Jon Acuff's Blog, page 47

One simple way to figure out which criticism to listen to.

Criticism sticks.

Compliments slide right off our backs like water off a puffin. (Ducks have had their day.)

It’s a sticky substance, like great wads of gum that will bond you to the street if you’re not careful, preventing you from moving forward.

It would be easy to say, “Screw the haters!” or “Ignore all criticism!”

That’s the type of rhetoric that helps you build an Instagram account with motivational photos, but it’s not great advice.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a hater. Sometimes they are just someone with a different opinion. Discourse in our country died the day we decided that if I disagree with you it means I hate you.

Discourse in our country died the day we decided that if I disagree with you it means I hate you.
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And not all criticism is toxic. Some of it is actually good for you. Some feedback is extremely healthy. How do you tell the difference between the poisons and the vitamins?

One way is to ask what it cost someone to give you that feedback.

The problem right now is that most criticism doesn’t cost the critic anything. I can leave a 1 star review anonymously on Amazon. There’s no proof I read the book. There’s a “Verified Purchase” label that proves someone bought it, but there’s no way to know if I even opened the book. It only took 42 seconds for me to leave a couple of bile filled sentences and then move on with the rest of my day. This is a fairly new phenomenon by the way.

A friend once asked me, “Do you want to know what Kurt Vonnegut told me?” First of all, I would start most of my sentences that way and second, how do you not respond yes, to that? I of course wanted to hear what the famed author had to say.

My friend, continued, “Kurt told me that if Mark Twain could have had nameless, faceless people writing reviews of his work on Amazon he would have jumped off a building.”

In Twain’s day, it cost something to criticize on a grand scale. You had to be a reporter or a book reviewer. You had to have a platform and platforms were difficult to come by. You might criticize Huckleberry Finn in the comfort of your own home, but you had no way to say something nasty right at the most important point of purchase on the planet, Amazon.

When I wrote advertising for the Home Depot, the point of purchase was one of the most important locations of the entire store. Right by the register is a magical space where people are making final purchase decisions. Twain could have never imagined a world where a stranger could stand by the register and say, “This book sucks!” every time someone tried to buy Tom Sawyer. That’s what a 1 star review next to the buy button on Amazon is doing.

The truth is that criticism that cost the critic nothing, is worth nothing.

Criticism that cost the critic nothing, is worth nothing.
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That doesn’t mean 1 star reviews are useless. There are some 1 star reviews of my book Start that I agree with. You can tell from their feedback that they have read the entire book and prepared some thoughtful comments. They’re a verified purchaser, sharing their name. The feedback cost them time, the most limited resource of all, and their identity.

The angry tweet from a stranger? That’s 140 characters. That costs nothing and is worth nothing.

The facebook comment full of hate? That took 10 seconds. That costs nothing and is worth nothing.

The backstabbing gossip from a coworker in a breakroom? That costs nothing and is worth nothing.

If the feedback costs the critic something, it might be worth something. They might be giving you a gift, instead of just cutting you down.

If it costs them nothing though, its value is the same.

Move on quickly.

Don’t get stuck worrying about nothing.

P.S. If you liked this blog post, you’ll love my new book Do Over. It’s at minimum, 1 bajillion times better than this post.

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The 3 ways I write.

When I write, I start by creating an “honest draft.”

That means I suspend that part of myself that is desperately thinking, “Will people like this? Will people like me? Will they be mad or happy with this sentence?” I struggle with wanting everyone on the planet to like me and that affliction can lead to weak, watered down writing. (Trying to make everyone like you is also the quickest way to hate yourself.)

Trying to make everyone like you is the quickest way to hate yourself.
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Being honest, also means I have to watch out for unnecessary mic drop moments. As a writer it’s tempting to say things that are dramatic but not necessarily true. You’re not lying when you do this, you’re just performing for an audience that isn’t even there yet. That changes what you write in a negative way.

An example of that was a line I was going to put in my new book Do Over until my wife told me it was a lie. The line was, “People never forget your generosity and always remember your greed.” That one would have received a billion retweets because it has that tricky “say two things but in opposite way” hustle and flow to it.

The problem is that it’s only half true. People forget your generosity all the time. That’s the concept of taking things for granted. The second half is true though. When you’re greedy to someone, when you burn a relationship, people remember that for a long time. I took the part about generosity out and focused on the true statement about greed.

Once I have written a draft that is honest, I read it and immediately get depressed.

The words that flow out of me naturally are in the vein of Counting Crows.

I’m a pretty melancholy person at heart and what erupts at first is usually pretty grey.

But I’m hopeful, too. I have a bedrock of joy and I have to dig through the first draft to find it. I must crawl through the murky for the light at the end of the tunnel as it were.

So the second draft is the “hope draft.”

It is not sugar coated. It’s honestly hopeful, not falsely optimistic. You can say hard things and still be hopeful. I can go too far in this draft with the positivity if I am not careful. I can end up promising things that are fake, adding too many roses to a garden that does have tigers in it.

Once I’m satisfied that I’ve been honest and hopeful, I start on the “hilarious draft.”

I like to laugh. I like making other people laugh. It also differentiates me from a lot of the people in my space because they’re not funny. Humor is a strength of mine and like all strengths, I tend to ignore it if I am not careful.

When writing, I often slip into “serious author mode.” This usually involves a tweed coat with elbow patches and a pipe that harkens to a day when people still carried caramels in their pockets.

After I read the first two drafts, I usually realize they are completely devoid of humor. Movie studios hire comedians to “punch up” scripts by adding jokes to them and that is essentially what I do.

The challenge is to not get lazy with this third draft.

If I try to take shortcuts I end up adding tired jokes to my prose that have very little tread left on them. If I throw in a random mention of queso for instance, that is usually me being lazy.

Honest.

Hopeful.

Hilarious.

That’s my writing process.

What’s yours?

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The kind of story that stops you in your tracks

In one of my first visits to Thistle Farms, a non-profit organization in Nashville, a woman in the program told our group a story.

When she was 12, her mom trafficked her to her drug dealer. She traded her for drugs and for the next two decades she was prostituted across the country.

I have an 11-year-old daughter. Hearing stories like that is overwhelming.

How do you not respond when you bump into something like that?

The problem is that the issues seem so complex and impossible to solve. We’re talking about homelessness, drug addiction and prostitution. Where do you even start? Can one person even make a difference?

But then you meet Becca Stevens, the founder of Thistle Farms. Then you see a Thistle Farms product at Whole Foods that the women in the program have made with a label that says “Love Heals.” Then you hear the 12-year-old girl who is now in her 30s tell a different story. A story of hope. A story of handmade candles. A story of healing. And you realize it’s not impossible. For 18 years this organization has been giving women new stories, new jobs and new homes.

Hope like that is contagious and the first time I went to Thistle Farms, I knew we were going to do something awesome together someday.

Well, now it’s time.

On Friday, August 14th, I’m holding an event at Thistle Farms in Nashville called, “Brighter!”

I’ll be sharing about how we all get Do Over moments in life. (You may have noticed a tweet or 1,000 about how keen I am on the idea of starting over.) I’ll be talking about the time I lost my creative voice and what it took to get it back. And I’ll be challenging you to use your voice, too. I’ll also be giving you a sneak peek at a project I’ll be launching this fall.

There will be music, food and a lot of fun. Best of all, all the proceeds will go to Thistle Farms.

Space at the beautiful Thistle Stop Café is limited, so don’t wait to buy tickets.

Buy yours right here!

On Saturday, August 15, from 8AM – 12PM Jenny and I will also be making candles with the Thistle Farms team. Our goal is to finish 2,000 candles. I’m pretty sure I can do 500 an hour by myself, but I’m terrible at estimating things. It would probably be better if you were there too. If you’d like to join us there are a few volunteer spots open. Email Stacye to RSVP!

If you’ve ever been to one of my events before you know how fun they are. If you haven’t, this is the perfect one to check one out. Grab your ticket right here!

Sometimes, the world feels dark, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s not impossible to make it brighter. All it takes is a candle and a little bit of hope.

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Our calendars call us on the lies we all tell.

“I’d rather binge watch Netflix than see a book I wrote on a shelf in a store.”

“I’d rather follow the plots of seven different television shows than cut the grand opening ribbon at a store I own.”

“I’d rather play Candy Crush than get in shape.”

“I’d rather stare at my phone until I get lost in a digital haze than build a relationship with the people I’m actually in the same room with.”

No one ever says horrible things like this.

No one ever makes such proclamations.

At least not with our mouths.

Most of us declare things like that with hands though.

Most of us proclaim things like that with our calendars.

Most of us shout things like that with our phones.

Most of us would cringe if we were honest for 30 seconds about the things we donate our time to.

That’s the scary thing. None of the things I mentioned above take our time. We give it to them.

Which is actually not such a scary thing at all when you think about it, because it means at any moment, you can stop giving them your time. You have that power. You don’t need permission from anyone. You get to make that decision.

I binge watched an entire season of Blacklist last fall in about 6 days. I can’t just watch one episode of a television show on Netflix, it’s like trying to eat one potato chip. Finally, I got tired of donating time to things that ultimately don’t matter.

That’s why I created the DO Summer checklist. I knew that when I was traveling and tempted to relax with some mindless hours of TV, that simple piece of paper would haunt me. I knew that sitting on an airplane, instead of playing Plants vs. Zombies, my go to app, I would think about that checklist. And I’d write. I’d read. I’d do the things I promised to do, because I wanted to finish 1,500 minutes of focused time this summer.

You don’t have to DO Summer with me. You might have a different tool that works for you, but if you don’t, download it today.

Be honest about where you’re donating your time. Don’t let your mouth shout a promise your calendar isn’t keeping. Do your work. You’re the one giving the gift of time to someone or something. Make sure it’s the best recipient.

Don’t let your mouth shout a promise your calendar isn’t keeping. Do your work.
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Exciting news about the release of the Do Over audio book!

“When is the audio book for Do Over coming out?”

I’ve had a handful of people ask me that question at live events this spring and summer, and it always sounds a little anti-climactic when I respond because the answer isn’t, “this Tuesday!” or “in two weeks, but I can hardly wait because I had so much fun recording it!”

The answer is, “It’s already out! It came out when the book did, on April 7th.”

See, wasn’t that a little underwhelming?

But wait, how about if I let you hear what the first few minutes of the book sounds like for the first time ever? That’s exciting news, right?

Here you go, the first four minutes of Chapter One, in which I tell you about what a terrible mailman I was:

http://acuff.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/DoOverAudioSample.mp3

(If you’re reading this blog post in an email, you might have to click here to listen to the audio on my site.)

The clip sounds a little tinny because we had to MacGyver it to put it on this blog, but I assure you the real thing is silky smooth like Jodeci. (Keeping relevant with my modern pop culture references!)

Why should you listen to the audiobook?

1.I read it myself and it’s a lot of fun!

2. I added bonus material that’s not in the printed book.

3. It’s perfect for a long commute, work out or summer road trip.

So yeah, the exciting news is that the Do Over audio book is available today! The catch is, it has been for three months.

You can get your copy on Amazon as an Audible download or in CD format.

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How to look good on the Internet.

Last Wednesday, my wife and I took our daughters to the new American Girl Doll store in Nashville.

My kids had gift cards from a friend and were eager to snatch a doll from the cold hands of the grave. That sentence took a dark turn but American Girl Doll will “archive” dolls, taking them off the market for years if not forever. My kids have decided this marketing method is akin to killing the doll. Occasionally they will say chilling sentences like this to me: “They killed Samantha but now they brought her back, so she’s like zombie Samantha.”

While we were in the store, I took a photo of my daughters and was going to post it on Instagram. I was planning to caption it with this:

“How do you balance business travel and home life? You take your kids to the American Girl Doll store at 10:45AM on a Wednesday.”

That’s a true idea. I’ve learned in the last two years that part of the key to travel is that when you’re home you need to really be home. I need to take time during the week to be present with my family. Morning daddy/daughter dates, early afternoon adventures and summer Fridays when I stop working early help offset the days I travel. It helps with parenting and it helps with marriage, too.

Right before I posted the photo, I asked myself in the middle of the mall, “Why am I really doing this?”

I wasn’t posting the photo to help other business travelers with an idea that worked for me.

I wasn’t posting the photo to share a fun family moment.

I wasn’t posting the photo so that years later I could dig back through digital archives and remember that time at the store.

I was posting that photo because I wanted strangers to think I was a good dad.

I was posting that photo because I was worried that strangers thought I traveled all the time and was a bad dad.

I might not have vocalized it, but what was really going on in my head was this:

“I bet some people think I’m never home. I post photos of my travels, but not a lot of my home life so it probably feels out of balance. If I share this photo of the American Girl Doll store, maybe people will think I’m a good dad.”

That thought in itself is ridiculous, but here’s where it gets super stupid.

I was ignoring my kids to write a caption for a photo I was sharing in order to convince people I was a good dad.

In summary, I was being a bad dad in real life in order to look like a good dad on social media.

Hitting pause before I hit publish gave me a second to realize a few things.

1. No one online has ever said I’m a bad dad.

2. Even if strangers online said I was a bad dad, who cares? They don’t really know me.

3. Sometimes I miss moments in my attempt to document them.

That third one is a bit of an epidemic right now and the reason is that a significant shift happened in social media a few years ago.

We used to use social media to document moments we experienced. Now we use it to create moments so that we can document them.

We once used social media to document moments we had. Now we create moments just to document them.
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We stage our lives because the whole world is a stage.

Instead of being present to a moment with my kids, I tried to use the moment to create a message about who I was as a dad.

Don’t do that.

It’s dumb.

Post lots of photos. Share lots of updates. Have a ton of fun on social media. I love it and will continue to use it in healthy ways. I am going to wear out the Acuff family hashtag, #WickedAwesomeAcuffSummer but only when my motives are honest.

Hit pause before you publish.

Don’t perform for strangers you’ll never meet. Be present to the people you’re actually with.

Don’t perform for strangers you’ll never meet. Be present to the people you’re actually with.
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How to get motivated every time you open your phone this summer.

According to the calendar, summer officially started last Sunday, but according to the #DOSummer2015 hashtag on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, it’s been in full swing for a couple weeks.

In fact, as of Monday over 10,000 people have downloaded the #DOSummer Checklist!

Already working on the checklist? Awesome! (Don’t have one yet? It’s a simple, free PDF that will help you work through all your goals this summer. Click here and I’ll send it to you.)

I thought it would be fun if every time you opened your phone you got motivated to stay on top of your DO Summer goals, so I created these lock screens. The goal of DO Summer is to help you spend 1,500 minutes doing something awesome this summer via 15 minute chunks of time.

It’s impossible to climb a mountain with one step but you’d be surprised how easy it is to knock things out in 15-minute segments. Every time you open your phone, you’ll be reminded to complete another 15 minutes of something you care about. Click the links below to open a new tab and save the one you want.

OPTION 1

640 x 1136 (might work best for iPhone 5)
750 x 1334 (might work best for iPhone 6)
1080 x 1920 (might work best for Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5)

OPTION 2

640 x 1136 (might work best for iPhone 5)
750 x 1334 (might work best for iPhone 6)
1080 x 1920 (might work best for Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5)

Hopefully you can make one of these three resolutions work for you, depending on the phone you have.

(For iPhone users, save the image on your phone and use as wallpaper. They work best if you turn “Perspective Zoom” off and pinch the image so it fits perfectly into your screen size.)

Don’t forget to post your updates every Monday with the #DOSummer2015 hashtag!

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Short cuts are fun, but fictional.

My friend produces albums. (If you live in Nashville for longer than 19 minutes you too will be able to say that sentence.)

He often meets young musicians and noticed that their narrative is changing. The new thing that fresh off the bus musicians  tell him is, “If you produce my EP for free, I’ll split the licensing money when the songs get put into commercials and TV shows.”

At this point, my friend tries not to giggle, because saying that is akin to saying, “I’ll split my Grammy money with you.” He also knows that in 8 years of producing albums, the biggest check he got for licensing a song for a commercial was $5,000, split 6 ways. Granted, once you’ve netted a cool $833.33, you’ve got it made. You can now buy 1/74th of a Rolex President Watch.

When you move to Nashville it takes longer than an hour to get a song on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. It could take a whole weekend to get a record deal. Headlining tours sometimes take an entire month for you to land.

It’s a real hassle and the worst part is that it’s not just the music industry. Turns out it takes a lot of hard work to accomplish anything lasting in any industry.

Short cuts are fun, but fictional.

Don’t lose hope when you don’t get one.

Don’t give up because a producer won’t cut your album for free.

Don’t feel like a failure because you failed to win the lottery.

Put your head down, work three part time jobs and sing your heart out. Save up to get one song recorded. Turn that into two. Work that into three.

It might take you years, but that’s OK.

Slow success turns into long success. Quick success enters and exits our lives at the same speed.

Slow success turns into long success. Quick success enters and exits our lives at the same speed.
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A stupid lie I believed when I quit my last job. (And why you shouldn’t believe it.)

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

That’s one of those syrupy, motivational statements you see floating about the Internet. It’s often plastered on a photo of someone standing on a vista overlooking a mountain range, the ocean, a unicorn or all three if you happen to live in the Pacific Northwest where those items are all found.

Is it true though?

If you find something you love doing, will you never work a day in your life?

If you discover a passion that fills you up, will you ever have to work again?

If you dig up your calling from the millions of options and find the “one,” does your sense of work end?

The short answer, for the population of people who are no longer reading long blogs, is no.

The long answer, for those who like long form ideas, is still no.

I spent 15 years working in corporate America. Twenty-one months ago, I had a huge Do Over and ended up writing full time. I secretly believed that since I loved writing, I would never have to work again. I thought that any sort of drudgery or disappointment or hard work was behind me.

I did it! I chased my dreams. Forget chase, I caught them! The hope I first found in the third grade of writing for a living had been realized. I didn’t really know what it meant to be a writer, but now I was one. I assumed it came with a lot of scarves, coffee and ink stained hands. I might have to apply myself to my writing, but my days of working were over.

Imagine my surprise, when on the other side of the largest career transition I’ve ever known I found a tremendous amount of work waiting for me.

This was a supreme disappointment that took me a solid year to grapple with. (My wife Jenny might argue I am still struggling with it.)

I don’t know whether to call what I experienced entitlement or disillusionment but either way, I was overwhelmed by the sharp needle of reality that burst my bubble of dream chasing.

I am here, with work weary hands, to say that I’ve tested the theory “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” And it’s not true.

It’s actually quite terrible and the reason is that it encourages people to quit their pursuits much sooner than they should have. What happens is that you buy into the lie that chasing a dream will be one long parade of butterscotch rainbows.

The only way you’ll know when you made the right decision is that you’ll encounter a never ending assembly line of joyful tasks in your day.

When this doesn’t happen, when some part of your dream sucks, and it will, you start to feel like you failed.

When faced with the inevitable work, struggle and hardship that accompanies anything you do in life, you will question yourself.

Did I choose the wrong passion? Did I pick the wrong thing? Surely it wouldn’t be this hard if I had made the right decision!

Then you’ll quit or pick something new to do. Until that new thing gets difficult too and then you’ll switch again, forever chasing a work free dream. (A lot of marriages crumble this way, as we get addicted to the myth that real relationships don’t take real work.)

In Chapter 21 of my new book Do Over, which is titled “Grit is a choice not a feeling,” there’s a specific action plan to deal with the work your dream generates. I wanted to make sure you had some real steps to follow.

If you don’t have the book yet though, I’ll still leave you with a bit of good news.

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is not true, but something even better is. That statement should be edited. It should read:

“Do what you love and you’ll love the work you do.”

You’ll work harder than you ever have before in your life.

You’ll scale mountains that are in the way of your dream.

You’ll make phone calls that make you want to throw up a little bit.

You’ll put your pride aside and ask for help in ways that make you feel uncomfortable.

You’ll work and it will be difficult, but it will be meaningful.

You will see that each step has value. Even the busywork, even the stuff that is just flat out miserable matters in the light of the bigger story.

Don’t believe the motivational hype the Internet tries to serve you.

Big dreams and hard work are not enemies. They’re actually best friends and you don’t get one without the other.

Big dreams and hard work are best friends. You don’t get one without the other.
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Please stop telling me you’re too busy.

Please don’t tell me you’re too busy to look for a new job and then show me your perfectly detailed fantasy football team.

Please don’t tell me you’re too busy to write your novel and then give me intricate plot details about the six television shows you’re watching.

Please don’t tell me you’re too busy to update your resume and then update your social media accounts incessantly.

We are a busy people. Our clocks are thin and tired, our schedules full and bloated.

But somehow we find a way to give our time to a host of wonderful distractions.

There is a reason the average 21-year-old has played 10,000 hours of video games.

There is a reason the average American watches 35 hours of television a week according to Nielsen.

There is a reason American companies lose an estimated $6.5 billion during the 15-week fantasy football season.

Time is a squirrely thing. It only goes where you tell it to go. It has no mind of its own. It won’t naturally gravitate to things that matter or work you really care about. It always looks for the easy way out.

This summer, I dare you to rescue some time. Not all of it, just a little. I’m talking about 15 minutes. I don’t care how busy you are, you have 15 minutes hidden somewhere in your day.

I dare you to rescue that tiny amount each day and then watch what happens this summer. That first 15 minutes will grow into 30 and then 45 and then 60. By the end of the summer, you will have worked for 1,500 minutes. You will have 25, on purpose, goal-crushing hours under your belt.

I’m rescuing my time this summer because I love Netflix too much. If I open up the app, it’s all over. I can’t just watch one episode of a TV show. My hours will be swallowed up by show after show after show. So instead, I’m going to DO Summer.

If you’re with me, sign up to get the free PDF I created to track time. Pick one skill you want to give your 15 minutes to and then get going.

Time won’t find you. You have to find it.

Time won’t find you. You have to find it.
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Get started right here.

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