Donald Miller's Blog, page 143

The Absolute Power of an Apology

Last week, Detroit Pitcher Armondo Galarraga threw a perfect game. Through nine complete innings, he struck out or was sloppily hit by twenty-seven consecutive batters to complete the twenty-first perfect game in the history of baseball. But he won't get credit for it. On the last play, Galarraga ran over to cover first and clearly hit the base before the baserunner Jason Donald arrived, and the umpire blew the call. Galarraga knew it, the fans knew it, and even Jason Donald knew it. Jim...

Bob Goff Turns the Idea of Charity Upside Down

My friend Bob Goff started a school in Uganda where he provides an education for children who come from what any American would consider extreme poverty. But you best not call Restore International a charity. Bob won't have it for a second. Instead of taking funds from wealthy Americans, the kids at Restore are actually growing crops and selling them in order to donate the money to American charities! Why? Because Bob Goff wants to instill dignity and purpose in the lives of his students.

Here...

How to Discover Your Core Values and Why it Matters

In a recent planning session, a friend wanted to find out what my core values were. I'm embarrassed to say I couldn't state them immediately. I had to think a little bit before I said something like truth and art and that sort of thing. My friend then asked what sort of scenarios or events or even people made me angry. And I knew the answer to that immediately. Injustice makes me angry, specifically when somebody is controlling and takes away the will of an innocent person. People who don't k...

The Power of Writing Down Social Goals

The last few times I've interacted with groups on an adventure, I've tried something new. Normally, when I meet new people, I act out my insecurities. What I mean is, I'll drop names or try to control the situation or say things I think will return respect. This never works. While I enjoy the time, I usually feel like I talked too much and didn't really let people get to know me. I feel more like I put on a show than let my guard down to have a good time.

This past week, nine guys from Texas c...

Healthy Friends are Responsible To, not For Eachother

My friend Pete recently let me in on a paradigm shift I found helpful. He was talking about a friend of his who, for some reason, was taking up a bit too much of his mental space. He was beginning to feel responsible for a friends bad decisions. Another friend of Pete's said that Pete needed to be responsible TO his friend, not FOR his friend.

Pete explained this meant he was responsible to be kind to his friend, understanding, helpful, professional if that's what the relationships required...

Follow our Climb up Mt. Hood Live on the Internet!

At midnight on Sunday the 30th, some friends from Texas and I will summit Mt. Hood and you can follow our adventures live on the internet. We have a GPS spotting unit that will mark our coordinates every ten minutes or so. You can follow our trek here. (Make sure to click on the Satellite view so you can actually see the mountain) It should take us about six or seven hours to summit, and about that long to get back down.

On Saturday, before climbing Hood, we will summit Mt. St. Helens and you ...

Want to Learn More About Living a Better Story?

If you've read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and wanted to know more about starting a new story, or just making your existing story more meaningful, we've put together a Living a Better Story Seminar here in Portland at the end of September. It will be a relatively small, intimate and personal seminar in which we will go through the elements of a meaningful life. My hope is that attendees will leave having a clearly mapped out story, clarifying their own vision and having a plan to...

Climbing Mt. Hood

I'll be out of pocket for the next seven days or so. I still intend to update the blog, though not as frequently. Several guys are showing up from Texas and we are hoping to climb Mt. Hood. I've been worried about the weather, because we have had nothing but rain here for weeks, but it looks like the weather is going to break Friday and stay semi-clear through Monday and that means we will attempt to Summit. It's a routine climb that a lot of people around here do, but your prayers would be a...

A Leader Loves Their Enemies

About every twentieth comment on this blog, somebody says something sharp or harsh. Often it's insulting to me, personally. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. I do go through all the comments and manually approve them. I do this about three or four times each day. I'd say I let 95% of the comments go through. The only comments I report to spam are comments that are mean spirited. When comments get mean spirited, people just stop visiting the blog, so I pull those out.

That said...

Sunday Morning Music, Ben Heppner

Several years ago I went to Toronto to see my friend Jason Hildebrand do a one-man play (that was terrific). Jason couldn't pick me up from the airport, so he sent a friend. I came out by baggage claim and saw a man holding one of my books up like a sign, so I went over and introduced myself. He said his name was Ben, and he'd be driving me around for the next couple days. Ben and I had to run some errands and so made small talk. I asked how Jason's play was coming along, but Ben didn't know ...