Jon Acuff's Blog, page 46

The candle, the drug dealer & the last video I’ll ask you to watch in 2015.

Want to go on an adventure? Want to change the world with me in a surprisingly simple way? Want to discover the most amazing group of people you’ll ever meet?

Watch this video.

Starting today, I’m asking you to help me sell 5,000 candles for Thistle Farms.

Why?

1. They do amazing work in Nashville to help women trapped in addiction, trafficking and prostitution get off the streets.

2. They work with 23 sister organizations in 17 states because the need is national.

3. The candles they make are high quality and all natural. (Thistle Farms products are so great they’re actually sold at Whole Foods!)

4. Becca Stevens, the founder, is a rock star and Thistle Farms has been around for 18 years. (That’s the equivalent of 400 non-profit years, because running a successful organization is Herculean work.)

5. It will be fun to light a candle this fall knowing your small act created a huge light for a woman who needed help finding the way home.

The candles, which are balsam fir scented, are only $22.

Buy one for yourself. Buy one for a friend. Buy one for 10 friends. They’re perfect holiday gifts!

I’ll update you on the totals sold as we go along.

I know that 5,000 candles, representing $120,000 raised, is no joke, but this community doesn’t mess around.

You built two kindergartens in Vietnam.

You donated thousands of mosquito nets for Uganda.

It’s time for a new adventure.

It’s time to light the way home.

Click here to buy a candle.

Click here to read a little more about Thistle Farms.

It’s time to light the way home.
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3 things to do if you have a bad boss.

According to a variety of studies, 70-90% of Americans are disengaged at work.

Why? There are a number of reasons but one of the most common is a bad relationship with a boss or manager.

Bad bosses exist. I’ve had one or two horrible bosses in my day. If you’re in that situation right now, here are three things you need to do:

1. Improve your work performance to see if it improves your relationship.

You can’t change someone, but you can impact a work relationship sometimes if you improve your work performance. Making a horrible boss’ life easier by doing better work can often turn a horrible boss into a less horrible boss. Choose your attitude, adjust your expectations and hustle to see if you can level things out.

2. Admit you’re an employee.

Sometimes when people tell me they have a horrible boss, what they’re really saying is, “Who do they think they are to tell me to do that project?” At which point I say, “They are your boss, they are 100% of the people paying you money to tell you to do things. That’s kind of how jobs work.” I have a lot of short, awkward conversations that don’t end in hugs or handshakes. If you have a horrible boss that changes the time you get to go to lunch, guess what? She gets to do that. Is it fair? Is it fun? Is it right? Maybe not, but it’s definitely a consequence of being an employee. Do your job. Maybe you don’t have a bad boss, maybe you’re a bad employee. That’s not fun to hear but there’s definitely been times when the problem at work wasn’t my manager, it was me. If that’s frustrating to you, move on to number 3.

3. Turn the frustration into fuel.

Do you know what every bad boss is really saying? “I dare you to get a better job!” Take them up on the dare. Forget gossip and complaining, those don’t get you anywhere. If your boss moves your lunch break to a time different than all your coworkers as some sort of passive aggressive punishment, rewrite what she’s really saying. She said, “Ha! You don’t get to go to lunch with your friends for three weeks,” but I swear you heard, “I dare you to use those quiet lunch breaks without your friends to apply to jobs!” Answer that dare.

Every bad boss is saying the same thing, “I dare you to get a better job.”
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I shared these same tips in my New York Times Bestseller Do Over . This post has about 600 words in it. The book has 70,000. If you want to win at work, it’s time to read the other 99%.

If you want to enjoy your current job more, read it.

If you want to become the type of employee who gets paid more, read it.

If you want to improve your relationship with your boss, read it.

If you want to find a new job, read it.

You’re going to work with some difficult humans during your 40-year career. That’s inevitable. Make the most of every working relationship you have by investing in your career the right way. It’s not complicated. There are only four things you need.

Find out what they are in Do Over.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a bad boss, make sure you improve your performance, admit you’re an employee or turn that frustration into fuel.

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An exclusive interview just for my email subscribers!

From time to time I like to offer special bonuses to those of you subscribed to my email newsletter, and I’m excited to say that one of those bonuses is coming soon!

Next week I’ll be recording an interview with Michael Hyatt as a part of a new feature I’m starting called “Conversations.” (He’s the former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, a New York Times Bestselling author and an absolute genius at growing an audience in the digital age.) This video interview will only be available to my subscribers, as I won’t be posting it here on Acuff.me. (If you received this post via email, you’ll automatically get this special video in a few weeks.)

As a part of the Do Over Conversations series I’ll be asking Michael a few reader-submitted questions, so if you have anything you’d like to ask him, click here to ask away in the comments!

Giving you this exclusive content is just a small way for me to say ‘thank you’ for staying connected to what I’m doing. Email subscribers get all my new ideas from Acuff.me delivered right to their inbox, including occasional bonuses like this video conversation. Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss it.

If you could ask @MichaelHyatt anything, what would you ask?
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5 tips for speaking to 10,000 people or 10.

Recently I was in Dallas, TX speaking to 10,000 people at a Young Living Convention. That’s an intimidating amount of people, but five lessons I’ve learned over the years helped me deliver the speech. Here they are:

1. Speak to a person, not a crowd.

No one wants to feel like they’re a part of a big glob of an audience. One person speaking to ten thousand people is hard, but one person speaking to one person is a lot easier.

I always try to find one person in the crowd who is happy and engaged. It’s so easy to find (and focus on) the one person who hates every word you’re saying. Public speakers tend to have laser vision for the guy in the room with his arms crossed and a scowl. Instead, find the one person who’s locked in on the conversation and speak to them. When you do that, your talk feels less like a lecture and more like a conversation, and everyone wins.

The best speeches feel like conversations not lectures.
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2. Be careful to not be subtle.

As the size of your audience grows, so too should the way you express yourself on stage. This is a tip I learned from my friends Tripp & Tyler, who have spent a lot of time on big stages making people laugh. They warned me that subtle jokes and subtle movements don’t always play to a larger crowd because you’re communicating with the first row AND the last row, no matter how far from the stage it is.

The dynamics shift with big crowds, so be careful to avoid subtleties as your audience grows. If you’re speaking to 10 people, make sure you don’t act like you’re speaking to 10,000. It’s always awkward when a speaker yells like he or she is in a stadium if there’s only a few people in the room. In those situations I’ll often circle a few chairs and sit down for the talk instead. If the event is intimate, acknowledge that.

3. Allow time for the crowd to laugh and think.

If you prepare 45 minutes of material for a 45-minute talk for a larger crowd, you might run out of time with ten minutes of material left. The problem is, you didn’t account for the crowd.

The crowd will laugh, and they need time to laugh. The crowd will think, and they need time to think. If you ask the crowd a question, give them a moment to actually answer it.

Planning an event is hard. Honor the event planner’s schedule by preparing a talk that’s slightly shorter than your window to account for the crowd.

4. Laugh or move on if you make a mistake.

There are two types of mistakes you make when you speak. There’s the mistake that’s big enough that it’s funny, and you should sit on it for a minute and enjoy it with the crowd. That happened to me at the Orange Conference. I said something that was accidentally inappropriate in front of 6,000 people. I heard a few start laughing so I decided to ride the wave of the mistake and laugh along. It ended up being the biggest laugh I got during my speech.

The more common mistake is the small one you just move on from because it’s so inconsequential. If it’s a minor mistake don’t call attention to it. Just move on, more than likely the crowd didn’t even notice.

5. Have fun.

I know, I know, this is so cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s false.

If you’re not up there on stage having fun, the crowd’s not gonna have fun either. If you’re wound up, the crowd won’t be relaxed. If you’re racing through your notes, the crowd will feel that too.

I get nervous when talking to big crowds like everyone else, but the times when I have the most fun on stage are the times where the audience does as well.

5 tips for speaking to 10,000 people or 10.
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You might never become a public speaker, but you’ll speak in front of a crowd at some point. You’ll present a college paper, deliver a project at work or make a speech at a wedding. Remember these tips for when do and you’ll have a great time, whether it’s 10,000 people or 10.

P.S. If you want to become better at public speaking or anything else, do the note card exercise on page 93 of my book Do Over.

 

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“The president’s wife ruined our school lunches.” – My 4th grade daughter.

“When is the next election dad?” My 9-year-old McRae asked one day.

As a parent, that’s an exciting question to hear from your child. What a great dad I must be! My fourth grader is already civic minded. She’s curious about democracy in our country and is asking how she might get involved in the issues that are shaping our world.

“It’s in 2016 McRae.”

“Good,” she responded, “The president’s wife ruined our school lunches. Maybe it will get better then.”

If I made a list of “reasons my daughter would be interested in the election,” that would not have cracked the top 100.

I joked with McRae for a few minutes about her concerns with the quality of the school lunch and then we talked about other things. I thought the lunch discussion was a passing whimsy.

Three days later, McRae came downstairs with a letter she wanted me to mail to First Lady Michelle Obama. Here is what she wrote:

“Mrs. Obama,

I’m writing to you about how bad the cafeteria food is.

Every couple days I buy lunch. The pizza crust is whole grain and it’s gnarly. All the chips are oven baked and they don’t sell pudding. ☹ I know you are fighting childhood obesity. Always I hungry after lunch. There is something that really concerns me. Lots of people in my class buy multiple ice creams and chips and only eat that for lunch.

Above all my friends in 4th grade and me wish for decent food at NAME OF SCHOOL SHE ATTENDS in Franklin, Tennessee.

Sincerely,

McRae Acuff.”

There are a few things I’d like to point out about this letter.

1. Thank goodness my kid doesn’t know the phrase “Thanks Obama” or she probably would have started the letter that way. Instead she absolutely crushes the first line, addressing her key point right out of the gate. “I’m writing to you about how bad the cafeteria food is.”

2. She’s pretty clear about her main objectives. The pizza crust is whole grain and as a result, gnarly. The chips are oven baked, which is apparently not desirable either. And, crime of all crimes, they don’t even sell pudding any more.

3. She acknowledges First Lady Michelle Obama’s key objective, “fighting childhood obesity.” I’m not even sure where she learned this phrase but good for her recognizing the opposition’s chief aim.

4. Not only does she recognize the issue of childhood obesity, but she points out the fatal error of the new approach to cafeteria food – kids are still eating junk. She’s right on that point; I’ve eaten lunch with her and watched as kids ate multiple ice creams instead of their lunch. Baked chips might be better, but three bags of baked Cheetos does not a vegetable make.

5. She summarizes the whole thing like a champ. “Above all my friends in 4th grade and me wish for decent food …” She’s not asking for filet mignon or Parmesan kale salad with raisins. All she’s asking for is “decent food.” You can almost hear her standing on the cafeteria tables to rally the other fourth graders, imploring them Newsies-style to “Open the gates and seize the day!”

I’d like to think that McRae wrote this letter because her dad writes books like Do Over and she was inspired by own plucky crusade to help people actually enjoy what they do for a living, but I can’t take credit for this.

McRae likes pudding and someone messed with it.

End of story.

There’s no more pudding at school. The president’s wife ruined lunch. – McRae Acuff
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Your Monday will never be as bad as his.

This goes without saying, but please don’t hurt the fastest man in the world today when you’re filming. I don’t even know how that would be possible, but just please be careful.

Don’t knock him off his feet or run into his legs with any sort of motorized device. Imagine causing some sort of accident right after he won a race? That would be bonkers!

You know, this sounds dumb to even say this, but especially be careful around him if he’s barefoot.

In the biz we call that the “ole Michael Jordan Oven Mitts” rule. You’d never want to hurt MJ’s hands, like when George Costanza was a hand model.

Seriously, don’t smash into Usain Bolt. You’d have to be Usain to do that. Like Cypress Hill, Usain in the Membrane. Word play!

Have a good day out there!

Get us some good film.

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I have a hearing problem.

I’m not sure when my hearing problem started but here’s what it looks like:

When someone says, “I doubt you can do that,” I hear, “I dare you to do that.”

When someone says, “I doubt you can do that,” I hear, “I dare you to do that.”
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When someone says, “You’re not qualified to do that,” I hear, “I dare you to work hard and get qualified.”

When someone says, “That will never work,” I hear, “I dare you to try.”

When someone says, “You suck,” I hear, “You’re the worst person ever, you should never write again, you should over analyze everything you do and get frozen by obsessing over one negative comment from one stranger who has never met you, talked to you on the phone or texted with you.”

That last one is still a work in progress. I’ve got reasons I see a counselor. Reasons with an S!

But I fear my hearing problem is getting worse because it’s getting harder and harder to worry about what other people think.

When people told me book tours don’t work, I tried anyway and 3,000 people are daring to build careers they enjoy with me this fall. (Here’s how to get your free ticket.)

Do you have that same hearing problem, too?

 

 

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The world will never be changed by the things you’re going to do later.

For the last five years, one tool more than any other has helped me plot adventures, keep commitments, finish projects and accomplish things I care about. Can you guess what it is?

Hint: If you’re waffling between a forged anvil or a 32-ounce ball peen hammer, you may need to reacquaint yourself with my skill set.

Give up? It’s this calendar.

The reason I keep using a NeuYear Calendar is simple: it works.

If you plan when and where you’ll work on your goals, you DOUBLE the chances you’ll actually accomplish them. That’s not an empty motivational statement, that’s what study after study has proven.

(The book Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. details a great study in Germany where a group’s success rate went from 32% to 71% just by writing down when and where they would work on their goals.)

A great example of the power of planning time to work on your goals is the DO Summer Challenge we just finished. Over 11,000 of you participated, and the results were pretty amazing. We polled 125 of you last week to see how much time you spent honing a skill, and the result was over 200,000 minutes! That’s an average of over 26 hours per person this summer spent improving a skill or learning a new one! People didn’t just talk about doing something later, they actually did it in the moment.

The world will never be changed by the things you’re going to do later.
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Of all the responses, my favorite was from Juanita S., a woman in her 70s who spent 4800 minutes this summer learning Spanish, mastering chess, and studying for the bar exam! That’s 80 hours of focused work on some amazing goals, all because she was planning and measuring her time!

If you’re ready to get serious about chasing a dream and launching a Do Over in an area of your life, you will love the Do Over Calendar. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. It’s big and beautiful. 25″ x 36″ with a tall orientation on one side and wide on the reverse.

2. We’re offering two versions this year! A traditional paper version and a dry erase version for people who need more flexibility.

3. It includes 12 challenges/encouragements from my NYT Bestselling book, Do Over . Each one is designed to help slingshot you into a great month of dreaming and more importantly, doing.

2016 is going to be an amazing year! Give yourself the best shot at being awesome with a fun calendar to help along the way!

Get yours today: The 2016 Do Over Calendar.

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Stop saying, “I had to ask!”

“I had to ask!”

No, you didn’t.

You wanted to ask and there’s a big difference between those two things. In Do Over, I spend 25% of the book talking about the importance of relationships. Why? Because relationships often get you the first gig. Someone will take a chance on you because they know you and trust you. Someone will give you an opportunity your skills might not have earned yet because of a friendship. And phrases like “I had to ask” tend to wear away at relationships.

If you say, “I had to ask,” it removes the responsibility from you. Some outside force made you ask. Your hands were tied, there was nothing you could do except ask.

So you did and the person you asked for a favor said no. You responded to his/her no with “I had to ask!” Or, instead you said, “Well, there’s no harm in asking,” only that’s not true either.

There can be harm in asking. Maybe the person you asked feels used. You barely know them and have jumped gigantic intimacy levels by overreaching with your favor request. Maybe they felt manipulated by the ask. Maybe they’ve now quietly moved you from, “People who are my friends” to “People who just want favors” bucket.

Don’t kid yourself. There’s harm in asking, especially if you do it the wrong way with the wrong person.

Does that mean you shouldn’t ask anyone for anything? Of course not. Your friends want to help you. They’re excited to help you. The time you’ve invested in that relationship completely changes the request.

Asking is hard but it’s not complicated. Here’s a simple way to remember the right way to do it:

Ask friends for favors. Ask strangers for friendship.

Ask friends for favors. Ask strangers for friendship.
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Never trust a self help “expert” who owns a gorilla.

Success is like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.

An entrepreneur said this recently online.

My first thought was, “You probably shouldn’t wrestle a gorilla.”

I used the word “probably” because even in the quietness of my head I was trying to be polite, not honest.

You definitely shouldn’t wrestle a gorilla.

They’re incredibly strong and capable of ripping your face off. I don’t even think that’s their finishing move. I think that’s maybe an opening move, which says quite a lot about the ferocity of gorillas.

That’s just a meaningless motivational statement, something the Internet is populated with right now. Here are two others I just made up.

“Success is like playing backgammon with an antelope. You never know where it will leap next.”

Success is like playing backgammon with an antelope. You never know where it will leap next.
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“Success is like watching Netflix with a Gaboon Viper. Difficult.”

Success is like watching Netflix with a Gaboon Viper. Difficult.
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Those pearls of wisdom are not in my book Do Over because my editor had this strange thing about “only putting things in the book that will actually help people make the most of their careers and dreams.” Go figure.

If a self-proclaimed self-help expert ever says to you, “To be successful, you have to wrestle this gorilla,” you should really question what it is you’re doing with your life at that exact moment. Or maybe the better question is “Why does this guy have a gorilla?”

Why does his personal definition of success involve opposable thumb to opposable thumb combat?

If he’s honest, he’ll give you one of two possible answers:

1. He runs a terrible human/gorilla fighting tournament and tricking people into competing is the only way to drum up participants. (Convincing the gorilla mainly just involves the procurement of bananas.)

2. We as a society are running out of motivational statements to incorrectly assign to Abraham Lincoln and are now forced to make up our own even if they don’t make sense.

Either way, you definitely shouldn’t wrestle a gorilla.

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