Donald Miller's Blog, page 26

Five Articles I Sent My Staff This Week

As a staff, we are committed to learning and growing, both professionally and personally. One of the ways we do that is by reading. Below are some of the most current things we’re reading together.

If you’re in need of something great to read this weekend, start here.

How My Career-Ending Injury Helped Me Find My Purpose

via Lewis Howse

We all face unexpected u-turns in life but the question is: what will we do with them? This is a question we’re constantly asking at Storyline—of ourselves and others.

Don’t Throw in the Towel Before You Answer These 4 Questions

via Entrepreneur

In business we’re constantly making decisions about projects to continue and when to throw in the towel. Here are four questions we must ask ourselves before we call it quits.

An Inside Look at Google’s Best Employee Perks

via Inc

We don’t give free massages at the Storyline office but we do share some of these great benefits, including dogs allowed at the office. I know I’m biased, but I like to think we have a pretty great place to work.

7 Sure Fire Ways to Reduce Stress and Restore Your Sanity

via Michael Hyatt

Learning to manage stress and anxiety is a crucial skill in life. Stressful times will come and go in business and these are some great strategies for handling it.

Getting an Audience to Remember Your Presentation

via Harvard Business Review

Since we teach workshops about communicating clearly and getting your message across, I’m always interested in what others have to say on this subject. Great article.

Three Reasons To Embrace The Discomfort of Change

Take one minute to think of all the people you care about. Now ask yourself: why do you care about these precious friends?

Chances are it’s because they have walked with you through something hard.

Photo Credit: thevelvetbird, Creative Commons

They’ve brought you an ice cream cone when you were down. They’ve shared with you their wisdom when you were lost. They cried with you but didn’t let you quit. When you were sinking deep into life’s problems, they were a life raft.

And you love them now for being just what you needed.  

Now take a minute to think about what life would be like if nothing ever changed for you.

Nothing bad ever happened. Or good really. Life just stayed the same.

Would you have ever had the opportunity to care about those people? No. You wouldn’t. Because change creates community. Change drives us to carry each other’s burdens, share our stories and call up a friend and say, “I’m a wreck. Can you bring over some Chipotle and ice cream tonight? I need to talk.”

Change is not a negative.

It is an opportunity grow as an individual and with each other. Here are three reasons why.

1. Change Forces Communication

We’ve all experienced a change and had to ask someone for their help or opinion with it. A spouse, friend, sibling, or employee. We need their feedback, thoughts and a sounding board for what’s happening in our lives. This communication would have never occurred if something wouldn’t have shifted. As you reach out to people for help, realize the next person who you call may become your new best friend or mentor.

2. Change Creates Bigger Lives And New Friends.

If you put a fish in a tank, it will only grow as big as it’s boundaries will let it.  For a bigger fish, you need a bigger tank. Change drops us into the bigger ponds of life. New environments force us out of our comfort zones and creates a greater dependency on others. Think about your first day at High School. New environment. Lots of change. What was the first thing you did? Look for your buddy. I know I did.

3. Readjustment Causes Reevaluation

Change creates mile markers in your life. You look back on that year in college or your first baby and you remember what you were like. And how you’re different now. It adds spice and sizzle to our lives. We need these pivotal moments in our lives to know who we were, who we are, and who we want to be. We also identified clearly who are real friends were. Those who stuck close to us in our storms and celebrated with us at the mountaintops are our real friends. The rest, just acquaintances.

What We Miss When We Resist Change

I didn’t want to leave India.

My family’s first year there was filled with tremendous challenges. I had the daunting task of developing a replicable method of rescuing slaves under Indian law and building a team to make it happen. Meanwhile my wife almost died following the birth of our second child and suffered through a slow physical recovery. We had two kids under two-years old in a new culture with a fledgling office to run.

Photo Credit: Michael Foley, Creative Commons

It was a struggle.

Yet, over the next few years, things got better.

Together with an amazing group of team members at International Justice Mission, we figured out how to rescue slaves, prosecute traffickers, care for survivors, and work for structural transformation.

I felt like I was in my sweet spot. The world’s great need, God’s passion for justice, and my professional training found their intersection. Most importantly, I was working with my best friend and a team of Indian advocates, social workers, and investigators who can only be described as heroes.

Their work ethic and personal sacrifice inspire me to this day.

The feeling of personal fulfillment was powerful and infectious.

Our family even had a “beef bootlegger” who covertly delivered cow meat to the door of our fifth story flat. I could have lived in India forever.

I didn’t want anything to change.

Then change came.

Through a series of conversations with my bride, it became clear that it was time to return to America. We both knew that it was the right time to leave India, but I was reluctant.

I did not want to bail on the team I helped build. I did not want to leave the pursuit of justice. I did not want to disappoint my IJM colleagues . . . people whose leadership I deeply respected.

And yet, I felt compelled to embrace the transition.

As it turned out, the first two years after our return from India were the most stressful and challenging of our marriage. Honestly, it was much easier to relocate to India than return to the United States.

We felt isolated and discouraged.

In the mist of this discontent, I thought about the following image and it really helped me.

Imagine a child at the end of a wonderful day at amusement park when it is time to go home. The kid doesn’t want to leave and he starts complaining to his Dad that he wants to ride more rides and play more games. He doesn’t want the day to end. He doesn’t want things to change so he complains to his father.

Now, imagine that same child at the end of a wonderful day at the amusement park, but this time the he is filled with excitement and joy. All the way home with his Dad, he celebrates and relives how much fun they had on the rollercoaster, the water ride, and the silly games.

Together they enjoy what had just occurred without lamenting that the day could not go on indefinitely.

As I pondered the boy leaving the amusement park—

my frustration with change shifted to gratefulness. I got to be a part of something wonderful for a season and now it was time for something new.

Instead of being upset that my status quo was disrupted, I should celebrate all the joys and adventures in India that I had experienced. Many had been rescued from slavery, families had been given dignity, and the office was under terrific new leadership.

Gratitude was powerful enough to change my attitude.

It has been almost a decade since our family returned from India and I began prosecuting human trafficking cases at the U.S. Department of Justice. With the benefit of hindsight, there is no doubt that leaving India was the best thing for my family, my career, and my ability to combat modern day slavery around the world.

In seasons of change and transition, the questions for each of us are clear.

Will we cling to the status quo or embrace the unknown future adventure? Will we be the kid throwing a fit at the amusement park exit or the kid gratefully remembering the joyful experience with our Father?

What to Do With the Pain of Wanting Somebody Else to Change

My eldest daughter started first grade this year. As the school year began and we stepped onto her new campus, I knew our journey would be much different than the majority of the kids on campus.

You see, my daughter has Down syndrome.

And with that extra chromosome comes a whole lot of awesome.

She’s basically one of the coolest people I know. But with that extra chromosome comes a whole lot of junk. The junk we deal with because of her extra chromosome has nothing to do with her, but rather everything to do with the way she is perceived by the people around her.

Photo Credit: Adreas-photography, Creative Commons

It’s as though she popped out of the womb waving her “awesome” flag and as she encounters the world, the people in it, the ones who have chosen not to get to know someone like my daughter, are splattering her “awesome” flag with their ideas and agendas and ignorance and trying to cover up her awesome.

As my daughter began school I wished people saw all the awesome.

I wished when the kids and the teachers and parents saw her march in, waving her awesome flag, they would have lined up to see who would get to sit next to her in class, or be her teacher, or invite her over to play.

But by the time she enters first grade, her flag is already tarnished by the paint those who don’t understand have splattered on it.

As the mother of a chid with Down syndrome I see, know and live the reality that something has got to change. And honestly, I have done almost all I can do on my end. I find myself up in the middle of the night wondering how I am going to make things change for my daughter when the change she needs is hinging on the people around her making a change.

I can’t tell you how miserable it is—waiting on other people to change.

And it’s almost impossible to make someone understand something they are choosing to ignore.

It’s impossible to ask someone to change their thinking when they are not even aware they are having such thoughts.

So while I dream of a time when the people around me make the changes needed for my daughter and all people with Down syndrome to be seen for the awesome people they are, I have to stop and ask myself: whose flag am I tarnishing with my ignorance and thoughtlessness?

Who’s very humanity is contingent on my ability to change?

Who am I standing in the way of?

Because I can sit here and point to the thousands of people standing in the way of my daughter, but if I do that then I have to stop and ask myself the same question.

Friends, who are we standing in the way of? Who is desperate to be seen as awesome but the only way that can happen is if you and I make a change?

When I ask others to join me as I fight for the changes needed for my daughter to wave her “awesome” flag free of splatters and blemishes, I am asking them to get uncomfortable, I am asking them to think differently, I am asking them to make a change.

While I stand up and at times beg for others to be the change my daughter needs, it is my hope that I too can look around me and see what kind of changes I need to make. In what ways do I need to become uncomfortable, think differently, and change so that others can wave their “awesome” flag high?

Stop Hustling and Get Your Life Back

I think I’ve been in a hurry for almost seven years. In January of 2006, I found out I was pregnant with Henry. Later that week, I was offered a contract to write Cold Tangerines. And since then, it seems, I’ve been in a hurry, running against the clock. They say that being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life. I get that feeling.

Photo Credit: Joe St. Pierre, Creative Commons

I’ve been stacking things up, plan upon plan upon plan. I’ve been cramming things in—pushing, hustling, scurrying. I’ve been strategizing, multi-tasking, layering commitments one upon another like bricks.

It worked for a while. I like to be busy.

I’ll always be kind of “more is more” person when it comes to my schedule. With one child, the pace didn’t bother me much. So maybe it’s a second kid thing. Maybe it’s a second-kid-who-is-a-terrible-sleeper thing. Maybe it’s the accumulated exhaustion of two kids, two miscarriages, three books, countless trips and events, one marathon, one move. Maybe some weird timer goes off inside you when you turn thirty-six. I don’t know.

All I know is along the way, I signed up for a schedule that seemed so fun, not taking into account the pace that super-fun schedule would force me to keep.

I had a lot of fun, but not a lot of margin.

I gathered up some amazing experiences, but I didn’t rest well or often. I gulped down so much life, but at a certain point I was too tired and ground away to taste it anymore. Last year, it stopped working for me.

The changes I’m making this year are not, at the core, about more traveling or less traveling, more flights or fewer flights. The travel schedule is part of it, but really it’s about the hustle. It’s about frantic.

That’s what I’m done with, that’s what I want to leave behind.

You know what I’m talking about: when your mind has to work seven steps ahead instead of just being where you are, because this deadline’s coming, and the laundry has to get done before that trip, because you can’t forget to pack snowpants for school, and you need to beg for more time on this project. Again.

Kindergarten drop-off is at noon, and that gives me just enough time to squeeze in this meeting and pick up the dry-cleaning and talk through those five pressing things with my editor. While I’m on the phone I prep vegetables for dinner, and if Mac takes a good nap, I can get packed for the next trip, as long as the laundry is dry.

And on and on and on, times seven years.

Good things like efficiency and multi-tasking go of the rails so far that sometimes I find myself running in my own house, shuttling things from room to room like my life is a timed obstacle course. This is insane.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I think I’m not alone. It doesn’t matter if you work or don’t, or have little kids or don’t, or travel or don’t. So many of us, it seems, are really, really tired of the hustle, and the next right thing is to slow down, to go back to the beginning, to stop.

I’m adopting a ruthless anti-frantic policy.

I’m done with frantic. The new baseline for me: will saying yes to this require me to live in a frantic way?

I’m saying no more often than I’m saying yes. I’m asking hard questions about why I’ve kept myself so busy all these years. The space and silence I’m creating is sometimes beautiful and sometimes terrifying.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a cartoon airplane when the engine gets cut and the plane hovers for a few long seconds before starting to fall. But then sometimes I feel so strongly like for the first time in a long time, I’m listening to the right voices. I’m remaking my way of living from the inside out.

Publishing is all about striking while the iron’s hot.

But sometimes you have to trust that the iron will still be hot later, and that there’s more to life than that iron. Sometimes you have to trust that life is long for most of us, and that there will be other irons.

My inbox is a disaster. The house is messier these days. That’s how it’s going to be for a while. I’m not powering my life with the white-knuckled, keyed-up buzz of efficiency and multi-tasking anymore. The word that rings in my mind is anti-frantic.

Sleep. Slow.

Present with my kids.

Present to my own life.

Anti-frantic.

This is a re-post from the archives.

These 3 Questions Will Change The Way You See Your Relationships

There are three “what if” questions I’ve been kicking around lately. And they’re changing the way I do relationships. I’d share them with you and I hope they bring as much hope to you as they do to me.

Photo Credit: Joe St.Pierre, Creative Commons

Here they are.

First, what if we are not in competition with the people around us?

What if we are just supposed to connect with people and enjoy? By this I mean what if all the comparing could be replaced with connecting? There’s something hidden, unspoken and even a little confusing within me that compares myself to others.

I’d like for that to go away and I’m working on that.

It’s been helpful and enjoyable to simply realize my life has been blessed, I deserve none of what I’ve been given, and there will always be people with more than me and people with less.

Second, what if relationships are meant to be enjoyed, not fixed?

This question is so freeing. What if when I’m with a friend the only thing I’m supposed to do is enjoy the relationship?

I’m a builder by nature. I want to change everything and make it better. But the problem is, other people don’t belong to me. I don’t get to change them. I can inspire them or encourage them and even rebuke them but it’s not my responsibility to change them.

And, in fact, people have been given to us by God for our enjoyment.

There are, of course, unsafe people, but I’m talking about those people we enjoy as friends and family. I want to start replacing my “fix” response with an “enjoy” response and just let people be themselves.

Finally, what if I am a gift to people they way they are to me?

I tend to think most of my friends are more amazing than I am. They are more kind, more giving, more talented and seem to offer me more than I offer them.

But what if this isn’t true?

What if I am just as encouraging to my friends as they are to me? What if I believed that and lived into it and owned it and allowed for that reality to encourage me and make me an even more gracious and kind gift to the people around me?

What If I could give as well as receive?

These are three questions I’ve been asking when it comes to my relationships. What about you?

What questions have you been asking?

[This is a repost from the archives.]

Five Articles I Sent to My Staff This Week

As a staff, we are committed to learning and growing, both professionally and personally. One of the ways we do that is by reading. Below are some of the most current things we’re reading together.

If you’re in need of something great to read this weekend, start here.

Leadership is By Choice, Not Chance

via Lolly Daskal

We sometimes get caught thinking that leadership is a gifted position but it’s actually a chosen position. Let us all choose to be leaders in our lives. Great list here.

Art Needs An Audience

via Jeff Goins

We often feel this tension, as a team, between art and commerce. That’s why I appreciated this perspective. Art needs an audience. Thanks Jeff.

The Go Pro That Fell to Earth

via The New York Times

Have you seen the video of the GoPro camera that was launched into space? This is beautiful, inspiration and just plain cool.

How to Support Your Friend When She’s Grieving

via The Every Girl

There are so many pitfalls and land mines when it comes to supporting someone in their grief, I appreciated the advice in this piece. I’m also thankful for great friends and family who supported me in the loss of my mother this past week.

The Secret Enemy in Your Marriage

via John Weirick

This post shares what poisons a marriage and the truth is, it doesn’t only poison a marriage. It has the potential to poison families, work places and friendships if we’re not careful. May we avoid this temptation in all of our relationships.

What I Learned About Generosity From A Man Who Has Nothing

David and I walk through the hilly, rocky area that used to be his bean field. He reaches down and pulls up a hollow bean plant. It’s as dry as straw.

Photo Credit: United Nations Photo, Creative Commons

“It stopped raining here almost a year ago, so nothing will grow,” he said.

It’s hard to imagine any life in this field right now. It’s really, really hot. The ground is useless.

Or maybe not.

The area around us is full of activity. Children playing, laughing, crying. The hacking sound of a machete on wood. Adults calling across the way to each other in Creole.

I’m in Haiti, on the border between this country and the Dominican Republic.

The government in the Dominican Republic recently passed strict immigration laws, forcing thousands of Haitians living in its country—even many of those born there—to leave.

By mid-summer of this year, more than 40,000 Haitians have been forced out of the DR and into Haiti.

We’re seeing all sorts of migrations of people this year–from northern Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East, from Central America–and few are happy to see the newcomers. No one is really prepared to take on thousands more people in their countries or communities. Many of the immigrants have died along the way.

Many are being turned back by armies, coast guards and vigilante groups.

In this bean field where I’m walking, and sweating, with David, there is no shade.

Some of the migrants have fashioned large banana leaves to break the chokehold of the sun. Others, who left what had been their home country for years, carried what they could, including a few machetes.

Those machetes are being used to build small shelters made of tree limbs and scrap lumber.

If it ever does rain again, and it surely will in the form of a tropical storm or hurricane, those shelters will disappear quickly.

The Haitian government is trying to provide assistance to these displaced people.

Non-government groups are trying to get clean water, latrines, food and shelter to address their situation, and hopefully prevent an outbreak of disease.

I am drawn to these refugees, whose lives have been upended by forces beyond their influence, and ask several what they think their future might be. They don’t know. They are frustrated, tired from their journey, wishing they had their old lives back where many of them had homes and jobs.

But I am also drawn to David, the one providing space for this refugee camp to develop.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask him.

“These people are taking up your land, and you have no idea how long they will be here. How long are you going to let them stay?”

He thinks about my question for a while, looks down, draws with his toe in the dust. The Dominican Republic is visible in the background.

“They can stay as long as they want,” he says.

I let that sink in a little, and then he continues.

“I have this land. It’s not being used for anything else. I see people coming to Haiti from countries all over the world to help us, coming here and giving what they can. That makes me consider what I can do. I have the space. They can come.”

He’s not solving the refugee crisis. But he has something that can help in the meantime.

Sometimes all we can offer is space. An empty room. Dusty land. A little shade.

There may be someone headed your way today who just needs a little space. A little room. A little rest.

Why I Strive to Be As Narrow Minded As Possible

The people, companies, brands, and organizations I respect most have one unique thing in common: A laser focus.

I believe a laser focus enables people to be less stressed and make better decisions about their work.

And when they’re less stressed and make better decisions, they produce better results.

If you have the privilege of living in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, or Texas, you have access to something magical. Something the rest of America is dying to get their hands on. And no, it’s not the sunshine. It’s a special little restaurant called In-N-Out Burger.

The success of In-N-Out is in its simplicity and narrow focus. Three delicious items on the menu, operating in only 5 of 50 states, with employees who are friendly, well groomed, and well compensated.

Nothing more, nothing less. It’s beautiful.

Because of the laser focus on their core business, for the executives and managers at In-N-Out, they are less likely to encounter complex situations requiring overly challenging decisions. You see, In-N-Out doesn’t entertain ideas around new products for the changing times.

They don’t waste their time thinking about slick new marketing, celebrity endorsements, Super Bowl ad buys, or playgrounds for kids.

While they are definitely smaller compared to other fast food chains, they are better informed about their core mission. And a narrow focus on their core mission means fewer complex challenges, fewer mistakes and less stress about the future.

Here is In-N-Out CEO, Lynsi Snyder:

“How we make our decisions is not looking to the right and left to see what everyone else is doing. It’s just looking forward and doing the same thing that we’ve done in the past, because it has worked. We don’t have plans to change the menu. We don’t have plans to crank up the growth. It’s just kind of doing the same thing and being smart, and everybody doing their job. Like a plane on autopilot. There’s so much momentum, with all the people who’ve been here and have tenure. There’s so much strength, as a whole. So we just keep on doing the same thing, and it runs pretty smoothly.”

See what she said there? “Like a plane on autopilot.” That is a CEO who is in charge of their values and in charge of their destiny.

I read a great article in Fast Company called the 4 Weapons Of Creative Leaders.

This was the line that blew me away:

Great leaders are not necessarily braver leaders. They’re just better informed about the consequences of their choices, which makes it easier for them to make the hard ones.

Let that sink in.

Great leaders aren’t braver or smarter or more dynamic or better looking. They’re just better informed about their core mission, so it’s easier for them to make the right decisions. They don’t get pulled around in ten different directions.

In the not-for-profit sector, a lot of organizations struggle with a terrorizing force called Mission Drift. Mission Drift is the slow compromising of values, programs, and principles that will kill an enterprise over time.

Credit to Peter Greer from Hope International for writing a great book about it.

In my work at These Numbers Have Faces—

We’ve taken the warnings of Mission Drift very seriously and worked hard to implement a laser focus with consistent organizational values.

At These Numbers Have Faces, our programs only focus on three specific demographics:

African young people ages 18-30 from 4 specific African countries.
Students with passionate interest in 6 main fields: Business, medicine, law, science, engineering, & technology.
Young people with a deep desire to solve problems through entrepreneurship, innovation, community impact, and more.

This laser focus on the population we serve means I have fewer complex decisions to make than other people in my industry.

This narrow focus also means we turn down outside opportunities every week.

People call us all the time about expanding around the globe. We get asked to partner on clean water projects, human trafficking initiatives, medical clinics, primary schools, and more. We’ve walked away from hundreds of thousands of dollars because, while the opportunities were noble, they didn’t fit our core mission.

Turning down grant money or a lucrative partnership is hard. But as I’ve studied others who have gone before me I’ve learned that:

The best leaders rarely compromise their mission because they are miles away from being anywhere near a situation where their mission could be compromised.

Great leaders literally flee temptation both in their personal and professional lives.

Of course, having a narrow focus on your core mission isn’t just for organizations and enterprises. It’s for your personal life too.

Making the conscious decision to live by clearly defined priorities, principles, and values can make your decision processes 1000x times easier. It also has the potential of mitigating the stress, fear, and worry from your life. When you truly let your “yes be yes and your no be no” a much smoother path to success can be achieved.

Change the Way People Treat You, Starting With One Word

My life has been full of people who have treated me poorly. I’ve had bosses who expected too much and took advantage of my time and assumed I would work long hours beyond my pay. There have been boyfriends who gave very little and took far more than I ever wanted to give, and still had the nerve to act like it wasn’t enough. I’ve had friends who waltzed into my world, wrecked havoc, and then disappeared.

In fact, at certain times it has seemed like people did this to me on purpose — like I was some kind of target for those just waiting to inflict more hurt.

And in a way, I was.

Photo Credit: Joe St.Pierre, Creative Commons

The first time I heard someone say the words, “We teach people how to treat us,” I didn’t want to believe it was true. If it was, then much of the pain I had suffered over time was my fault as well as the fault of those who had inflicted it. That reality seemed painful and unfair.

But at the same time, I felt the tiniest glimmer of hope at the sound of these words.

Because if they were true, if I could really teach people how to treat me, then there was hope of a world where people would treat me with the respect and care I deserved.

So I decided to give it a try.

For me, it started with the word no. This wasn’t a word I had used very often, so I had to practice. In the mirror. Literally.

No, you cannot have my phone number.

No, I won’t go on a date with you.

No, I can’t stay late this week.

No, I can’t help you with that project.

No, I won’t have a conversation with you when you’re angry.

No explanation. No defense. No justification for why I couldn’t do the thing someone else wanted me to do. Just the simply exerting of my power into the universe to choose what I wanted, to draw a boundary around myself.

It didn’t come naturally at first. I had to exercise it, like a muscle.

In fact, as I started to practice, I realized there were several lies I had been believing for so long, they had been preventing me from using the word no. I had to confront these lies and uproot them as I went along. They went like this:

• When I say “no” I’m being mean

• Wanting things is selfish

• Other people deserve to get what they want more than I deserve to get what I want

• I owe people an explanation for my actions

Sometimes I would try to explain myself and I would get tangled in my explanations, and feel like I had to backtrack or justify.

Other times I would say “yes” when I meant to say “no” and I would have to go back and change my answer. It wasn’t always pretty. I hurt people’s feelings. I disappointed them. I lost friends, not because I was being mean or malicious, but because I wasn’t giving the things I had given so freely for so long.

But something wonderful started to happen when I said the word no. I realized I had the power to teach people how to treat me.

Three things happened:

1. People who cared more about what I was giving them than they did about me — went away. It’s amazing how fast people’s true motives are revealed when you cut them off from what they were stealing from you.

2. People who loved me, changed. It didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t seamless or easy, but those who really cared about staying in relationship with me changed the way they related to me. The best part is, many of them actually say they like me better now! Some of them say it’s like the real Ally came to life.

3. Even those who don’t know, me treat me differently. It’s weird. It’s almost like I carry myself differently. I don’t have this figured out perfectly, but the feeling like I was a magnet or target for people who wreak havoc has disappeared.

It took me a long time to come to this place, probably about five years from the time I first started practicing “no” to the way I feel now — like I am not a victim to my circumstances or relationships, but that I’m a mutual participator in my life.

I only wish I would have started sooner.

What is one word you wish you would have started using sooner? Why?