332 The Power of Storytelling with Donald Miller

"The only way that we actually change is by overcoming hard things." - Donald Miller If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/332 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 332 with New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Write down things you want to improve. Write down things you won't tolerate from yourself. Write down things you never want to see yourself do again. Be the hero of your own movie. That was from Joe Rogan. Welcome everyone to this very special episode with Donald Miller. I'm very excited about what we just connected on and I think you're going to get a lot out of this one. I just did a workshop down in Nashville, Tennessee for a company down there. Had a great time doing a two-hour interactive workshop with some of the top dentists in the country and really got to connect with people and hear their stories. You know, made it really interactive.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  It was more about the audience than about me going on stage and sharing my story. And afterwards, I got to connect with Donald Miller and really dive in a little deeper about the power of story. And really, how our own story is important, but really in our businesses and our lives, how making other people the hero of the story is the most important thing. Making it about other people and how can we do this in our own lives, in our relationships, in our businesses? And we really dive in about this. We really dive in deeper in this episode. Now, for those of you who don't know who Donald Miller is, he is a student of story.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  He's the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Blue Like Jazz, also A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and the most recent book, Scary Close. He has served on the presidential Task Force for Fatherhood and Healthy Families, a joint effort between government and the private sector to rewrite the story of fatherlessness in America. And currently, he helps people live a better story and helps leaders grow their businesses at storybrand.com. And in this interview, we break down a number of things, including how changing the story you tell about your business can increase your customers and sales. Also, why your customer should be the hero of the story.

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  The seven questions that every business owner needs to answer for their customers to understand their story in a simple way. The importance of growing relationships outside of your business. What it was like for Donald to grow up without his father. And then the reunion that he had with his father many years later. We also talk a lot more about intimacy in one of his latest books called Scary Close. We going pretty deep here, so I hope you guys enjoy this one. And also, we did a full video interview with Donald in his home in Nashville when I was there this past weekend and have some incredible photos of him and his dog Lucy. And also got some incredible photos of him in the backyard by his writing shed with his dog.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  And just had an incredible time. So make sure to check out these beautiful photos. The full video interview as well is back at lewishouse.com/332. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Donald Miller. Welcome back and forth to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest today, Don Miller. Good to see you, man. Very good to see you. Thanks for having me in your home. Yeah, welcome. It's nice. We're here, we're hanging out. Lucy's enjoying the scenery. She's holding down the fort. And I'm very excited. We met through Michael Hyatt, probably like eight to 10 months ago.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  There was a dinner that we called the Nashville Mafia.

• 4:12Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  And me and you were both at it. I was the only one not from Nashville that was invited to the dinner.

• 4:16Donald Miller?

  It was an amazing night.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  It was a cool night, right?

• 4:18Donald Miller?

  Yeah. Jeremy Coward was there, Rory Vaden was there, Jeff Goines, John Acuff was there.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  Josh Axe.

• 4:24Donald Miller?

  Yeah, yeah. And I now, I think that's where I met Rory too, and Rory and I are now friends. He's an amazing guy, does amazing stuff. And you and I are friends, so.

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:33Donald Miller?

  Mike brought us all together, it was kinda nice.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Brought us all together. And I really didn't know much about you until that night, and then I was researching more. And you're a three-time New York Times bestseller. Your first book was called Blue Light Jazz, right?

• 4:45Donald Miller?

  That's right. I'm still grateful for that, but like fifteen years ago.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  And it sold like a million copies or something crazy.

• 4:50Donald Miller?

  Something like that, and yeah. It's that one-hit wonder, it's like it's my fire and rain.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, right. Yeah, it works for you.

• 4:56Donald Miller?

  It works. You just gotta give me one hit.

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  So you wrote that book, and then I heard from Nigel that you were going to create a movie out of it, or write a movie script, but then, but then they said it was a boring movie.

• 5:09Donald Miller?

  Yeah. They said my life was too boring to be turned into a movie, so we had to make things up.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  And then you decided to write the second book, right?

• 5:16Donald Miller?

  Well, that book is about having screenwriters come in and edit your life to make it more interesting. And so the premise of that book is what if you actually lived more interesting in the first place, using techniques that storytellers have used over thousands of years to have a meaningful life? And that book, I mean, the stuff that happened, so I could write that book changed everything for me.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  So what, what happened? I mean, you.

• 5:41Donald Miller?

  Well, like for in a movie, Louis, you know, a character needs to be, they need to have a single focused desire to accomplish a thing, or the movie won't work. So if Jason Bourne wants to.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  They need a goal, they need a vision.

• 5:53Donald Miller?

  They need a goal. So if Jason Bourne wants to know who he is, and also marry the girl, and also lose thirty pounds, and also run a marathon, you lose the audience. And so what I learned from that was, I can't wake up every day and wonder what today's gonna be about, unless I'm intentionally taking a weekend off and, you know, exploring that kinda mental space. I've gotta wake up every day and go, no, this is the overall goal that we're trying to accomplish. This is where life is heading. I need a filter so that I can say, you know, I'm not gonna do this because it doesn't help me accomplish this, which is what I want to happen. And then suddenly, life becomes very interesting, where before, you know, a lot of us are sitting in the movie theater of our brain, and like our cameras, our, our eyes are like cameras, and we're watching the movie, and we're saying, this movie sucks.

• 6:37Donald Miller?

  And I'm saying, well, there are ways to fix it. You know, have have determined goals. Uh, face challenges almost with a sense of anticipation rather than reluctance. If if you have a a character in a movie who avoids challenges, you have no movie.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  Right. There's gotta be conflict.

• 6:56Donald Miller?

  There has to be conflict and the character has to face it because uh that's the only way to accomplish the goal. And the only way that we actually change, it's true in movies and it's true in life, is by overcoming hard things. That's it.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:08Donald Miller?

  You can't change by being happy. You can't change by experiencing joy. Joy is what you experience after you overcome the challenge and your character is transformed. So we love joy, but joy is the byproduct of work. And a lot of us want joy, we don't want the work.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  And so would you say that in order to continue to experience joy, we must experience some type of discomfort and pain? Or do we stop at one point and we're happy for the rest of our lives?

• 7:31Donald Miller?

  Discomfort and pain, and you know, there's tragic pain that we all experience. But I I only mean that in, of course, we don't want to heap that on ourselves.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 7:40Donald Miller?

  But life is embedded with challenges and goals are embedded with challenges. The harder something is to attain, the more we value it.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:47Donald Miller?

  And so if we don't have to work hard to attain something, we don't actually value our lives.

• 7:52Lewis Howes?

  We don't appreciate it either.

• 7:53Donald Miller?

  Right. It's all, it's Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning logo therapy, uh overlaid with story principles.

• 8:01Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 8:02Donald Miller?

  But what I love about it is, you know, I wrote that book, Bullock Jazz, and it it hit the New York Times. It's been almost a year there and that had been my goal for a long time. And yet, when I accomplished that goal.

• 8:11Lewis Howes?

  To write the book or hit the New York Times?

• 8:13Donald Miller?

  Both.

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  Both, yeah.

• 8:14Donald Miller?

  Yeah, since high school, I'd written down one of my goals was to be a New York Times bestselling author. So it took about 12 more years to do that after high school. And uh and, you know, that was a real 10 years of learning to write and and getting out there and hustling. And when I accomplished that goal, the next year was one of those depressing.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that funny?

• 8:33Donald Miller?

  Yeah. And you would think, you know, if you would have sat me down in high school and said, listen, if you hit the New York Times, you're gonna get depressed. But then what I realized was, it wasn't that I was depressed because I hit the New York Times. It was depressed because I'd reached my goal. My story ended and I didn't have a new one.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  Now what? Yeah.

• 8:46Donald Miller?

  Yeah, and so as soon as I went, "I'm gonna write a new story now with my life," it all picked right back up again.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's interesting because every time, you know, my dream was always to be an All-American athlete, then professional sports, and every time I achieved it, it was like I was the most miserable person to be around.

• 9:01Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Lewis Howes?

  Like fifteen minutes later, I was like, "Now what?"

• 9:03Donald Miller?

  Yeah. You know, in this book, Million Miles, with a team of folks, I rode my bike across America. We started in LA and we ended in DC.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow, how long did that take?

• 9:14Donald Miller?

  About seven weeks. We took Sundays off, but it took about seven weeks. And I knew that a week after we got to Delaware, I was gonna fly back to Portland where I lived, and I knew I would get depressed. Because that much adrenaline and that focus every day, and then waking up and having nothing to do. And so I ended up jumping into the Obama campaign when he was trying to beat Hillary in the primaries, and then stayed on the campaign through the general election. Of course, he got elected and ended up with a little job in the White House on a task force. But the only reason I did that-

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  So you were working with Obama then?

• 9:51Donald Miller?

  Well, I mean, I was working with an extremely... I had the most boring job ever. I sat and reviewed all sorts of stuff on fatherhood and healthy families. Then we wrote a book for the president, and he did everything that we asked him to do.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's great.

• 10:06Donald Miller?

  So it was a task force, which is a different thing. But the point is that, you know, I think some of our goals, they kinda have to be like a trapeze thing. When we accomplish one, we need to have our hand reached out for the next one.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  So we need to already plan ahead?

• 10:20Donald Miller?

  I think we need to plan ahead.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  We can't just say, "This is the end," and then figure it out then. We should have like, this is this year's goal, plus four years, plus-

• 10:28Donald Miller?

  Yeah, and then inside of that, as you know, daily goals, you know, small steps to reach there. And this is research, there's gotta be 500 books that back up this idea, but a lot of us, we know it, but we just don't live it.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Right. And how much of your work is connected to, you know, the hero's journey and the call to adventure with Joseph Campbell?

• 10:47Donald Miller?

  I think Joseph Campbell's a genius. I mean, I think he's right on so many fronts. There's some- The idea that myth was created to explain life, you know, I think is, there's validity to that, but I also think there's an imprint in the DNA of myth that came from somewhere.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:07Donald Miller?

  And so, he makes me a little uncomfortable when he begins to dismiss the possibility of something that also, a true myth, a myth, you know, the existence of a god and these kinds of things, he's more or less dismisses that stuff. But you can't deny his genius and, and so I think the hero's journey has, and along with Robert McKee's work and Blake Snyder's work and especially Christopher Booker's work, The Seven Basic Plots.

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 11:32Donald Miller?

  Have informed my understanding of story and how I use that to help people live a better life and also how to clarify brand messages and what we do now.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Right, got it. So you wrote that second book and then Scary Close just came out recently, correct?

• 11:45Donald Miller?

  Yeah, it came out a year ago.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  About a year ago, and it's Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy. Now, why this book and how does the storytelling play into Scary Close?

• 11:57Donald Miller?

  Well, I used some storytelling principles to write the book, just to sort of edit it down and so it's an easy book to read because of that. But the story behind the book is, you know, I got married at 42 years old, so I spent 42 years single and was just not the best guy to date.

• 12:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 12:17Donald Miller?

  Not the guy, I was just a, you know, there were all sorts of issues, codependency and father-related issues coming out of my background and these kinds of things. And so, basically, I would, I would meet a girl, we'd date, it would get really serious and then it was time to, you know, tie the knot, she wanted to get married and then I'd leave.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  You were not ready.

• 12:39Donald Miller?

  Yeah, I'd go to the next one. And I think that's fine, except when you're sort of leading them to believe that's where it's going.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  And that's what you were doing?

• 12:46Donald Miller?

  That's what I was doing. And so, I did that a few times and one, it was, we broke off an engagement, she got...

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  She proposed.

• 12:54Donald Miller?

  I proposed, there was a ring on her finger.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  But you knew it wasn't...

• 12:56Donald Miller?

  I knew, yeah, I knew and I was going through the motions because I thought this is the right thing to do, you know, I should finally tie the knot and then it just, you know, fell apart and she got hurt and, and so I had some friends, very kind friends, sit me down and say, you know, you gotta deal with this stuff. And I went off to this place called Onsite Workshops. A guy named Miles Adcox runs this place here in Nashville, actually. About an hour outside of town. And I did seven days of therapy that they say is nine months of therapy in seven days.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 13:28Donald Miller?

  And it was deep.

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  It was.

• 13:30Donald Miller?

  It was. We went really, really deep. I mean, it's stuff like, they never like sit and talk like you would talk to a counselor.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  It's like a group setting and there's exercises.

• 13:37Donald Miller?

  Group setting, you're guiding horses around a pen, you're writing letters from your father's perspective to you on the day you were born. I mean, they just have a way.

• 13:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, opening you up.

• 13:45Donald Miller?

  Opening you up.

• 13:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 13:46Donald Miller?

  And it was absolutely transformation.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 13:48Donald Miller?

  And after that, even my assistant called me before onsite, after onsite. It's like, before onsite, Don would have done this. And didn't date for a while and then ran into a gal who was always out of my league. I always liked her. And she smelled in me something that was healthy all of a sudden. And we began to very carefully date and now we're married. And so that, that book is about that transformational journey, that sort of inner transformation of becoming somebody who is trustworthy with another human being's heart.

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  And what do you think was holding you back mostly in these relationships? What was, were you always putting on a front or this act or were you?

• 14:28Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  Trying to be this interesting guy?

• 14:30Donald Miller?

  Well, I mean, that only lasts for so long, right?

• 14:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 14:33Donald Miller?

  But I think there was, you know, so many identity issues. What I wanted to be, I got hooked on catch and release, right? Like you're a fish and you catch and then you release and you catch and then you release. The game, all that kind of stuff. And the part of it that I liked was being the hero. And the problem is, the hero is always looking for somebody to rescue who is a victim. And then you rescue the victim, you feel great about yourself, and now you're stuck with a victim, so you resent the fact that you're with a victim.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  Cause they're not growing or they're not breaking through and you're like...

• 15:05Donald Miller?

  They're being a victim in order to lure a rescuer and it just, none of it works. And so it's, you know, there's a triangle that, that, you know, it's, it's hero, victim, resentment. And...

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  So you resent the person after a certain amount?

• 15:18Donald Miller?

  You resent the person and then you begin to oppress them and then you become the oppressor of the victim.

• 15:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:23Donald Miller?

  And you, you know, a lot of abuse situations end up this way.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 15:27Donald Miller?

  And, and so I didn't know that I was doing that. And to discover that at onsite and have language around it and to be able to, to kind of find my way out of that and... And now, I mean, all my relationships were so rocky and I remember when Betsy and I, even a year into our marriage, we were just kinda going, "When is the other shoe gonna drop? Like, when is this going to get hard?" And then we realized, it's just not. Like, we're, like, two healthy people actually work really well together.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:54Donald Miller?

  And then we thought, "Well, what if our kids hate us?" Because there has to be drama, right? And then we kinda went, "Maybe our kids are gonna like us. Maybe this is, maybe just health works. Maybe therapy works."

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't there have to be some type of conflict in every story in order to break through?

• 16:07Donald Miller?

  Well, there's, I think there's enough conflict embedded in marriage without the unhappiness. Right, right, right. It works out. It's a great story, yeah.

• 16:16Lewis Howes?

  So what was it like when, I mean, how do you know you're catching a victim? Like, how do we, if someone's single watching right now and they're like, "Man, this is a pattern I do, but how am I even aware of it? Like, what are the signs we should be looking for?"

• 16:29Donald Miller?

  Yeah, so victims have a very high external locus of control.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  What's that mean?

• 16:34Donald Miller?

  Uh, your locus of control is that thing in you that takes responsibility for your life.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  They don't have responsibility.

• 16:43Donald Miller?

  Well, they, uh, if there's a problem, it's, it's because of something outside of them.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  They don't take the responsibility for the problem ever, yes.

• 16:52Donald Miller?

  So people with very high internal locus of control, uh, they find a way to even take responsibility for things that might not have even been their fault. You know, so, uh, you know, if you're on a football team, the guy you want on the team is, uh, you know, the guy who kicked every field goal perfectly, but they lost the game, and he's, he's trying to figure out how he could've done better.

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:13Donald Miller?

  You know, that's the guy you want on the team. Not the guy who's like, "Oh, those guys screwed it up."

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Pointing their finger.

• 17:17Donald Miller?

  Yeah, that's no good. And so, uh, victims have a high external locus of control. Problems are other people's fault.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:25Donald Miller?

  And, uh, and to some degree, the victim identity, uh, gets them what they want because they've attracted a rescuer, they don't have to take responsibility for their lives, somebody else is gonna do the work for them. There are big benefits to being a victim.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:40Donald Miller?

  And then, when, uh, then you can actually, here's the problem with a victim, a false victim, because there are real victims in the world, obviously.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 17:48Donald Miller?

  But a false victim, uh, plays the victim card, uh, and what every victim needs is an oppressor. So if you're in a relationship with somebody who self identifies as a victim, it's a ticking time bomb on when you are going to be that oppressor.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:02Donald Miller?

  Because you're gonna be, because they're gonna need somebody to play that role and they're gonna find a way for that to be you.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  They're gonna make you wrong, or they're gonna blame you, or whatever, even if you didn't do anything wrong.

• 18:09Donald Miller?

  That's right. They're gonna do that, and so...

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  I've had a past girlfriend where it didn't matter what I said, what I did, it wasn't the right thing.

• 18:16Donald Miller?

  Yeah, no, that's...

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  How good I tried to be.

• 18:18Donald Miller?

  Well, it can't be, because if it's the right thing, she gives up control.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Donald Miller?

  And as long as, as long as you keep doing the wrong thing, she's got you, literally by the nuts.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, man, exactly. Why do we, uh, I think in human nature, do we want to rescue people? Why is that? It seems like our psychology, right?

• 18:35Donald Miller?

  There's such a great, appropriate place for rescuing people, right? Um, there's a, uh, you know, when we think about what's going on in Somalia right now. Betsy and I were just on the Somali border about a month ago, looking over into, I'm not Somali, I'm sorry, Syria. And Somalia too, for that matter.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:53Donald Miller?

  But we were looking over the border into Syria, and the atrocities that are having there, I mean, there are, you know, legitimate victims. Henry Cloud defines a legitimate victim as somebody who has no power. They have no power. They, they can't.

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Donald Miller?

  But most, you know, most people are not in that situation.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:09Donald Miller?

  And, you know, it's concerning to me in the, even in the political landscape, that, you know, there's this sort of anti-corporation, anti-wealth, anti-all this, and that is somebody, a politician, baiting a demographic of people to self-identify as victims and lash out against a, uh, an oppressor, which is large corporations. But you and I know, large corporations provide enormous numbers of jobs. They provide health insurance, they provide the products, they provide...

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Shield the economy, yeah, everything.

• 19:42Donald Miller?

  All that kind of stuff. But I know that I can get a vote by tempting somebody to believe that they're a victim.

• 19:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:47Donald Miller?

  What's scary about that is the whole American identity is shifting from the hero identity, you know, I mean, we, we built a pretty darn good company, our ancestors have.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Donald Miller?

  And now we're shifting, our country, and now we're shifting to this identity of a victim, and it's a sad deal.

• 20:04Lewis Howes?

  Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

• 20:07Donald Miller?

  Guy named David Gentiles. Didn't have a dad. David was a youth pastor at the church down the street. He took me under his wing. He, even when I was in junior high school, he invited me to a book group where we studied this, this series of literature, poetry. And that was my introduction to literature. And then he invited me to write an article for the youth group newsletter. I did so. And enough people stopped and said, hey, you're a pretty good writer. It's the only time I'd ever been told I was good at anything.

• 20:36Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 20:38Donald Miller?

  I was probably, I would have been thirteen, thirteen or fourteen years old. And, um, and it stuck. And I thought, man, I want to be praised more.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  Who doesn't want to be acknowledged?

• 20:49Donald Miller?

  Yeah, so I developed, I just kept working on writing and somehow in there, uh, became, began to believe I was a good writer. And so it wasn't that much of a challenge to sit down and put together a book and then that book got published and on off. But, so he was the most influential guy, you know, and he, and you know, when you grow up kind of in that poverty model and dad's gone and mom's working her butt off. Uh, there's nobody around. And so you do have this feeling that you're a bit of a burden on society. And so David was really the guy that when I walked into his office, he was happy to see me. And he began to counter that idea of you're a burden to, you're actually a blessing to be around.

• 21:30Donald Miller?

  And that was the, that was a formational change in my psyche. And plus, he was just a great guy. Blue Like Jazz is actually dedicated to him.

• 21:37Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 21:38Donald Miller?

  In fact, I, um, I, he passed away in an accident. He was at a gym lifting and he, and the bar came down.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 21:46Donald Miller?

  Yeah. And he, and he died. And, uh, I spoke at his funeral. Now, this guy never wrote a book. He, he worked at a church that maybe had fifty people in it when he died, you know? Uh, and then, and his, I delivered his eulogy and they had to rent a baseball stadium to deliver his eulogy. There were news cameras there. He had influenced so many people.

• 22:06Lewis Howes?

  Talk about impact.

• 22:06Donald Miller?

  Yeah, huge impact. And, and the reason is he just believed everybody was, everybody was worth being on the planet. There's something about you, you know, if you're here, you must be important.

• 22:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:16Donald Miller?

  That was his attitude about life. Like, if you're here on the planet, you must be important. So why are you so important? Let me get to know you. Let me figure it out.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:23Donald Miller?

  Isn't that amazing?

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  It's a great attitude.

• 22:25Donald Miller?

  Yeah, really. You just, it's an intoxicating guy. He was that guy.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest lesson that you learned from him?

• 22:31Donald Miller?

  Well, I mean, I think that was it, that, you know, if I'm here, I must be, there must be a reason. I must be, there must be, God must be saying something to the world with me being here.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Donald Miller?

  And, uh, and maybe I can have an impact. I think, uh, you know, it, it took a long time to kind of believe that. But I think the people who have the biggest impact in life are the people who believe they should. You know, they're supposed to.

• 22:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Donald Miller?

  And, uh, I think, personally, I think that's every human being on the planet. There are just a lot of people who don't understand that.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:00Donald Miller?

  Or believe it.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  What was it like growing up without a father that, you know, how did that make you feel? Or did you feel less than because your other friends had, you know, two parents that were there?

• 23:11Donald Miller?

  Yeah, I think it's kind of like having a, going to the dentist and, and having a toothache fixed and realizing when he fixes it that you actually had the toothache. You didn't, it was just a constant pain there. So, uh, definitely, I, I don't know that I so much thought, uh, you know, my other friends have dads, I don't have a dad. But there was a wealth disparity there, that I was definitely on the other side of the tracks. And all my friends.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Financial wealth.

• 23:37Donald Miller?

  Financial wealth, yeah.

• 23:38Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 23:39Donald Miller?

  That I was on the wrong side of the tracks and, uh, and my friends went off to college and I didn't, you know, couldn't afford to go to college.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:46Donald Miller?

  So I went to this little community college on a Tuba scholarship. And the.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:50Donald Miller?

  And all, Tuba.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:52Donald Miller?

  Yeah, and, uh, so that was there. And then, uh, it wasn't until I was, uh, thirty or so that I began working on a book called, uh, Father Fiction and wrote about growing up without a dad. And that was where I began to process some of those wounds. And that led me to actually find my father, who, who left when I was two years old.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, so he's still alive?

• 24:14Donald Miller?

  Uh, he's still alive. I found him.

• 24:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow, what was that like?

• 24:18Donald Miller?

  Was in, it was the scariest moment.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  Oh my God, you didn't talk to him at all until thirty?

• 24:23Donald Miller?

  Never talked to him for, from, from about two years old. Now, he did visit a couple of times in junior high, but I really have no memory of much of that. I mean, it was like a lunch or something. And even then, we're just scared of him, like, who's this man?

• 24:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:34Donald Miller?

  And so I called him, I found him through the district attorney, called him and, uh, said, I'm your son and I'd love to come see you. He was in Indiana and drove from Chicago, was speaking in Chicago and drove to Indiana. Knocked on his door, walked in, we spent about two to three hours together. He's just sat there and drank a beer and watched Fox News and was more nervous than I was. Really? And was unbelievably kind, apologetic. Uh, you know, it was an amazing moment. And he, what was interesting is I didn't, I was only doing it to sort of check it off a list. A buddy of mine had done it with his dad and discovered that his dad had passed away. And that made me start researching who my dad, and then discovered he's alive. And then, um.

• 25:19Donald Miller?

  You didn't want to have the regret, or you didn't want to have the what if, if I didn't see him ever? Yeah, I mean, that was just a sense of you're gonna regret this if you don't get this done. Yeah. And. Are you glad you did then? I did, yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad. He, he actually explained why he left. He made some excuses, uh, and then he looked me in the eye and he apologized. How'd that make you feel? Uh, you know, I had forgiven him so long ago, but it made me feel really good to just say, Dad, I forgive you. Wow. And that was an incredible moment. And I, I walked into that house, I don't know if I'm thirty-two or thirty-four right in there. I walked in still in some ways a little boy and walked out a man.

• 25:58Donald Miller?

  And here's why, because there had always been this kind of cloud over me saying, you just weren't good enough for a dad to stick around. Now, that was a lie. That's, that's crap, right? But you just believe it. And then when I met him, I just thought, well, this is just a dude who was going through a confusing time. Scared. He was scared, he was being kind of run off, you know, by my mom. He was, he, you know, he, he had the best of intentions, like a lot of people, you know? We just make stupid decisions and they affect other people, but we didn't, we weren't malicious about it. And so I walked out and just went, wait, that's, that's not the God voice. This is just a dude who, who was just confused. Yeah.

• 26:41Donald Miller?

  So that heavy burden oppressive thing went away. Wow. It was really, it was really cool. Where do you think your life would be now if your dad was there the whole time? I, you know, I, I do think a lot, you know, would you, would you go back in time and what would you do differently? And.

• 26:59Donald Miller?

  Louis, my life has been such an incredible blessing. And with Betsy and the company doing so well, my writing career and the community of friends that we have. You know, Betsy and I, in our first year of marriage, we had 200 overnight guests.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  I heard about that. In this place or at another place?

• 27:15Donald Miller?

  In this place. We actually bought the house next door and now we bought 15 acres two miles away to build essentially a retreat center that we will never charge anybody money to go to.

• 27:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:26Donald Miller?

  Because we just love hospitality. You know, so the problem with going back in time and changing something is what if I lost that? You know, what if, so I would never do it. If I could go back and have a dad there, I wouldn't do it. My life has just been too great.

• 27:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you think it'd be as driven if you had a dad with like, you know, resources and information and love and affection and?

• 27:48Donald Miller?

  Well, you know, I don't know. I don't know. There may be, I read one study that was trying to find the difference between see corporate executives who do a great job with their company and corporate executives who kind of take it to the next level. And one of the, and it wasn't Jim Collins work, it was even beyond that, but um, one of the characteristics of the executives who do extreme work.

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  Don't have a dad, right? It's like the dad leaves or the?

• 28:11Donald Miller?

  Poor. So a lot of them didn't have a dad.

• 28:15Donald Miller?

  Dysfunctional families, they grew up poor and they, and they probably one, have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder and two, they don't take money for granted.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Donald Miller?

  You know, I mean, you probably like this, like unless I've got eight months worth of overhead in my business account.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  I'm hustling.

• 28:31Donald Miller?

  I'm hustling. I'm like, we're not gonna be able to eat tomorrow. My whole staff's like,

• 28:34Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 28:35Donald Miller?

  We just had our best quarter. I'm like, no, you know, we're gonna have to buy bread.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right, exactly. I think I heard that Obama even like lost his dad early on or like his dad left at a certain age.

• 28:46Donald Miller?

  Yeah, he was in Kenya and then he actually went and visited him in Kenya. If I'm not mistaken, they did interact. Uh, but then his dad passed away.

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  I think there were some, I'm gonna butcher the statistic, but something like a third or a fourth of the presidents actually like lost their fathers at some point early on or their fathers left or something happened with their fathers. It's like a big percentage of the, of the US presidents.

• 29:11Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  And I wonder what makes us like so driven. And my father got in an accident when I was 21. He's still alive, but it's essentially like, um, it's, he has amnesia and it's hard to really connect on an emotional level. It's kind of like saying the same thing every time I see him. And I remember I always had him as like my backup plan. He was always there financially, my mentor, he was like my biggest fan. And then all of a sudden, it's like I had to change his diapers. Type of thing. To teach him how to write and talk and walk. And just like remind him about like everything of our lives. And it was almost like, wow, I don't have my dad to just like give me a hundred bucks in my pocket when I'm in college when I need it.

• 29:47Donald Miller?

  His safety net is gone.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  It's gone. And he had like a company that he was like, you can come in and work for me when you're done living your dream. Like you've always got this to come back to. And it was like, when that happened, it just made me so focused, like I have no other option. I have to learn how to become a man essentially.

• 30:04Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Lewis Howes?

  And like be motivated and driven and figure things out.

• 30:08Donald Miller?

  Yeah, and I think.

• 30:09Lewis Howes?

  So in some ways, it's a lesson.

• 30:10Donald Miller?

  It's amazing that you have and you've done so well. I think that there's a wiring in some guys that that takes over. But let's not kid ourselves. I mean, the fatherless crisis, most guys don't pull it out.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 30:25Donald Miller?

  And they, they, they end up in a lot of trouble. And so I think it's, it's, you know, I mean, I think eighty-five percent of, of kids in prison or, or people in prison came, or I think it's eighty-five percent of foster kids will end up doing time at some point. You know, so that, that idea.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  There's no mentorship, there's no discipline.

• 30:46Donald Miller?

  It's not being modeled. It's just not being modeled.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Donald Miller?

  And so, um, you know, it's, it's a big deal. But also there's, you know, I'm with you. Some of these, you know, Josh Ship and some of these guys who just, and our president Barack Obama.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Josh Ship was in foster homes, this whole.

• 31:03Donald Miller?

  Twenty-six different foster homes.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Donald Miller?

  And, uh, and they're just crushing it. And so I think that at some point, if you can overcome that, I mean, you know, the things that we overcome are where we get our muscle.

• 31:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Donald Miller?

  So if somebody doesn't have to overcome anything, it's just hard to get muscle.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Donald Miller?

  You know, we have to overcome those things. But a lot, but let's not kid ourselves. Some of that weight is so heavy that it crushes guys. They don't.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  It's like the adversity either turns into our advantage or our biggest obstacle forever, right? Where we become the victim for the rest of our lives until we're ready to break through. What's your biggest fear moving forward? You know, you've created so much in your life.

• 31:37Donald Miller?

  Yeah, I think I'm wrestling with questions and taking strides to not let this happen. But, you know, we're driven guys.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:47Donald Miller?

  And we're gonna build our companies and we're gonna impact the world and

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes, we are.

• 31:50Donald Miller?

  all that kind of stuff. And I do not want to get to the end of my life and realize I should have spent more time with Betsy. I should have had a closer group of friends. I should have taken some days off. I hate vacations. I hate them. I can't stand them. I like working. You know, and so Betsy, you know, my marriage is so great because she's just a regulator on that engine. And, you know, we're, we go to Mexico and sit on a beach and I'm just like, I have no idea why I'm here.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Bored, right?

• 32:21Donald Miller?

  I'm bored. I'm, you know, I'm checking my phone and all this kind of stuff. And my wife is beginning to change that. And I had a great epiphany the other day. We, we had this trip that we had planned and getting together a group of people up in British Columbia. And it fell through, something happened that we couldn't go. And, and so Betsy and I decided, well, we're either gonna go to Paris and visit some friends of hers in Paris or Norway because her friend had a baby. We're gonna visit them. Well, Betsy chose Norway. Well, the problem is Paris, you know, the couple that we were gonna visit is an interior designer, architect kind of person who could help us with the land. So I wanted to go to Paris because it helped me accomplish my goals.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  To talk creatively.

• 33:01Donald Miller?

  There's nothing in Norway for me to accomplish. And it was, and I'm like going to bed, just going, I can't believe I gotta do this and I gotta go to Norway. And then I thought, well, no, isn't having a great marriage one of your goals? So isn't sacrificing and spending a week with your, she has wonderful friends in Norway, you know?

• 33:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 33:17Donald Miller?

  Isn't this going to help you accomplish the goal of having a great marriage? And as soon as I was able to turn it into a meaningful goal, I went, yeah. So I'm learning, like, let's make some of those goals not about growing the business or, you know, getting on the New York Times. Let's make some of those goals actually meaningful because, bottom line, the last 15 years of your life, that's all you're gonna be thinking about. You're not gonna be thinking about, I wish I had another

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  More money and

• 33:39Donald Miller?

  I wish I had another half a million dollars. You're not gonna

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you can't, it's funny, I interviewed a guy, Donnie Deutsch, who used to have a show called The Big Idea. I think he sold his

• 33:48Donald Miller?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 33:48Lewis Howes?

  advertising company for about a quarter of a billion dollars. And I interviewed him and he was like, I'm in this like mega mansion in New York City by, you know, Central Park and Guy has anything he wants, he knows everyone, he's like. But he was like, you know, you can't go to the bank every day and visit your money like. You need to have something meaningful to continue to do.

• 34:11Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  And you know, relationships are a big part of that, you know, building quality relationships. But it's like, make enough money, it's. Again, there was the point.

• 34:20Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  And. The guys who make so much money like Steve Jobs, I'm sure he would give his billions away to have one more year or one more week in his life.

• 34:29Donald Miller?

  And he probably wouldn't spend any of that working.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Connecting with people. So at the end of the day, yes, it's important, we live in a financial economy, you know, the economy is something we. Experience. Uh, and we need to master, I think, our finances, but it's also there's other areas of life as well.

• 34:45Donald Miller?

  And use our finances to grow. Companies where where our teams are treated extremely well and we're helping other people make their dreams.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course. When did you realize that storytelling was going to be a big part of your life?

• 34:59Donald Miller?

  Well, I mean, writing a movie about yourself and working with. Very good editors to find out what's interesting is something everybody should do. If you get a chance, you don't pass up the opportunity. So. I I studied story in order to figure out how to live a better life and then studying story to me was like discovering how to compose music. Uh, how to compel a human brain, how to. Uh, captivate people's attention, how to teach moral lessons. All that happens in story. And it is the most powerful tool to compel a human brain. The average human spends thirty percent of their time daydreaming. Unless they're listening to a story. Uh, stories hijack the brain. So when you're in a movie.

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  Captivate you.

• 35:43Donald Miller?

  They captivate you, you're, you're, the movie is actually doing the daydreaming for you.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Can't really think about anything else.

• 35:47Donald Miller?

  You're plugged into the matrix. And, uh, and, uh. So I I knew it was a very powerful tool and then I actually took the elements of story and created a marketing. Filter. A communication filter using them. Filtered my company's messages through that filter. So we came down with very simple, bite sized, compelling. Statements about what we do, why it's important to our customer, what kind of life they could have if they engage it. And we quadrupled, uh, our revenue and.

• 36:18Donald Miller?

  Then my buddies said, "Man, you gotta take this framework, share it with other businesses." And so I kinda put out feelers out there saying I was willing to take some plumber through it. Yeah. And Pantene called, Procter & Gamble called. Wow. And then Ford Lincoln called, and then Chick-fil-A called, and then Berkshire Hathaway called, and then the White House called. And then, and pretty soon I realized, I think suddenly I'm a brand story consultant. There you go, yeah, yeah. Accidentally. Everyone's calling, yeah, yeah. And then we killed every other aspect of what I was doing, and we built this company called StoryBrand, we're about going on three years old now. And it's just booming. And, and I, and listen, I, I always wanted to be a writer, but helping other people, I've written seven books now. They're all kinda memoir-esque. Yeah.

• 37:02Donald Miller?

  You know, if I write an eighth memoir, I'm a narcissist. Clinical. It's time to stop. Sure, sure, sure. Like, that, that human desire to be seen, heard, and understood, I've had too much. You've done that. I've had too much, other people, so the idea of sitting down with a company. Help them tell their story. Help them tell their story is the most life-giving thing I think I've ever done. Yeah. So companies come to here to Nashville, or occasionally I'm able to fly out. And we just sit down, we look at all their marketing collateral, we look at what they wanna accomplish, and we come up with, we usually throw out about ninety five percent of what they're saying. Yeah. And we come up with very clear. Simple, right? Simple messages. The human brain is trying to do two things. It's trying to help you survive, and help you survive means get food, get water, build social relationships. Protect yourself.

• 37:47Donald Miller?

  A tribe that can protect you, reproduce, all that kinda stuff is the primitive part of your brain is trying to survive. The second thing that your brain is trying to do is it's trying not to burn very many calories. Because your brain has a regulator on it. You know, thinking costs you calories. And so your brain says, "Look, we're trying to survive, but if this guy burns too many calories on useless information, uh..." It's gonna be exhausting. I'm gonna shut it down. Yeah, it's exhausting. So what that means is, when you and I can communicate in a confusing way, the person that we're talked to's brain is designed to tune you out. So the reason, as we record this, that Donald Trump just won a primary is not because he had amazing ideas, it's because he communicated simply. He communicated on a 4th grade level, and Jeb Bush communicated on an 8th grade level,

• 38:32Donald Miller?

  and Jeb Bush is out of the race.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:34Donald Miller?

  And so, we actually consulted with Jeb to try to help him simplify that message about 2 months before South Carolina, but it was too late.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  He didn't listen to you.

• 38:41Donald Miller?

  Well, no, he listened, he listened.

• 38:42Lewis Howes?

  It was too late, by the way.

• 38:43Donald Miller?

  It was too, yeah, it was too late.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:45Donald Miller?

  And, um, so, so what companies need are short, swift soundbites, repeated over and over, relevant messages, uh, it takes a human being 8 times to hear something before they actually listen.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 38:59Donald Miller?

  And so if it takes them 8 times to hear it, you need to say it about 250 times.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  And if it's too confusing, then they're never gonna hear it.

• 39:05Donald Miller?

  No.

• 39:06Lewis Howes?

  Or if it's too many things intertwined.

• 39:08Donald Miller?

  That's right. Every time you communicate something about, uh, the school of greatness, you're handing somebody a bowling ball.

• 39:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:14Donald Miller?

  And so you wanna communicate the 2nd thing, now they got 2 bowling balls. You can communicate 3rd thing, now they got 3 bowling balls. What are they gonna do when you hand them a 4th bowling ball?

• 39:20Lewis Howes?

  Drop it.

• 39:21Donald Miller?

  They're gonna drop everything.

• 39:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Donald Miller?

  And they're gonna look at you and try to be polite, and then try to get away. Because their brain is having to burn too many calories to understand what's in it for them. Everybody's going, "I'm trying to survive here, I'm trying to thrive, what do you have that's going to help me?" And we have to communicate in these soundbites.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:36Donald Miller?

  So that people can understand.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  What's a good example, um, for maybe somebody you've worked with, or just like, for an entrepreneur listening, that could be helpful for them to understand, you know, maybe they've got a long story they're always trying to communicate.

• 39:48Donald Miller?

  Sure.

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  And then you could break it down. Maybe it's just like a business coach, or, I don't know, something relevant like that.

• 39:52Donald Miller?

  Well, most businesses, we've worked with about 1,500 companies taking them through this process now, and most businesses make the same mistake, they talk about themselves. And the reality is, you're not the hero of the story, your customer is the hero of the story, you're the guide. They're Luke Skywalker, you're Yoda. This is stuff that Nancy Duarte has been teaching for a long time.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 40:10Donald Miller?

  She's amazing. And she teaches that from a perspective of giving speeches, but it's true in all of our communication. So that's the first thing, is when I go to your website, it needs to be about the customer, not about you. So for instance, we work with a gentleman named Kyle Schultz, and he has a, a website called Schultz Photo School. And he was a firefighter, uh, and, but loved to teach photography to parents, so they could take good pictures of their kids.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  Mm, that's cool.

• 40:35Donald Miller?

  And he would say stuff on his website, like, "I'll teach you how F-Stop works," and "I'll teach you all this," inside language. And he bought our course and he went through it. And he made, before he bought our course, he made $28,000 in a launch, which is great. You know, it's good money. Uh, and then he, he started saying, instead of like, I'll teach you to use F-stop. He said, I'll teach you to take those pictures where the background is blurry. He started communicating and not asking people-

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  Fourth grade level terms, whatever.

• 41:01Donald Miller?

  At a fourth grade level, not asking people to burn very many calories.

• 41:04Lewis Howes?

  Simple. Oh, I like that. Depth of feel. I like the blurry look.

• 41:06Donald Miller?

  Exactly. And he would never even use the phrase depth of feel until you bought the course. And then he would explain-

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  That blurry thing that I talked about is depth of feel.

• 41:13Donald Miller?

  That's exactly it. So, nobody's having to work very hard to understand. And he, you know, he took his website, probably took 75% of the words off of his website, launched the day after he bought our course, stayed up all night making the changes that we recommended, and made $103,000 on his second launch.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:31Donald Miller?

  Michael Hyatt came through it, made a quarter million dollars on five days of your best year ever. I took him through the StoryBrand framework, he simplified his message, did 1.5, I think, on the next launch. And, um, you know, on and on. We're just seeing dramatic results. Because if you have a great product, and you've got great people, and you've got great processes, you should have a great business. There's only one thing missing. You're not positioned in the marketplace that the people can actually understand what you offer. You think you are, but you're not. And so, we have to go through those websites and we use this seven-part filter to say, this goes, this goes, this goes, let's keep this.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:08Donald Miller?

  Very simple language and revenues go up.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  It's all about the story, right?

• 42:12Donald Miller?

  It's all about the story. It's all about understanding the story of your customer and playing a role inside their story.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Making them the heroes, as I said?

• 42:18Donald Miller?

  What do they want? What's their external problem? How's that problem making them feel? That's the internal problem. How are you positioning yourself as the guide? What's the plan to help them to destroy the Death Star, right?

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:31Donald Miller?

  Uh, how are you calling them to action? What is their life going to look like if they don't buy your product or service? What's the failure?

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  The price they're gonna pay.

• 42:40Donald Miller?

  The price they're gonna pay? And then what's the happy ending to their story? What's their life gonna look like if they do? Those are the seven questions that you have to answer. And if you can't answer them, your brand message is confusing. I guarantee it, and you're losing money.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  You might get results still, but it may not be the maximum results.

• 42:55Donald Miller?

  We love customers with a great product that gets great results. And they're confusing their communication. The reason we love them is we know that we can fix it.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Tweak a little bit.

• 43:04Donald Miller?

  And they're gonna see a hockey state.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so story is really a big part of everything.

• 43:08Donald Miller?

  It's all about story. Yeah, it's all about story. Not what's your story? What's the story of your customer and how you're playing a role in that story? Most people, they think we gotta get our story out there. You don't. You don't know. If you, if I'm sitting down with you.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  We need press, we need to get our story out there. We need our story told.

• 43:24Donald Miller?

  Yeah, we need our story told. You don't need your story told. You need to, you need to talk about the thing that you have that your customer wants. It's all about understanding their story. So if I get into an elevator with you and, and let's say I need some inspiration and practical tips on increasing productivity so that I can become a great athlete or whatever. You've got something I need in that elevator.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:48Donald Miller?

  You do. And I say, Louis, what do you do? And you say, well, I work for a company. My grandfather started the company. You've lost me.

• 43:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:56Donald Miller?

  When if you would've said, Don, a lot of people don't feel like a champion, but I can find the champion within them and bring it out of them. And I've got some tools to do.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  Now I'm interested.

• 44:05Donald Miller?

  I'm asking for your business card. But what's the difference? The difference is you didn't tell me your story. You told me my story.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  What people are looking for.

• 44:13Donald Miller?

  You identified my problem and you painted a picture of a happy ending. Now I want your business card.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  What's the most powerful word someone can use when telling a story?

• 44:22Donald Miller?

  What's the most powerful word somebody can use in telling a story? I don't know, that's a, you know, the books that I read on story are like 800 pages. 800 pages long.

• 44:33Lewis Howes?

  I was thinking of imagine. When you can paint this, when you can kind of paint the story by saying imagine.

• 44:39Donald Miller?

  Oh, that's a beautiful word. And stories are all about, you know, what ifs. So I used to do this experiment when I was writing. If I got stuck, I would say, well, let's come up with 25 what ifs right now.

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:52Donald Miller?

  What if the guy got pulled over and he had something in his car? What if a meteor hit the earth? What if, and usually one of those what ifs would go, okay, I'm gonna write that one. But the cool thing is it works in life.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Donald Miller?

  You know, you're having a, you're having a bad day and what if I quit my job? What if I went camping this weekend? What if I asked that girl out? What if I sold the house? What if, and one of those, you're gonna go, man, that's piqued my interest. Well, let's pay attention to that.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 45:21Donald Miller?

  Cause that's a story guiding you somewhere, right?

• 45:23Lewis Howes?

  I like that. A few questions left for you.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  If you had a half a page to a page that you could write out the story of the rest of your life.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  Everything that you want to create or be or do or people in your life, whatever it may be. And you have to write it out and everything you wrote down actually came true. What would be on that page, a couple paragraphs?

• 45:50Donald Miller?

  Well, I wouldn't want it to magically come true, cause that's not a good story.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  I'd wanna have to do the work. You're gonna have to work for it. You're gonna have to work really hard.

• 45:59Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  But if you could have anything and create any story that would come to life, like, was it like Jungle Book? Is that like, what's the, is it Jumanji or Jungle Book? What's the one where they write the book and it's like happening in real life?

• 46:10Donald Miller?

  Oh, yeah, I think that might be Jumanji.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  One of those. Anyways, but if you could actually write it down, you got a whole page to write down everything that happened. Yes, there's struggle and you're gonna work hard, but what would you create?

• 46:21Donald Miller?

  Well, um.

• 46:23Donald Miller?

  I've got about a 10-year run with this company, Storybrand. We want to scale it to 25 million within a few years and 100 million by the end of 10 years.

• 46:34Donald Miller?

  There are two paths if we can do that. If that happens, then there are two, there's a fork in the road at the end of that journey.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 46:41Donald Miller?

  And the fork in the road goes two ways.

• 46:44Lewis Howes?

  Let's say there's, there's.

• 46:45Donald Miller?

  So if that happens.

• 46:46Lewis Howes?

  Let's say, yeah, whatever you want is gonna happen. You could have everything you want.

• 46:50Donald Miller?

  The fork in the road is, I either, you know, we've got some land up here in Tennessee. I'm gonna build a big treehouse on that land and I'm gonna go into that treehouse and I'm gonna write novels for the rest of my life. My wife likes that plan.

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  I like that idea.

• 47:02Donald Miller?

  You know, homeschool the kids and write novels. That's what I'm gonna do. And ride around on a four-wheeler.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  That sounds cool.

• 47:09Donald Miller?

  That is really scary because I don't know if I have what it takes to be a good novelist. I know I have what it takes to be a good writer of, you know, books, but novels are different. And so that's scary. The other route would be that I run for office and it's a completely different route. But to be able to serve, you know, to have learned to lead and learn to run a company and learn about the economy and to be inside of DC a little bit to some degree. To be able to be a statesman and help a population come back from victim identity to hero identity would be a great serving, you know, a way to serve in that season of my life. And so those decisions I'll make in 10 years.

• 47:53Donald Miller?

  I think unless we build the company, I'm probably not qualified to lead at that level. I need to prove myself in the private sector and prove that I can build something. And do all the things you have to do to do that. So at some point, 10 years or not, because I do believe we're gonna accomplish our goals. We always do. You know, it's just work.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 48:15Donald Miller?

  And.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  And time.

• 48:16Donald Miller?

  I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna go, do I want to be hated for the rest of my life for trying to serve America? Or do I want to go up in here and write a novel?

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Everyone would hate you or love you.

• 48:26Donald Miller?

  Exactly. We'll see. We'll see.

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. I like it. If there was one story you could tell that, you're only allowed to share one story. That's maybe not your story, but an inspiring.

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  Story from a novel or some type of story that you heard in your past.

• 48:44Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 48:45Lewis Howes?

  That really leaves a good message or has a good inspiration or.

• 48:49Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  Sets a good principle. What's that story?

• 48:51Donald Miller?

  There's a, um, I mean, I would only share this, I would choose this story knowing that other more important stories are out there being told.

• 48:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 48:59Donald Miller?

  Hopefully, somebody would cover the gospel and all that kind of stuff.

• 49:02Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 49:03Donald Miller?

  Uh, there is a story that's just been so inspiring to me and so hopeful to me. I, I've fallen in love with the Israeli Palestinian, uh, issue and, and the Israeli people and Palestinian people. I don't know why, I just love that region of the world and have been over many times and, um, and on one trip, we met with Israeli guards or Israeli generals and members of Knesset and also members of the PLO on the Palestinian side in the West Bank. And, you know, there's a lot of tension there.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Donald Miller?

  And I came away thinking, this might be a hopeless situation. I mean, they're, you know, they, they, they just can't seem to compromise on any of this stuff. And, and with good reasons on both sides. And I read the story in the New York Times about some, one of the things that we kept hearing in the West Bank is we just wish we could go to the ocean. Cause they're locked in. They're not going anywhere.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:54Donald Miller?

  We just wish we could see the ocean. It's just right there. We can't get to it.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:58Donald Miller?

  Cause the walls that the Israelis have built up. And, um, there were these Jewish women in Jerusalem. I mean, just, just, you know, like, you know, our wives, you know, your girlfriends. Just Jewish women who'd, who'd, uh, who kept hearing these, about these Palestinian women and they, they couldn't go to the ocean. So they drove into the West Bank, these women, and they started befriending Palestinians and got to know some Palestinian women. And kind of dressed them up in costumes and because they were Jewish, they didn't get stopped at the checkpoints.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 50:32Donald Miller?

  And they got them out of the West Bank.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:36Donald Miller?

  And, and they would literally just take them to the ocean.

• 50:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:40Donald Miller?

  They'd all just go swimming for the day, they put them back in the car, they take them back home. And these women just started going in there, finding women who wanted to go swimming and take them to the ocean. And I just thought, you know, beneath our leaders who are doing decent job keeping us all safe.

• 50:56Donald Miller?

  There's this heart in human beings that wants to break through that conflict and compromise. I just always have thought, you know, Donna, at the core, problems really are, they can be resolved. You know, if you find the people who are tender and willing to take action and do something. So I just love that story. I think it's the only story. If I could only tell one story, I'd probably just go around telling that one. Because it applies to so many things.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. I like that. If you had, and if I was able to grant you an unlimited amount of money right now to solve one problem in the world. It was like, here's a trillion dollars, or how much it costs, here's the money.

• 51:33Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 51:34Lewis Howes?

  You only get one challenge or issue to tackle. What thing would you cure or solve in the world today?

• 51:41Donald Miller?

  Yes, I would, in the West Bank and in Gaza, I would start schools. And we're actively trying to do this. We're starting conversations to do this in the next 10 years. For young Muslim girls. And I would want those girls to be educated. I'd want them to go on to college. It is actually very possible for young Muslim women to get a degree in the West Bank and go to Harvard. Or Yale, or Oxford, any of those schools. I think that, you know, if we can solve some of the problems in the Middle East, we can solve a lot of the problems in the world.

• 52:22Donald Miller?

  And I think educating young Muslim women is a very strategic chess move in that long-term play.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Donald Miller?

  And so that's what I would want to focus on.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 52:34Donald Miller?

  The more of them we can educate, the better the world's gonna be.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 52:37Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, final couple of questions. I know I already said that, but final couple of questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 52:44Donald Miller?

  Oh, my wife, relationships, family. You know, I lost my mom last year, you know, have some friends who've lost family members. And so the older you get, you know, you hit that 44, you start getting to that age where... You know, you start, for the first time in your life, you realize, we don't have a whole lot of time.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:04Donald Miller?

  We've gotta get moving.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  You're almost in that third quarter.

• 53:06Donald Miller?

  Yep. And, uh, and so, uh, you know, just those relationships, the core, I can come home and I like coming home.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Donald Miller?

  There's not tension in my home, there's, you know, it's, it's, it's rest. Uh, I don't take that for granted, or I try not to.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure. I like it. This is a question I asked at the end. It's called the three truths. And I didn't prep you for this, so, so for whatever comes off the top of your mind, it's cool. So, let's say it is many, many years from now and it's your last day. And, everything is good, you've accomplished everything you wanted to accomplish. That whole story that you just told me earlier, all that was, that happened. But for whatever reason, the hundred books that you wrote have now been erased, for whatever reason. They've all been erased. Everything you've ever created is gone. And, your great, great, great grandchild comes to you with a piece of paper and a pen and says, will you write down three truths? The three things you know to be true about everything you learned in your life that you would pass on to us?

• 54:04Lewis Howes?

  If it came down to three simple lessons, what would you write down?

• 54:09Donald Miller?

  Well, if it's a grandchild, I'm speaking to somebody, I'm trying to give them some wisdom, right?

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  Let's say it's for the world, though. This is your piece of, your three truths that you'd give to anyone.

• 54:18Donald Miller?

  Yeah. Um, I, I would write, you're probably not a victim. Uh, I would write, it's hard to understand, sometimes, but God loves you. Uh, and then I would write, this is, I'm stealing this from my buddy Bob Goff, but he always talks about his eight guys. And his eight guys, the eight guys are gonna carry his coffin. And, uh, I would write, know who your eight guys are.

• 54:44Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 54:44Donald Miller?

  Yeah.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  Just gave me the chills. It's good. I like that.

• 54:48Donald Miller?

  I've got four.

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:50Donald Miller?

  I've got four. I know who four of them are.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:52Donald Miller?

  And there are plenty more who would step in, but I know, I know who four of them are.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:55Donald Miller?

  So I've got about forty more years to give.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  To figure out the other four. I like that. Before I ask the final question, where can, where should we connect with you? Where do you hang out most online? What's the main site we should go to?

• 55:09Donald Miller?

  Yeah, storybrand.com is everything I'm doing now. Storybrand.com. My podcast is Building a Storybrand. That's at buildingastorybrand.com and you can listen to that and Amazon has all my books.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  All your books. Do you hang out on social media at all?

• 55:24Donald Miller?

  Yeah, Instagram at Don Miller is. If you really like want to see the personal side of life, Instagram.

• 55:30Lewis Howes?

  Instagram, that's where you hang out.

• 55:31Donald Miller?

  If you want to know what my blog is about today, Twitter.

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  Got you, got you. Cool.

• 55:34Donald Miller?

  So Don Miller is on Instagram and Donald Miller on Twitter.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. We'll have it all linked up here in the show notes just after this. And before I ask the final question, Don, I want to acknowledge you for a moment. And I want to acknowledge you for your courage. You know, you went through a childhood without a father. I know what it's like to kind of lose a father even at 22 and it's not an easy experience. And for you to create the incredible work, the body of work that you have and impact the millions of people you have with, I'm sure, the insecurities and the challenges you faced internally growing up. I can only imagine the amount of internal pain that you were feeling a lot of the times.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  So I want to acknowledge you for understanding that you are an incredible gift and the incredible gifts that you've been given to all of us. It's truly amazing and inspiring to, to connect with you and be able to be, you know, around your work. It's amazing. So I want to acknowledge you for the gift that you have.

• 56:34Donald Miller?

  That's very kind. I appreciate that.

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Of course. The final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 56:39Donald Miller?

  Ooh.

• 56:43Donald Miller?

  You know, Lewis, you've done such a good job bringing that word back into our vocabulary and making it an inspiration. I just think, you know, I mean, you know, I just think I love what you're doing.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 56:58Donald Miller?

  And it's, what you're guiding people through is Viktor Frankl's logo therapy. Getting them off the couch, giving them ambition and helping them step into a story.

• 57:09Donald Miller?

  There's a feeling that happens when you, when you watch a great movie. We all know it. And when it's a great movie, everybody in the theater sits there for an extra few minutes. American Sniper, everybody sat there for an extra few minutes.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  All the way to the end of the credits.

• 57:22Donald Miller?

  All the way to the credits. And that feeling, as I've tried to identify what that is, is gratitude. And it's not just gratitude for the actors and for the story. It's, a good story makes you feel like life can be better than you thought. That you could actually do things with these ingredients that are better than you ever dreamed. That's what a good story does to you. It makes you think, we can, we can do better than this, you know? Life can be more meaningful. I think my definition of greatness would be, at your funeral, people feel that way about your story. Not that they're grateful for you, but they're grateful that you showed them life could be better than they thought.

• 58:04Donald Miller?

  It could be more beautiful, it could be more meaningful, you could accomplish more, your relationships could be deeper. You could have a bigger impact, you know? Let there be just this great chasm that is filled by gratitude when you leave. You know, to me, that's greatness. And the sad thing is, you won't hear it when people tell you. You'll be gone, you know? But let's head there. Let's head there.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Don Miller, thank you so much.

• 58:32Donald Miller?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 58:36Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode with my friend, Donald Miller. Make sure to check out the full show notes, the full video interview, all the images that we captured of Donald as well, over at lewishouse.com/332. And make sure to connect with Donald on all of his social media. Check out his website, check out his latest books. All the links and resources will be back at lewishouse.com/332. If you enjoyed this, please share it with your friends. Tweet this out, post it on Facebook, email a friend and let them know. Again, the link is lewishouse.com/332. Let's make sure to get the word out there about this and spread the love for Donald. If you enjoyed this one, make sure to spread the love.

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  Again, guys, we all have a story to tell. We all have a story that has yet been written. What story do you want to tell? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want people to talk about you when you're gone? You have the choice, you have the power, you have a decision to write a new story every single day. I would love for you to write down what you want your story to be. Take a moment, right now, and post in the comment section below this over on the blog, on the YouTube channel, and write down one paragraph about how you want to live the rest of this year. How you want to live the rest of this year, the big goals you have, write them down. How will your story be told?

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  You have the power, you have the choice to write it all out and make it come true. So make sure to do that right now and start embedding your vision for the future in your own story writing today. I love you, guys. I appreciate you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.