Prepare to be amazed. (Netherlands based designer Rogier Wieland created it and I found it on This is Colossal)

We all made resolutions and goals and promises in January. And then, in what feels like the blink of an eye, December will sneak up on us and make us wonder, “Where did the year go?”

Today, though, I want us to pause and realize we’ve got 5 months left in the year. We’ve got more than 150 days left to hustle and work and laugh and play at the things that matter to us.

It’s a new month. A new chance to dust back off something that was important in January, but got lost in the bustle of March. And, as you do, I want to show you a photo that inspired me to look at August in a new way.

It’s a basketball card I found in a box of my old stuff in the attic.

In the photo Gary Payton is firing off an amazing pass.

Do you see the joy?

Do you see the aggression?

Do you see the passion?

Do you see the drive?

This is how I want to play. This is how I want you to play.

Unbridled, unfettered, unaware that anyone’s watching.

If I could make this into a poster I would.

It’s a new month. Whatever you’re working on, whatever you’re dreaming on, play like Gary Payton played basketball in this photo.

Jump into August like it’s January, and then laugh at December when it tries to sneak up on you.

Days when whatever it is that I am required to do feels hard or stressful or above my capabilities.

Question #1
Who said it?

Was it a close friend or a complete stranger? A business colleague or someone driving by you on the highway? It sounds ridiculous that you’d need to ask this question, but you do. Most of us receive all hate as if we’re receiving it from someone who knows us deeply. In the heat of the moment, we act as if this person can see deep into our soul and that their words carry truth.

Case in point, a few months ago, I got some hate mail. Instead of stopping to ask “Who said it?” I immediately wrote a long response. I wrestled with it emotionally for hours, never once answering this first question. If I did, I would have quickly realized a stranger said it. Someone who has never met me, had a conversation with me, Skyped with me, or had any interaction with me. So why was I giving their words such power?

When someone leaves a hateful comment on your blog or tweets about you, that’s the equivalent of someone driving by your house and yelling, “I hate your yard! Your heart must be horrible too!” You’d never listen to that person in real life. Don’t listen online.

If on the other hand, my friend Grant had called me with some criticism about something I did, I would listen in a different way. Grant knows me. He cares about me and wants the best for me. His criticism would come from a place of relationship. And that’s different than hate. But unless I ask “Who said it?” I tend to give anonymous hate and friendly criticism the same weight.

Question #2
Why did they say it?

What was their motive? Were they exposing a blind spot in my life so that I might improve something I was doing? Or are they mad about something completely else and just looking to lash out at anyone who gets in their path?

Pausing to ask why gives you time to reflect before you act. I once worked with a guy who was really angry and combative. It would have been easy to label the way he acted as hate. But when I stopped to ask, “Why does he say the things he says?” I learned his wife had breast cancer. That wasn’t hate bubbling up, that was hurt. That was fear and hopelessness. His hate didn’t have anything to do with me and, instead, had everything to do with a terrible situation he was facing. Once I knew that, he became invisible as a hater and visible as a guy who needed a friend.

Asking why works at work too. Sometimes your boss will hate one of your ideas because she just got back from a meeting and her manager hated one of her ideas. Once you learn about her motive, you can help her fix her idea instead of lashing back about the feedback she just gave about yours.

That’s all it takes to make 99% of all haters invisible.

Who?

Why?

Six simple letters.

Next time you get hate, make sure it’s not valuable criticism from someone who is trying to help you get better. Once you’ve identified who said it and why they said it, chances are you can stop worrying about it and brush the dirt off your shoulder.

Question:
What’s your first reaction when someone criticizes you?

I’ve never heard anyone ever say the phrase, “I don’t have enough meetings each week.”

I’ve never met anyone who felt more productive because they attended more meetings.

If anything, I’ve heard countless people say, “I was in meetings all day and didn’t get any ‘real’ work done.”

So what’s the solution to this meeting dilemma? It isn’t to stop having meetings. Some of them can be critical to the success of a project.

The answer is to have shorter meetings.

Or, rather, to meet like a sea captain.

I’m reading a novel right now called Red Seas Under Red Skies. It’s the second book in a new series by a guy named Scott Lynch. I didn’t expect to find a lesson that could apply to meetings at work within the pages of a nautical fantasy novel, but there it was. (When I say “fantasy,” I mean that in a Lord of the Rings kind of way, not a “Fabio with flowing pirate shirt” kind of way.)

Here is the passage I thought was so good, in which Lynch describes a meeting between sea captains:

“There was no wine, no food, and no sitting when the council of captains was called. Sitting only made people more inclined to waste time. Discomfort stripped sentiment from everyone’s words and brought them to the heart of their problems with haste.”

I love that, and it’s true. People will tuck into a long meeting like a long winter’s nap if you’re not careful.

Want better meetings? Keep them short and remove the chairs. When I worked at AutoTrader.com, there were some projects where we had a 15 minute “stand up” meeting each morning. It was exactly as you’d expect. We stood up. We discussed the key initiatives for the day. We returned to our desks in 15 minutes.

I’ve heard of other companies that use picnic tables in their conference rooms instead of cushy chairs. Eventually the hard picnic benches become uncomfortable and meetings wrap up.

Will this work for every meeting you have? Of course not. If you’re launching a 30 million dollar product, you’ll need some chairs to sit in. But it’s not those meetings that are the problem. How often are you having one of those? More often, it’s the 15-minute weekly meeting that grows into 30 minutes and, eventually, into an hour that eats up all your time.

Want to go short? Go no seats.

Question:
How many meetings do you attend each week?

Simple:

Hang up and arrive.

Or, in longer form, when you walk through the door after work or a trip or an errand, don’t be on the phone.

One of the greatest ways to destroy a little kid who is waiting for you is to come home and still be on your cell phone.

Nothing deflates a daughter who runs toward you for a hug like a hand that says, “Wait a second, I need to finish this call.”

Nothing says “you’re second place in my life,” like walking through the door while still on the phone.

Nothing says, “my world is more important than yours,” like refusing to end a call when your kids come sprinting down the stairs to see you.

But fortunately, nothing is easier to fix than this issue.

If you’re on a call that you can’t get off, then don’t pull into the driveway until you’re done. I used to park in our neighborhood pool for five minutes to finish calls, instead of getting home and talking in my kitchen.

It’s a silly thing maybe. It’s a small thing I guess, but it makes a difference, and I learned this lesson by getting it wrong about a thousand times. And, the scary thing is, you’ve got a limited amount of time to do it.

My daughter L.E. used to knock me down onto my back with a running hug in the front yard when I got home from work. She’s still glad to see me these days, but sometimes I have to find her in the house, and she’s quietly reading a book, not standing at the window awaiting my arrival.

Want to be a better parent in about 4 seconds?

Hang up and arrive.

Question:
Is it hard to stay off your cell phone when you get home from work?

This made my head hurt I was laughing so hard. Please enjoy 2 minutes and 16 seconds of comic brilliance.

I panicked and quickly confessed that my greatest breakdancing skill was talking about breakdancing, not actually doing it. But that’s not the case in this breakdancing/pop n lock/dubstep video. This guys is unbelievable and I think my favorite moment happens at 1:30.

Take a look and enjoy a little Tuesday random video.

Simple:

Hang up and arrive.

Or, in longer form, when you walk through the door after work or a trip or an errand, don’t be on the phone.

One of the greatest ways to destroy a little kid who is waiting for you is to come home and still be on your cell phone.

Nothing deflates a daughter who runs toward you for a hug like a hand that says, “Wait a second, I need to finish this call.”

Nothing says “you’re second place in my life,” like walking through the door while still on the phone.

Nothing says, “my world is more important than yours,” like refusing to end a call when your kids come sprinting down the stairs to see you.

But fortunately, nothing is easier to fix than this issue.

If you’re on a call that you can’t get off, then don’t pull into the driveway until you’re done. I used to park in our neighborhood pool for five minutes to finish calls instead of getting home and talking in my kitchen.

It’s a silly thing maybe. It’s a small thing I guess, but it makes a difference, and I learned this lesson by getting it wrong about a thousand times. And, the scary thing is, you’ve got a limited amount of time to do it.

My daughter L.E. used to knock me down onto my back with a running hug in the front yard when I got home from work. She’s still glad to see me these days, but sometimes I have to find her in the house, and she’s quietly reading a book, not standing at the window awaiting my arrival.

Want to be a better parent in about 4 seconds?

Hang up and arrive.

Question:
Is it hard to stay off your cell phone when you get home from work?

We often try to complicate it as a way to prevent ourselves from actually doing it, but the truth is, writing a speech is ridiculously simple.

Each speech only has to answer two questions.

I learned this idea from my dad. He’s been a pastor for more than 30 years, but the two questions he gave me apply whether you’re a sales consultant, a politician or an author.

When you sit down to put a speech together, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Can the audience apply what I’m telling them?

2. Can the audience share what I’m telling them?

Let’s look at that first one.

Can they apply it?

Can they take your core idea and write it on their own lives? Is it applicable? Is it easy for me to grasp what you’re saying and translate it into my own heart? Or, is the speech so focused on your life that it’s impossible for me to relate to? Is your speech a “look at me parade,” that turns the audience into spectators not participants?

Now the second question.

Can they share it?

You spoke to 100 people, but will your idea reach 1,000? Is it structured in a way that, in addition to it applying to my life, I can share it with somebody else? Can I take your idea and share it with my wife or a coworker or a neighbor? Is your speech portable with handles I can grasp and carry to other people? Or will it begin and end with the person sitting in the room hearing it from you? Is it a one generation idea, or will it be shared outside of the room?

Those types of speeches, the ones that people can apply and share, aren’t easy to create. But then, I didn’t say they were easy. I said they were simple.

And that’s true.

You just have to answer two questions.

The biggest gain I ever had was going from 138 to 168. Thirty pounds might not seem like a lot, but getting 25% heavier isn’t great unless you’re also getting taller. Believe me, I thought about that. When I looked at the height/weight charts, I thought it would be great if I ate copious amounts of Gordo’s Queso & Chips and grew a few inches taller.

Weighing 168 is perfectly fine if you’re 6’4” but here’s the thing, that wasn’t my experience. I stayed 5’7” during this experience and added 30 pounds.

I ended up having a “fat pants” section of my closet. My regular pants started to look really short, and the top button of my jeans was under so much stomach pressure that, at any moment, it might have popped off with enough force to kill someone. I started wearing a ton of sweaters because I felt ashamed. When I wore tucked-in, button down shirts, you could tell I gained a lot of weight.

My weight issues are small in comparison with the very real struggle people have with obesity, but I did learn one lesson.

Do you know which diet worked for me? Do you know which one had real results?

The one I focused on for months.

Do you know which diets didn’t work?

The 15 different approaches I took when each one didn’t offer me the immediate results I wanted.

I’d jog for a few days and then quit. I’d download apps about push ups and exercise and then quit. I’d swear off certain foods and then quit. I’d stop eating after 7 p.m. and then quit.

And nothing happened.

When I focused on one approach though, things changed. When I made a commitment and focused on keeping it, things changed. When I didn’t give up and change course the first day or the 15th day or the 30th day, things changed.

Sometimes we have a hard time focusing on things. There are so many different ways to accomplish a goal. So many ways to write a book or record a song or start a business or do anything that really matters to us. And when we hit a roadblock with one approach, it’s tempting to look for another.

When you find yourself in that situation, and you will, wait.

Pause.

Don’t give up on what you’re working on.

Focus on the approach you’ve got, and give it room to show you long-term, real results, not just short term instant results. If your dream really matters to you, give it some breathing room. Allow it the chance to succeed and start small and pick up momentum. Don’t jump to a brand new approach just because the first one takes a minute or a month or a year to get rolling.

It’s amazing what can happen when you focus.

Question:
What’s the longest project you’ve ever worked on?

I live in Nashville and said to him, “That’s great, let me know when you’re in town next time and we’ll grab coffee.”

Without missing a beat he said, “I’ll be in Nashville tomorrow!”

Busted.

He caught me in a lie. I had no intention of getting coffee with him. I can barely keep up with all the obligations I currently have on my plate. I have a hard time pouring into the friendships I’m trying to build in Nashville right now. But lately, I’ve started to say polite lies.

“Let’s grab dinner sometime!”

“Let’s get coffee!”

“We should get our families together!”

These statements have become punctuation for my conversations.

But they’re lies. Why can’t I just say, “It was great meeting you” or “Enjoy the rest of your weekend?” Why do I feel compelled to lie? Two reasons:

1. I want everybody to like me.
I want every human on the planet to like me and feel like an offer of coffee might make them like me more.

2. My ego.
Do I really believe that, if I don’t grace them with my amazing presence at a coffee or a dinner, I will have let them down? That’s what I’m saying, “Oh, I don’t want to hurt their feelings, and I just know that they’d really like to see me again, why don’t I offer them a chance at coffee, with me, Jon Acuff!”

It’s ridiculous and it needs to stop. For me and maybe you too.

If you don’t intend to have coffee with someone, stop suggesting it. If they ask you to coffee and you’re not going to go, say no.

Stop saying polite lies.

As I learned in Michigan when I got caught in one and just shrugged my shoulders awkwardly until the musician walked, there’s nothing polite about a lie.

Question:
Be honest, have you ever said a “polite lie?”

I don’t know, but I know jerks don’t get free coffee.

I learned that lesson on Saturday at a motel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

I had checked approximately 6 times that the front desk at the hotel had arranged a cab for me at 5AM. Two days before, the day before, the night before, it had been verified that the cab would be coming. When I checked in on Friday, the front desk guy showed me the note behind the counter that assured a cab would be there bright and early to take me back on my way to the airport and Nashville.

At 4:52AM when I checked out and asked about the cab, the girl behind the counter slapped her head with her hand and said, “Oh no, oh no!”

She had forgotten to call the cab company the hotel always uses. There was no cab coming. She freaked out and got on the phone, desperately trying to find a cab at 4 in the morning. A driver was located and she looked up expecting me to be angry.

But I wasn’t, instead I said, “I get how hard it is to work the night shift. What time do you usually start?” With a bit of surprise, she replied, “I start at 11, but I’ve been off for three days and am having a hard time getting back on this schedule.”

“Yeah, I bet. That must be really exhausting.” I said.

We talked for a few minutes as we waited for the cab to come. And then she said something interesting to me:

“Thanks for not tearing me a part this morning.”

“Over a late cab? Nah.” I replied.

“People have gotten enraged for less before.” She said.

“Why?” I wondered out loud.

“I think sometimes people take things out on other people as a form of stress relief.” She quickly answered.

“Sure, but being a jerk to you doesn’t make me feel less stressful.” I said.

She laughed and walked in to a backroom for a few minutes. She emerged with a smile and said, “I already have some coffee made this morning, would you like a free cup?”

I said sure and then had a quick cup of coffee. I asked her if she had missed work recently for vacation. She said no, she has a two year old son. She and her boyfriend only have one car so she can only work when he’s not working. So while he’s home with their son, she comes and works the night shift.

The cab came a few minutes later, only five minutes after my originally scheduled time. I actually was so early to the airport that I got to jump on an earlier flight.

A free cup of coffee isn’t a big deal. Being nice in a situation that was so minor isn’t. But when presented with situations like that in the past, I’ve chosen the jerk path. I’ve blown up over incredibly trivial matters. And it’s not any fun. Me yelling at that hotel front desk person wouldn’t have made the cab show up faster. It wouldn’t have taught her a lesson that would have improved the way she ordered cabs in the future. It would have just wrecked her day and mine in the process.

If she were my employee, would we have worked to improve that forgetfulness and maybe developed a better system than a post it note reminder? Sure. But even then I wouldn’t have been a jerk.

When presented with those two options: to be a jerk or not be a jerk, choose the latter.

It’s a lot more fun and often comes with free coffee.

That’s the question I asked someone at the airport yesterday. Fortunately, for you and me, my fellow traveler said, “Not at all.”

Here’s what I wanted to capture on film:

I’ve never seen that luggage tag before, but I love it. And as soon as I took the photo, the lady who owned it said, “It works. It really works.” What do you think she meant by that? I have a few ideas:

1. Everyone likes kindness.
You might not think the busy, slammed-with-bags-all-day baggage handlers would notice something small like that, but they do.

2. You don’t always see the results of kindness, but it always has some.
This woman probably never got a thank you note from the baggage handlers. Her bag didn’t arrive on a separate extra fast plane. But she didn’t have the tag on there for her own reward. Her kindness was a gift she never got to see opened.

3. Kindness works on us too.
When she said, “It works,” I’m not sure she was saying it just works on the baggage handlers. I think she was saying “It works on me too.” How do I know? That tag was on her carry-on bag. Sometimes she checks it. Sometimes she takes it on a plane. And when she sees it, she is reminded to be kind to baggage handlers and possibly anyone else she sees that day. She sends herself a message in a bottle with that tag, and the message is simple, “Be kind.”

You’re busy. I’m busy too. And sometimes when life gets full and fast, kindness evaporates quickly. But everyone likes it, it always has a result and it works on you too.

And that’s why I love baggage handlers.

Question:
What’s a small kindness you can show someone today?

He’s made some mistakes along the way and caught a fair amount of criticism for doing things the way he’s done them. But that’s the great risk of being a trailblazer.

You’re going to fall in some holes because the path doesn’t exist. Going first means that you’re often the first person to realize the bridge is gone. It’s great if you discover that before you’re halfway across a deep ravine, but sometimes you don’t know about a risk until you’re soaking wet in the river below.

My friend, the trailblazer, is OK with that. Those are the breaks when you lead the way. Lately, though, he’s been getting a lot of criticism. People are throwing a lot of heat his way, but there’s an important truth you and I need to remember about trailblazers, especially if you want to be one.

Maybe for you right now, the unbeaten path is calling. You can’t see exactly where it goes, but you know you want to follow it. Into the jungle and the valley and a life less ordinary. Maybe it’s time to blaze some trails. But as you do, please remember one important thing:

Trailblazers always get burned a little.

Trailblazers always get singed with criticism and doubt.

Trailblazers always face the heat.

You can’t blaze a trail without dealing with a little bit of fire.

So right now, if you’re getting stung by people around you, if you’re getting some fireballs of frustration thrown your way, don’t take that as a sign to stop. Don’t take that as a sign you’ve failed or are the only one whose ever felt that heat.

If it’s hot right now where you are, congratulations, you’re a trailblazer.

It’s a tremendous set of tools whose ability to provide hope and change is only matched in strength by its ability to wreck lives when misused.

Surveying the carnage of friends’ marriages and struggles in my own, it was not difficult to find three perfectly easy ways you can wreck your marriage with social media. There are a million ways perhaps, not just three, but a post with a million points would take a really long time to write and probably end up being pretty boring with points 800,001-900,000 just being completely mailed in and weak. So let’s stick with 3.

Here they are:

3 perfectly easy ways to wreck your marriage with social media.

1. Add a 3rd party to the mix.
“Me, you and the iPhone doesn’t equal ‘spending time together.’” My wife has said that to me often. She’s also said, “I didn’t come sit outside with you so that I could talk to the top of your head while you stare at your iPhone.” She’s right. I have a really hard time plugging into our conversations when I’m plugged into a dozen others with strangers via my iPhone and social media. The funny thing is that if I looked at it the right way, I’d never do it. If we were sitting in the yard together in Adirondack chairs and cars full of strangers were streaming by us down the street, I’d never say to her, “I love you, but I’m going to focus on yelling random things at those people who are driving by. I don’t know them, I might never see them again, but those are the folks I want to focus on right now. They’re more important than you.” Don’t let your smartphone make you dumb.

2. Find someone who “gets you.”
Last Saturday at the Quitter Conference someone asked me an awesome question. To the best of my recollection, this is what they said, “Does your wife read everything you write? My husband isn’t a writer and it’s hard to get him engaged with the things I’m writing and excited about.” Jenny doesn’t read everything I write, but she reads a lot of it. A few years ago we learned something though. Writing, talking about advertising and ideas, branding, etc., those things don’t fire her up in the same exact way they fire me up. And that’s great! She’s a different person than I am, and doesn’t have to mirror my passions and feelings in the exact same way I feel them. But the danger is that if you think your spouse should, and they don’t, you often go looking for someone who will. You have a passion for music. You love talking about lyrics and the way a certain concert or video made you feel. And when you’re husband doesn’t share that, you find someone online who does. It starts by talking about music and how much you love it. And then despite your best attempts to prevent it, big, unexpected seeds of an emotional affair are planted.

If it goes on long enough, you end up saying what every friend of mine who has had an affair eventually says, “This person gets me! They understand me!” How do you prevent that? I’m not sure. How do I? I’ll tell you. I share my passions with Jenny. I share everything with her, but I also have a few friends that will geek out with me on branding. I have breakfast with Stephen Brewster and we’ll talk about the genius of Jay-Z or how to grow a blog community or a million other things. Brewster gets me. As my friend! As a guy walking through life with me, engaged in the same interests I have. I don’t put that unbearable pressure on Jenny. I don’t hold her responsible to replicate every passion I have and react to my interests with a fake sense of enthusiasm, no more than she expects me to understand why she loves engaging with Angie Smith and Heather Whittaker about the passions of hosting parties. Jenny doesn’t have to be me. She gets to be Jenny and bring her own passion and heart and uniqueness to the marriage.

3. Be someone else online.
It’s so easy to suffer from “Digital Business Traveler Syndrome” or DBTS. Do you know why so many people make so many mistakes when they go on business trips? Because the rules of home don’t apply when they’re on the road. There’s a home me and a road me. That’s why the Las Vegas tagline is so depressingly perfect, “What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” We hit the road and think we’re two different people. The same thing happens sometimes when we hit social media. We’ll flirt in ways we wouldn’t flirt in “real life.” We’ll blog things we’d never say to someone’s face. We’ll tweet things or post things on facebook that we’d never say in our “offline” life. It’s exhausting to be two people. It’s so tiring to keep our different personalities separated, but we still do it. And when you divide yourself that way, you end up hiding and eventually doing things you never imagined yourself doing when you walked down the aisle with your husband or wife.

My hope is that you saw all three of those ways and laughed, laughed, laughed. You’ve known about those possible traps for years and my information is dated and ridiculous. But if you didn’t and you’re walking unchecked into the myriad of opportunities social media offers you to wreck your marriage, be careful.

1. Remember, you didn’t lose your identity. You lost your job. You can still be a great mom or dad in this season.

2. This isn’t forever. Fear and unemployment will try to tell you it is, but it’s temporary. I promise.

3. This is an underdog moment, and how you react will create the story you get to tell.

4. You need to create conversation boundaries, space where you get to be a husband or a wife at home, not just a job hunter.

I also made a George Costanza Seinfeld block of cheese reference, but I didn’t feel like it needed to be numerical since it was off the cuff.

Check out the video of the show after the jump for a little more background on each point.

Question:

Have you ever been unemployed?

I fall asleep fast. Except when I was writing Quitter.

On several occasions, I couldn’t get to sleep during the weeks surrounding the writing process. Late into the night I would roll over and over, like a dog turning continuous circles before sitting down on a floor mat. Finally, my wife asked me, “What are you doing over there? Failing?”

Ahhh, wives of ten years. They know all your secrets and she was right. That’s exactly what I was doing. I was going through a steady list of every failure I’ve ever had. Why?

Because the closer you get to pursuing your dream, the louder the failure parade gets. Stephen Pressfield would call it “the Resistance,” Seth Godin would call it the “Lizard Brain,” and as a Christian, I’d call it the enemy. Regardless of how you choose to name your fear or source of pushback, there is an undeniable weight against you the closer you get to really working on a dream.

I was fine the month before I started writing this book. Even having moved my family from Atlanta to Nashville and uprooted everything we knew and loved, I slept like a baby. I didn’t sweat, I didn’t panic. But when I started digging into Quitter, when I really started turning some ideas into actual pages, the failure parade got loud.

One by one they’d march down the street of my head, boldly proclaiming some mistake I made. “Clang! Clang! Fix me!” They’d say. “I need attention, not the book! Until you take care of me it would be crazy to work on the book!” Or “Bang! Bang! You failed at this other thing, why would you ever think you’d be successful at a book!” Night after night, the parade would continue and I would occasionally share the floats with my wife.

“You know what I just thought of? I haven’t called Matt Johnson since we moved to Nashville. I am a horrible friend. I should give him a call tomorrow.”

“I wish I had sent that invoice on time. We’d be better off financially if six months ago I had sent that invoice the right way.”

“We don’t do enough date nights with our daughters. I should have been doing those for years. I am failing at raising our kids.”

From fresh failure to classics, they all came out. And regardless of the shape or size, the underlying message was the same, “quit.” That’s what you’ll hear too as you start making a little progress. As you start small and slow, don’t be surprised at the failure parade.

I wish I had a one-size fits all fix to this one, but I don’t. I’m not sure that even if you spend decades living your dream, that voice forever goes away. It’s a persistent one.

1. Don’t be surprised by the arrival of the failure parade.
   It happens to everyone. It’s coming and that’s OK.
2. Label it what it is.
   A distraction. An attack. A collection of lies. Stop in the middle of the melee and say, “Wait a second, this is the failure parade. Why am I acting like I need to handle all of these things right this second before I work on my dream?”
3. Don’t quit.
   One afternoon, while lagging behind on a family walk while her big sister rode ahead on a new bike, my five year old McRae talked me into taking a different way home to surprise the rest of the family. It was up a long hill and for a while we ran, but eventually, McRae got tired and we started to walk. Up the hill we slowly went until we turned the corner and McRae could see our house in the distance. Instantly her hand tightened on mine and she yelled. “Come on dad! We’ve got to run.” Then, in that way only little kids can, she exclaimed:“You don’t quit if you’re in the Acuff family or give up when something gets really hard.”

Parts of your dream are going to be hard. You are going to hear the word quit come at your from a million different directions. I do whenever I write a book or plan a big speech. You will too whenever you sit down to live your dream. But you need to ignore that failure parade. Don’t be surprised when it shows up, but don’t stare too hard at those marching regrets and mistakes.

Like most parades in life, the failure parade is loud and colorful but ultimately won’t lead you anywhere.

You may never scale 800 feet without the support of a rope or a harness.

You may never trust an inch wide gap in a granite cliff as the only thing saving you from instant death.

But, if all works out according to plan, you will do things you are not ready for.

You will climb new obstacles that are bigger than your current abilities.

You will find yourself without as much support from friends or family members as you might like.

You will face opportunities where the difference between success and failure is only an inch wide.

And when you do, I hope that you’ll remember this ridiculous video because there are two important things it teaches us:

1. There will be moments where you’re not sure what you’ve gotten yourself into. Everyone feels that way when they try something new. Don’t let that feeling tell you to stop.

2. You’ve got to shut fear off if you’re going to reach new heights in new ways. Don’t see the arrival of fear as failure, but don’t listen to it either. It’s a tremendous distraction and will ultimately knock you off whatever mountain you’re on.

There were other houses that were available that were bigger.

There were other houses available that were newer.

But we chose a smaller, older house. Why?

Because our kids can walk to school and we’ve started to make decisions based on the “lore” of their childhood. We’ve started to ask ourselves, “What story do we want our kids to tell when they’re grown up? Which of these decisions will add to the lore of their childhood?”

And when we were looking for houses, we realized our kids will never say in their 30s, “When we were growing up, we had amazing closets in our house. The closet space was just so ample.” Nobody says that.

Our kids will however say, “We could walk to school.” So we made a lore decision. We thought about the story they’ll tell.

Today, tomorrow, next week, you will face countless decisions. You will have a million choices before you. And in some of those situations you’ll have the chance to make a lore decision, to pick the option that will create a story you’re proud of, you’re excited about and you’ll remember. When you have that chance, make that choice.

(Below is a video that blew up this week of a wedding proposal where a guy decided to make an elaborate, amazing lore decision.)

One of the things we talked about was the challenge of balancing your family and your job and your dreams. The question I walked away from that particular conversation is simple but powerful:

“Do my spouse and kids get the best of my time and creativity or the rest of my time and my creativity?”

The truth is, all too often, they get the leftovers. The remains of the day. The bits of pieces something else has not already claimed.

I don’t like that. I don’t want that. I don’t see that as success.

I think there are a million possible reasons for this:

1. I’m competitive and insecure and feel like I’ve already “won” their affection so I need to focus on all these other new people to win over.

2. Real relationships with 3D people are messy, it’s easier to hide out in social media with 2D people.

3. Each year I read a dozen books about creativity and leadership and rarely read books about being a better dad or husband.

I could go on and on about the reasons this happens, but right now, I’m really interested in the solutions to this particular situation.

One for me is going to be my relationship with my iPhone. I don’t want my wife and kids to remember me as someone constantly bathed in the glow of that device. If my kids one day draw a picture of daddy, I don’t want their clearest memory to be of the top of my head as I am hunched down focused on a device that is never “done.”

So when I get home after work, I’m going to use my iPhone less when the kids are awake. I’m going to be deliberate with how and when I’m using it on the weekends. I’m going to make sure that I don’t pretend quality time with my wife is not interrupted by me constantly checking blogs or twitter or facebook on my iPhone.

Is that groundbreaking? No. Is that even unique to me? No. Will I beat myself up in abject failure if I’m not perfect at these particular boundaries? No. Will that work for you? Maybe not. Some people are much better at breaking the digital bounds of the Internet or the iPhone. I struggle with that. And ultimately, I’m not the one who has to answer the question for your family. You are. So here it is again:

“Do my spouse and kids get the best of my time and creativity or the rest of my time and my creativity?”

So for a few days, we couldn’t get in the back of our SUV because the handle wouldn’t work.

We took the car to a mechanic. They fixed it quickly and we picked up the car. Everything was fine with the door handle. It worked and you could open the hatch without any problems. But when we looked inside the car we were surprised what they had done. Inside the car are several huge gouges. Apparently, in order to remove the panel from the back hatch they used a variety of gouging tools.

I’m not sure that’s the technical name, I do not think Pep Boys has a “gouging tools” section, but that’s what happened. Whether it was done in haste to remove the hatch or just laziness doesn’t really matter. They damaged our car in fixing it.

Fast forward six months and it’s time to do some more repairs to the car. Something in the engine isn’t working. As we drove down the road debating where to get it fixed, my wife said something really interesting to me:

“The last place we went made a mess of the hatch, I’m not letting them into the engine.”

I promise you the mechanic who gouged the car did not see the relationship between those two things. It’s just a hatch. It’s just a small detail inside the back of a car. It’s not a big deal.

But all too often, small details are really just big auditions.

When we start a new dream or a new business or a new adventure, we want to start with the engine. We want the big client with the big account or the big book with the big book deal or the big event with the big crowd. We want the engine.

But more often than not, we get the hatch.

And that can be disappointing. That can be a little be demoralizing. That can be a little frustrating. Unless you see the relationship between a small detail and a big audition.

You’ve got to do the little things really well. You’ve got show passion and hustle and heart for even the moments that other people are going to write off as “hatch moments.” Because if your dream is really worth it, you might have to spend a lot of time being excellent at the small things while you get good enough to build enough trust for people to offer you the big opportunities.

Segue.

My wife says I remind her of Phil Dunphy from the ABC show “Modern Family.” At first I doubted her until Way FM and Total Axxess put together a side by side of us. (I’ll be on today at 4PM Central.)

Check the stripes, the black shirt and the stairs after the jump:

Here is the photo:

Here are the books that are on it from left to right:

1. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Have not read this yet but I hear good things.)

2. Linchpin by Seth Godin (Reading this right now, love Seth Godin)

3. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (My favorite book by one of my favorite authors)

4. Story by Robert McKee (Need to read this, occasionally intimidated by the girth of it.)

5. Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick (Loved this guy when I saw him at Catalyst)

6. The Element by Ken Robinson (By the guy who gave one of my favorite talks on TED)

7. The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (Would love to have Full Engagement, currently too distracted to read book, but it looks awesome.)

8. Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff (You have to have a copy of one of your own books on the shelf. I hear this author is handsomer in person.)

9. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller (Latest book by one of my writing heroes)

10. Deadly Kingdom by Gordon Grice (Love this book, really amazing collection of random information about deadly animals.)

11. Bible by God. (Travel version. It’s got a 1 point font and requires laser beam eyes to read)

12. The Intelligent Traveller’s Guide to Historic Britain by Philp A. Crowl (Have not cracked this one, probably keeping it on my shelf to appear intelligent.)

13. Advertising Now! Print. Print by Julius Wiedemann (Great discourse on advertising.)

14. Hoopla by Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Warren Berger (History of coolest ad agency in the last 20 years. Original cover is made of sandpaper.)

15. From Conception to Birth by Barry Werth (An amazing photographic journey from conception to birth. We gave this book to our parents when my wife got pregnant. This made it to my office by accident just because it was in a box of books I unpacked.)

That’s my shelf.

What’s on yours?

Share a picture or list what you see when you look at your shelf.