Donald Miller's Blog, page 37

Why You Have So Many Acquaintances But Not Many Friends

Recently I had to have a hard conversation with a friend.

It was one of those conversations you put off for a long time, thinking you can just ride it out, hoping things will correct on their own. The tension had been building for awhile. Small things, really, but neither of us wanted to bring it up. 

Photo Credit: Vanessa P., Creative Commons

One day, my husband asked what I was waiting for. I had my list of excuses: “Well, you see, there’s really no point…” “What would I say?” But he pushed me. 

Why are you really putting it off? He asked. 

“I’m afraid that if I tell her what I’m thinking, I’m going to lose a friend.” 

As soon as I said it out loud, I realized how unfounded this was.

First of all, what kind of friendship is it if we can’t really be honest with each other? Second of all, I needed to give my friend more credit. Did I really think that, if I was honest about how I felt, the friendship would end?

I knew the truth was it probably wouldn’t.

So I met with my friend that next week and talked about how I was feeling.

I went into the conversation nervous, but as soon as I started to share, my nerves calmed. She listened to me so graciously as I shared what I was feeling. I made sure to talk about myself (“When this happens, it makes me feel…), rather than blaming. She apologized for her part in it and then told me how she was feeling, too.

We both took turns listening and apologizing. Whatever tension had been between us melted.

After we talked, I felt so much closer to her.

To be honest, I know it could have easily gone the other way. Sometimes we share our thoughts or feelings with someone and they listen graciously, like my friend did. Other times, we’re met with resistance—defensiveness, anger, blame.

But at least we can see, then, that this is not a right friendship for us.

You can’t really be friends with a person who can’t be honest and listen.

I’ve spent so much of my life settling for acquaintances and calling them friends.

I would avoid being really honest about what I was feeling—either pretending I wasn’t feeling it, or talking myself out of it for some reason, or just stewing about it, without talking.  

One thing would usually pile on top of another until I couldn’t take it. 

I would explode about it. Or stay quiet. The friendship would inevitably end. 

And just like that, my fear that friendships would end would become its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

As I acted out my fear of losing friends, I would lose them anyway. And usually, I would lose them over something that could be easily avoided—if I had just been willing to be honest much sooner.  

There’s an epidemic of loneliness in our culture and I think our unwillingness to be honest is causing it. Storyline Blog

What I Learned About Limitations From My Friend in a Wheelchair

The truth is we all have limitations in life.

For some of us, these are physical limitations. Maybe an injury, for example, or a birth defect. For others, limitations are more emotional, spiritual or mental. Some limitations are self-imposed and some of them are put on us by something outside of us.

Either way, We can have two approaches to limitations. We can either let them define us or we can choose to overcome them to achieve the things we desire.

Take Jordan, for example.

I first met Jordan when she attended our Storyline Conference last year. It was part of what was, for her, an epic journey from Orlando, Florida to San Diego, California. For most people, getting on a cross-country flight wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

But it was for Jordan.

This was the first time Jordan had flown in ten years.

Jordan was born with a neuromuscular atrophy disease that began to show its face when she was six years old. Over the last 18 years, she has dealt with the slow loss of the major functions in her body. Which, among other things, has left her confined to a wheelchair.

Traveling is not easy for Jordan.

It involves being carried down the jetway to her seat and finding a way to load her $30,000 wheelchair under the plane.

If anybody understands limitations, it’s Jordan. But this is what makes her story so inspiring.

At a new year’s party with her friends, Jordan decided this year she wanted to travel across the country to the west coast, where she was born. As part of that trip, they wanted to attend the Storyline Conference in San Diego.

When I met Jordan in person, I nearly cried.

First of all, I realized how many “limitations” I claim in my own life that aren’t really limitations at all. If Jordan could overcome her physical limitations to get to the conference—as well as her anxieties about flying—why was I wasting time complaining about things like bad traffic or a full schedule?

Second, it made me think about how even the things in our lives that really do limit us (Jordan can’t get out of her wheelchair, for example, without significant help) can become the most extraordinary parts of our stories if we allow them.

It’s really a matter of attitude.

And Jordan had one of the best attitudes of anyone I’ve ever met.

I will never forget the story of Jordan flying all the way across the country to come to the Storyline Conference. Her story reminds me of the stories of so many who come together each year to learn how to live a better story.

What would it look like for you to take a risk, despite your limitations?

Even seemingly small decisions can have big results.

For more about Jordan’s story, check out this short (20 minute) video.

Join us at Storyline Conference this year, despite your limitations. We’d really love to have you.

What I Learned About Limitations From My Friend in a Wheelchair 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.

One of My Favorite Ways to Add Magic to My Life

by Glennon Doyle Melton

If you’re in need of a good laugh, you’ll love this. Take this advice and you can take any boring old day and turn it into one for the record books.

Three Things I Know Are True: Taking Risks

by Chris Guillabeau

Taking risks is a natural part of life and business. If you’re not taking risks, you’re not experiencing the best of life. Appreciate these three tips from my friend Chris. Great advice for anyone who is ready (or not) to take a risk.

5 Steps for Engineering a Happy Company Culture

via Inc

We already have such positive work environment, sometimes I can’t believe how much fun we have working together. I quickly noticed how many of these tips we have right. We want to make sure we keep it that way.

Relationships are More Important Than Ambition

via The Atlantic

Although our team is a very driven and ambitions one, one of the things I value about us so much is how much we genuinely care about one another. That care comes through in how we treat our customers and makes us feel good about our work.

Why Zappos Pays Employees to Quit

via Harvard Business Review

This is a radical idea to make sure your employees are committed to their job and I love the concept. If I wasn’t already certain my team was completely committed to our objectives, I might consider implementing it.

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

How to Get Through The Not-So-Graceful Beginning

During a stretch of the gets-dark-so-early winter, my husband and I tried each weekend to make chicken tikka masala, something we love to order at Indian restaurants but had never made at home.

Photo Credit: Cristian Bortes, Creative Commons

In the process, I recognized an impulse in myself that pipes up whenever I try (or even ponder trying) something new.

It was dressed this way in our attempts at masala:

“Do we even have the right recipe? So ‘garam masala’ is a powder? Oh…the chicken has to marinate? Ok, this takes a lot of dishes. Really, eating at the Indian restaurant only costs about twenty bucks. We’d be eating sooner if we just picked it up.”

This monologue reveals my distaste for the unwieldy, unpredictable fits and starts that accompany the first stages of any good work, be it a recipe or something slightly more significant.

As someone who likes efficiency,

(and to be quite honest, likes appearing to be smooth and already adept at various activities), those bumbling steps at the beginning can make a task seem insurmountable and un-worth it to me.

It feels like all the hurdles meant for a 400-meter race are lined up base to base and squeezed together in only the first fifteen meters of track.

To try to get over one hurdle is to accidentally knock three down is to get tangled in between them while you’re setting them back up (is this even how you set them up?) is to have to step backward and forward and into your neighbor’s lane all at the same time.

The inelegant redirection and circling back around it takes to get something going is frustrating, but here’s what I’m often discouraged and then encouraged to remember:

You can’t get to the good work until you do the bumbling around.

Those awkward and fidgety first attempts that masquerade as wastes of time are actually the only way to make it to the work that matters.

Meaningful moments of process settle on us after a thousand tiny other moments that felt like what-not-to-dos. The rough drafts and first rounds and dress rehearsals I wish I could fast-forward through to arrive at a place where I’m actually doing something actually are the doing something.

Sometimes there is simply no graceful way to begin.

Before the ritual of productive routine and the satisfaction of honed discipline have taken shape, you’re just fumbling over crowded hurdles wondering if adding twice as much of whatever tandoori is as the recipe calls for was a good idea. Effective and hitting-your-stride and energizing come after and only after clunky and feels-like-amateur-hour and cumbersome.

I’m far too often daunted by the clumsy start of things.

Whatever the work of our days looks like, at the beginning of a new season, a new project, or sometimes just at the beginning of a new morning, we have to be willing to stumble along uneven steps before our work feels fruitful.

I want to stop trying or expecting to embody some kind of automatic, polished gracefulness in my beginnings, and instead practice knowing that there is grace for my beginnings, chicken-tikka-masala-related or otherwise.

How to Get Through The Not-So-Graceful Beginning is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why I Have A No Drama Policy

I have a friend named Paul who has set up his automated email signature to read “No Drama.” At first, I thought it was an odd thing to add to every email you send out, but then I realized how much drama we unnecessarily create in life.

And it doesn’t serve us in our work or our lives.

Photo Credit: Transformer18, Creative Commons

My friend is one of the world’s leading YouTube experts.

Companies are always bringing him in to help them make the most of their YouTube efforts, and yet he’s always calm and collected. He never panics, mainly because he realizes there’s so little to actually panic about.

I find I create drama, mostly, as a sideways way of playing the victim.

If I perceive a situation as harder than it really is, I have all kinds of excuses to procrastinate, be rude to people, or just turn in inferior work.

Making a bigger deal out of something than I need to causes tension in relationships and my career. People are generally attracted to others who are calm, especially under pressure.

When we can find peace in our circumstances, even difficult ones, we bring that peace to the world. Storyline Blog

Do You Filter Your Relationships? You Probably Should.

Growing up as a Christian I was taught I should forgive and accept everybody. I still believe that. But what forgiving and accepting has looked like over the years has changed.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received was given to me by my friend Ben. We were taking a break from a writing project, sitting out on my deck when I brought up some trouble I was having with a friend.

I’d grown a little tired of this friend using me and I was losing trust.

Ben said something I’d never forget.

He said You know, Don, there are givers and takers in this life, I got rid of the takers years ago and I’ve been better for it. I’d recommend you do the same. To be sure, this was reductionistic but Ben was making a general point.

The point is this: Some people aren’t trustworthy. He’s right. And if we don’t believe that, I think we’re being naive.

I took Ben’s advice.

I let the friend go and I’ve hardly talked to him since. I simply lost trust in him. There were too many lies, too many victim speeches, too much manipulation. It’s remarkable to me how some people can’t learn and can’t change.

He’d had a track record of building communities only to hurt people, play the victim and then walk away and build another.

To me, though, letting my friend go doesn’t contradict being accepting and forgiving. In fact, it was much easier to forgive my friend after I created a strong boundary against his schemes. I have no ill will against him, in fact, I’m grateful, my friend taught me what an untrustworthy person looks like and I am no longer naive.

These days I have a filter against the kinds of people I’ll be close to.

Photo Credit: Loren Kerns, Creative Commons

Here are three kinds of people I keep at a distance:

False Victims: If somebody identifies as a victim (even a strong pessimistic attitude toward life) I keep my distance. Sooner or later people who identify as a victim are going to paint you as an oppressor. Victims need to be victims of somebody, and you can count on it that that somebody is going to be you eventually. Believe it or not, there are people who want to be victims because if they are victims they don’t have to take responsibility for their lives and they think they will attract help or a rescuer. Certainly you may wrong a friend, we all do, but you want friends who will talk openly and honestly about what you’ve done and make amends, not flop on the floor like a European soccer player.

If somebody is overly victim-like, be careful.

Bullies: The quickest way to identify a bully is to notice what a person laughs at. Bullies do not laugh at themselves, they laugh at others. If somebody makes fun of others but isn’t self deprecating, they’re a taker and not a giver. Ever heard a loud-mouth political talk-show host make a self-deprecating joke? Most likely not. Bullies make great radio-show hosts, for sure. I keep my distance from people who can’t laugh at themselves and have zero friends who aren’t objective about themselves and others. There’s an entire Pandora’s box that goes along with this personality and I’m not interested. If you have friends who are bullies, it may be because they “protect” you in some way. I’d keep my distance all the same. Bullies protect others on the condition that others submit. That’s an unhealthy relationship.

Get some strength and learn to protect yourself. You don’t need them to do that for you.

Overly Religious: I love people who have a sincere, open and honest faith. These are some of my favorite people. But when a person starts proof-texting using Bible verses about why they’re right and somebody else is wrong (even if it’s true) I’ll keep my distance. This goes along with bullying, to be honest. It’s all about controlling others. When somebody’s faith helps them realize their own depravity and walk in honesty, I want them close, but when somebody uses religion to gain authority, I’m out.

All of this may sound calloused, but as we get older, we realize there are people in the world who refuse to mature. Maturity means we are honest, safe and transparent. A mature person understands their faults and admits to them. An immature person is looking for power in some kind of game.

If you want to be mature, surround yourself by mature people.

Am I being unkind, leaving people behind? Perhaps. But being left behind was their decision.

If a person wants to lie, make fun of others or not deal with their own depravity, they need to spend some time alone until they can learn to grow up.

I learned a lot about how to be a better person and how to surround myself with better people from Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s book Safe People (not a sponsored link and I’m not compensated for my recommendation).

If you find yourself struggling with the quality of people you’re surrounded by, consider reading Safe People and creating some personal boundaries for who you’re willing to interact with. Another benefit of reading Safe People was that it helped me realize the many ways I was unsafe. I’d like to be more safe to my friends, for sure.

What kind of people do you try to surround yourself with? What are the qualities that you look for in friends? What’s an absolute no for you?

Do You Filter Your Relationships? You Probably Should. is a post from: Storyline Blog

What You Can Learn About Being Yourself From Duck Dynasty

How hard would it be to stay “yourself” after becoming extremely successful?

Last year the Storyline team got to spend a few days with Willie and Korie Robertson. To be honest, I was a little star struck. And more than intimidated.

What do you say to one of the most recognizable couples in America?

And yet, within a few minutes, Willie had us all in stitches. He’s literally one of the funniest, most disarming people you’d ever hope to meet.

Since then, Betsy and I have enjoyed watching their family positively influence the world.

In November, Korie will be speaking at the Storyline Conference in Chicago.

We asked Korie to come because the whole point of Storyline is to help people live the kind of story that changes the world around them. Few of us will be as impactful as Korie, but in our own little worlds, we can be just as influential.

Specifically, I’ll be asking Korie how she stays sane under such incredible pressure.

Her son is getting married, her daughter was on Dancing with the Stars, her Father-in-law is known to shoot from the hip on controversial political and theological topics, her husband is so popular that the Governor of Texas literally had to get between him and a crowd at an LSU game so he didn’t get mobbed.

Imagine that, being so popular that a Presidential hopeful acted as your body guard!

I’ll be asking Korie a few questions at the conference.

How does she keep her family together with this kind of fame?
How does she help keep her children sane? (They’re all killing it, by the way)
Does she have a philosophy on representing her faith publicly and if so, what is it?
And on and on.

We will learn a lot from Korie, but there’s one thing I’ve already learned from our short time with the family and it will stick with me forever.

It’s this: Never stop being yourself.

The Duck Dynasty family you see on television is nearly exactly the folks you meet in person.

Somehow, they are able to have cameras follow them around and, well, not act. They just “are”.

This is an unbelievably difficult characteristic to nurture. Usually, the more successful a person gets, the more likely they are protect that success and start playing a role. This is sad because the very thing that made us successful is often that we were willing to be “ourselves.”

After a few days with Willie and Korie, I realized I could just keep being myself and trust that everything was going to be okay.

No acting. No pretending.

Anyway, we’re honored to have Korie out to speak to the Storyline community this fall. Sign up and join us. And in the comments below, feel free to ask any questions you’d like me to pass along to Korie.

It’s going to be a terrific time.

What You Can Learn About Being Yourself From Duck Dynasty 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.

How to Avoid Making A Huge Mistake with Your Big Life Decisions

via Graham Lea

No matter what kind of life decision you might be facing, this is great advice. The consequences of making a big mistake can be huge. If you can avoid it, why not?

How to Stay Organized As A Creative

via Sarah Heyl

I work with a team of highly talented, highly creative people. I wouldn’t trade my team for the world but it’s important for us to learn how to stay focused and organized. Maybe this article will help you like it did us.

How to Work A Room When You’d Rather Walk Out of It

via Darling Magazine

As an introvert myself, here are some great tips to put to use when life forces you to act like an extrovert.

Six Rules for Reaching A Different Generation

via Adweek

It’s important to understand—whether in your personal or professional life—that you communicate differently with different people. This is a fascinating article about how to communicate with someone from a different generation.

How to Do A Seven-Minute Morning Routine

via John Brandon

Your morning routine can set the mood for your entire day. In just seven minutes, you might be able to double your productivity and creative output. This article suggests how.

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

The Devastating Power of Lies in a Relationship

I’ve only had two friends (that I know about) who’ve looked me in the eye and told me lies. Both of them were trying to cover up mistakes. I certainly had grace for their mistakes, but I’ve wondered looking back if I didn’t have grace for their lies.

Neither of these two friends are in contact anymore. We don’t talk. Being in a relationship with somebody who lies is tough. It’s not that you don’t love them or care about them, it’s just that you can’t connect.

Without trust, there’s no relationship.

Henry Cloud and John Townsend say people lie for one of two reasons.

The first is out of shame or fear. Somebody may believe they won’t be accepted if they tell the truth about who they are, so they lie. You can see how religious communities that use shame and fear to motivate might increase a person’s temptation to lie.

People who lie for this reason can get better and learn to tell the truth. Until they do, however, it’s impossible to connect with them, all the same.

The second kind of liar is less fortunate.

Some people lie simply because they are selfish. These liars are pathological. They will lie even when it would be easier to tell the truth. Cloud and Townsend warn that we need to stay away from these people. Personally, I think people like this are pretty rare, but I agree, we simply can’t depend on them emotionally or practically.

Photo Credit: Robert Vitulano, Creative Commons

Still I wonder if people who lie understand what they’re doing.

I think some people want grace and certainly they can get grace, but when we lie, we make the people we are lying to feel badly about the relationships and about themselves. We like people who make us feel respected, cared about and honored. Lying to somebody communicates the opposite.

Here are the things that lies did to my two relationships:

When my friends lied, I felt disrespected and unimportant. They didn’t seem to care about me or trust me enough to tell the truth. This made me feel bad about myself, as though I were not important or trustworthy enough to be told the truth.
When I found out the extent of one of the lies, I felt like a fool. Technically, my one friend didn’t really lie. She just told me “part” of the truth. It was as though she were testing out whether she was safe to be vulnerable. (She told many other lies, but this was just one of them). But it backfired. When I found out things were worse than she’d made them seem, I felt tricked and deceived. Again, without meaning to, she’d made me feel bad about myself because I felt like somebody who could be conned.
I thought less of my friends. I knew they were willing to “cheat” in relationships. When we lie, we are stealing social commodity without having earned it. People can lie their way into power, and in one instance with a friend, she lied her way into moral superiority. Still, none of the authority or moral superiority (such a thing exists, and while it’s misused, it’s not a bad thing not unlike intellectual superiority or athletic superiority. It just is. An appropriate use of those two examples of superiority might be to lead a team or teach a class.)
I felt sad and lonely. When we think we are getting to know somebody, we are giving them parts of our hearts. But when they lie, we know they’ve actually held back their hearts while we’ve been giving them ours. This made me feel lonely and dumb.
I felt like I couldn’t trust them. The only thing more important than love in a relationship is trust. Trust is the soil love grows in. If there’s not trust, there’s no relationship. When my friends lied, our trust died. As much as I wanted to forgive them, and feel like I did and have, interacting with them was no longer the same. I doubted much of what they said. Sadly, I think both of them began to tell more and more of the truth. But it didn’t matter. Once trust is broken, it’s extremely hard to rebuild.
If they didn’t confess (or lied in their confession) I felt like they didn’t care enough about me to come clean and make things right. They were still thinking of themselves.

Here’s what didn’t happen.

I didn’t think less of them. While I was angry, I wasn’t angry because I thought they were a bad person. The person who lied probably assumed I felt such things, but I didn’t. What really happened was I felt terrible about myself and when somebody makes us feel bad about ourselves, we tend to get hurt and move away.

To be sure, somebody who lies has a lot of other stuff going on and it’s not so easy to come clean.

For a liar to change, they need a lot of help.

Lying is manipulation, so if a person is a manipulator and gets caught lying, they are most likely going to keep manipulating. They may tell more lies to cover their lies, or manipulate by playing the victim. They may try to find things other people have done that they see as worse and try to make people focus on that. What they will have a hard time doing is facing the truth (which would be the easiest way out of their dilemma. It’s just that they don’t know how to do it. (They’re survivors, scrappers and have learned to cheat to stay alive socially.)

If you’ve lied in a relationship, though, and are truly wanting to LEARN to live on the up and up, what can you do? Well, there’s plenty.

Life isn’t over yet. Here’s some places to start.

Confess. And don’t half confess (just another lie) but actually confess.

This may take some time for you. You may have to sit down with a pen and paper and write it all down. Your mind will want to lie, but you have to tame your mind. It may take you some time to even understand what the truth really is. You’re going to feel ashamed and at risk, but you have to go there anyway. People are much more kind and forgiving than you think. And if they’re not, you should confess and find people who are more safe.

Accept the consequences. You’re going to have to pay for your lies.

People will not and should not trust you as much as they did before. However, getting caught in a lie and confessing a lie are two different things. The former will cost you everything. The latter will cost you a bit, but you can rebuild quickly. Another thing to consider is that the truth might have lost you a small battle, but you’d have won the war because in the long run people would have trusted you. From here on out, be willing to suffer the slight, daily consequences of telling the truth. You’d be surprised at how much less tension there is in your life when you walk openly and honestly.

Don’t expect the relationship to be the same.If the person doesn’t forgive you, just know you can move on.

You’ve confessed and hopefully apologized and you aren’t beholden to them anymore. They need to wrestle with forgiving you and that’s now their burden. It’s an unfair burden, but we all have to face such things.

Don’t lie anymore. It’s not important that everybody like you or approve of you. Allow people to get used to who you are. Telling the truth may mean you don’t get to be in control anymore or that people won’t like you as much. That’s fine. At least they are interacting with the real you. The deep connections you’ll make from telling the truth are worth it.

The Devastating Power of Lies in a Relationship is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Life-Changing Secret to Overcoming Your Greatest Fears

For the nine months leading to the birth of my twin daughters, Rosie and Dassi, I had two emotions.

One: Profound joy.
Two: Buck-naked fear. I had no idea how to be a dad, much less the father of daughters.

I was never good at relating to girls, so how could I deal with two more? I spent days playing street baseball, bow hunting and breaking stuff. In my hood, we shot bottle rockets and roman candles at each other. For fun. Now I was expected to talk about makeup, dresses and eventually … boys?

Yeah.

Raising girls didn’t feel so instinctive and primal.

It felt more like being the only guy trapped in a tea party, with those older women who wear big hats and feather boas. “No…no…no…” the tea ladies would correct me in their British accents. “You poor little man, that is terribly, wrong. Hold the teacup like this.”

How does a dude possibly fit in there?

Through all of this, there was a deep fear.

The fear had a lot to do with me not knowing how to be a dad. It was tangible. I’m sure it was related to those things that lived under my bed as a child. Creepers. Whenever I got out of bed in the night, I jumped.

The last thing I wanted was a Creeper to grab a’holt of an ankle. (Did anyone else do that?)

But then a surprising thing happened.

Photo Credit: Chris Price, Creative Commons

When Rosie and Dassi arrived, I held them and they needed me. They needed me. My fear was eclipsed by love and my resolve hardened. Technically, I still didn’t have a clue about being a dad—but it didn’t matter. Although we had just met, I’d gladly have a bloody knife fight with the devil to protect them.

I learned something that night.

I learned love gives us courage. Determination. Grit. There is a lot of talk today about overcoming fear. Most of it has to do with techniques and “bucking up and overcoming.” But here’s a little secret:

Love fuels our courage. Storyline Blog