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In a recent planning session, a friend wanted to find out what my core values were. I’m embarrassed to say I couldn’t state them immediately. I had to think a little bit before I said something like truth and art and that sort of thing. My friend then asked what sort of scenarios or events or even people made me angry. And I knew the answer to that immediately. Injustice makes me angry, specifically when somebody is controlling and takes away the will of an innocent person. People who don’t know boundaries make me angry. Bullies make me angry, and I have no problem standing up to them. From there, my friend helped me create a list of core values, which were justice, truth and freedom. Very American, I suppose. What was most interesting, though, is that the stories I tell out of my core values are going to be better because they are taylor made for me. If I work on books and projects that set people free from manipulation and lies, from bullies, my projects will be fueled by who I am and my story will be authentic. And the opposite is also true. If I work on [...]

The last few times I’ve interacted with groups on an adventure, I’ve tried something new. Normally, when I meet new people, I act out my insecurities. What I mean is, I’ll drop names or try to control the situation or say things I think will return respect. This never works. While I enjoy the time, I usually feel like I talked too much and didn’t really let people get to know me. I feel more like I put on a show than let my guard down to have a good time. This past week, nine guys from Texas came to Portland to climb Mt. Hood (I’ll write more about that adventure and share some photos in a coming blog) and before they came I sat down with a piece of paper and wrote my ambitions for our time. I’m not talking about the ambition of getting to the top of Hood, I’m talking about social parameters, if you will. I wrote down I wanted to refrain from talking too much, and I wanted to serve. I wrote down that I wanted to make meals, drive cars, set up tents, whatever. I also wrote that I didn’t want to try to [...]

My friend Pete recently let me in on a paradigm shift I found helpful. He was talking about a friend of his who, for some reason, was taking up a bit too much of his mental space. He was beginning to feel responsible for a friends bad decisions. Another friend of Pete’s said that Pete needed to be responsible TO his friend, not FOR his friend. Pete explained this meant he was responsible to be kind to his friend, understanding, helpful, professional if that’s what the relationships required and so on. But his friend’s decisions and even his emotions were that of his friend not of Pete’s. A lot of this goes back to Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s terrific book Boundaries, but I found the little phrase be responsible To and not For helpful. So, if you’re feeling guilty about somebody else’s mistakes, their depression, or their being irritated, it might be good to ask yourself if you’ve done anything wrong that has caused that, and if not, the problem really is there problem. You can be responsible to them, to be kind and comforting, but when you become responsible for them, you are going to grow tired of [...]