I’m Disappointed in You

His book had transformed my life. As a young man searching for answers, his work came along at the right time and I found what I was looking for. So when I ran into him outside a conference he was speaking at, it was only natural that I couldn’t wait to shake his hand and thank him for what his work meant to me. I walked up to him with a grateful smile, expecting that he would be eager to hear the story of how his book meant so much to me. Instead, he grunted a careless grunt and moved on, apparently on his way to meet with someone more important than I. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The encounter didn’t change how his work had impacted me, but it did change my opinion of him. If you’ve lived on this planet for even a short time, you’ve been deeply disappointed with someone you greatly respected. It may have been someone close to you, like a parent, sibling or friend. Or perhaps, like me, it was one of your heroes. Disappointment hurts no matter what. I used to take it personally when someone I valued disappointed me. I believed that perhaps I wasn’t worthy of their time and attention. However, as I received more recognition for my own work, something interesting happened to me. Life got hectic. The demands became greater. The people wanting to shake my hand and share their stories with me occurred more often. And their faces and stories began to blend together. Now don’t get me wrong. I LOVE meeting people and really enjoy hearing the stories of those whose lives I have somehow managed to touch. Whether a talk they heard me deliver, an podcast interview I appeared on, a blog entry I wrote or something out of one of my books, it’s always rewarding to hear feedback that what I do mattered to someone. But the accolades can begin to blur together as well. And I guarantee that there have been times that someone has approached me to thank me for something that I said or wrote, only to be greeted with an apparent response of indifference. And I disappointed them. Oh, it’s not speculation. It’s happened. I know because people have told me. One guy (who is now a friend) told me that when he met me many years ago he felt like I didn’t give him the time of day. It wasn’t until years later when we shared a stage and he saw my heart that he came to me to share how he had seen me as someone aloof and uncaring, perhaps thinking that I was better than him. I told him that I was so sorry. It was never my intent to treat anyone in a way that would make them feel unimportant or not valued. Was it possible that I was tired? Had I just given all I had on stage and exhaustion had set in? Was I just oblivious to him being there? Or was I actually being a jerk at that moment? It could have been any of the above, because I’m very human. Just as I had expectations of how the author whose worked changed my life would respond to me, there are others who place expectations on me. And while it’s never my goal to let anyone down, I recognize that I probably do it on a regular basis. I guess that’s what you get for being human. And it’s one reason that I don’t like to put anyone on a pedestal. I really don’t care how famous you are, how much money you make or how much power you wield. We are all just human beings with hopes, dreams, fears, successes and losses. We are all born into this world and we all die. No one is greater than another. I’m far more concerned with the character of an individual than the size of their bank account, their societal status or how famous they may be. When people come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate me or my work, I usually thank them and attempt to engage in a dialogue that says “you matter more than I do.” Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I don’t. While I do enjoy the spotlight, I also still feel some discomfort when someone thinks more highly of me than they should. I let them know that we are all the same in our value and I have no desire to be seen as anything more than an incredibly grateful and blessed guy who gets to do what he loves and sometimes gets it right. Because that’s the truth. Yes, others have disappointed me. You may have been one of them. But I’m sure I’ve disappointed many as well. And for that, I’m sorry. I know I didn’t mean to. We all require a lot of grace and forgiveness when it comes to living this life. I believe doing so will protect us from setting expectations that can become self-fulfilling prophecies. And next time we meet, I hope I don’t disappoint you.