How to Be Here Read online

but you’re now realizing that failure isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  This is the beautiful, counterintuitive, strange, unexpected, reliable mystery built into the fabric of creation that is at work every time we fail.

  You tried.

  You leaped.

  You took a chance.

  You risked.

  You paid attention to your deep waters, and you came to the conviction that trying this is where the life is, and so you did it.

  That is not failure. That is how you create a life.

  You try things and you make things with the awareness that you are always taking risks. Whether you are trying something new or doing the exact same thing, it’s all risky.

  Failure is simply another opportunity to learn.

  Another opportunity to explore, to grow, to find out who you are.

  You try this.

  You try that.

  Some things go great.

  Others crash and burn.

  When you do crash and burn, ask yourself lots of questions about whatever it is that happened:

  What can you learn here?

  How will you see things differently moving forward?

  Why did I do that?

  leads to,

  What have I learned?

  leads to,

  How will I do it differently in the future?

  What you would have called a failure becomes another opportunity for increased clarity about who you are and what you’re doing here.

  Alive

  The truth is, you want risk.

  Not too much that it overwhelms you, but some.

  You want some risk in your life.

  Risk is where the life is.

  One morning I was at the gym near our house when I overheard a man telling his friend that he was going to be DJ’ing on the local radio station that night. He was holding a barbell in each hand, working his biceps, saying to his friend that he had some butterflies in his stomach because he had never DJ’d live on the air before and he was really excited about it.

  How many people actually listen to a local radio station?

  Who cares?

  He was alive.

  A little nervous.

  Not quite sure how it would go.

  Chatting with his friend about his big opportunity.

  We love to believe that we are sophisticated, refined people with good taste and a calm, reasoned view of the world. But we’re also very, very simple: We want a little risk in our lives because it keeps things interesting. It wakes us up, it gives us a sense that we’re alive and breathing and doing something with our lives.

  So did I fail when I made that Dickie Shoehorn book?

  Of course not.

  Because—say it with me now—

  DICKIE LIVES!

  PART 7

  The Two Things You Always Do

  I can’t dance like Usher. I can’t sing like Beyoncé. I can’t write songs like Elton John. But we can do the best with what we’ve got. And so that’s what we do. We just go for it.

  —Chris Martin

  I once found myself lying facedown in a pile of dust and trash underneath a Christmas tree plugging in the lights.

  I was twenty-five, a few months into my first official job as a pastor. I had assumed that in my new role I would primarily be doing, you know, pastor things. Spiritual, religious things. Important things. One day one of the leaders I reported to told me he needed my help on a project. I went upstairs to discover that they had put massive Christmas trees all across the stage and he needed me to crawl under each one and plug in the lights—while he sat out in the pews and gave me directions. What I discovered as I got under those trees is that no one had cleaned the back of the stage in a long, long time because you couldn’t see it from the seats. And there I was, crawling on my chest through years of accumulated dust and grime, gradually breaking a sweat trying to find those outlets in the dark, thinking,

  I didn’t sign up for this.

  Everybody has a Christmas tree story.

  It’s the humiliating thing that happened when you were just starting out, when you hadn’t earned anything, when you were at the bottom, when you were the rookie and no one cared what you had to say.

  When you’re starting out, or when you’re starting over, you do whatever work you can. You take whatever opportunities you are given. You do it with a smile. You give it everything you have. You take notes, you ask questions. And when you get the chance to interact with someone who is doing what you would love to do someday, you lean in and you listen intently.

  If you are the assistant to the regional manager for distribution services, throw yourself into being the best possible assistant to the regional manager for distribution services you can be.

  If you sell little plastic widgets, be kind and helpful to every single person who comes in to your little plastic widget store.

  If you are asked to plug in the lights under the Christmas trees, get down and start crawling.

  The first thing you have to do is throw yourself into whatever it is you’re doing.

  A young man once walked up to me after a talk I’d given and asked me how he could do what I do. I asked him what that was. He said,

  I want to talk to large crowds.

  How do you talk to large crowds?

  You first talk to whoever will listen.

  When I was starting out I said “yes” to every single opportunity that came my way. I spoke at state fairs and jails and home groups and chapel services and outdoor festivals and backyards. I paid for my own gas to get there. I was heckled, I was criticized, people came to hear me just to tell me afterward how terrible I was. I’ve tripped and fallen off stages, numerous sound systems have literally blown up while I was talking.

  Once I spoke in Chicago and partway through the talk I realized I had run out of things to say. I started speaking slower, I repeated things I’d said earlier in the talk, I tried pausing, hoping something new would come to mind. It didn’t. Eventually I stopped and walked off the stage, totally humiliated.

  One time I was chopping up jalapeño peppers during a talk to make a point and I inadvertently wiped my eyes. They swelled and began to burn. I was temporarily blind. On a stage. In front of three thousand people.

  I’ve spoken at events where I was in between a juggler and a plate spinner, I’ve gone on right after the heavy metal band, just before the Lamest Interpretive Dance Group Ever, and once I was speaking to a group of high school students in a basement and a dog walked in. In the backdoor, though the audience, across the stage I was standing on. And then it walked out the door. And no one acknowledged the dog. Like it was totally normal.

  Throwing yourself into it begins with being grateful that you even have something to throw yourself into.

  The Mail Room

  Sometimes we don’t throw ourselves into it because we believe the small things are beneath us. What we don’t understand is that what appear to be the small things are actually the big things. They’re where it starts, and throwing yourself into them inevitably creates new opportunities for you.

  I often meet people who have a very high view of their talents and abilities, convinced that they are destined for something more important than whatever it is they are currently doing.

  They usually say things like,

  I just know there’s something more important out there

  for me

  or,

  I’m too big for the role I’m currently in

  or,

  I’m better than this.

  If you are destined for something more, that “more” will only happen because you throw yourself into whatever it is you’re doing. This will always involve humbling yourself and doing whatever is in front of you, like crawling around on a dirty floor under Christmas trees.

  How does the David and Goliath story start?

  It starts with David bringing bread and cheese to his brothers at the battle. It’s as basic and menial a job as there is�
��the kind in those days that you would give to the youngest son.

  You want to conquer giants?

  Bring the cheese first.

  Original

  Sometimes we hold back from throwing ourselves into it because we think that the only work worth doing is something completely original that’s never been done before.

  I was doing a Q&A at an event in 2012 and a man raised his hand to ask a question, introducing himself by saying that he was just an insurance agent. As we’ve seen, that little word just is a problem.

  Have you ever been in a car accident and had to call your insurance agent? When you’re standing by the side of the road staring at the smoldering wreck of what was formerly your primary mode of transportation, you don’t want just an insurance agent to answer the phone. You want someone to answer who has given himself to being the best insurance agent he can possibly be.

  No one is just a mom, just a construction worker, just a salesperson, just a clerk—because you doing your work in your place at this time is highly original and desperately needed.

  It may have been done or said by someone else. That’s a distinct possibility. It may have been done or said before.

  But it hasn’t been done or said by you. It hasn’t come through your unique flesh and blood, through your life, through your experience and insight and perspective.

  One of the most inspiring organizations I’ve ever come across is called Kids Hope USA. They run mentoring programs in schools in which volunteers come in once a week to help kids with their schoolwork.

  That’s it. They help kids for an hour a week.

  And what they’ve discovered over time is that literacy rates among these kids who read with someone for one hour once a week rise significantly over time. And those literacy rates are directly related to how many of them will, or won’t, spend time in the county jail ten to fifteen years later.

  By helping these kids learn, these volunteers are literally lowering crime rates.

  People have been helping kids to read for a long time now. It is nothing new, it involves no new groundbreaking techniques or advanced technology or sophisticated data. And yet someone started that program. And countless people have been helped in the process.

  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel because you don’t have to invent anything.

  Sometimes it’s as straightforward as identifying a need and then doing something about it in the most simple and efficient manner possible. That alone may be the most original thing imaginable.

  Rejection

  Sometimes we don’t throw ourselves into it because we put ourselves out there in the past and discovered that snipers were crouching on every roof. We were shot down. Criticized. It blew up in our face. No one liked what we did. We believe we failed.

  The actor Mark Ruffalo went to six hundred auditions before he got his first break. Six hundred NOs before the first YES.

  A number of publishers rejected J. K. Rowling’s first novel. They were very clear that no one makes money writing books for kids. Her book was about a boy named Harry Potter.

  Find me one person who’s doing something interesting in the world who hasn’t felt the hot sting of a NO. Or a door slammed in the face. Or boos. Or a rejection letter. Or a tepid reception. Or bankruptcy. Or gotten fired. Or been interrupted by a dog.

  When we don’t throw ourselves completely into it and we hold back our best efforts because of what happened in the past, we are letting the past decide the future.

  Is there any way in which you are holding back because you were burned before?

  Is there any way in which you need to let the past be the past so that the future can be something new?

  Are there any critical voices that are running on repeat in your head, holding you back from giving it everything you’ve got?

  Surrender

  First, we throw ourselves into it.

  And then, at the same time,

  we surrender the outcomes.

  We surrender the outcomes because we cannot control how people are going to respond to us and our work in the world.

  They may love it,

  or they may hate it,

  or they may not react to it at all.

  They may love us,

  or they may hate us,

  or they may not even notice us.

  At one point Jesus says something that his followers find hard to accept and a number of them leave him.

  He turns to the ones remaining and asks, You do not want to leave me too, do you?

  Another time the people listening to him ask, Aren’t we right in saying you’re possessed by a demon?

  Later, when he’s about to be arrested and crucified because his friend Judas betrayed him, he asks Judas, Are you betraying me with a kiss?

  And then there’s this one word at the end of one of the accounts of Jesus’s life where we read that Jesus has been resurrected and he appears to his followers and some worshipped and some doubted.

  People may walk away,

  they may totally misunderstand us (aren’t we right in saying that you are possessed by a demon?)

  they may betray us (. . . with a kiss?)

  they may in the end stand at a distance and not know what to do with us.

  You cannot control how people are going to respond to you and your work in the world.

  Surrendering the outcomes does not mean that we don’t care or we aren’t emotionally involved or we are indifferent to the results. We want to connect with people and move them and inspire them—and we want more kids to learn to read.

  Surrendering the outcomes is not surrendering goals or plans or dreams or numbers or results or ambition.

  Surrendering the outcomes is making peace with our lack of control over how people respond to us and our work.

  Surrendering the outcomes is coming to terms with the freedom people have to react to us and our work however they want.

  Surrendering the outcomes is embracing the fact that there are no guarantees when it comes to results.

  Have you ever heard someone on a stage or in the office or the classroom doing the work, but he’s simultaneously searching for someone to tell him how good, accomplished, skillful, or excellent he is? It’s as if he’s searching for applause in order to keep going. You can sometimes see it in their eyes, this deeply unfulfilled sense that they are incomplete, that they need the strokes and affirmation of others to be content.

  We surrender the outcomes so that the gift we give will be given freely.

  If you are looking for a particular response to bring you joy, that response may never come.

  The joy comes from being fully present in this moment. The reward is in throwing yourself into it right here and now.

  There’s a moment when Jesus starts telling his disciples that he’s going to die. He’s headed to Jerusalem to confront the corrupt systems of religious power that oppress the poor and rob people of their dignity. Jesus understands that throwing himself completely into his mission will have a cost, an unavoidable cost that he must pay, ultimately with his life. His disciples are crushed, and one of them,

  Peter-the-caffeinated-disciple protests, No never!

  Jesus turns to him and says, Get behind me, Satan!

  Jesus speaks harshly to Peter not because he’s upset by Peter’s care and love for him but because of the impulse lurking behind Peter’s words.

  Jesus has said YES, and that comes with a cost, an outcome, which turns out to be his death.

  NO is not an option.

  The philosopher Martin Buber wrote that there are

  YES and NO

  positions to life.

  Is there any way in which you are saying NO, and it’s cutting you off from the depths of your life, so it’s time to say YES?

  Are there any small things that you have been skipping over, skimping on, sliding across the surface of—so it’s time to treat them like they’re big things, throwing yourself into them?

  You throw yourself i
nto it,

  and you surrender the outcome,

  all at the same time.

  This Is Where I Start

  A few years ago I was renting a car in San Francisco and I noticed while I was waiting in line that the woman behind the counter was really good at what she was doing. She had this quiet confidence about her, like she was running the place just by the sheer force of her presence. Have you ever seen this—someone doing a job so well that it stands out? When I got to the front of the line, we started chatting and I learned that she lives across the bay and that she gets up and walks to the train station to catch a 5:15 train every morning, and then she gets off the train and walks the rest of the way to be at the office when it opens at 7 A.M. She works twelve hours and then walks back to the train station for the hour-long ride back across the bay and then she takes a bus or walks the rest of the way home.

  Three and a half hours of commute every day?

  Yes, she said, that’s how long it takes.

  She told me that this particular branch of the rental car company is the busiest in the city and then she smiled and said,

  This is where I start.

  That’s a great line.

  This is where I start.

  You may be in the wrong place. You may feel like you’re not fully here because you need to be somewhere else. Like another neighborhood. Or another job. Or another city. Sometimes we feel like we’re standing at a distance from our own life because we need to get another life. We need to leave one thing and go to another in another place. That may be true.

  But other times the reason we don’t feel fully here is rooted in how we’re thinking about where we are. After three minutes in that rental car office, I noticed how fully present that woman behind the counter was. It was that noticeable. And then I started talking to her and she said,

  This is where I start.

  She’s got things she wants to do, places she wants to go. But for now, what she said gives us a world of insight into her actions:

  This is where I start.

  If you feel stuck in your life, like it’s passing you by, like there’s something way better for you somewhere out there and you’re missing it, try this—try throwing yourself into the small things and repeating to yourself: