Donald Miller's Blog, page 36

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.

The Ultimate Guide to Learning Anything Faster

via Entrepreneur

In a world where we have information available at our fingertips, we have to be selective about what we choose to learn and strategic about how we choose to learn it. Here are some great tips to keep you focused and on track.

Why Do People Waste So Much Time At The Office?

via BBC News

The truth is, it’s easy to get distracted. But my team cares about getting as much done in a day as possible. If we can look at the ways most people waste time, we can easily combat many of those most common offenses.

The Hidden Danger that Might Destroy Your Dreams

via Jonathan Milligan

Did you know, if you aren’t intentional, a subtle laziness can creep up on you? Not because you intend to be lazy. Simply because you don’t have a plan in place.

How to Use Reverse Self-Promotion

via Duct Tape Marketing

I love this perspective. It holds fast with our commitment to give our customers access to great content, whether that content is ours or not.

Seven Stupid Mistakes Smart People Make

via Inc

I love how this article addresses some of the blind spots many people have if they’ve easily succeeded in life due to their intellect. It’s good to be smart. It’s also good to remember these seven things.

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

The Only Way to Heal A Narcissist

Over the last decade, psychologists have been carefully studying the increasing trend of narcissism in our American culture, particularly among youth. The number of individuals diagnosed with narcissism personality disorder is growing exponentially.

Photo Credit: Francisco Osorio, Creative Commons

In fact, many researchers are calling it an epidemic.

Those who struggle with narcissism have a grandiose sense of the self.

They believe they are special, entitled, and deserve more than everyone else around them. They take actions to better themselves, their bodies, and their egos. Their friendships are to enhance their own worth, not the other’s. They are navel gazers, constantly asking, “what is in it for me?”

Maybe you know someone like this.

Maybe you are someone like this (although, funny enough, you probably wouldn’t admit it).

Ironically, narcissists, who seem to be caught in a inextricable web of self-absorption, may also struggle immensely with insecurity, anxiety, depression, violence, and self-loathing at times.

This is both an individual and cultural disease.

Even if most of us don’t have a full-fledged personality disorder, deep down, don’t we all have some of the narcissist in us? Just scrolling through social media posts shows our self-absorption is run amuck.

But there may be an antidote.

In the recent HBO hit series, “In Treatment,” Gabriel Byrnes discusses his role as a psychotherapist.

He notes, “Listening, I think, is one of the most profound compliments that you can pay to another person. To truly listen and to feel that you’re heard is deeply fulfilling in a deep human way.” This awareness of listening is an act of empathy.

Hearing the story of another human, and deeply listening to that story, is an act of compassion, altruism, and love. It involves losing yourself and experiencing a “vicarious introspection” into the life of another human being.

To truly hear a story is an act of empathy.

Neurological studies show that altruism is actually a biological response, hard-wired into the brain.

In fact, acts of generosity, empathy, or altruism light up a primitive part of the brain that is usually associated with pleasurable actions like eating good food or sex.

They might actually cure narcissism.

So if you’re starting to fear you’re a little too self-absorbed, stop to listen, think about others instead, and give generously with what you have.

Ironically, in combating narcissism through empathy, the individual who has long suffered from narcissism actually secures the greatest win—a pleasurable biological response—when focused on others.

A cure for their narcissism.

We all win when we listen and act.

Whether it’s through charity, educating others, or advocacy, your actions on behalf of others doesn’t just benefit you—it benefits them as well.

Raising our voices for health and hope for others means better health and hope for everyone.

The Only Way to Heal A Narcissist is a post from: Storyline Blog

Here’s How You Know When You’ve Chosen The Wrong Career

When I graduated from college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life.

Somehow I got a job at a university as an academic advisor — helping students figure out their paths forward while I tried to figure out mine.

Some of the students I worked with weren’t sure what they wanted to do yet, but that was ok—they were freshmen or sophomores who still had time to explore their options. Often the students in the most trouble were the ones who knew exactly what they wanted to do but had been kicked out of their chosen major because of poor grades.

That’s what landed them in my office.

Basically, I worked with would-be engineers who couldn’t pass Physics and would-be doctors who couldn’t pass Anatomy & Physiology. There were aspiring nurses, accountants, forensic scientists, attorneys, and teachers.

And they were all stuck.

Although those students harbored different goals and faced different challenges, in general they shared something in common: they’d chosen a career path based on something other than where their actual gifts and talents could take them.

They were caught in an undertow of misplaced dreams and inevitable failure.

It sounds harsh, I know, but if you’ve chosen a vocation that doesn’t align with who you are, what you enjoy, and what you’re good at, you’ve chosen the wrong career for you.

If you or someone you know is caught in that toxic loop,

you know how draining it is to work against—rather than work with—your natural giftedness and passions. That unsettling feeling, like you’re out of place in your chosen career path, is a function of not really knowing who we are.

As Peter Drucker said, “We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong.”

To deny our weaknesses is to deny ourselves a true opportunity to belong.

So what does it look like to discover your strengths?

There are dozens of personality tests, gifts assessments, and aptitude inventories you can take. You can even hire a career counselor or a life coach to guide you through their process.

But I’m simple and rather cheap, so here’s where I think you should start: pay attention.

Pay attention to whatever success you’ve achieved in school, at work, in relationships, through hobbies, or while volunteering. Listen to feedback and encouragement from others when they comment on your strengths, talents, gifts, abilities, and passions.

Watch to see what projects and pursuits engage and excite you, what situations bring you alive and bring out the best in you.

As you gather this evidence, you’re hopefully illuminating the kind of role in which you might take hold of the belonging Drucker was talking about.

What you find in this journey might surprise you.

What you find might delight you and relieve you. But what you find might also disappoint you at first.

You might find that you’re not meant to be the attorney your father wants you to be, the physician your mother wants you to be, or the stock broker your car payment wants you to be. You might find that you’re not meant to follow in the footsteps of the author, astronaut, or athlete you look up to.

But that’s ok. At least, it will be ok in the long run.

The process of scraping away the strengths and ambitions of others — however painful — is an important first step.

It means finding the freedom to let go of who others expect you to be and who you wish you were so that you can just be who are: created, gifted, and equipped to offer the world a lifetime of meaningful work.

Here’s How You Know When You’ve Chosen The Wrong Career is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Beautiful Advantage of “Things Didn’t Go As Planned”

We have a place up in Canada we call the Malibu Lodge.

It’s isolated at the end of an inlet and is only accessible by taking a boat or a seaplane fifty miles beyond where all the roads end. Because it’s so remote, we need to make just about everything, including our own electricity.

We generate power for the Lodge from a glacier on the property.

It’s not that complicated, really. We use a river that has carved its way down one of the mountains. Two thousand feet up the side of this mountain, we collect water out of the river in a pipe and the force of the gravity pulling the water through the pipe is enough to make a turbine spin in a hydroelectric plant we built near sea level.

I’m still amazed that gravity and a little water we can generate 100 kilowatts of power every minute of every day for free—forever.

The equipment we bought to make the electricity is pretty cheap, actually.

It’s building a road up the side of the mountain to the intake that’s expensive. Every foot of the three miles of road we’ve built so far has been blasted out of solid granite and for any dad with young boys, the idea of blasting miles of road together out of granite is irresistible.

Nothing says fatherhood more, I guess, than a couple sticks of dynamite.

A few winters ago, I decided that we’d build a bridge over the river at the end of the road.

In order to build it, we needed to pour large concrete foundations on each side. These concrete foundations needed to be sturdy to carry the weight of the sixty foot span and the steel I-beams for the bridge.

Photo Credit: The Javorac, Creative Commons

What I didn’t realize though, is how many trips back and forth through the river our big excavator would need to make in order to build the foundation in on the far side. The way it worked out, with all of those trips, we actually ended up building a road through the river. And, guess what? Now we don’t need a bridge. I suppose we could still use the bridge because it’s been built and everything.

But who would want to go over a river when you could drive right through it?

Sometimes you build what you didn’t even mean to build and you end up with something better.

We all set out to build things in our lives.

Things like careers, or relationships, or faith, or confidence or even organizations. And in the process of setting out to build one thing, sometimes we discover that we’ve built something else, too.

Something even more useful; more meaningful; more enduring; something that’s a better fit for us.

Some people talk about “building bridges” to people too.

Usually, it’s when they’re describing how they’re trying to reach out to a friend who’s in the middle of their pain or where the gravity of life has become just too much for them.

People talk about bridges when they talk about how God wants to connect with us too.

But I don’t think I’ll use that phrase anymore.

You see, I’ve built a bridge.

And while I ended up with what I set out to make—a way to get over a river, I ended up with something even better in the process—a way to get through it.

I think that maybe God had in mind the same thing for us when He gave us our friendships and our careers and our faith.

We think at first that we’ve built these things to help us get over the difficulties in life when actually, we figure out later that God was building them to help us get through them.

The Beautiful Advantage of “Things Didn’t Go As Planned” is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why You Should Stop Waiting for Life to Be Perfect

What we have is time. And what we do is waste it, waiting for those big spectacular moments.

We think that something’s about to happen — something enormous and news-worthy — but for most of us, it isn’t. This is what I know: the big moments are the tiny moments.

The breakthroughs are often silent, and they happen in the most unassuming of spaces.

Weddings are momentous, as are births, especially for moms. Beyond those two, though, most of the really significant and shaping moments of my life would be unrecognizable to anyone but me.

That’s how it is.

What I’m tempted to do right now is run you through story after story of how life can change in an instant — an accident, a disease undetected, violence. We know these stories. We hear them all the time. But if you’re like me, sometimes you intentionally don’t hear them. You absently stroke your kids’ heads, you murmur a prayer, less a devout show of faith and more a whimper — not us. Not us.

Photo Credit: Rory MacLeod, Creative Commons

And then you shake it off, square your shoulders, fasten your mind firmly elsewhere — details of the day: library books to return, oil to change and diapers, too.

You comfort yourself with the mindlessness of it, protecting yourself from the reality that your life is actually happening and you might not be there. It’s scary to be there — present, invested, right there on the front line of your life. It’s easier to numb yourself with details and daily doings, waiting around for things to feel spectacular.

But this is it: this is as spectacular as it gets, and you have a choice, to be there or not.

I sat with an old friend today.

She and her husband have endured unimaginable loss throughout the course of their lives, and another very fresh loss in these last months.

We sat in the golden fading light of a Chicago spring. Our kids ran around and around the screen porch, and the grass was impossibly green, almost glowing. And in the midst of all that wild and lush beauty, we sat facing one another, and she told me the particulars of that most recent loss.

What I heard in her voice stunned me, moved me, instructed me.

She was present to it, unafraid. She told me about it unflinchingly, and what I realized is that she decided a long time ago that she wasn’t waiting for perfect and she wasn’t numbing herself against the worst case scenario.

She had seen the worst case scenario, more times over than any of us should have to.

What I saw in her was a vision for how I want to live:

In the midst of one her darkest seasons, twisted with uncertainty, bruised by the words of former friends, she sat with me, present and unarmed by busy-ness. She looked in my eyes and told me they’d be fine. She told me funny and sweet things about her kids, asked me about myself.

She wasn’t waiting for the good part. She knows that these are the good parts, even while they’re the bad parts. She wasn’t shut down, going through the motions. She wasn’t holding tight till this season passed. She was right there with me, right there with her kids, right in all the glory and pain and mess and beauty of a spring night in between everything.

That’s how I want to be.

That’s who I want to be: deeply present in the present, in the mess, in the waiting, in the entirely imperfect right now.

But what my friend knows is that there are no throwaway moments — not when it’s easy, not when it’s hard, not when it’s boring, not when you’re waiting for something to happen.

Throw those moments away at your own peril.

Throw those moments away and you will look back someday, bereft at what you missed, because it’s the good stuff, the best stuff. It’s all there is.

Why You Should Stop Waiting for Life to Be Perfect is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Difference Between an Ordinary Life and an Extraordinary One

I used to think ordinary lives were the low-key, under-the-radar, stay-at-home kind of lives and the extraordinary ones were the ones filled with travel and people and crazy adventure.

I’m learning to see that the dividing line I thought I saw between those lives isn’t really there.

Let me explain.

Have you ever noticed, when you’re watching an inspirational video, how much difference the music makes? The photography might be amazing and the visuals might be inspiring, but what would happen if you turned the music off?

A key element would be missing. Wouldn’t it?

The song without the footage doesn’t quite do it. Neither does the footage without the song. There’s something about the two of them together. They just “pop” in a way nothing else does.

I want my life to “pop” like that.

But what is the difference between a life that “pops” and one that doesn’t?

For a long time I thought that, if life wasn’t quite “popping” the way I wanted it to, I needed to do something epic, something memorable, something amazing.

Lose 20 pounds! Run a marathon! Go on a trip!

Photo Credit: Ariel Parra, Creative Commons

And I guess a lot of fun experiences and interesting memories came from this approach. But I didn’t necessarily get a meaningful life. What’s really done that for me has been quite surprising.

It’s these tiny, almost invisible little decisions.

A decision to let go of a grudge, drink more water, go on a walk, take a deep breath or sit my butt in a chair everyday, writing a few hundred words no one may ever read.

Little changes can make really big differences.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is not that big.

And that should feel like a huge relief to us.

Because you don’t need a big, crazy, larger-than-life adventure to have an extraordinary life.

You might just need the life you have—with some music in the background.

It’s the little things that really matter.

The other day I noticed how, when I’m typing, if I get my fingers just one key off, everything is distorted. Like, if I have my left pointer finger on the “d” instead of the “f” (thank you Mr. Brown for my proper typing form) it’s all messed up.

One millimeter difference changes “gwkki rgwew” to “hello there”.

The tiniest little shift and suddenly everything makes sense.

If you’re in a place where your life feels “off” or where life doesn’t feel particularly incredible, maybe you don’t need a whole new life. Maybe you just need a millimeter adjustment, a tiny new perspective.

And when you sit in that place, maybe everything will look different.

To learn more about what it takes to live a meaningful life, join us for Storyline Conference this year in Chicago. It is truly life-changing.

The Difference Between an Ordinary Life and an Extraordinary One is a post from: Storyline Blog

5 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.

The Habits Behind Creative, Successful, Productive People

via Washington Post

This interview with Gretchen Reuben is great. One of the things I especially loved was what she said about leisure. If we don’t learn to rest well, we’ll never reach our capacity for work.

The Necessity of Tears

by William Paul Young

One of the huge benefits of my team is we’re a drama-free zone. This comes from being emotionally healthy, I believe. Emotionally healthy teammates is a must for a healthy workplace.

A Four Letter Word that Can Transform Your Productivity

via Fast Company

We’ve been working really hard lately to crack every code of productivity we can. When we see how many people we can serve when we’re more productive, it motivates us even further.

Supercharge Your Social Life by Tweaking One Tiny Aspect of Your Personality

via Brain Pickings

The advice in this article doesn’t just work for social settings (although it’s brilliant there). It works in a team environment and it’s something we’re constantly thinking about in terms of customer service.

5 Ways Pessimism is Ruining Your Life

by Michael Hyatt

Negativity can really kill a vibe in an office. In fact, I don’t bring negative people on my staff. It just slows everything down. Here are five things pessimism costs you.

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

When Life Feels Boring, Here’s What Might Be Happening

Callings go through seasons.

Sometimes you’re in an exciting season in your calling. You know what you want to do, you’re pursuing your dreams and you’re achieving success.

Sometimes you’re in a disappointing season.

You took a risk, things didn’t work out and you feel like you’ve failed.

And then sometimes, or a lot of the time, you’re in a *blah* season—a time when you’re not unhappy with your job or current circumstances, but you’re not thrilled either. You’re pretty sure there’s something else out there for you, but you don’t know what it is, and you don’t know when it will be clear.

Photo Credit: Holly Lay, Creative Commons

During these times, it is tempting to get restless and go look for something exciting to do. But let me challenge you here for a minute to not do that just yet.

Instead, stay where you are and wait.

I know, this is a lesson we don’t hear often these days, and it could be that it is time for you to move on. But it could be that more is happening in your heart, mind, passions and skills in this “blah” season than you realize, and in order to fully reap the benefits, it’s important for you to just sit still.

A mentor of mine calls this waiting season a time to “let the land lie fallow”—an agricultural term that basically means a year or season when you plant and grow nothing.

You let the land rest.

In the Mosaic law, the Israelites were told to plant and harvest for six years, “But in the seventh year, the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord.

Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards” (Leviticus 25:4).

Can you imagine?

An entire year of Sabbath. It looks and feels boring, but in the soil a lot is happening that will benefit the farmer and the crops for next year. When the land lies fallow, the soil can regenerate. Its nutrients are restored and replenished, and the next year, after some rest, it is ready to produce.

There were many spiritual reasons God commanded this of his people. Here are a few mentioned in Matthew Henry’s commentary:

To remind them of their dependence on God and to use the fruit of their land to his glory.
With a year off from business, they had more time to get to know God’s law.
“They were reminded of the easy life man lived in paradise, when he ate of every good thing…. Labor and toil came in with sin.”
“This year of rest typified the spiritual rest which all believers enter into through Christ…. Through him we are eased of the burden of worldly care and labor…and we are enabled and encouraged to live by faith.”

I love that last reason.

Sometimes in the pursuit of dreams, in all of the hustling and trying and striving, we forget that it’s not all up to us.

Our dreams and successes aren’t what define us.

We forget where our true worth lies, in Christ and Christ alone. We forget to rest in that truth and sometimes when there is no clear direction for what’s next and we’re growing anxious, we just need to rest.

Then, next year, we may be ready for harvest.

When Life Feels Boring, Here’s What Might Be Happening is a post from: Storyline Blog

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do With Your Life

When one has a literature degree and no plans for graduate school or a career in teaching, and no real sense of what the word “vocation” means, there are few options. This was the situation I faced after I graduated from college.

Photo Credit: Luftphilia, Creative Commons

Maybe you can relate. You’ve got a degree but you aren’t sure what to do with it.

Anyway, so I did what everyone with no marketable skills seems to do in my situation.

I went to work for a church.

Kidding! I really did go work for a church, but I was kidding about the people with no marketable skills part. It’s just that I had no marketable skills. And this church hired me.

The church had a heart for urban ministry. Sort of. It owned a coffee house in the city where musicians, dramatists, and other artsy people would perform on a regular basis. People came in from the streets to hear the music and, hopefully, a good news message.

Some of the musicians and actors who came through are still touring and are now very famous.

Most, mercifully, have found other means of employment.

In addition to my assignment as manager of this coffee house, I was in charge of the youth group of the church that owned it. The thinking was that, as people came off the street into the coffee house, they would want to become part of the church. It was a good theory, but it never happened.

I did this for three years.

I knew I wasn’t good at what I was doing, but I felt that God had led me to this place. And I felt like there was no way out. It wasn’t the first time I asked God, “What were you thinking?” but when I asked it this time, the stakes were higher. I was newly married, and I was dragging my wife through this vocational crisis with me.

My wife’s uncle sat me down one day and asked me how long I planned on doing this coffee house/church gig. Those weren’t his exact words. He was a biblical scholar who had many leather-lined books in his study.

We talked about my job and my future. And finally he asked me a question no one else had ever asked me:

“What do you know how to do?”

I thought for a while, and finally said, “I can write.”

“Then let’s figure out a way to get you developed as a writer,” he said. We brainstormed some ideas, and finally arrived at the field of journalism.

What my wife’s uncle did was, as Parker Palmer describes, surround me with a force field that made me want to grow from the inside out – “a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.”

Within months I was in journalism school.

I was fulfilling Palmer’s definition of vocation:

“This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself, but that are nonetheless compelling.”

I needed that uncle’s voice in my head. I needed someone to take an interest in me. I needed him to ask the hard question and set me on the path to my true vocation. I think we all need that.

With his questions and encouragement, my vocation has grown.

I still want to be a great journalist and exercise the gifts given to me.

But who I really want to be is that uncle. So let me be that for you.

If you are in a place where you’re not sure what your vocation should be, let me ask you a question:

What are you really good at? What do you feel you can’t not do, for reasons you are unable to explain and don’t fully understand yourself?

Maybe, if you can answer that question yourself, you’ll find a vocation, like I have, that brings you lots of contentment and joy—in addition to a paycheck.

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do With Your Life is a post from: Storyline Blog

What You’re Missing When You’re A Perfectionist

A few nights ago, I was surfing through television channels, and I came upon a gymnastics competition and broke out into a cold sweat. Here’s why.

Back in 2012, I spent way too much time watching Olympic gymnastics. I cheered at victories, got teary over the back-stories, and yelled mature things like “We were robbed!” at referees who were both oblivious and unresponsive to my complaints.

Photo Credit: Erin Costa, Creative Commons

After the closing ceremonies, I made a decision. I just can’t watch gymnastic competitions any more. I know this statement will not only incur the wrath of the gymnastic community, but I will most likely also receive a warning from the IOC.

But I will hold fast to my decision.

Let me explain.

Over and over again, it was the same story: Someone performed an almost flawless routine and landed with the tiniest of extra steps. Their coaches put their faces in their hands, the commentators said things like “there goes the Gold,” and their mothers begin to sob uncontrollably.

All of those years of training and sacrifice and nothing to show for it but shame.

“It’s just a little step folks,” I said. “For goodness sakes! They were hurling themselves through the air like a human boomerang! Can’t they just do a little bunny hop? Just one teeny mistake?”

The answer from the collective judges was a resounding “NO” as the young loser gymnasts were herded into windowless, black vans and driven straight to a camp in Siberia to spend the rest of their days ruminating upon their losses and eating fish soup and bread.

OK, I’ll admit to being a little dramatic here.

But here’s my problem.

The discomfort I felt from watching the competition (and the absolute perfection required) comes from the fact that my life and faith is anything but perfect. Not only do I rarely stick my landings, but I trip and fall and miss my mark more times than not.

I falter and wobble and blow it on a regular basis. Somehow I get through and finish my “routine,” but it’s rarely pretty and never perfect.

Never.

I’ve had my bouts with perfectionism.

For many years I thought I could do it right, and those who missed their mark, well, they should be pitied. But I’m weary of that kind of pressure and judgment. The longer I live, the less I think Jesus is asking me to be perfect. Rather, he asks me to invite him into the stumbles and bobbles, to lean on him precisely because I can’t do it right. And in the midst of it, what he does ask of me is to love.

Love is always messy.

This is why my new sport of choice is volleyball. Beach volleyball. (At my age, watching not playing!)

The players dive for the ball, get sand in their teeth and down their shorts. The volleyballs hit the line and often go out of bounds. The players fumble a lot of shots, while making many of them too.

Better yet, they have someone next to them who’s always looking out for them, intent on setting them up to make a play and look good. They slap each other on the back when they make a mistake and high five when they do well. And a team can lose a whole set and come back to win to whole tournament!

How great is that?

So that’s why I’m beach volleyball’s newest fan.

It speaks to me of the journey I’m on, feeling no shame for being human and encouragement when I stumble.

And while I’m at it, I think I’ll watch baseball too. In that game, everyone is just rooting for you to make it safely home.

What You’re Missing When You’re A Perfectionist is a post from: Storyline Blog