Donald Miller's Blog, page 34

4 Ways to Get A 15 Minute Vacation Every Day

We make it to work on time. We plan social events. We pick the kids up from practice. Then we pull out our phones and plug in another date and time.

If we can very easily plan away our days, why is it so hard to find a moment for ourselves?

Photo Credit: Ellen Munro, Creative Commons

Today’s busy society makes us feel like we have to exhaust ourselves for other people but never take personal time. Like if our day isn’t completely booked, then we’re doing something wrong.

The high standard for production has some serious personal consequences.

We don’t refuel and, as a result, watch our energy tank dip to empty.

To combat the daily grind, we have to be proactive about not wearing ourselves down.

So how do we find the balance between the time we give away and the moments we hold onto? What steps can we take to get back some of the self that we’ve spent on others?

Go on vacation.

When we get away, we loosen up and do things we enjoy. Though we can’t go to the beach or the mountains every week, we can take few moments daily to rest and restore. Here are four ways to use vacation as inspiration to set aside 15 minutes for ourselves every day:

1. Set an alarm.

Instead of rolling out of bed in just enough time to get to your summer celebration, set your alarm 15 minutes earlier. Take that extra time to wake up slow and read something inspirational to set yourself up for success in the day ahead. For anyone who has a tendency to “wake up on the wrong side of the bed,” this will start you off on the right foot as you’re headed to the beach or into the office.

2. Hide the phone.

While it’s completely normal to text while making the walk across campus or listen to music during a workout, try to put away the distraction of devices for a couple minutes out of your day. Zip your phone in your brief case, bury it in your suitcase, and have some time in your own head.

3. Schedule a break.

We plan for work meetings and to watch our favorite TV show, why not write down in the calendar “15 minutes for me?” Pick a day, a time and meet with yourself to do something you enjoy.

4. Go for a walk.

During vacation you take the energy you would normally put towards work and invest it in yourself. Refresh your body and mind by strolling along the beach, hiking a nearby trail, or just seeing where the sidewalk goes. Turn your extra activity into an escape.

Your life is a gift to others but it’s also a blessing to you.

It’s well worth the 15 minutes of your day to remember where you’ve been, embrace where you’re at, and look forward to where you’re going. This mini vacation will turn the every day into a getaway.

4 Ways to Get A 15 Minute Vacation Every Day is a post from: Storyline Blog

An Essential Question to Improve Your Summer Travel

If you’re traveling this summer, there is a chance you’ll be going through an airport or two. Would you mind if I offered some insight?

Photo Credit: lunchtimemama, Creative Commons

It comes from several confrontations with TSA agents and law enforcement personnel whom I thought were on just a bit of a power trip.

But that’s my issue. It might not be yours.

Context is everything.

Last year a TSA agent pulled a jar of hair gel out of my backpack as if it were an Improvised Explosive Device, and held it high above his head to revel in his prize. The jar was larger than the allowed 3.5 ounces.

I reached for it and said, “Okay, I’ll just take some out of it and put it in a little bag and you can keep the rest.”

His voice boomed over the din of the inspection area. “This is now the property of the United States Government.” Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked like he might have moved his other hand closer to his Taser.

I stepped away, visibly annoyed.

It didn’t help that the agent looked like the prison guard character George “Pornstache” Mendez in the show Orange is the New Black.

In case you haven’t seen the show, this is not a good association.

Then, just a few weeks later, my wife and I took our adult daughter to the airport for a long trip she was taking.

Her bags were checked, she had her boarding pass, and the three of us stood near the security line so we could tell her goodbye. Then a voice carrying great authority said behind us, “I’m sorry, but you can’t stand here – you’ll have to move along.”

All I saw was the dark-sleeved arm of the airport police officer as he gestured for us to break up our illegal assembly.

For me, time stands still in moments like this.

If I choose option A, I look directly at the officer’s name badge, call him by that name and ask for his supervisor because he obviously has taken his authority too seriously. I know from experience that this will embarrass my daughter and wife.

Option B is to exercise civil disobedience and simply refuse the order. Maybe even sit down in an “Occupy Airport” action.

Option C means we choose compliance and do what the fascist says.

I have done all of these things, and the choices spun in my brain like the top in the movie Inception waiting for me to decide.

Still debating my response, I turned to fully face the officer, and he smiled.

Then I smiled. He was a former student of mine who had become a cop. He was a friend of the family, saw us gathering for a group hug, and decided to join in.

So I guess there is an Option D now—first check to see if this person is punking you.

But nothing beats what the writer Michael Eric Dyson told me when he came to our Writer’s Symposium.

Dyson writes a lot about race, and is an electrifying speaker and writer who is constant demand around the world. Dyson was trying to hurry through an airport, and he was chosen for a secondary inspection by a young TSA agent. Dyson was incredulous.

“I never get flagged at airports,” he said.

“I travel enough—I know about belts and shoes and cell phones.”

But the young TSA agent, who was also black, asked Dyson to stick out his arms for a pat-down. When the agent’s face got close to Dyson’s, the agent whispered:

“I loved your book on Tupac. I read it on my breaks from work. Would you mind signing my copy?”

The agent pulled out his worn copy of Holler If You Hear Me, and Dyson happily signed it for his new best friend.

As you travel this summer, you’ll be annoyed by lots of strangers. You’ll have options in how to respond.

Which option will you choose?

An Essential Question to Improve Your Summer Travel is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why Everyone Should Follow the Inverted Golden Rule

Some of the meanest things we ever hear come from ourselves.

Photo Credit: Christopher Michel, Creative Commons

“You are a failure.”
“That idea stinks.”
“If people knew who you really were . . .”
“You are a fraud.”

These were the thoughts racing through my mind in the middle of the night. Tasks at work and home were pilling up and I felt like I was losing ground.

Everyone gets anxious sometimes, and I am no different.

Honestly, I felt overwhelmed.

I was not sure how I was going to get everything done and I was wasting precious time thinking about how people would react to my inevitable crash landing. This time, these familiar and powerful statements of self-condemnation were completely out of proportion to the reality of the problem.

For years I have heard various people talk about the problem of negative self-talk — that discouraging inner voice that we use to discourage and condemn ourselves.

It amazes me how mean we can be to ourselves.

We would never say such harsh, critical things to people in real life.

The Golden Rule directs that we should do unto to others as we would have them do unto us. That is, we should treat other people the way we would want to be treated if we were in their situation.

If we messed up or failed, we would want people to extend grace. We should do the same for others.
If we were homeless and hungry, we would want people to be generous and help us get shelter and food. We should do the same for others.
If we were homeless and hungry, we would want people to be generous and help us get shelter and food. We should do the same for others.
If we were trapped in modern slavery, we would want people to come rescue us. We should do the same for others.

The Golden Rule focuses our attention outward toward others.

But what about how we behave around ourselves?

Too often we are hypercritical of ourselves.

We question our own motives and actions and fan the flame of our insecurities. Our sleep and rest is frequently interrupted by a condemning laundry list of all the things that we have left undone.

If a friend were drifting off to sleep, we would never call to remind him of all of his undone tasks. We would not declare him a failure or a fraud.

The opposite is true.

If he called us at night and confessed his self-doubts, we would remind him that hope springs eternal, his struggles are common to everyone, and tomorrow is a new day to keep working hard.

Kicking someone while they are down is culturally unacceptable.

Everywhere except in our own inner dialogue.

Some may imagine that the negative voices are just the unvarnished hard truths about us, without the unnecessary social niceties. Although the underlying issues may contain seeds of truth, the mean negative voices are often laced with deceptions.

Perhaps we need an Inverted Golden Rule for how we treat ourselves. In addition to treating others, as we would like to be treated we should:

“Do unto ourselves as we would do unto others.”

If we would not be willing to publicly say it to someone else, we should not say it to ourselves.

If we would extend grace to others, we should not condemn ourselves.
If we would encourage others, we should not discourage ourselves.
If we would remind others that neither their best nor worst acts define them, we should not label ourselves with exaggerated negative identity statements.

That night I worked to silence my own negative voices and focus on working through my tasks, communicating with colleagues, and delegating where I could. It turns out I did not have a crash landing and most of the things worked out over time.

What would it look like if we followed both the Golden Rule and the Inverted Golden Rule?

Why Everyone Should Follow the Inverted Golden Rule is a post from: Storyline Blog

Overcoming The Overwhelming Tendency to Panic

Here’s a tidbit about writing and the overwhelming temptation to panic. My guess is it applies nearly as strongly to painting and public speaking and for that matter child rearing, plumbing and lawyering.

Hope it helps.

Photo Credit: Elvert Barnes, Creative Commons

I’ve been writing for a long time now and I’ve noticed a mental cycle that often threatens to derail me.

It goes like this:

The night before a start into a writing session I feel excited, hopeful and confident.

I just know the next morning I’m going to get 3,000 terrific words done and wrap up an entire chapter in a single day. So the next morning I sit at my desk, read the previous session’s work and then can’t come up with anything.

The words aren’t there. I’m there.

My body is in the chair. My computer is there, but the words are gone.

This has happened to me at least a hundred times now. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I absolutely hate this part of the creative process.

It’s not like building a fence where you just lift a hammer and drive a nail. Creative work requires you to show up consistently and it also requires something else to show up that, honestly, you have little control over.

Or at least that’s the way it feels.

The temptation when the words don’t show up is to panic.

I almost did it this morning. I mean I felt like the world was ending, that I’d have to sell the house, sell the car, sell lawnmower because, you know, I’d lost the words forever.

But these days I’ve learned to do three things to avoid the panic:

Remind myself how many times this has happened before. By this I mean it’s happened with every book, and yet every book got written. Whatever book I’m working on now will get written too.
I calm down. There’s no use in panicking. In fact, many psychologist would say people get addicted to stress and so they exaggerate the negativity in a circumstance in order to feel a sense of drama. This is all too bad, because it will never serve the work. The words will come from calmness, not panic.
I step away. Even if it’s just to walk around in the field behind the house. I get away from the computer, from the stress, then I return and see if the words are there yet. If not, I repeat the process until the following day. Eventually, the words come. Often after lunch.

The point of this post, though, was to say we all get into situations where we think things are going to be terrible. And the sad truth is they might.

But honestly, the chances of things going really badly dramatically increases if we panic.

Now there’s something to panic about.

Overcoming The Overwhelming Tendency to Panic is a post from: Storyline Blog

How Running A Business is Like The Acts Church

Every time I read the book of Acts, I’m a little envious. But just a little.

All the snake bites and temporary jail time doesn’t appeal to me, but there’s one thing that does: community. And I’m not talking about a short Bible study of age-related peers.

I’m talking about hard-core community.

People who have thrown all their money in together, all their food, their possessions and even their time.

These days that kind of community, at least in America, would be dismissed as a hippie, socialist experiment, many of which failed in the 60’s.

But then I realized the other day that, to a small degree, I actually do live in a community like that.

I mean I interact daily with a small, loving team of faithful believers who’ve thrown their dreams, their goals and yes, even their money together so that we each depend on each other to live and work and survive.

And amazingly, that community is called a business.

I know it sounds crazy but the reality is I depend on my team and my team depends on me.

We depend on each other.

It didn’t start this way and I never intended this. It’s just that, as our conference grew and our customer service needs grew and as we had better and better ideas, we had to staff those initiatives.

Suddenly I had a payroll that required us to wake up every morning and keep the hamster wheel spinning.

Business is often seen as bad.

But that’s usually the perspective of young twenty-somethings who don’t have a lot of experience providing for others or, for that matter, completely providing for themselves.

What those same idealists often discover (or at least I hope they will) is that business can be quite beautiful.

And I think it’s something God intended.

Whether we’re trading fish for potatoes or cabbage for firewood, humans aren’t designed to be able to make it on their own.

We were each given skills and ambitions and passions that are unique, and yet dependent on others to create a complete and substantial life.

The reality is our business doesn’t just exist to make money.

It also exists to create community. And those two things go together, because houses and baby food and gas for cars isn’t free.

We need to be competent in our jobs or the community suffers.

But in the end, none of us will remember the money.

We will only remember each other, and how when one of us wanted to buy a house to bring a baby home to, the rest of us got off our rear ends and worked a little harder.

Jesus bless the church. Jesus bless the family. Jesus bless the community. Jesus bless the business. Jesus redeem every dark thing to make it light.

How Running A Business is Like The Acts Church is a post from: Storyline Blog

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 Successful People Beat Stress

No matter what your life looks like, you will have to deal with stress. The difference is some will let stress derail or deflate them while others will use it to their advantage. We want to do the second.

via Quartz

50 Global Entrepreneurs Recommend 50 Books That Forever Impacted Their Lives

via Entrepreneur

I’ve had a few people ask me lately for my reading list and it’s always hard to think of books on the spot. But there are several on this list that I love and a few we’ve even read as a staff.

A World Without Work

via The Atlantic

Very interesting discussion about work. Would you work if you didn’t “have” to? It’s a long article but worth the read. Honestly, I love my work so much I can’t imagine life without it.

British Man Complains About Crooked Bread And Gets Perfect Response

via Mashable

This one will hopefully make you laugh, especially if you’ve ever dealt with criticism that seemed a little over-the-top. Love this company’s response to a dumb complaint.

You Don’t Have to Be a Jerk to Win At Work

via Michael Hyatt

This is a fantastic post that speaks to so many of the things I love about my company. Just because we see some successful people being jerks doesn’t mean we need to mimic them.

Five Articles I Sent My Staff This Week is a post from: Storyline Blog

Are You Checking Your Email Too Often?

I don’t get many emails these days.

Before I began writing full time, I was a publicist. Being a publicist means being available on email most of the time. I didn’t want to miss an urgent media request or an important question from a client.

I would send at least 100 pitch emails a week, and I was always in the middle of multiple lengthy email conversations with different people about one thing or another. Email was a big part of my job.

I didn’t realize how big until I quit my job last fall, and my inbox got much, much quieter.

At first, the sound of crickets was nice.

I liked going to lunch and not dreading returning to an inbox full of time-sensitive requests. I had time and space to write and think and brainstorm—the things I needed time and space to do in my new role as a writer.

After a few weeks though, I grew antsy.

I would start working on an article or a paragraph and then, instinctively click over to my Gmail. Nothing. So I would return to writing and type out another paragraph and then click back over to Gmail again. Still nothing.

Why am I not getting more email? I would ask myself.

Why don’t people need me every hour of every day like they used to?

The truth about my diminishing inbox is it has freed me up to do the work I need to do.

I need to be able to sit and write, undistracted, for long periods of time. Having an email pop up every five to ten minutes would tear me away from my work, and having long conversations over email isn’t really the nature of what I do anymore.

Still, I can’t help but feel less important with a less full inbox.

Email made me feel important. It made me feel needed. It made me feel busy.

But just because email makes you feel more important doesn’t mean you are more important.

I’ve noticed an interesting paradox about myself.

As work gets quieter, less frantic, and less hustle-y, I feel more frantic, more hustle-y and less able to rest.

This is what happens when our self-worth feels threatened.

We get got anxious and hustle-y and all workaholic-like. We cannot, for the life us, just sit still, rest and feel ok amidst the quiet non-existence of our emails.

My friend sent me an article (in an email) the other day that included this quote from Blaise Pascal:

“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest…without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness…his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness.”

This is what I’ve felt the last few months—

the nothingness, the insufficiency, the emptiness and the weakness. It’s uncomfortable, but, as the writer in the article goes onto say, “Without disconnected solitude, we cannot feel the weight of our need; we cannot taste our desperation for God.”

Christians sing “I need Thee every hour” but then we turn to our work and sing “I need me every hour” instead. There is a disconnect here, and it is only discovered when our work and busyness is stripped away and we are forced to face our own nothingness, our own emptiness.

I didn’t know how disillusioned I was about my own importance until work slowed down.

But I’m so glad it did because now I know that above my biggest career aspirations, my most important job is to sit in the quiet and in the rest and hope that one day, I will feel comfortable here.

I hope the same for you.

Are You Checking Your Email Too Often? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Does Getting More Email Make You More Important?

I don’t get many emails these days.

Before I began writing full time, I was a publicist. Being a publicist means being available on email most of the time. I didn’t want to miss an urgent media request or an important question from a client.

I would send at least 100 pitch emails a week, and I was always in the middle of multiple lengthy email conversations with different people about one thing or another. Email was a big part of my job.

I didn’t realize how big until I quit my job last fall, and my inbox got much, much quieter.

At first, the sound of crickets was nice.

I liked going to lunch and not dreading returning to an inbox full of time-sensitive requests. I had time and space to write and think and brainstorm—the things I needed time and space to do in my new role as a writer.

After a few weeks though, I grew antsy.

I would start working on an article or a paragraph and then, instinctively click over to my Gmail. Nothing. So I would return to writing and type out another paragraph and then click back over to Gmail again. Still nothing.

Why am I not getting more email? I would ask myself.

Why don’t people need me every hour of every day like they used to?

The truth about my diminishing inbox is it has freed me up to do the work I need to do.

I need to be able to sit and write, undistracted, for long periods of time. Having an email pop up every five to ten minutes would tear me away from my work, and having long conversations over email isn’t really the nature of what I do anymore.

Still, I can’t help but feel less important with a less full inbox.

Email made me feel important. It made me feel needed. It made me feel busy.

But just because email makes you feel more important doesn’t mean you are more important.

I’ve noticed an interesting paradox about myself.

As work gets quieter, less frantic, and less hustle-y, I feel more frantic, more hustle-y and less able to rest.

This is what happens when our self-worth feels threatened.

We get got anxious and hustle-y and all workaholic-like. We cannot, for the life us, just sit still, rest and feel ok amidst the quiet non-existence of our emails.

My friend sent me an article (in an email) the other day that included this quote from Blaise Pascal:

“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest…without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness…his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness.”

This is what I’ve felt the last few months—

the nothingness, the insufficiency, the emptiness and the weakness. It’s uncomfortable, but, as the writer in the article goes onto say, “Without disconnected solitude, we cannot feel the weight of our need; we cannot taste our desperation for God.”

Christians sing “I need Thee every hour” but then we turn to our work and sing “I need me every hour” instead. There is a disconnect here, and it is only discovered when our work and busyness is stripped away and we are forced to face our own nothingness, our own emptiness.

I didn’t know how disillusioned I was about my own importance until work slowed down.

But I’m so glad it did because now I know that above my biggest career aspirations, my most important job is to sit in the quiet and in the rest and hope that one day, I will feel comfortable here.

I hope the same for you.

Does Getting More Email Make You More Important? is a post from: Storyline Blog

What The Confederate Flag Means and What We Can Learn From The Fiasco

Twenty years ago I worked at a Christian summer camp.

Shortly after I introduced myself to my roommate for the summer, he took a giant rebel flag from his suitcase and hung it above his bed. He told me he was from South Carolina and wanted the world to know it.

I laughed.

Later in the day, though, one of the guys across the hall came in and introduced himself. We made conversation for a while and I noticed he kept looking up at the flag. I asked why and he said that, as a black man, it was pretty offensive.

My new roommate looked shocked. What do you mean? He asked.

From there a great conversation ensued.

The flag meant two different things to to different people.

In the end, my roommate took the flag down, apologizing to the guy across the hall. And to be honest, we all had a great summer and there was no tension after that.

Still, I learned a little something that day.

I learned that, while we think words and symbols are fixed, they aren’t. The meaning of things change and there’s nothing we can do about it.

In fact, if we keep using words and symbols from the perspective of their old meanings, we end up looking like a fool, as though “our perception of meaning is the correct perception of meaning.”

My roommate was no racist.

He was a proud South Carolinian who wanted the world to know about his state.

He knew the flag was used to identify a region of the country fighting to keep slaves, but that was a long time ago, and what did it have to do with the here and now?

For my roommate, the flag meant that we fished in muddy rivers and caught lightning bugs in a jar and played the best college football in the country.

He was naive.

As we’ve evolved as a country, that flag has become the symbol of racism and hatred.

The meaning of the flag has changed and too many now perceive it anything but innocent.

And besides, a region of the country defending slavery is nothing to be proud of and a symbol that nods to that dark history shouldn’t be celebrated. Nor is it the appropriate symbol to represent a “southern way of life.”

I’m glad Alabama has removed the rebel flag from it’s government facilities last week.

Photo Credit: Stuart Seeger, Creative Commons

And I hope South Carolina does the same.

The lesson here for all of us is that what we say may not be what other people hear, and smart people pay attention to both.

It’s time for the south to understand that as innocent as they think the flag is, it isn’t perceived that way by far too many Americans.

And healing our racial divides is more important than symbol representing southern pride. The meaning of things evolve and we must evolve too.

What The Confederate Flag Means and What We Can Learn From The Fiasco is a post from: Storyline Blog

How to Get Exactly What You Want And Why Taylor Won Over Apple

I’m sure by now many of you have read the open letter to Apple Taylor Swift posted on tumblr this past weekend. If you haven’t read it, basically she confronted Apple on their decision to provide their new music streaming service for free to customers for the first three months—without compensating the artists.

Photo Credit: Ronald Woan, Creative Commons

I have to admit: I’m a huge fan of Taylor. And seeing this post only grew my affection for her. Not only do I think it’s a worthy cause, the way she went about it was just plain classy and effective.

In fact, it was so effective, Apple officially announced their plan to change their policy.

Her blog post got her exactly what she wanted.

Which got me thinking.

There have been many times in life when I’ve wanted something, or been frustrated with the way someone was doing something, and confronting them on it has gotten me exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

Instead of changing their mind, my attempts made them angry or caused them to dig their heels in.

And yet everyone I know who read Taylor’s blog post (including Apple, it seems) stopped. They listened. And ultimately, we all responded with a big fat round of applause.

Why?

Well… putting her huge platform and the worthy cause aside, I would argue there were three main reasons.

Here is what I think we can learn from Taylor Swift.

She focused on the problem at hand, not Apple’s identity.

So often when we confront someone about something they’ve done to upset us, we say things like, “I can’t believe you would do something like that” or “What kind of person…?”

I’ve been guilty of this. But Taylor takes a different approach.

She actually affirms Apple’s identity, saying, “Apple has been and will continue to be one of my best partners in selling music…” She calls them a “progressive and generous company”.

She then goes on to share her concerns. She presents her case rationally and simply. “Three months is a long time to go unpaid and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for free.”

She avoids the temptation we all have when we’re upset to exaggerate facts or lash out in anger. She simply states what is happening and shares why it’s upsetting to her.

This is brilliant in my opinion. And classy.

Not to mention, it’s a great way to get to the end result you’re looking for—much more than my usual tendency to overflow with accusations and exaggerated claims in my frustration or anger.

We can take a note from Taylor here and the next time we’re upset about something, separate the person (or the company) from the problem at hand. “You’re such a generous person… but this decision you made doesn’t feel generous to me…” We’re much more likely to get what we want this way.

She shared her thoughts and feelings but didn’t make it about her.

Taylor came right out and said, “This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and I can support myself, my band, my crew and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success…”

Not only does this answer a potential objection some people will have to someone with Taylor’s privilege complaining about royalties, it is also a brilliant move to elevate the outcome over her own feelings.

So often, when we enter into a conflict, we let our feelings get in the way of the outcome. So much so that we forget what we even want the outcome to be. Think about the last time you had an argument with a friend or with your spouse.

Isn’t it easy to put winning above what you really want?

Taylor teaches us we don’t have to be the hero of the greater story in order to get the outcome we desire.

In fact, it works best when we elevate others above us, and when we use whatever “privilege” we’ve been blessed with to honor the whole.

She acknowledges their desired outcome and offers a new suggestion.

This is a negotiation tactic I learned in a book called Getting to Yes—but honestly, I’m still not that good at it. Taylor rocks it here. Rather than setting herself against Apple, Taylor acknowledges the positive goal of the company as a whole. She says, “I realize that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress.”

Then she offers an alternate solution in which everyone gets what they want.

Apple wants to offer a platform for paid streaming. Artists want to be paid for their work.

Taylor says, “It’s not too late to change your mind…” She makes a big ask, suggesting they go ahead and offer their streaming service for free for the first few months, but still pay the artists for their work.

The most amazing part of all of this is, Apple says yes. It’s a huge ask. But Apple does it—in large part, I believe because of the way Taylor asks.

Yes, she has a huge platform, millions of followers around the world who love her and listen to what she says. Yes, a huge part of Apple’s revenue will come from her music on their streaming service. So yes, she has power. I applaud her for using the power she has for good.

I believe all of us have more power than we realize when we’re willing to approach problems in this way.

Let’s take a lesson from Taylor Swift.

How to Get Exactly What You Want And Why Taylor Won Over Apple is a post from: Storyline Blog