Don's Blog

  • Want to Get to Know Somebody? Understand Their Story

    May 17th 2010

    The first conversation we have with somebody can be awkward. We don’t know them, so the first thing we do is make connections, how do you know so and so if we are at a party or a wedding is a routine question. If we are both married with kids, we might ask about that, too. We just find common ground, essentially asking the question What do we have in common so I can understand you through the lens of my own experience? Or, perhaps more crudely How are you like me, and so how are you human? From there we tend to ask what they do, where they work. That’s not a bad question, because work often encompasses our passions and even our education, but it also rings of you are your work.
    We are much more than our work and even our family. These formulaic questions evolved from the need to make conversation more than the desire to get know somebody. What results is we begin to think that people are fairly boring. But it’s not the case.
    After writing Million Miles, I realized every person has a story. And I started asking different questions when I met strangers. And [...] read original post

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The Blogger
  • Don Miller
    86 posts

    Donald Miller grew up in Houston, Texas, where he left at the age of twenty-one to cross the country with a friend in a Volkswagen van. The stuff of that trip would later become his first book, Through Painted Deserts. A couple years after releasing Through Painted Deserts, Don released Blue Like Jazz, a spiritual memoir about finding Christian faith in a post-Christian culture. Blue would slowly become a bestseller, and spend more than forty-weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Don’s next book was Searching for God Knows What, followed by To Own a Dragon, a book he wrote about growing up without a father. To Own a Dragon also served as the motivation to start The Belmont Foundation, a not-for-profit equipping local churches to start mentoring programs.

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