Day 62 of 280 | The 7-40 Challenge
In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller tells the story of the first time he met Bob Goff.
Miller and his friends had been paddling through an inlet somewhere near British Columbia when they came across a house tucked back in the water — a retreat that Bob had built for visiting world leaders. Bob saw them coming. He didn’t know who they were. He waved them in anyway.
They were wet. They smelled horrible. They had planned to stay for an hour. They stayed for almost eight.
What Miller learned during those eight hours is one of the best stories I’ve ever heard about what happens when you throw your family into a better narrative.
Bob Goff had become — I forget the official title — essentially the honorary consul for Uganda. Part of the job meant meeting with foreign diplomats, and he’d come home and told his kids he was a little nervous about it. So he asked them what they would do.
His youngest son said he’d invite them over for a sleepover. Because you get to know people better when they stay with you.
His daughter said she’d ask them what they hoped in. Which might be the best question you can ask any human being — not what do you do, not where are you from, but what do you hope in? What’s your vision for the future, and how do you hope it will happen?
Their oldest son said he’d want to record it.
And Bob, being Bob, took all three ideas and turned them into a mission. His kids wrote twelve hundred letters to world leaders around the world. The letters said, essentially: we want to know you, and we want you to know us. If you’d like to come visit, here’s a key to our home in San Diego. And if you’d rather we come to you — we will.
Twenty-nine responded. Out of twelve hundred.
And Bob kept his promise. He flew his children to every country where a leader said yes. Those kids got to hand world leaders a key to their home, ask them what they hoped in, and film the conversation. One leader actually came and stayed with them in San Diego.
What Bob realized was simple and profound: people are people, no matter where they’re from. Get past the hype, and we’re more alike than we are different.
But here’s what hit me about the story.
Bob didn’t just teach his kids about diplomacy. He gave them an inciting incident. He threw them into a story where what they thought mattered — and where what they thought led them halfway across the world to make connections they never would have made otherwise.
The children were changed by the journey. Not by reading about it. Not by watching someone else do it. By doing it themselves.
Twelve hundred letters. Twenty-nine yeses. A lifetime of stories.
I have to look at my own life right now.
Am I writing letters to dignitaries? No. But I’m standing at the edge of my own inciting incident, and it’s one I’ve been avoiding.
I am not uncomfortable with writing. I’ve been blogging for years. I have hundreds of posts out there with my opinions on everything from faith to fatherhood to data management. I am not afraid to write a book and put it online. I’m not afraid to sing a song and upload it. I’ve done these things.
When I create something and put it out into the world, it feels like giving a gift. Here it is. If it does good for you, I’d love for you to see it. I’d love for you to have it. I’d love for you to experience it the way I have.
That part doesn’t scare me.
The part that scares me is asking.
Not just “it’s here if you want it,” but “will you go look at this? Will you actually take time to consider reading what I’ve written? Will you consider buying what I’ve published? Because I think it will do good for you.”
That’s a different sentence. That’s not leaving a gift on a doorstep and walking away. That’s standing on the porch, knocking, and saying — I made this, and I believe it has value, and I’m asking you to give it your attention.
So here’s what I’m going to do.
Instead of twelve hundred letters to world leaders, I’m going to start posting to the people in my life — and the ones I haven’t met yet — and saying something I’ve never quite said before:
In case we haven’t talked in a while, this is who I am.
I may never have shown you this side of me. I may never have mentioned that I write novels, or that I’m sixty-one days into a personal transformation experiment, or that I’ve been creating daily Bible illustrations since January 1st.
But this is genuinely who I am. And I’ve done some things that I think, if you’ll go check them out, you’d really like.
Would you do that for me?
I’ll be honest. That freaks me out a little.
Not because I don’t think the work is good. I know it’s good. I’ve put too much into it to doubt that.
It’s because asking is a different kind of vulnerability than creating. Creating is between me and the work. Asking is between me and you. And “no” hits different when you’re the one who extended the invitation.
But I have a feeling — the same kind of feeling Bob Goff must have had when his kids started sealing those envelopes — that if I do this, I’ll be changed by the journey.
I’ll continue to write and create and produce things I believe are valuable. I’ll continue to want to get them in front of people who can use them. But I think something else will happen too. I’ll learn what I’m capable of. I’ll develop a confidence that can only come from stepping out and declaring to the world: this is what I want to do, and this is who I am.
Bob Goff threw his children into a story. Twelve hundred letters. Twenty-nine yeses. Changed forever.
I’m throwing myself into one. Day 62. The inciting incident isn’t the creating. It’s the asking.
Here’s my letter. I hope you open it.
Day 62 Scorecard:
✅ Bible study and prayer ✅ Gratitude ✅ Reading (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years) ✅ Calories tracked ✅ Water (100 oz) ✅ BiblePictures365 (Numbers 31, 32) ✅ Exercise (Workout A with my son) ✅ Creative hour
The 740 Challenge 