Donald Miller's Blog, page 129

The Power of Gratitude

A couple days ago I told you I ran a publishing company here in Oregon during my mid-twenties. It was a fun few years for me. I fell in love with books during the time, and am grateful to still be in the industry, these days as a writer, of course.

I don't know what led me to do it, but one day I decided the company would become more grateful. I bought several boxes of thank-you cards and gave one to each member of the staff (we were tiny, so this was no big deal) and asked if we'd be willing to write a thank-you card to somebody every day until our boxes were empty. The staff loved the idea. We wrote cards to our customers, to our vendors, even to our delivery guys. I wasn't expecting anything to happen, except maybe to let the people who supported us know how grateful we were, but to my surprise, we saw a fairly significant boost in our business. No kidding.

I don't know if our business increased because we sent out thank-you cards, but it certainly didn't hurt. There's something inherently powerful in saying thank you to somebody. Most good deeds go unnoticed, and when we notice them, especially a year of them or a decade of them, and finally send a card, it goes a long way in encouraging the people around us.

It's Thursday, and I thought maybe today we'd have something called Thankful Thursday.

Who are you grateful for today?

A Successful Defeat

I got a little bit of work done on my book today, but not as much as I'd hoped. Yesterday I wrote five times as many words as I did today. And I'd even argue yesterdays words were better. I doubt anything I wrote today will be published. And yet I feel fine about it. It's been a long time coming for me to view a relatively unsuccessful writing day as a victory, but I'm glad this is now my perspective.

What I mean by this is writing is not an exact science. It's not like screwing bottle caps on bottles, in which each day you can measure your accomplishments. There are too many mysterious forces in writing. It's more like playing basketball, I'd say. Some days you've got a jump shot and other days you don't. Who really knows why. But like in basketball, there are things you can do to increase the chances of a ball going in. You can practice, for example, and you can stay in shape.

In writing, it's all about routine. My job is not to get up every day and write two-thousand words. My job is to do this:

1. Go to bed before 9PM. This assures I will get up early and be ready to write.

2. Wake up at 5Am or so. Respond to a few e-mails, then turn off my phone. Take the dog for a walk and think and pray about what I'm going to be working on.

3. Don't force the inspiration. I sit down and ask myself what I feel like writing. I remind myself that I have a book, and need to stay within that range of topics. I also remind myself that I have some chapters in that book, and that the book has structure. I dig around a little within that structure to see if there's anything there. On most mornings, something, a thought transpires, and I write it down, letting the words come. Once the thought is finished, I try to find a place within the existing structure where that thought might fit. I then file it on my computer for review later when I start compiling the book. I repeat that process until my mind gets just a little bit sloppy, which is normally just before noon. That's the end of my writing day, and the beginning of my day as a manager of a writers life.

But that's what my writing responsibilities look like. Some days I walk away from the computer having accomplished a mountain of work. Some days just a little pile of words. Today was a pile of words. But I don't feel bad at all.

Now, I turn my phone on and there will be voicemails and text messages that, had I left my phone on, would have derailed me completely. I have the rest of the day to not worry about the book. I'll start thinking about this book at 7PM tonight, when tomorrows writing day starts with me slowly orbiting my bed, brushing my teeth, walking the dog, reading a few articles, watching a television show before I lay down a little nervous and excited about what might get written in the morning.

Don't Expand Your Influence, Deepen It.

A long, long time ago I ran a very small publishing company here in Oregon. Part of my job was to create a database and sales system to chart our orders. I noticed that, while we had about a thousand customers, only a hundred or so of them were supporting our business. Initially, I wanted to expand the business, to grow our customer base even larger. We spent thousands of dollars in this attempt, visiting trade shows and printing expensive catalogs. But sooner or later I realized it wasn't working. I mean we did see an increase in business, but it brought in about as much profit as our marketing efforts cost. So I changed our strategy.

We began to focus on the one-hundred customers who were already faithful and familiar with our products. I created a monthly newsletter that I printed right off my desktop and sent it to these hundred customers each month. I also made a call list and called as many as twenty or thirty, personally, every month. And I noticed our business increased, while our overhead stayed the same. These customers gave us more prominent positions in their catalogs and in their stores.

I'd say this general principal applies to much more than business. Perhaps those deep relationships you long for are all around you, they've just not been deepened yet. Perhaps the fulfilling, romantic amazement you've been reading romance novels to experience could actually come from that guy snoring in bed next to you each night.

This year, try focussing on what is already around you, try cultivating the seeds that have been planted, or the plants that are just producing a little bit of fruit. My guess is this will be easier than going out into the rocks to chip away at a brand new garden.

Win the Day, Inspiring Words from an Inspiring Coach

Tonight the Auburn Tigers will play the Oregon Ducks for the National Championship in College Football. I've not looked forward to a game more since the undefeated New England Patriots played the New York Giants in the Superbowl. Still grieving that America didn't get to see a perfect season by those Patriots.

Regardless, it's promising to be a good game tonight. Both programs are fielding incredible, fast-moving teams, so even if the score gets lopsided, you shouldn't turn this game off. Either team can score three or four touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone.

I love the Auburn tigers. I love the tradition, the fans, the commitment to excellence, and all season I've loved to watch Cam Newton play. But as the season went on, and Auburn came back against Alabama, I hung my head. One of my favorite teams in all of college football would have to play my very favorite team, the Oregon Ducks. I couldn't even watch Cam get the Heisman. It was time to protect my heart. It was time to name the enemy, and the enemy was holding a thirty-pound trophy (I was secretly hoping he'd sprain an elbow lifting it).

It's been a long ride for the Ducks. This team has never won a National Championship. Compared to most SEC teams, they only have a fraction of the fan base. Their recruiting has been aided by the facilities and uniforms (a different combination for each and every game) provided by Nike founder Phil Knight. Like it or not, kids coming out of high school all have one eye on Oregon. They are simply more slick than any other team in America. But are they as good?

I think they are, and while it's hard for me to say they are better than Auburn, I think the Tigers are going to get a surprise tonight.

But the main reason for Oregon's success is not Phil Knight or flashy uniforms. It's Chip Kelly, Oregon's second-year head coach. Chip joined the staff several years ago from New Hampshire, and came to Oregon because he wanted a place to start a family. He cared about winning, but didn't care about fame. On his visit to Oregon, he looked around at the rest of the coaching staff to realize he was the youngest guy in the room. The current staff, which remains there to this day, had been at Oregon for more than twenty years. Twenty years in college football is a long, long time. This is a school devoted to its faculty and Kelly liked that. When head coach Mike Beloti left for ESPN, Kelly took over.

Kelly preaches a single message to his team, and it's this: Win the day. Who cares about tomorrow, who cares about yesterday, all that is demanded of you is that you win the day. That means have an excellent practice, that means have an excellent day of rest, that means every hour of every day, be there, be present. That also means do not think about the National Championship, just think about today, just get up and do your work.

The mantra has become state-wide now and I confess I've found myself applying the wisdom to my own life. Who cares about the next book release, whether it sells well, whether chapter four is as good as chapter three, all that matters is that I get up in the morning, walk the dog, sit down with a cup of coffee and do my work. Tomorrow may hold a victory for me or a defeat, but all I've got to work with is right now.

When Oregon beat Oregon State in the final game of the season, and for the first time assured their fate as National Championship contenders, you did not see much celebration amongst the team. People in the stands were shouting their heads off and sports announcers were literally crying into their microphones. But not the football players. They'd bought into Chip Kelly's system: Win the day. They hadn't won the national championship yet, so there was nothing to celebrate. They had won the day, but the next day there would be another battle to fight, and the next day another. It's safe to say they've won plenty of days. Here's hoping they can win just one more. Go Ducks. Win the day! Win today!!

Sunday Morning Music, Doug Burr

Discovered Doug Burr last year sometime and was surprised to hear he worked at a Home Depot or something down in Texas. I doubt that was still true at the time I heard it and is even less true now I am sure. Remarkable talent. Enjoy Doug Burr:

Good Stuff Happening in 2011!

I am going to try to keep the Monday through Friday blog info-mercial free, and keep the plugs to Saturday. That said, I've got a lot of stuff going on right now and would love for you to know more about all of it. Here's what's coming up in 2011:

1. The Storyline Conference. If you attend one conference this year, come see us in Portland. The Storyline Conference was a smash hit last year and this year we are going to make it even better. The conference was inspiring to hundreds, and this year it will be inspiring to you. Register you and your cool friends here.

Storyline Conference from shieldsfilms.com on Vimeo.

2. The Paperback to A Million Miles in a Thousand Years comes out next month. If you've been wanting to read it but don't want to spend the hard-back dough, you've got your shot in a couple weeks. Buy one or a case or a truck load! They're on the cheap, baby!

3. Blue Like Jazz the movie will hit theaters this fall. We are still a long way off, and we will certainly ramp up promotion leading up to the release, but stay tuned to this blog to find out more. It's going to be great, and I think you'll like it, unless you are very sensitive, in which case you won't like it at all. But you're not sensitive, so you'll like it. Chances are I'll be coming to a town near you to screen the film. Lucy, my dog, will be driving an R.V. around America and I will be riding shotgun. We will be showing the film to anybody who will watch it, nursing homes, insane asylums, hippie communes, you name it, maybe even your house, unless you are sensitive, in which case we will show it on your house, like on your garage door when you aren't home.

4. Much later in the year, if all goes well, I will be releasing a book called "The Way of a Creator." The book is in process now, and I'm working my insanely fast fingers off on it. It's about becoming a person who speaks something into nothing, makes things happen, changes reality for themselves and for others. It's also a little provocative, because I talk about how evangelical church culture breeds a community of fear, which makes people consumers rather than creators. Start firing up the torches, haters!

It's going to be a great year. Looking forward to seeing you guys at one of the screenings, or at Storyline!

The Garden of Your Mind

I follow several writers on twitter and noticed one of them consistently tweets about television. Every night the writer tweets about some reality show they are watching or repeats a line from a sit com. I'd not think much of it except the writer I am thinking of is exceptionally talented and I wondered to myself if this weren't a brain as able as Flannery O'Connor or Ernest Hemmingway, sitting on the couch, destined to release book after book of half-developed ideas. In other words, I wondered if this writer weren't great soil being used to plant "just okay" seed. I wondered this while I was sitting on the couch, watching television. It was enough to make me stand up and turn the thing off.

No culture in history has been more distracted. If you are wondering why there are no more C.S. Lewis' in the world, no more stories as good as Tolkien's, no cathedrals as great as the gothic's, no music as moving as Pachelbel's, it may be because the writers of these books, the tellers of these stories, the architects of these buildings and the composers of these symphonies are sitting on their couches watching television. I wonder what's on tonight.

A Healthier Way to View Rejection

Before shooting Blue Like Jazz (hoping to release it in the fall of this year) we watched hours and hours of auditions. There are four major parts in the film, and many more minor roles. For each role, hundreds may have inquired, and dozens or more sat down to film a reading. I admit the process was fun. Steve would send me his final list with links to the auditions, and I would chime in on the actors that best fit the parts. And I learned something invaluable about life while doing so. I learned that life is about finding the right role for you, and that being "rejected" for a part often has little to do with talent. I don't remember seeing a single audition in which the actor or actress wasn't exceptionally talented.

When we get rejected, either in a relationship or for a job or anything else, we can't take it personally. Life is about roles. A person may reject you in a relationship for a reason that makes no sense to you. They may find you attractive and fun to be with, but the fact you just wouldn't fit in their life may have more to do with a gut feeling that, over time, you'd have less and less to talk about, that the "dialogue" in the real life scenes just doesn't come naturally. And who really knows why?

If we process not being picked as a rejection of our character, our looks or our overall compatibility, we are making a big mistake. Processing the ups and downs of life this way can make us depressed, and the sad truth is, there are far fewer gratifying roles for those who go about self defeated. There are also occasions we find ourselves having been "given a part" and after some time, don't feel like it's a fit. This will happen in every relationship and in every job to some degree, and if we have committed for life, then we are there for life and not only need to make the best of it, but out of our will and humility should make it incredible. But if we are young and figuring out what we want to do with our lives, or who we are, there's no shame in moving on to find the role that will fit us better.

There is a role for us, in work, in love, in life, and we just have to keep auditioning until we find the part we were designed to play. And that's how a good relationship feels, doesn't it? It feels like we found the part that was really us. Who wants to spend their life acting, anyway?

Is Church Life Stifling Your Creativity?

When Solomon wrote Song of Songs, a dramatic opera about a young, poor woman who fell in love with a Shepherd king, do you think he had "the voice of the church" in his head? Do you think he was worried about what a group of people might think? Of course the evangelical church didn't exist, then, and neither did the collective evangelical consciousness, but what I mean by that question is that if Solomon were writing today, and were writing an Opera for young kids about the ways of love, he would no doubt be attacked. My guess is the criticisms would be listed as such:

1. His opera does not mention God. Why wouldn't he use this opportunity to bring people to God? He's a Godless man.

2. His opera is erotic, filled with sexual imagery and even sexual instruction. It's unfitting for any person to read, much less young couples.

3. It's confusing. We don't know where the acts begin. It isn't structured. It's amature.

4. He never mentions sex should be saved till marriage, so he must be endorsing pre-marital sex.

5. There seems to be no point to the work. If he's trying to teach something, you can't figure out what it is, and if he isn't trying to teach something, what's the point of reading it or listening to it as an opera?

And so on and so on.

Here's the point of this blog post: There is a difference between what "the church" wants you to do and what God wants you to do. Do what God wants you to do. Go and create, even as you were made to create.

Don't Share Your Resolutions!

You won't make it far this year on resolutions. In fact, if you shared your resolution in public, you're already at a disadvantage. When you share a goal publicly, your brain enjoys the sharing in the same way it enjoys the achievement itself, and you've lost some of your motivation.

Instead, set some goals and write them down. Then take each of those goals and break them down into daily habits like "making a to do list every day" or "eating less than 100 grams of carbs per day" or whatever it will take. Put a deadline on those tasks that is realistic, saying you'll do it by such and such a day, or you'll do it for this long and then reevaluate. After that, just don't talk about it.

We are all motivated socially. We are motivated when our friends think highly of us. But this year, instead of being motivated by our friends being impressed with our goals, we can be fulfilled when we have accomplished them.