Donald Miller's Blog, page 45

What to Do About Control Freaks

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Have you ever been in a relationship where, for some foggy reason, you keep doing things you don’t want to do? You’re likely in a relationship with a control freak. Whether it’s your boyfriend, girlfriend, boss or, well, even your spouse, having somebody control you kills intimacy.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

I firmly believe the desire to control another person comes from one place: Fear. Most controlling people have no idea they’re controlling at all. I certainly didn’t. And I was most definitely a control freak.

If you want to read more about how controlling tendencies can kill a relationship, download Chapter 8 from my book Scary Close below. The chapter is called Control Freak. Mine and Betsy’s story may be hauntingly familiar to yours. And yet there’s hope. There’s plenty you can do about it.

Download the free chapter here. Enjoy!

What to Do About Control Freaks is a post from: Storyline Blog

You’re Never Going to Be Fully Ready

On the very best summer days, the beach at our family’s cottage collects boats all day long—little ones and big ones, friends and family, friends of friends. The day starts quietly and then all of a sudden there is music and someone is grilling and boats are rafted off.

Everyone takes turns on jet skis and paddleboards, and we make sandcastles and jump off the boat a million times in a row. There’s always a fun and crazy puzzle of people.

On one of these summer days last August, a friend of a friend of someone wanted to try paddle boarding for the first time. Her name was possibly Caitlyn. Or Kate. Kathy? It’s a loose operation, clearly.

We gave her the one-minute speech.

Start on your knees, no shame in falling, don’t go out too far, avoid the jet skis. But the next thing I knew, she was really far out. My son Henry and I paddled out to her, and I asked if she needed help.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Ruth Hartnup

I can stand up, she said. But then I can’t get stable, and I can’t start paddling till I get stable.

I totally get it, I said. But here’s the thing: it’s the paddling that makes you stable, not the other way around. You’ll never stay up unless you start paddling.

I’m thinking of this now, in a snowstorm, worlds away from that hot summer day, because of a conversation we had around our table recently.

A friend of ours was talking.

She was sharing about all the things she is trying to figure out, arrange in her mind, make a plan for, make sense of. She said, “There are so many things I want to do this year, and I realize that I’ve been trying to think it all through for so long. But you know what? I’ll never have all the information. I’ll never know all there is to know about something. Sometimes you just have to act.”

Exactly that. One thousand times that. Sometimes you just have to act.

Because it’s the paddling that keeps you on the board. It’s the forward motion that gives you the stability you need. Sometimes we just have to pick a direction and start pulling that paddle through the water, and along the way we’ll get the stability and confidence we’re looking for. But you’ll never find it at the beginning, standing there, waiting for the waves to stop shaking the board. The waves never stop shaking the board.

Forward motion brings stability.

I’ve come back to Voltaire’s words a million times: Perfect is the enemy of the good.

You’ll never feel totally ready. The plan will never be perfectly formed. You’ll never have the money you think you need or the support you wish you had. You’ll never feel as strong and prepared as everyone else seems. (Psst: they’re not that strong and prepared, either. No one is.)

Just paddle, because that’s what gives you what you need to stay afloat. Paddle, because forward motion allows you to steer, to turn, to head into a wave, or away from one. Paddling is what puts you in charge of the situation, instead of being at the mercy of the waves, waiting for stability that will never come.

No one feels ready.

No one has every last thing they need. But the people who change their lives, the people who make beautiful things, the people who make a difference in our world—they are the people who paddle, who are willing to do it badly, who give up perfect in favor of good.

Another gem: anything worth doing is worth doing badly. That’s Chesterton, who I just adore. (I read Orthodoxy every year and find a dozen new treasures every time.)

What do you need to start doing badly, instead of pretending that there will be some magic moment when you are able to do it perfectly?

It’s time to paddle.

So what does it look like for you to just start paddling today?

What have you been over-thinking, wiggling like a loose tooth? Are you hiding, planning, and information gathering, because you’re scared to plunge into something new?

Are you letting your desire to do it flawlessly keep you from doing it at all?

Here’s to paddling imperfectly—badly, even. It’s what keeps us afloat.

Shauna’s newest book Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are will release on March 10. Savor is a year-long devotional featuring some of Shauna’s most loved insights, reflections and recipes. Join our excitement and pre-order the book today!

You’re Never Going to Be Fully Ready is a post from: Storyline Blog

Putting Out the Fire Isn’t Enough

Years ago, I found myself in a relationship that was toxic. Does someone come to mind when you read that sentence? Personally, when I think about all the people I’ve been connected to over the last decade in a variety of contexts, my interactions with this one particular person stand out. Eventually, the lack of authenticity, empathy, and trust became an ongoing crisis in my life, and I was desperate to find a way out.

By the grace of God, the crisis—and the relationship—ended. I thought all my problems would be over. And that’s when I discovered something.

I didn’t really understand what a crisis was.

Along an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Interstate 45 here in Texas, there was a wildfire a few summers back. If you drive by the field of trees that was ravaged by the fire, as I did last week, you’ll see two things:

The fire is out. But the trees are still burnt.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Brendan Lynch

When it comes to traumatic experiences, it turns out we’re a lot like trees.

Here’s what I mean:

Seeing those charred and twisted trunks took me back to the crisis I’d escaped. The immediate relief of putting the fire out allowed me to believe it was over, but I was really just stuck between the first and second step. I wasn’t still burning, but I was still burnt. I was out of the crisis, but the crisis wasn’t out of me.

Yes, it’s important to stop the bleeding first, but that’s not enough. Healing, real healing, is a process we have to enter into after the crisis ends.

It’s an intentional choice.

The process is marked by prayer, reflection, and wise counsel. And over time, our wounds turn to scars.

It has taken time for new life to spring up amid the devastation in that field of trees, but eventually green triumphed over gray. And given enough time and attention, I believe we see the same triumph in the places we’ve been burnt.

Putting Out the Fire Isn’t Enough is a post from: Storyline Blog

My First Book in Five Years

Scary Close officially released today. If you’ve not ordered it yet, you can get it from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble right now or wherever you buy books.

What’s the book about?

It’s about dealing with our issues so we stop hurting people and start helping them. It’s my story about hitting rock bottom because I’d ruined yet another relationship, then about the unique way in which I got help from a crazy therapy center, then how I learned to have a true, honest, healthy and intimate relationship.

Why should I buy it?

One of the best stories in the book is about how I learned to forgive myself and start enjoying life within my own skin. When we like ourselves, we have greater power to love others, and when we hate ourselves, we’re a drain on the people around us. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s true. I’m hoping this book helps you like yourself a whole lot more.

What if I don’t like the book?

I hope you like it, but if you don’t, you’re still getting a great deal. When you pre-order the book at scaryclose.com you get a free audio copy of my other book, Blue Like Jazz. You’ll also get a free music soundtrack in which 16 of the greatest singer/songwriters in the world offer their favorite song about getting scary close. That’s almost $50 of real stuff for just $15. Plus you get to like yourself more and have better relationships. All well worth it.

Join us.

Join the tribe of people who are willing to get Scary Close today.

Order from Amazon

Order from Barnes & Noble

Order from Powell’s

As always, thanks so much for all your support. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Grateful,

Don

My First Book in Five Years is a post from: Storyline Blog

What’s the One Thing You’re Hiding?

Tomorrow is the big day. Scary Close releases nationally. And yet I left one thing out.

I wish I could write one more chapter and stick it somewhere in the middle. If I could, I’d write about something that happened to Betsy and I the other night.

We went to bed around ten o’clock, like normal. But something kept bothering me. I’d withheld something about myself from my wife ever since we’d met.

Even after we got married, I didn’t tell her.

Honestly, I knew it would never be a big deal to her, but it was to me. I’m not talking about the truth I was withholding, I’m talking about the fact that I was withholding it in the first place. The thing I needed to tell her would make me look weak, and I hate looking weak around my wife. It wasn’t about sex or sin or anything like that, just something that was embarrassing to me.

But I was being haunted. That week we’d filmed an online course on meaningful relationships and two of the guides brought up the same truth: If we are only 90% known, we will not experience intimacy. I knew when they said it that it was true. I wasn’t as close to my wife as I could be.

She noticed I was tossing and turning.

Through broken sleep, she asked if I was okay. I lied and told her I was. But before she could fall back asleep, I confessed I wasn’t okay. And I told her.

She was genuinely surprised. She wasn’t upset at all, just surprised. She put her arms around me and thanked me for telling her. I told her I was embarrassed and she laughed and said I shouldn’t be. She said it wasn’t a big deal. Then she just went back to sleep.

But I laid there feeling free.

I was known.

And since then I’ve felt much closer to Betsy. I don’t feel like I’m acting anymore, I feel like I’m myself and I’m accepted and loved.

I wonder how many of us have that one thing we’ve not told our spouse? Do you? What is it? What would it be like to sit them down and tell them? Scary stuff, indeed. Getting close to intimacy will always be frightening. But there’s freedom on the other side.

If you haven’t yet, you can order Scary Close today and still get a free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz as a bonus. Just order the book on Amazon or wherever you desire, then cut and paste your receipt number in the box on scaryclose.com. The offer ends tomorrow at midnight. So grateful!

What’s the One Thing You’re Hiding? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Impress Fewer People and Connect with More

On Tuesday of next week 10,000 people are going to get something in the mail. They’ve all pre-ordered my new book Scary Close. They’ll rip open the package, feel the slick cover, turn it over to read a few sentences on the back of the book and then wonder if the words inside will do them any good.

I think the words will do them more good than they imagined. But not because the book is good, though I do hope it’s my best. No, they’ll experience deeper relationships mainly because they’re the type of people who are willing to actually work on their relationships.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

The reality is successful relationships in friendship, work, and romance don’t happen by accident. It’s easier to run a marathon than it is to have a successful relationship, and yet more people work out than study the stuff of intimacy.

Scary Close is about impressing fewer people in order to connect with more. It’s about telling the truth about who we are so that we can deeply connect.

If you’d like to get the book with the huge tribe of people who are tired of the game, pick it up on Amazon now. And when you do, be sure to get your free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz along with the book’s musical soundtrack at scaryclose.com.

Tuesday can’t come fast enough. Buy the book and send yourself a little surprise gift next week.

Impress Fewer People and Connect with More is a post from: Storyline Blog

Confession: I Like Winning More Than I Like People

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I have a confession to make. I care more about winning than I do about people. It’s not true all the time, but it’s true a lot of the time. At some point in my youth I began believing that if I didn’t win, nobody would like me. This served me well, in some regards. I had a successful company and a lovely home and so on and so on. And yet something happened to me years ago that planted a seed of change in my heart. And I’ll be forever grateful.

Even though I was successful, I was stressed and often lonely.

Winning takes a lot of work and worry.

And it often leads to more than a few sleepless nights. On one of those sleepless nights, I got a call from a friend down in Texas who let me know that my old youth pastor had passed away. The man was like a father to me. I had dedicated Blue Like Jazz to him. I was heartbroken.

I flew to Texas and was asked to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. And as I sat in my hotel room, preparing my talk, I reflected on his life. He was an incredibly talented man. He spoke, wrote, and even played music. And yet he passed away relatively unknown. Instead of seeking fame through his many talents, he served a local church, taught Sunday school, took in people who needed a room for free, and hung out with alcoholics and drug addicts.

He was amazing at being present.

He knew how to be with you. He never looked over your shoulder for a better opportunity. And that kind of life cost him. He died with little money, few possessions, and little notoriety. I found the situation sad. I wanted the world to know who he was.

What shocked me, though, was that I got a call saying the funeral had been moved from the small church he pastored to a baseball field on the edge of town. And when I pulled up to the ballpark, cars were lining the road for nearly a mile. The local news station had camera trucks parked out side. The stands were full and so people were sitting on the hill above the stands.

What my friend taught me that day is that success in the eyes of the world means little. He’d built a rich empire of love by giving his life to one person at a time—by listening to them, by looking them in the eye.

I was incredibly convicted.

Even though I was very successful, I doubted my funeral would attract a tenth of the attendees.

Since then, I began to study what really makes a life meaningful. And I wasn’t surprised to find that many of the things I’d been pursuing would never provide meaning at all.

I want to share a chapter with you from my new book Scary Close, out in a few days. The chapter is called The Stuff of a Meaningful Life and it’s all about the things we need to do to experience a deep sense of satisfaction and to keep us from experiencing regret in life.

I hope the chapter is helpful as you reflect on your own life. I’m grateful for my friend, for all he taught me. Even in his passing, he continues to change my life. I’m a better person for his example.

Grateful,

Donald Miller

P.S. If you pre-order Scary Close, make sure to enter your receipt number at scaryclose.com to get a free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz. The offer is only available until midnight on February 3rd. Don’t forget to download the sample chapter, and feel free to share it with friends.

Confession: I Like Winning More Than I Like People is a post from: Storyline Blog

Do You Only Matter Because of What You Do?

In Scary Close I tell the story of going to a therapeutic retreat center. Basically, emotional rehab. It’s a center in Tennessee where you get nine months of therapy in seven days. And it’s intense. It’s a program capped at 40 people. And when you arrive, you turn in your cell phone, can’t give anybody your last name, and aren’t allowed to tell anybody what you do for a living.

In other words, they strip you of all the stuff you use to impress people. You just get to be you, without your ace cards.

It sounded easy at first.

But then I realized pretty quickly how much I enjoyed letting people know I was a writer. I swear I’d never noticed it before, but my job had become closely tied to my identity. My job was “why I mattered in the world” and without it, I felt naked. I felt like I didn’t matter. People weren’t trying to sit next to me at lunch to ask questions about writing; they weren’t asking questions about my books. They weren’t asking me about anything.

Soon, though, I came to enjoy it. I noticed people started talking to me, the real me, not the “role” I played in the game of life. In other words, I was important because I was human, not because I was a writer.

And that felt good.

I never would have known how much my identity was based in what I did, but it was. Over time, at the retreat, people began to discover I was funny, or thoughtful, and I connected on a deeper level with strangers than I had in years.

I wish the world worked like this a little more. I wish we didn’t feel the need to walk into a room and throw down our ace cards—cards like what we do, what we’ve accomplished, who we know, and so forth. I wish we could just walk into a room and feel connected because we’re human, because we’re walking miracles regardless of our jobs and accomplishments. That would be a good world.

Don’s new book about getting Scary Close releases in 6 days. You can order it now on Amazon and have it delivered to your doorstep next week. If you do pre-order, you get a free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz! Just submit your receipt number at www.scaryclose.com.

Do You Only Matter Because of What You Do? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Do We Really Connect Through Social Media?

I was traveling with a friend recently who, while sitting next to me on an airplane, sighed and told me they were unfollowing somebody on social media. “You don’t like them?” I asked. That’s not it, my friend said. I love them in person. But on social media they’re so religious and always sharing little pithy quotes or pictures with their kids acting perfect. That’s not who they are at all. They’re normal. I just can’t take the posturing anymore.

We all likely have friends like that.

And we all project an image, to some degree, on social media.

For some, social media is a bullhorn for what they’re already doing—pretending to be people they really aren’t. It’s not just the religious. How many people do you follow whose pictures look like they’re coming back from the 1950’s, as though all the clothes and cars and hats came from another time? All captured by a smart phone invented last year.

It’s a strange world, for sure.

We get to be our own movie directors, our own magazine editors, putting out into the world something creative and hopefully inspiring. But at times, I wonder if all the projecting of an image isn’t costing us something. And that something is the ability to connect, for real. Impressing people is not the same as connecting with them.

If I project an image online, I feel like I have to keep it up in person, and that’s exhausting. I don’t usually look that good or have a Bible that handy.

I’m just a normal guy, honestly.

But I’ve found that by not projecting an image online, I get to be myself in person. Sure, people aren’t that impressed with me, but I get to have real conversations with real people and we get to really connect. My soul gets fed.

I read about a celebrity once who pursued fame, then got it, then found he couldn’t be himself in front of fans because they all wanted him to be the characters he’d played in movies. They all had an expectation of who he was and were let down by the real him. He said the one thing he never expected from global fame was complete isolation.

But that’s what it all led to.

I wonder if, in small percentages, that’s not what we’re doing to ourselves.

When my children pick up social media, and they almost certainly will, I want to teach them to project whatever is true, not a romanticized version of the truth. Why? Because I want them to connect.

Don’s new book about getting Scary Close releases in one week from today. You can order it now on Amazon and get it by next Tuesday. If you do pre-order, you get a free audio book of Blue Like Jazz! Just submit your receipt number at www.scaryclose.com.

Do We Really Connect Through Social Media? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Great Parents Do This Well

Now that I’m married I’ve started to worry about my children. I don’t even have children yet, but I’ve already started worrying about whether or not I’ll be a good dad. One of my greatest fears is that my children won’t do well in life, and by that, I mean won’t be happy and healthy and able to connect with others.

But I’ve got some hope brewing.

I’ve noticed something about the parents of teens and twenty-somethings who are high functioning and healthy. I’m talking about young adults who you sit and talk to and wonder how they got so wise, self-controlled and winsome. And I’ve noticed they all have parents who have a distinct, unique, and rare quality about them.

It’s not a quality you’d expect, but I promise it’s the common denominator. And here it is: Healthy and high-functioning people often have parents who do not hide their flaws, especially from their own children.

What I mean is this:

Healthy people tend to come from families in which parents willingly confessed and were okay with their own weaknesses, even if those weaknesses were quite dark. And those kinds of parents are rare, which is perhaps why super healthy people are so rare.

Imagine growing up in a family in which your parents didn’t pretend to be more righteous, strong, or capable than they actually were, but in fact made mistakes and were perfectly willingly to confess and apologize for those mistakes.

Imagine having a father who might occasionally say something like, “You know, son, I’ve noticed you’ve developed a temper. I think you might have gotten that from me. I’m so sorry. It’s hard to control I know. It has cost me a lot in life and I fear it might cost you, too. Will you forgive me for passing that along to you?”

A family like that creates a deep bond of intimacy.

And why?

I have a theory that parents who tell the truth about themselves are honored by God. I think God loves the truth, no matter how dark the truth may be. And my other theory is that parents who sacrifice impressing their children in order to bond with them on a human-to-human level create a deeper connection. And my third theory is that children who grow up in environments where it’s okay to be human feel less pressure in life and less of a reason to hide from their families and the world around them.

Sadly, I’ve noticed the opposite trend, too. Because I grew up in a hyper-religious environment, I knew more than a few dads who felt the pressure to make people think they were more righteous than they were. I don’t blame them.

They were trying to fit in.

In each of those families, people — especially the children — struggled. They likely learned from the father (and sometimes the mother) that they were supposed to hide their darker nature from the world. Or worse, they learned they had to be perfect to be accepted and loved.

Here’s a truth: When we hide, we don’t connect with others, and when we don’t connect with others, our souls atrophy.

Two of the men I’m talking about had adult children who committed suicide. The knee-jerk reaction of both fathers in those situations was to make sure everybody knew their child’s suicide wasn’t their fault. It was sad and painful to watch.

What gives me hope is that I am very close with a few families doing it right. They are confessing their sins to their own children.

They are living in the open.

There’s nothing easy about living this way, for sure, and yet I firmly believe we have to live in the open to be healthy. We can’t hide and we can’t pretend. We have to teach our children not only how to live well, that is to live within moral boundaries, but also how to fail well.

In the end, the children who learn from their parents that it’s perfectly okay to be perfectly human live more healthy, happy lives. Why? Because people who tell the truth connect and are people who don’t live in public isolation.

Don’s new book Scary Close features a fascinating chapter about parents who confess their sins to their children. The book releases in a matter of days. You can order it now on Amazon. Also, submit your receipt number at www.scaryclose.com before midnight on February 3rd and you’ll get a free audiobook of Blue Like Jazz. Spread the word, if you will. We are grateful.

Great Parents Do This Well is a post from: Storyline Blog