This is a guest post from Stephen Brewster that centers around this image. After tweeting this out on Monday, I realized that we needed to unpack this a bit more. I asked Brewster to post today so that we can take this quote beyond a tweet and beyond a piece of paper and into a discussion.
Stephen Brewster is the Creative Arts Pastor at Cross Point Church in Nashville TN. He post daily on his site stephenbrewster.me where his main focus is creativity and the church. He is the most creative guy I know and has been a constant source of encouragement to me and my dreams. He is the type of guy you want in your corner when you are setting out to tackle your dreams.
Do me a favor and follow him on twitter and then read the post below.

In our 20′s, our passions drive us. We believe that anything is possible.
That belief is very true…ANYTHING is possible. The question is are we ready to pay the cost for ANYTHING?

Is ANYTHING worth EVERYTHING to us. Achieving the destiny God has for your life is an admirable goal and a great statement for a college bible study, but have we weighed the cost of ANYTHING? ANYTHING requires a different approach. It requires sacrifice. ANYTHING is uncommon. If we are going to go out attempting to achieve ANYTHING, we have to realize we can’t just be anyone (or with anyone for that matter). ANYTHING requires focus. It requires practice, patience, and the removal of an entitled mentality. Very few people ever get in to the ANYTHING game because the buy-in requires more than what most people are comfortable paying. ANYTHING takes time because we have to start from nowhere.

The education required to achieve ANYTHING is not for the faint of heart. It creates scars, bruises, and wounds that cut deep.

The funny thing about ANYTHING is that everyone is waiting for it. Those who have paid the cost before are cheering you on. Those who are not yet where you are look at you to pioneer. ANYTHING is special…it’s magical…it’s really hard work. And we need you to prove that ANYTHING can still be done and inspire others to achieve it. ANYTHING is in you. It’s beating loud in your chest at night. It’s wanting you to fight for it like you fight for acceptance or honor or freedom. We need you to go out and chase your ANYTHING because your 20′s provide the opportunity for ANYTHING to happen.

How can we go after ANYTHING and EVERYTHING?

*Brewster

This is a guest post from Brad Blackman. It is a response to a post I (Kyle Reed) wrote a couple of weeks ago. If you would like to guest post on Standing On Giants you can do so by going here. Check out Brad on twitter here and his design skills here

A while back, Kyle Reed posed an interesting question on his blog: Would you encourage your kids to not go to college? It sparked quite a bit of discussion, as you might imagine. (You can read the comments here)

Like Kyle, I see several sides to the issue: it’s expensive, you may not directly use the degree you get, and you can learn a lot of the same things on your own time via the magic of the Internet. On the other hand, the college experience brings insight and feedback you get from peers and professors that you don’t get anywhere else.

Yet one thing that I don’t think anybody touched on in the blog post or in the comments was the social aspects of going to college.

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Everything has changed.

How many times have you heard that statement uttered but never exactly understood what everything was? In most cases, everything has changed. The way we view human interaction, make money, find a spouse, and discuss politics has changed. But one of the biggest shifts is the way we view jobs. No more are you an employee of a company, instead you are a brand representative of yourself.

20 years ago, the job market was full of employees. These employees sat in cubicles, worked in offices, stood on assembly lines, and helped us bag our groceries. It was the day of the employee. And everyone seemed to be happy with this. The system was set for how to become an employee, gain influence, and advance in the company. Fast forward to today, the only employment that is happening is unemployment and people are increasingly finding discontent as an employee. More and more people are shifting to contractors rather then employees.

The idea of a contractor comes about when people realize they do not need a big name behind them and instead just needed themselves. The contractor is the groupons of this world that took a model or system and created their own way of doing things. The contractor is Kevin Rose of the world who want to make cool apps and so they join up with their friends to launch a company that creates apps. The contractor is the one who collaborates with others, dreams with others, and executes ideas with others.

The Contractor vs the Employee comes down to the idea of how you see yourself.

Do I need the backing of a brand? Or am I brand myself?
Do I rely on others to fuel my ideas? Or is being me the fuel for ideas?
Am I limited by options? Or do I create different options to go beyond the limites?
Am I tied down in one place? Or am I able to move about from project to project?
Do I need security? Or am I willing to live with uncertainty?

These are all important questions to consider when weighing the battle of the Contractor vs the Employee.

I believe that contractors are relevant to todays market. They are the ones that have freedom, expansion, and blank canvases to work with. The very reason why you might be frustrated with your job is because you are an employee and not a contractor.

Are you a Contractor or an Employee?

*kyle

Money is good.
Money funds ideas, dreams, and missions.

Money is bad.
Money fuels happiness, addiction, and desire.

The face of money is two sided.
The good and the bad. And yet money fuels our soul. It is the currency that pushes us forward.

It is okay to make money, it is not okay to use it to buy happiness.
It is okay to spend money, it is not okay to use it to sponsor addiction.
It is okay to accumulate money, it is not okay to desire its power.

Money was meant  to fuel your….Ideas, Dreams, Mission.

Which side of money will you use?

*kyle

Creatives… we are blessed.

We think differently
We act differently
We problem solve differently.
What others might call different we call it a blessing.

But recently, creativity has become fleeting and seen in a different light. I believe that creativity comes from  God. He gave it to us for a reason…to act.

So what happens if we don’t? What happens if we sit on ideas? Fear, time, resources, you know, the usual suspects of things that stop creativity, get in the way and instead of moving forward we sit on the bench.
What would have happen if God placed Adam in the garden to name the animals and Adam just sat around. Would the animals not be named?

Adam acted.

When we act on our creativity that God has breathed in our lives, it’s good.

Period.

And if we don’t act on it, we become bystanders rather then participants in the story of creation.

Creatives, we have been given a gift, a gift people envy, become jealous of, and a gift that people pay lots of money to use.

Please use it and act.

chris

Today is the day of the Bar-B-Que.

So I know I asked you questions yesterday, but I got one for you today.

What are you grilling or eating off the grill today?

Yesterday I wrote a post entitled “Why I Shouldn’t Have Gone To College” and mentioned a guy by the name of Peter Thiel, founder of paypal. He had an interesting quote about the educational bubble, but also has an interesting idea to combat that educational bubble.

Check out his response to education and his plan to change it all:

How Much Would It Cost For You To Not Go To College?

*kyle