I confess. I wanted to call this “The Power of Discipline” but I knew no one would read it.

When teenage athletes are interviewed during the Olympics they seem more mature than their years. There is a reason for that. They’ve been disciplined in their athletic workouts since they were six years old. Discipline with consistent coaching leads to maturity in both athletics and in programming.

There is no format that is as uninteresting when done poorly and no format as remarkable when done well.

Our format can either be “nice Christian people saying nice Christian things to nice Christian people,” or it can be the purposeful design of emotions, stories and songs that reflect the most important relationships and events in people’s lives. Remarkable radio stations happen when we focus on the elements that are transformational. But that takes discipline.

“Every medium carries within itself inherent limitations, and every artist also comes with limitations. True creativity is not the outflow of a world without boundaries. The creative act is the genius of unleashing untapped potential and unseen beauty with the constraints and boundaries of the medium from which we choose to create. Creativity not only happens within boundaries and limitations, but in fact it is dependent on those limitations.”

Erwin McManus, “The Artisan Soul”

It is the very limitations that make us most in awe when we see the painting of the Grand Canyon on the postage stamp, the carving of the four U. S. presidents into the 60-foot high granite of Mt. Rushmore, or the miniature baseball field carved into the beach.

Transformation happens when we see creativity and discipline as two sides of the same coin.

Yes, every musician wants to jam, but the hits are all less than four minutes.