Bestselling author, speaker, and StoryBrand CEO Donald Miller speaks on discovering shame and discovering self, allowing yourself to truly be seen, how being impressive is like eating junk food, enablement vs grace, the one type of person you can’t be friends with, losing the battle to win the war, and the CRAZY story of meeting his wife.

The author that you're about to hear from is Donald,

Don Miller. And some of you have probably many of you have

probably heard of, of some of his other books. He's written

several books. His most famous book is Blue Like Jazz, and it's

sold well over a million and a half copies, he sold millions of

books. Let's put it that way. And so Don, thank you for being

here, brother.

I'm so excited about this. Thanks for having me.

So I want to dive right in. Why do you think it is so

hard to just open up and allow ourselves to be known by other

people or fully known as you say?

Well I think, you know, we live in a day and age

where it's easy to project an image, especially with social

media, we can project an image on Instagram, and Twitter and

all this kind of stuff. And then when we actually are in person,

we've got this image that we've projected in the back of our

brain, and we try to keep it going, right. It's hard to do

that in person, because we're not always in the coolest place.

And we're in the coolest pose and hanging out with the coolest

people. And so to let people know that you're normal, can be

scary. But that's the only way we connect. I mean, it's, you

know, it's the difference between people being impressed

with us and people knowing us. You know, I got married pretty

late, I remember a year into our marriage. And Betsy and I had a

really great first year, we had about 120, overnight guests in

our house traveled and we, we just had a great time the

company was growing around us and really fun, and almost no

arguments, you know, we're just not the type. I've had plenty of

relations were argue all the time. Whatever reason, Benson I

just don't don't do it. And laid in bed one night, and I'm Betsy

is asleep. And I'm praying and I'm thinking, Okay, what's the

theme of the second year? Right? What? What do I want the theme

to be my second year of marriage? And I really just felt

like God was saying, Why did you let her get to know you? Wow,

the second year of marriage, right? Why don't you let her get

to know you? And it wasn't like, you know, he was being a jerk or

anything. And I just realized, wow, I, I still, I'm still

putting on a, a, an act a little bit for my wife to some degree,

right? I mean, there are things that I was sort of that I hadn't

told her about my life of moments of failure that she

didn't know about that. I you know, I assumed she wouldn't

like me anymore. Now, I'm not I didn't assume that. I just

wanted her to be impressed. Right, I assumed she wouldn't be

impressed. And so I think it's true in minor ways, even in just

close friendships and family. And there's something really,

you know, we risk rejection when we let people get to know us.

And it's not just this decision to be known, I think a lot of

us, including me, don't even really know how to do it, right.

We don't know how we don't know how to be known. And what

happens is we end up in a room full of people that know us, and

yet still feel isolated. And there's damage there. There's,

there's when whenever we're isolated, bad things grow, and

by bad things, I mean, insecurities and even

temptations and all that kind of stuff. It's a It's not helpful.

Wow. I mean, just this, there's so many big ideas in

there, talk about the self shame and the act to kind of talk

about that.

Well I have a friend named Bill Loki, and he's

a clinical psychologist at a at a place called on site. And it

sounds really rehabbing. But it's actually not, it's a really

great place where a bunch of executive types go to get their

stuff figured out. So they can be better leaders. But he kind

of sat me down, he said, you know, done. Every person is born

a self right. And so he drew a little circle on a napkin, and

he wrote the word self inside the circle. He said, This is

you. And then he said, at some point, every human being as they

grow up, they learn kind of lie that they're not enough that

there's something wrong with them. And, you know, who knows

what that could be either, you know, missed kicking a ball on

the kickball field or something like that. But he said, that

causes them to cover their or to feel a sense of shame. And so he

drew another circle around the self circle. So he's making kind

of a target. And in that second circle, he wrote shame. And he

said, so we're feeling this kind of shame. And then he said,

another thing happens after we discover shame. And we tend to

something happens in our life where we succeed a little bit,

or we get some attention that we want. So, you know, you hit up a

homerun in a, in a softball game when you're a kid, and you

realize that that you're good, you're good at athletics, and

that you matter because you're a good athlete and you and so he

said, we draw this third circle around shame. So we've got a

three circle target here. And then he wrote the word, you

know, good at athletics, or smart or whatever. And that

tends to be the you know, the costume that we were in order to

cover shape and any So the problem with all that is people

get to know this costume, right? And they don't ever get to know

the self. And so one of the things that in the book that I

just made this conscious decision to do was to just tell

the casual reader, here's who I really am. And I don't, I'm not

a big fan of airing all your dirty laundry, I think there's

some wisdom to being careful who you share your your

vulnerabilities with, because not everybody is trustworthy.

And so it wasn't like I was, you know, telling everything. But I

just went back into my elementary school days and

talked about where I discovered shame. And the I remember when I

wrote that the story is of me, having a small bladder and

wetting my pants and elementary school. So in the book, I

remember where I wrote that story. And how, you know, it was

a really hard thing for me to write not because I didn't trust

the reader. But it was just a painful moment for me to go back

in time and realize, wow, there's this, this kind of shame

wound back there that I never fully processed that from an

early age, when kids are learning the things about life,

I learned I wasn't good enough. And I needed to hide. And what

was really cool about it, from Bill's perspective of my

psychologist, friend, is he said, Well, you know, now that

you're an adult, you can actually kind of, you know, it's

called a story map, and you kind of map out you reframe the

narrative in your brain. And you sort of realize, you know, if

the adult you can walk up to the kid you in that moment, how,

first of all kind of silly, the moment is how it's not that big

of a deal, right? And you would say to the kid, hey, you realize

everything's gonna be all right, right? Like, this isn't? This

isn't a defining thing. There's no reason to feel shame about

this. In fact, this is the sort of thing you could grow up and

be a comedian and talk about it and make a lot of money, right.

And it's amazing how healing that experience is. Because I

think so many of us just the way our brains work, you know, we

get programmed to walk around with this shame, and you sit and

think about you realize this was dumb. Why am I feeling shame

about that, that's, if my child did that. I would have such a

sympathetic, compassionate perspective on them that I that

I'm unwilling to give to myself. And so that was a real healing

thing for me. But I think a lot of people, you know, we walk

around, and we meet folks who specially really successful

folks. They can, they can, they've lived off that third

circle of putting up an image for so long that they, they

don't even realize they know, they don't even realize who they

are anymore. And I remember for a buddy of mine, another

counselor here in town, he counsels a lot of musicians,

singer songwriters, a lot of people who are famous, and he

had, at one guy sit down during a rebranding phase in his

career, where he was moving from country music to some other kind

of music. And Al said, Well, which one is more like you like,

which one is you? And he said, Man, I don't I forgot who I was

long time ago. I don't know if I'm the country or the rock. I

don't know. Yeah, a lot of us are like that in life, too.

We live in this world where we can't survive without

being that act.

Right? Yeah, well, you can't survive, you

can't, you know, succeed, we can't get some of that stuff

that we want. And those of us and I don't know if you're like

this, but I am, you know, I bought into the lie early on

that if I'm not successful, people won't, won't won't care

about me. And so winning is really important. I'm not

especially a competitive person. But I'm competitive with myself,

right? I know what my potential is. And it bothers me when I

don't reach it, and give it day. But there's this lie behind that

where it says, you know, you know, they're gonna leave you if

you if you're not successful. Right. And, and, ultimately,

that there's just no truth to that. And so I think part of the

reason that we get exhausted doing this is because we think

they're going to leave us if we don't, when really what the

people who connect best are people who are free to be

themselves and okay with who they are. Because if you're okay

with who you are, you make me really comfortable. And I get

the sense that I'm going to be okay with who I am. But if you

walk in the room, and you're the kind of person who Hey, only

matter if I succeed, but I think as well, you're only gonna like

me if I succeed and so I can only spend limited amount of

time and because I can't keep up the act. And you know, we've all

met people like that where it's really hard just to get real

with them. And, and ultimately, you just kind of you need a you

need a break and so I it was so comforting, you know, for me to

make a conscious decision to cut that stuff out. And and it's not

100% cut out but it's just easier, it's easier to just be

myself and write things I want to write and do the things I

want to do and say the things I want to say and a lot of that I

think comes with just getting older too.

You know, I want to just have you fill in the blank there

was a line that you said it said the most powerful and attractive

person we can become is the person...

We already are. You know that I checked into

this therapeutic retreat center called on site that we just

talked about. And it's a really great place, I highly recommend

it for everybody listening if you if you're trying to figure

something out, or if you just feel exhausted. And what it is,

is it's 40 people go through a program called Living centered,

the 40, people are broken up into groups of 10, and do some

group therapy for one week, but during that week, you can't tell

anybody your last name, and you can't tell anybody what you do.

It was unbelievable. It was like, I wanted to tell

everybody, I'm a writer. And if you'd asked me the day before

dawn, do you think your identity is caught up in the fact that

your provider said no way? I mean, I don't care about that.

It's just what I do. I hardly ever talked about it. And sure

enough, you know, somebody seemed really in control. And,

and somebody I wanted to get to know and wanted to like me, and

on the tip of my tongue would be well, I'm a writer, I'd be

trying to drop it into conversations, I realize, oh,

wait, you can't you can't say that. You can't let anybody know

that. And I thought, holy crap, I am so caught up and what I do,

as is who I am, and even then over the course of the week, I

mean, I sit there feeling like I've got this ace card, and all

these people would really like to want to talk to me, and I

can't use it. And the reality is, they don't want to talk to

me, I'm sitting here eating lunch alone, and I've got an ace

card I can't use. So why in the world do I actually matter?

Like, is this the real me the loser eating lunch alone? Is

this who I really am without my costume. And then slowly, as the

week went on, I had real conversations with people about

you know, my childhood and about my relationships, and then

somebody you know, over lunch, or I'd be talking about

something and they kind of went, wow, you know, that was a hard

moment. And that comment made me feel really cared about. And I

thought, so this is the difference between people caring

about you, and people being impressed by and being cared

about was like, eating really nutritious food. And B people

being impressed was like, eating junk food. And I'd been out on a

diet of junk food for so long. And Manny, you know, it was life

changing for me. And I really came out of there going, I this

is what I want, you know, I want I want to eat nutritious food

from here on out. And, you know, you go back and forth course,

you're standing from a lot of people and they've been paid to

hear you talk you, you have a professional obligation to be

impressive. Like you need to make them laugh. And yeah, and

inspire them, that's your obligation. But you know, you

step off the stage and, and that it doesn't feed you anymore. And

you've got to actually have real connection with real people. And

I think it comes from this conscious decision of I'm going

to try not to be impressive here. You know, and the other

thing is, and this was a year, I've got a buddy Bob Gough, who

is a author and inspirational guy, and Bob, he actually has a

New York Times bestselling book, and he put his phone number in

the back of the book. And people call him and he he says all

time, you know, you've got to be accessible, you got to be

accessible to people. And I just completely disagree with him. I

was like, if I'm accessible, I'm never gonna get anything done.

This year, I just said, You know what, I think I'm going to allow

myself to be interrupted and have my day hijacked a little

more often. And just see what happens. What I discovered was,

you know, and I've got a great staff and, and there's a lot of

ways that I can get things done while being interrupted. I

discovered I'm getting more done, and am more connected. And

that's not for everybody. But I think this year is a year where

I'm, I'm just being willing to kind of do that a little bit

more. And I don't know, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an

interesting transition in life to have built a life being

impressive and realize you're feeling alone. And now to want

to up to deeply want to connect with people consider that a

priority. I can tell you emotionally and even physically,

I'm probably healthier than I've been in a long time. So there's

some benefits to it.

So I want to talk about the corrective pattern of some

of this stuff. You know, you talked about how you know people

caring about you is like eating healthy food, people being

impressed by you is like eating junk food. And I mean, there's

this whole this whole risk of intimacy and being known and

allowing people in the, you know, the big theme, how do you

tell the difference between enablement with somebody? And Grace?

I think there are different kinds of

relationships, right? So with family, it's grace to the end.

And you know, that doesn't mean you you allow our kids or or

even our significant others to be awful to us or whatever, but

you just keep turning the other cheek, over and over and over. I

think you know, how to win in professional relationships.

We've talked we talked about this often, as I run a company

of, you know, when do you just when do you not show grace and

when are you winning? Are we need to show grace but let

somebody go or whatever. And I, the clarity in my mind comes

from an interview I did years ago with Pete Carroll, Pete and

I got out a couple hours alone in his office there in Seattle.

And we talked a little bit about leadership. And one of the

things I asked him because he is he's amazing at taking somebody

who other people don't see the potential in any developed

person. Yeah, yeah. Russell Wilson is an example of that the

guy that was a great quarterback, but nobody saw that

in him. And he turned him into a Super Bowl winning quarterback

almost twice. And but he's also had to let some guys go. And and

so I said, Listen, what do you what, you know? Are you willing

to throw a guy a rope, you know, we were sitting on the edge of

the, of Lake Washington there in his office, he's got a corner

office that overlooks a practice field and lakes, and like

Washington, there were some boats out there. And I said, Do

you ever throw a guy row? And he said, out? Yeah, he said, If

somebody on my team is hurting, or struggling, or even bringing

other guys down or costing us, I definitely throw on the row. And

I said, What do you do if they don't take the rope? He says,

throw them another rope done. And so what do you do if they

don't take that rope? He says, I throw him another rope. You

know, and I was like, Wow, this guy's run a football team. And

he said, you know, Ashley again? And it's okay, what are you

doing that third row, because I let them drown. And I thought

that's really fascinating, you know, gives you a few tries, and

then he decided, he realizes this person is trying to drown.

That's their, that's what they're trying to do that has

nothing to do with me. That's their decision. And so he's got

this great relationship between showing grace and developing

guys, and not being codependent not and realizing this is their

life, this is the decision that they want to make, and they need

to make it. And they need to feel the consequences in order

to develop as a human being. And he's not going to get in the way

of them suffering the consequences of their actions.

So I, so different relationships have different, you know, ways

of enabling, I'll tell you that, you know, in the book, I've got

this chapter called five kinds of manipulators. And one of the

things I learned in relationships early on is there

are some people who just are deciding not to make themselves

compatible to have a good healthy relationship. And, you

know, my friend, Henry Cloud is a is a psychologist, a great

writer. He says, the only person that you can't have a

relationship with is with somebody who's deceptive. And I

thought, Man, that's really true. You can have a

relationship with a drug addict, you never relationship with

somebody even abuses you. But if they're lying, there is no

relationship. Because there's no trust there. And you're not in a

relationship with the real them anyway, you're in a relationship

with whatever image they're projecting. I remember, I used

to go hunting with a guy who would tell me Is it good

Christian guy, church guy, and he'd tell me, you know, Dad, I

don't read your books. You know, I, I, I only read the Bible, you

know? And I was like, Okay, that's interesting. I don't know

anybody who does that. Right. But talk about you know, I like

Robin around my tracker, listen to praise, music and blah, blah.

And, and I love talking with the guy. It was really fun guy and

good guy, and really successful. I learned a lot from, but I

never connected with him. And I just, it was like, you know, I

could spend I spend weeks with this guy, and I have no idea who

he is. And all I know is he's impressive from a religious

standpoint. And then, you know, then he gets caught with a

prostitute, right? And everything unravels. And he's

got to go through all these programs and all this kind of

stuff. And, you know, the first thing I thought when I heard

that he'd gotten caught with a prostitute. No idea. I literally

thought, good. We can be friends now. Right? Like, we can be

friends like, yeah, now I know who you are. Wow. I am, like,

let's talk. And let's not try to impress each other. So I and I

think the reality is, he really wasn't good guy. He probably

really did only read the Bible, when he probably really did

liking like to ride around with his tractor and listen to praise

music. And he liked some other stuff that he wasn't talking

about. And it stayed in isolation. And so it grew. Yeah.

And so I think it's really important, especially for those

of us who a lot of people depend on us and look to us for

examples. I think it's important that you know, we lose the

battle to win the war. And here's what I mean by that. I

was I actually am a Republican. If I ever run for office, I'll

run as a Republican. But I liked a lot of the stuff in the first

Obama campaign. I liked a lot of his stuff when fatherlessness

really got me and so actually defending him a couple times.

And I was in a debate with the John McCain team, public debate.

I was on Obama's team. They had three representatives from the

McCain team about 1000 people in the audience. Wow. And the guy

that I was debating with on my side of the team was a civil

rights lawyer, who was who went on to be on Obama's staff is a

very important member of Obama. his staff. And he said to me

before the debate, he said, Listen, it's not important that

we win this thing. And I said, What are you talking? And I was

like, ramped up, you know, there were some big names. There were

some big guys on the other side of the deal. Sure. And I wanted

to win. And he said that he's a no, he's you know, that if you

try to win this thing, you might say something, and that would

really cost the campaign a lot. And he said, here's what I'm

saying, be willing to lose this battle so that we can win the

war. And in other words, don't say anything on that stage and

have that microphone, that's gonna make CNN tonight. And an

Obama surrogate said this and cost us the entire war. If we

lose this battle, it will not be on CNN. Right. So I think

there's some, you know, when we're sitting around a campfire

at night, sometimes just as leaders, we need to lose the

battle, we need to say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm not doing well in

this area of my life. And and what do you guys think about

that? Well, that may cost you a little respect around that fire.

But what you're not going to do is get caught with a prostitute

and have it on the news that night, because you're your best

selling author and owner of a company you get because you lost

the battle you've talked about, you will really cost yourself a

little bit of respect, and have people not be so impressed with

you, so that you can move on and keep moving slowly into true

integrity and, and, and who we need to be as leaders. So I

think those are lessons that I'm figuring out as I get older.

Well, I love that line. That deception in any form kills

trust, and here's what we're gonna do. We are out of time,

where do you want people to go to learn more about you?

You can learn about my company. And all we do

at story brand.com, we really didn't talk much about that.

Story. brand.com is, is what I do. And you can learn about that.

Here is my last question. And this is one you're probably

not prepared for. One of the things I loved most about you

was the way that you talked about Betsy. At what point did

you know that Betsy was the one you were going to marry?

Betsy, and I met, or years before we started

dating. And I had not done a lot of the work I needed to do to be

healthy. And so I immediately really liked her and also

immediately felt this chasm between how just, you know, I

don't mean to use economic languages, but how valuable she

was as a woman, and how I wasn't worthy of her right. And I knew

that I knew that in my bones. That's not just me being humble.

That was actually true. And did a bunch of work. And then we we

reconnected and I remember we were in Washington, DC, she

worked in Washington, DC, and I was passing through town, we got

dinner one night, and she actually had a boyfriend she was

in and out of relationship for three years, when we were having

dinner, we were having dinner with a group. And I just

remember thinking this is this is the girl that I liked it for

a long time I've done this work, and the eye and keep doing work.

And I don't think I'm going to be a bad guy for her. This is

the girl that that I want. I want to marry this girl it was

it was right when we really connected. And so the other

couple left the dinner and we kind of sat and kept talking and

I asked her I said you know, I mean, I knew her well enough to

have a conversation like this. And I said, you know, are you

seeing anybody? And she said, Yeah, you know, I'm in a

relationship. It's not great. He's doing a lot of work in

Africa. And he tends to be out of the country a lot. And I

don't know what he wants. And he clearly wasn't making her feel

good. So I said, Listen, I'll give you 30 days to break up

with him. I'm gonna call you in 30 days. And I really want to

start dating. She just sort of sat there like, Who in the world

do you think you are? And but it did go cause her to go home and

to her roommates and say You wouldn't believe what this doll

and all her roommates kind of looked at and said, he's right.

And so 30 days later, I call her and I'm like, How are you doing?

She goes, Well, I did break up with them. And slowly, you know,

she started letting me data. But I'll tell you the key to our

relationship is, you know, there's really not a day that

goes by that I don't realize I massively got the better end of

the deal. I mean, massively. And I think that, I think to people

who think they got the better deal is the key to a healthy

relationship. And it's an important thing for you to

realize that you're also blessing this other person,

right? Yeah, it's true. And that's another part of a healthy

relationship is realizing not only am I getting a great deal

here, she's getting a good deal, too. I'm just getting the better

deal. Well, a better person than I. I mean, I knew it right away.

It took her a little while to figure it out.

I love it. Well, thanks for the work that you're doing.

And we appreciate you sharing your heart with us. And yeah,

just thank you for laying it out there.

Thanks for having me.