which way you go in life, I think if you serve others, it takes you to success. Number three, learn your lessons. I have a whole list of ministry laws that I've kind of written through the last 10 years of my life of being able to run our own fac. And you got to learn your lessons, and some lessons hurt, but some lessons are so valuable to pass down to the next generation of camp leaders. Number four, you got to share the good and the bad. I love being a resource to other camps. And that's one reason why you guys are listening to this right now is because you love this. You love the nuggets that we give, but you got to share the bad stuff, too.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yeah. You got to. You can't hide it.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah. It's very important that others learn from those bad stories. And guess what? Stories of failures are now just stories of success because you learn from them.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Glorifying God through it all.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And we get. God gets the glory. We get servant. All right. Number three, outthink others.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: I love to think. And there's a six letter. There's a six word formula for success. Think things through, then follow through. You got to think things through and follow through. Whenever I'm off of work and I take vacation time, I literally. I love my family, love my wife, love my kids, love hanging out at the beach or doing whatever, but really, incontinence. Nito. I'm a spy for the camp. And I'm thinking.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: And I love to think.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Sabbatical.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Kind of a. Kind of a work sabbatical. But mentally you're still into it. You know, this generation now, they call it cooking.
Now. I'm cooking right now, and I. And I can tell whenever I've had time to think because I just really can cook up a lot of great ideas and great ideas don't mean they happen. Now. Great ideas mean that. Hey, one, I want to. I want to process them with other people. I mean, Crowder Springs was a camp that we bought the property in 20, 19, or 18, and it's just now coming to fruition where the loans are closing and when the construction documents and permits and all that mess is done. Number four, really hard work.
Y'all know how long it took Justin Lucas to write the script for Star Wars?
[00:10:15] Speaker C: How long?
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I want. I want guesses how long it took.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Justin Lucas to write the script.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:21] Speaker C: For Star Wars.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: How long did it take Justin saying.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Since I'm not a Star Wars.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: George. George. I'm sorry. Justin Lucas.
He's one of our speakers. George Lucas.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: I was like, he did that?
[00:10:33] Speaker B: That's impressive, Justin.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Justin. George Lucas. How long did it take to write the script of Star Wars?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: I would say a decade.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: A decade.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: I'm just gonna go there. I'm gonna go a little long.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Just a little bit.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, sorry.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: 40 hours a week. My man wrote out the script of Star Wars.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Impressive, man. That's good for just one movie or the.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Just this one movie.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah, That's a lot of.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: A lot of hard work. But he was committed to it. He stuck to it. And years later, I mean, when the Star wars come out, let's just be honest.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: 90S.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: I mean, now, 30 years later, people still making sequels. Not sequels, but different episodes. And he's still killing it. Which leads us to number five. Outlast. Outlast Survivor.
If you're going to be successful, the first thing you got to do. Henry Ford said, if you start something, finish it.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: If you start something, finishes. All of our failures become great stories. You guys got failure stories. You guys have success stories. But check it out. It's not about talent. It's not about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It's about people that God chooses to use to go and do extra extraordinary things for the kingdom of God. And if you're in camp ministry, you guys, listen. We use this with our summer staff and in our core values. But summer camps, a spiritual incubator.
Both of you guys, you see it. You see it happening. Day one, they're just getting primed. In Day two, the actions starting to take. Day three, man, you see that seed grow. Day four is blossom, man.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: Never gets old either.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yep. It never gets old. When they. When they're getting on the bus, they're fully bloomed, you know? And this year I'll leave this as a nugget for all you camp leaders out there this year. I really want to create a product for 21 days after camp.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Build those habits.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: What can we build? What can we give them in their hand for 21 days after camp to. To help create some spiritual habits. So why does to talented people fail and unskilled people succeed? Because they do what they love and love what they do. They create a compass to help guide them. Great principles. They outthink others. They work really hard, and they outlast. If you start something, finish it. Go be a great camp leader today. Go kill it. For the gospel, the advancement of the kingdom of God. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you got any Questions or comments, podcastrowderscamps.com thank you for joining us today. Have a great day.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: See you.
[00:13:07] Speaker C: See you.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: It.
