Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. by Bob Goff

Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. Reviews

• 
  Brittany Shields

  “Are you willing to do what it takes to uncover the wonder that already surrounds your life? Will you do the courageous work to identify what is distracting you from the better things? And finally, are you willing to do the difficult and selfless work of releasing the beauty you discover into the lives of others rather than keeping it for yourself?”
  
  
  This book was a bit of a love bomb. Ironically, a distracted love bomb.
  
  I read Goff’s book
  Everybody, Always, and contrary to popular opinion of it, I wasn’t really impressed.
  
  I decided to give Goff another chance by reading his newest book before I heard any hype about it. A clean first impression.
  
  And I felt about the same as when I read his other book.
  
  
  In short, it just felt like a shallow, self-helpy book with dramatic anecdotes Goff wrangled into inspirational one-liners that sound great but feel a bit fluffy. Everything was all over the place and I’m not really sure it’s actually going to help anyone.
  
  
  I can’t really think of a reason to read this book.
  
  If you are feeling like you need a better philosophy on how you spend your time or use your phone, I would recommend one of these books instead:
  -
  To Hell with the Hustle
  -
  A Spacious Life
  - 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You (on my TBR)
  
  If you’re feeling like you want to be a ‘better version of yourself’ or figure out what to do with your life then there are plenty of other books that would be better than this one. Here are just a few off the top of my head:
  -
  When Strivings Cease
  -
  On the Road with Saint Augustine
  -
  Sis, Take a Breath
  -
  Just Do Something
  
  In my review of Everybody, Always I said that maybe people should still read it. If it will help people love others better, then who am I to stand in the way, but now that I’ve seen the pattern of his books, I’m not so sure I can keep giving that counsel. I think there are better books for these things.
  
  
  While reading this book I couldn’t stop thinking about this YouTube channel where these guys create videos making fun of Christian influencers.
  HERE is one of their videos. I think they could get some good material from Bob. He spends 3-4 pages telling this story that’s either elaborate or name-droppy and then turns it into an analogy that’s cringe or just a general stretch. Alllll of that lead-up just to say… that?
  
  ‘The other day… I was trying to eat noodles with a fork and they kept sliding between the tines and falling off… And so I have this question for you… What are the things falling between the tines of your life? If you live an undistracted life, you’ll start eating your noodles with a spoon and you won’t let important things fall away.’ (This is me trying to write like Bob Goff…)
  
  For real though. Here are some examples from the book:
  
  - The time he built something in shop class— which by the way his shop teacher only has 3 fingers— tells us that even if we fail (and lose fingers) we can still do our purpose.
  
  - His VIP pass to the ‘mosh pit’ at Carrie Underwood’s concert because he’s besties with Carrie’s guitarist tells us we need to “live out our faith in the mosh pit.” We have an all-access pass to the world.
  
  - The time he was hanging out with Jim Caveziel but didn’t know it until afterwards tells us that sometimes we “fail to recognize Jesus is in the room with us.”
  
  - The time Keith Green wrote him a letter when he was younger tells us that we need to make someone else feel important because it’s a big deal.
  
  - The time he took his kids in their dinghy and parked between two pirate ships having a mock battle in the bay with cannons (which is super safe and recommended) reminds us that we need to stop firing shots with our words.
  
  - The time he pinned medals on all the soldiers in the trenches of the Middle East that were about to try to liberate Mosul from ISIS rule— also where Bob was asked to check out their secret battle plans— tells us that we need to liberate ourselves from negative things.
  
  - The time in 2018 when the guy hit the wrong button in Hawaii and alerted the whole country to a missile attack that wasn’t happening and they hid his identity but Bob found out who he was and called him to offer him a job tells us that we need to care about people who fail.
  
  - The time Pavlov’s dogs got eaten in the siege of Leningrad tells us that sometimes bad things happen.
  
  - The time someone just gave him a horse that was a descendant of Secretariat tells us that sometimes heaven surprises us.
  
  - The time Bob hung out with the son of the man who started Holiday Inn hotels tells us that we can be distracted when we think we’re too important.
  
  
  He did this in Everybody, Always too. The few good points are hidden in all of this EXTRA. Are those really the best ways to get the point across? Also, what IS the point?
  
  
  Here’s the thing about Bob Goff.
  
  I’ve never met him but I would venture to guess he’s a genuine guy who truly does love people and aims to help them however he can. I don’t doubt his sincerity. I don’t believe he writes books to make money. He writes because he really wants to inspire people in positive ways. With all the schools and wells and such that he’s built, he obviously practices what he preaches in terms of serving others.
  
  And yes, he’s a good story teller and he’s funny (when he’s not trying too hard to be funny).
  
  However, there is something ‘off’ here that I can’t quite put my finger on. I had the same feelings in Everybody, Always.
  
  As I looked through my notes of this book I categorized them into groups: Good, Bad, Jesus, and True?.
  
  There were a few good things we can take away. There were some questionable statements that felt like Moralistic Therapeutic Deism or prosperity gospel. There were times where he talks about Jesus and how he died for us and is doing a great work in our lives. And there were some statements that made me go- Is that really true? (I won’t take the space to delve into that last one much)
  
  
  He mentions Jesus so everything must be good right?
  
  “I’m not saying go light on sound doctrine. I am saying if we go big on Jesus, we’ll be living out some great theology.”
  
  We can get on the Bob Goff train because he believes in Jesus!
  
  Well. Let’s not make rash decisions just because he hangs out at Disney Land and carries balloons everywhere.
  
  I was surprised when he came right out and said:
  
  “Someone asked me if I was watering down the gospel in the books I write. “Actually,” I said, “I hope so.” Here’s why. I want to write books for thirsty people. There’s a lot of people who are full of opinions but parched in their own lives because they simply aren’t thirsty anymore.”
  
  I don’t know what he means here but it’s a bit concerning. Maybe he’s just writing a ‘seeker-friendly’ type of book that just introduces the idea of Jesus?
  
  I’ve heard the analogy of advising not to pour an entire pitcher of water if someone is only holding a dixie cup— meaning don’t overload someone; simplify, and work your way up to a bigger cup. But that’s not changing the substance that’s going in. It’s not changing the quality, it’s changing the quantity.
  
  But he also says this:
  
  “If you need a starting nudge, maybe the best first step is to find what you trust the most and put wheels on it. If you are a Jesus person, what you trust might be what you find in the books and letters compiled into the Bible—words that will give you more than a lifetime of ideas for how to live a more joyful and purposeful life. If faith isn’t your thing, then find something else you can put your trust in. Who knows? Perhaps the answer will come later.”
  
  I can respect that he doesn’t want to shove the Bible down people’s throats, but as with other self-help books I’ve read (like Brene Brown) where they just encourage people to find out ‘whatever works for them’—even though they personally trust Jesus— just rubs me the wrong way.
  
  If Jesus is the way then why would you approve of any other way? If that’s the path of truth, of true peace, true purpose, true belonging, then tell people that! And if you don’t tell people that, then do you not believe it is?
  
  
  There are a lot of self-proclaimed Christians that just want you to be nice to everyone, follow your dreams, and be better versions of yourselves. Just find your purpose, put your head down and be you. Be your authentic self. It seems confusing to be opposed to this philosophy but these ideals are found in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and it’s void of the gospel.
  
  Here are things Bob says in his book that fits this philosophy:
  
  - “Give yourself a pep talk about how it’s okay to be exactly who you are.”
  
  - “You will only be as free as you actually believe you are.”
  
  - “People who accomplish a great deal in their lives are filled with joy and lasting ambitions; they choose a direction then take the steps and actions needed to stay the course. Be one of these people, and you will find your joy once again.”
  
  - “You are only one generous act of availability away from being a better version of yourself.”
  
  - “Go love people in extravagant, wildly inefficient ways by speaking words of beauty into their lives. Your words have that kind of power.”
  
  - “We need to return to the most real versions of our faith and the most authentic versions of ourselves.”
  
  - “You get to set the course for who you want to be.”
  
  He runs a retreat center called The Oaks and when I searched for information about these retreats, these two statements are listed:
  
  ‘Explore what is holding you back and overcome barriers that are keeping you stuck.
  Gain the confidence to turn your wishes, dreams and plans into reality.’
  
  I’m sure he helps people, but this kind of rhetoric doesn’t resonate with me. It feels disingenuous and shallow. Just the term ‘self-help’ seems contrary to the gospel. You can’t find your purpose or joy apart from Christ, you just can’t. We were created to find purpose, joy, and meaning in worshiping him. It’s in our very design. Any other ‘solution’ is a mirage.
  
  
  I also want to point out that I felt there were lots of contradictions in this book of what he was suggesting you do and what he was advising against.
  
  One prominent example in his own life is that he wants to be unreasonably available to people. He puts his cell phone number in the back of all of his books and says he answers every call. He claims he has answered calls in the court room and speaking on stage to people.
  
  But then later he says, “Think of phone use as cheating on your family.”
  
  I like that he wants to be available to others but I find it hard to believe he’s honoring his family and those around him when he is taking every call. I would challenge that unreasonable availability is more of a distraction than a true purpose. And quite disrespectful to the people he’s with. He calls it cheating but he uses his phone excessively. Which is right?
  
  
  What’s good?
  
  To be fair… he does have some good thoughts. Unfortunately, he obscures them with his own illustrations, but I would be remiss if all I did was tell you the bad stuff. Here are some of the good snippets:
  
  “Most of pride’s prisoners think they are the guards.”
  
  “Every time a cynic hands you a dark invitation to join them on their journey, just hand it right back to them. They’re offering you a ride in a car with no tires that has been riding on the rims for years. That’s why they make so much noise and are surrounded by sparks. Take the bus. Walk if you must. Just don’t hitch a ride with cynics anymore. It’s a one-way trip to a life filled with distractions.”
  
  “We can eliminate the distractions that have been obscuring our view of what God is doing in the world.”
  
  “Don’t be too quick to self-identify as the victim when you are the student. Resist compiling a list of grievances and see how God has used these moments of desperation in your life to clear a path for some much needed grace.” [I was surprised to find such a counter-cultural statement, but I’m here for it. Victimhood as your identity and your excuse for not trying is not a right perspective.]
  
  “When I tell God I want to have it all explained to me before I will obey, it makes faith sound like a negotiation—and it’s not.”
  
  “The inevitability of a mistake doesn’t mean it is any less painful. It’s time we stopped acting like our failures somehow disqualify us from God’s love, when in reality these setbacks might lead to a keener awareness of it.”
  
  “To live fully you need the whole truth about who you are because only truth will make you clear-eyed about where you’re going.”
  
  “When an unreasonable amount of attention is given to a distraction, it can become an obsession.”
  
  “What we do matters less than what we are working toward, who we’re working for, and why we are doing it.”
  
  “It’s easy to spend so much time providing for your family that you’re no longer providing for your family. Do you get me? Don’t wait until later to connect with your families. It won’t happen. Choose your family over and over…”
  
  
  In summation:
  
  No, I would not recommend this book. I recommend the premise of the book and believe that we are living very distracted lives and some re-orientation is in order, but I don’t think Bob’s the guy to help you out.
  
  He would make a good friend and would probably be a great choice for a dinner party guest but I don’t think this book will be effective in helping you identify problems or solutions that really matter.
  
  It’s lacking in clarity and organization, and has some problematic philosophies he seems to promote, despite his clear belief in Jesus.
  
  It’s easy to like a guy like Bob, but I think a lot of people have been taken in by his charms and stopped thinking critically about what he’s saying.
  
  Really in general, my advice is to be wary of any self-help type of book. Some can be practically helpful, but real power to change your life is found in the work of the Holy Spirit. Find a gospel-oriented book. I’ve reviewed lots of them on my site.
  
  After all that, I will leave you on a positive note. I can get behind this quote from this book:
  
  “It doesn’t matter what the work is; it is who we become in the process of doing our work that does, and the goal is to look and act more like Jesus while we do it.”
  
  
  
  **Received an ARC via NetGalley**
  
  
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• 
  Caleb Miller

  Rather than picking a resolution for the new year, I like to pick a theme. This year, my theme is single-tasking, a concept I made up to describe the moments when your full attention is devoted just one thing at a time well, rather than multitasking, where you do several things, but none of them as well as if I'd done it by itself. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to hear that one of my favorite authors/people was writing a book on staying undistracted.
  
  I was on an early release team, so I got to read ahead, and here is what you can expect from the latest of Bob's books. If you need help identifying distractions, Bob touches on many of the different things that cloud our focus, from other people to problems within ourselves. If you're looking for inspiration when it comes to getting rid of distractions, you will find plenty of examples scattered through each chapter. And if you want stories sharing the impact of living an undistracted life, there are plenty here to read through.
  
  As Bob writes, "don't settle for proximity over presence." For me, this book helped me get a ton of clarity over how I can live a more focused life and challenged me to take some leaps of faith to get there. For you, it may be the starting point of a more undistracted life or it could be a refreshing reminder to keep doing what you're doing. Either way, there are words and ideas in these pages that can help you get rid of distractions so you can get on with living a purpose-driven, joy-filled life.
• 
  Maverick Glaum

  2.5/5
  
  There’s no doubt in my mind Bob Goff is an extraordinary man who has experienced a full life of boundless joy and selfless love, but his new book Undistracted felt all over the place with too little substance. Only about half his stories and anecdotes are interesting with extremely thin, borderline laughable segues into vague advice about living an undistracted life. A few times I pushed myself through the disinterest to finish the book.
• 
  Mark Martinez

  Bob has an amazing way of communicating his heart through entertaining stories that remind you of the point being made. I always enjoy reading his books and feel changed for the better after reading and implementing the content. Undistracted is no different. While challenging for me to read on a device, I look forward to getting the hardcopy to highlight all the nuggets of wisdom this book has to offer.
• 
  Julia Pentz

  “Sometimes we are so busy looking up and looking forward trying to figure out the next moves in our lives - or looking backward at all the places we have been- that we don’t look down and figure out where we really are.”
  
  Bob in the book says that days are long and years are short. Which feels really true. I would recommend this book to anyone who 1) feels like they have been set back from failure or is afraid to fail 2) is “distracted” by security, comfort and others opinions. 3) you need a push or reminder that your purpose and dreams are important and worth fighting for. Plus a million other reasons but I will forever and always love Bob🎈
  
  “The more you hear beautiful, encouraging words flowing out of your mouth, the more you know that is the person you are becoming too”
• 
  Briana Hallin

  I don’t know if this book was for me. Not because it wasn’t good! But because the issue I have is acting too rashly and not thinking things through, and this book tells you to plow forward and stop making lists. But for the people who are stuck trying to have a more fulfilling life this is for you!
• 
  Emma Hingst

  5 stars because I really do love Bob Goff’s stories. I appreciate that in this book he acknowledged that there are critiques about him watering down the gospel but if you are looking for a deep theological study, this might not be the book for you. But he writes about what it’s like to acknowledge our human failures and how to focus on looking more like Jesus.
  I definitely took away a lot of tactical encouragements about bringing our doubt to Jesus & asking for help when we fall into the pit of our distractions. I also really enjoyed the point he made about how “disappointments are often divine redirections” & how important it is to “practice not freaking out as you watch the unexpected circumstances unfolding right in front of you”
  
  I really did enjoy this book!
  
  also thought it was so funny about how one chapter was straight up about how Young Life rejected him multiple times.
  
  
• 
  Marly

  I <3 Bob Goff, the stories he tells, and the significance he frames them with!!
  
  My 1 issue is that sometimes his application steps are unattainable / unrealistic :( ex: not everyone can take months off of work from a big law firm and not be fired
• 
  Maggie Drew

  Reading a Bob Goff book feels like you’re sitting with your wise crazy grandpa who is telling you all that he has learned in his life and encouraging you to live a good one. Loved it it was super encouraging to read
• 
  Elizabeth Balster

  3.5 “Get some wood and light a fire. Find some chairs and fill them with people you haven’t connected with in a while, then watch the flames dance. Go ahead and get some smoke on you, and the next day your clothes will smell like a dozen great conversations.”
• 
  Tanner Bond

  I would lean more to say a 3.5 star really but trending upwards. It’s hard when you have an author like Bob Goff whose first two books love does and everybody always were so good. To follow those up is like being asking bull gates son to be better than he was. At sone point it just can’t happen and that’s how I would explain this book. bill gates son may be doing great things right now but no where near his father, and this book is the same. Really good in a lot of ways, encouraging, faithfully driven towards the gospel and full of great stories. I just think the analogy of bills gates son simplifies this review to the way that I reflect on this book. (I came up with this Analogy on the spot so if it’s dumb I’m sorry)
• 
  B.J. Richardson

  Early on, I was not a big fan of this book. But Bob Goff's writing style grew on me the more I went along. He definitely has a "dad joke" type of humor and a lot of his stories really do start out as long-form dad jokes that he then morphs into parables to reveal some spiritual truth. Sometimes these are a hit, sometimes they are a miss. But the times they do hit can really leave you reeling. More than once I was thinking, "oh wow, that's good... that can preach."
  
  I almost wanted to give this book 3 stars. It is more Christian-based motivational speaking than Bible-based inspiration. There are also a few points where I completely disagreed with him: Jesus doesn't have a quiet time, and stop studying the Bible and start living it instead. (why not do both?) Also, he spent years commuting daily by plane so that he could live in San Diego, work in Seattle, and still be home daily with his family. I love the commitment, but such a waste of resources...
  
  But when push comes to shove, Bob Goff just seems like such a genuinely good person. I would absolutely love to sit down with him and pick his brain. Or better yet, tag along on one of his wild and crazy ideas. His talk about being willing to step out and try, even if it is almost certain you will fail (which is never the horror we imagine it to be) speaks right in my wheelhouse. So in the end, I am rounding up to four stars.
• 
  Jenna Peppers

  good ol’ bobby boy does it again!
• 
  Kristen Zehnal

  Took me too long to finish this audiobook, but it oftentimes helped me start my day on a positive note or painted a radical picture of availability and love. Some of it went in one ear and out the other — maybe due to distraction or maybe due to questionable and impractical advice. Overall, these anecdotes and encouragements point me toward the path of slowing. down. And I need to.
• 
  Katie T.

  I’ve read almost all of Bob Goff’s books, and I love his perspective on people and the world. So encouraging with tactical nuggets easily accessible for anyone to adopt in their own life. This book in particular provided me with lots of food for thought on how to live a less distracted life.
• 
  Emma Watkins

  Listened to the audiobook of this, Bob Goff being the one to read it. It was a fun hearing him retell some of his stories while using them to example different truths/ideas. I think if i would have read this i honestly would have gotten bored, but audiobook made it feel like a podcast which i enjoyed.
  
  Some quotes i wrote down:
  * We are the product of the several, most focused people we decide to imitate.
  * Stalking Jesus looks like knowledge and memorization without equivalent action.
  * you don’t need more boldness, you need greater awareness and perspective of your purpose.
  * When an unreasonable amount of effort is given to a distraction, it can become an obsession.
• 
  Hannah Flynt

  I adore Bob Goff and have connected really well with his previous two books. Undistracted was good, but it wasn’t my favorite of his. Don’t get me wrong, there was some wonderful truth sprinkled throughout this book!! But a lot of times it felt pretty self-helpish, which is great for some, but just not what I was hoping for when I picked up this book. Overall though, I’m glad that I read it!
• 
  Jon Marks

  If Bob Goff wrote ruthless elimination of hurry, some good stories but a lot of same points he’s made previously. Definitely enjoyed him reading it as an audiobook
• 
  Hannah Swedberg

  I love Bob Goff’s books and once again this one did not disappoint.
• 
  Micaiah Jones

  The way that Bob Goff is able to learn a lesson out of every situation he’s gone through, is quite beautiful. I’m inspired by his vulnerability and sense of wonder that he has. He’s lived so many lives!! I wanna be like him when I grow up!!!!
• 
  Katie Norris

  Listened to the audiobook. Bob is always a breath of fresh air!
• 
  Reagan Hahn

  Pretty consistent with the rest of the Bob Goff books; he tells a bunch of anecdotes and then does his best to connect them with self-help or spiritual concepts. While this is certainly not an in-depth theological treatise, Goff nevertheless reminded me of the spontaneous, kind, and creative Christian life I hope to live.
  
  Probably my biggest takeaway from the book is his emphasis on being “unreasonably available.” This is something I want to strive for because I’m not sure there is anything that erodes healthy relationships faster than busyness. Being available for friends when they want/need you is the majority of what makes a good friend, and is what frequently opens the door to opportunity.
• 
  Meg Willerer

  Can’t rate this one. Normally I love listening to nonfiction and autobiographies, but this one was a hazard to my driving because it was so sleepy. Probably better to just read it.
• 
  Amanda R

  My favorite Bob Goff book to date.
• 
  Margaret Neal

  As always, Bob Goff was a total delight! I rarely laugh out loud while reading, but Goff always manages to make me a couple of times!
  
  For a book about being “undistracted” I felt like the first half of this book lacked focus. To me, in an effort to make it more generally applicable, he was just a bit confusing and too broad to be helpful. But as the book went on, it seemed to narrow in.
  
  One thing about Goff’s writing— he writes from a Christian worldview while not assuming all of his readers will be Christians. This is not necessarily bad. Especially considering the breadth of his work and experience, but it does make it a bit confusing at times— especially in a book that is meant to help readers hone in on purpose/identity.
  
  In the end though, the book came together and I really did have some helpful take-always as well as practices I’ll be applying. In typical Goff, style each chapter is chalked full of hilarious personal stories that make his applications unforgettable.
  
  Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
  
  “The problem is that many of our failures are not [obvious], and we miss the opportunity to earn people’s trust when we aren’t courageous enough to get real and transparent about them.” (P52)
  
  “Grace isn’t a ‘do over;’ it’s about protection.” (P53)
  
  “Distractions are not riptides. They are slow-moving currents that will lead you away from your ambitions, relationships, and joy every time.” (P67)
  
  “Building a case against other people when they decline your offers and availability will only distract to you. Go with obedience instead. It will outperform recognition every time.” (P142)
  
  “Most of pride’s prisoners actually think they’re the guards. Don’t become one of them. I’m not saying go light on sound doctrine. I am saying if we go big on Jesus, we’ll be living out some great theology.” (P179)
• 
  Graham Gaines

  Bob Goff is like the Message as other theologians, pastors, Christian authors are like the other translations. You probably shouldn't only read Bob Goff, but he does provide some life and, I think, needed color to the Christian book landscape.
  
  I genuinely laughed several times reading this. You don't get that in anything you read in seminary, unless it's a really nerdy joke that only seminarians and other theology nerds think is funny. So this book was refreshing in some ways.
  
  Bob is a great storyteller, and usually does a good job connecting his stories to the point he's trying to make. But sometimes it's a bit of a stretch. He also waters down the gospel (intentionally, according to him), and that's a bummer. But he's no pastor and wouldn't call himself a theologian. So I give him some grace.
  
  This book just lacks substance in parts. Some chapters left me yearning for more, hence the lower rating. But there are still some real gems in here, as in his other books.
• 
  Jena Addison

  “We all find ourselves in dangerous places when we think we are safe. Distraction is what leads us into this kind of minefield. No matter who you are, somehow or somewhere you will cross over and find yourself in the middle of something you thought you were only adjacent to or on the edge of.”
  
  “Add to this that we’re following a God we can’t see, for a lifetime we can’t measure, to a heaven we can’t comprehend, because of grace we didn’t earn.”
  
  “I am not prone to seeing the devil around every corner, but I am starting to see that he has got a clever ploy. I don’t think he wants to destroy us with an obvious, all-out frontal assault. No, I think evil wants to distract us from expressing our gifts and doing what we are meant to do. Darkness is rarely content to wound us with one decisive blow when it can injure us equally with a thousand paper cuts. Honestly, it seems like evil has been doing a pretty good job of keeping us out of the fight and entangled in the ropes of distraction.”
  
  “Facts can be helpful, but rarely are they [soulful.]”
  
  “Remember, the delight of darkness is to amplify distraction.”
  
  “Jesus said a rich relationship with the Father is only possible by having a right relationship with each other.”
  
  “When it was apparent I was in the clear, the doctor looked at me with a grin and said, ‘This isn’t the afterlife; it worked.’ I was glad to hear this because I would’ve been disappointed to find heaven looking like a hospital room with bills and a copay.”
  
  “In an average lifetime, we each get about 2.5 billion heartbeats.”
  
  “We went around the circle, and eventually the guy sitting next to me on my right was up. He looked at the floor for a long time, then lifted his head and looked each of the guys in the eyes. ‘I’ve been here for eighteen years and I’ve been telling everybody I didn’t do it.’ He paused, took a deep breath, and said, ‘I did it.’ Around the circle he didn’t see judgment; he saw acceptance. In that moment he was the freest guy I had ever met. This is what honesty and vulnerability will do every day if we’ll let it.”
  
  “Shame keeps us behind the walls we have constructed to keep everybody out. So do envy and bitterness and judgmental people. Most of pride’s prisoners think they are the guards. What we need is the kind of jailbreak an accepting community can offer.”
  
  “Are you spending weird amounts of time trying to control the people around you because your life on the inside is out of control?”
  
  “The people I enjoy the most aren’t looking to me for validation; they have already arrived there for themselves knowing they are not perfect but that God loves them anyway.”
  
  “If you’re going to live an undistracted life of immense purpose, it must begin with brutal honesty. If you haven’t tried that yet, let me tell you a surprising secret. It is refreshing and freeing to tell yourself the truth.”
  
  “Each of us makes about thirty-five thousand decisions every day…In stark contrast to our complicated decision tree, a child makes less than 10 percent of the decisions adults make each day.”
  
  “We start to settle for proximity rather than presence with each other.”
  
  “Do this with some urgency too. You don’t have as much time as you think you have.”
  
  “If you fill your days with trivial stuff, you will look up one day and a year or a decade or a half-century will have passed. Don’t wait until you are old to ask yourself: What have I done with all that time? Why not ask yourself right now? What am I going to do with all the time ahead of me? What do you want your answer to be?”
  
  “Quit the job, call the friend, make the apology, launch the dream, take the shot…heaven is just hoping we will.”
  
  “Simply put, your real life will be so good that none of the artificial stuff will distract you anymore.”
  
  “If you choose happiness and joy, then kindness and empathy and engagement are the outcomes. If joy is going on inside of us, everyone will know because it will be expressed outwardly as kindness and caring and action in your life.”
  
  “Most disagreeable people out there don’t think they are mean. They think they are right.”
  
  “Jerks are quickly forgotten, but one act of kindness laced with joy can be remembered forever.”
  
  “Distraction robs us of the ability to both live in the moment and discern what lasts.”
  
  “Take steps back toward the friends and loved ones you have grown distant from. Chase after them like they’ve got something of yours, because they do.”
  
  “Do you think it made him less trustworthy because he made an epic mistake that cost him some digits? Of course not. We didn’t trust him less because he had failed; we trusted him more. His failure had been an obvious one. The problem is that many of our failures are not, and we miss the opportunity to earn people’s trust when we aren’t courageous enough to get real and transparent about them.”
  
  “Just because Mr. Hodgkins failed to follow the poosh stick rule in the past didn’t mean he was disqualified from giving us some pointers. In a way it made him [more] qualified because he was living proof of what the oversight could cost. I didn’t see him as deficient; I saw him as a kind and capable guy with some real-life experience to back up his instruction.
  
  Do you suppose Mr. Hodgkins had to wrestle with a sense of disappointment and shame from having made a mistake? Perhaps, but despite this, his love of teaching and working with wood propelled him forward, not backward. He learned some hard and no doubt painful lessons, but he turned these setbacks into something beautiful in our lives. That’s what people living with purpose and joy decide to do.”
  
  “Don’t be too quick to self-identify as the victim when you are the student. Resist compiling a list of grievances and see how God has used these moments of desperation in your life to clear a path for some much-needed grace.”
  
  “The challenge is this: What will you believe about yourself after a failure? Will you assume you have crashed and burned in someone else’s prescription for your life? Will you bail on doing the one thing God uniquely put in front of you to master, even though you muffed it the first time? Will you let approval and applause be your barometer for success, purpose, and meaning? Or will you see and aim for something different, something more beautiful that God has prepared for you?”
  
  “Do you know why we built it? Because I wanted a son-in-law who was a friend, not someone I needed to just be polite to. I wanted Lindsey to partner with someone who delighted in being part of what we were building as a family.”
  
  “I could certainly have looked on from afar if I wanted to, but I was also invited right into the mix…He’s given you access to go anywhere with your life and the whole world to do it in. The only spot that’s already taken is center stage, where Jesus already has it covered.”
  
  “Some of us might need to ask ourselves why we keep heading for the predictability and obscurity of the rafters rather than moving a little closer to the action. Sure, we can play it safe and head for the faraway places. The Scriptures say that even the disciples looked on from far away at times.”
  
  “Unfortunately, her boss thought it was a lousy idea. I’m sure he wasn’t a bad guy—maybe just a person who didn’t get it.”
  
  “Vesta didn’t take no for an answer when her idea wasn’t well-received, and she wasn’t going to wait for approval from someone who didn’t see her vision. She knew why she was doing what she was doing. She wanted her sons to have what they needed and refused to get knocked off course by the person who had authority over her job but not her life.”
  
  “One woman refused to believe she needed permission to follow her gut and her imagination. She made some bold moves to see it through. It didn’t matter to her that others couldn’t understand, didn’t approve, or didn’t see the need for her idea. She wasn’t looking for approval; she was focused on the possibilities.”
  
  “Being undistracted means staying the course with things that will outlast you.”
  
  “He told us wherever there are hungry people or thirsty people, He would be there. Anywhere someone is sick of estranged or naked or in jail. He didn’t ask us to do Him a solid by reaching out to people in distress; He promised we would actually find [Him] when we tried to meet their needs. He said He would be present with the widows and the orphans. Wherever two or more of His people gather in His name, He said He’d be in that room too.”
  
  “You’ll know this strategy is working when you start noticing the needs of the people around you and using the margin in your life to take on a couple of them.”
  
  “The average person lives about 27,375 days.”
  
  “Stop pining away your days waiting for God to show up; He’s already in the room. You can stop telling yourself you are waiting on Him because He’s probably waiting on you.”
  
  “If we learn truth without acting on it, we turn a Savior into a mere teacher.”
  
  “At some point in my life of faith I realized I [knew] plenty of things about Jesus but hadn’t actually [done] anything with Jesus. I was like a professor who taught the class but wasn’t a practitioner. I knew the verses about the poor and the widows and the orphans. Meanwhile I had never done a single thing to be like Jesus to them. I guess you could say donating money or tithing inched me closer to that. But I don’t see in the Bible where we are exempted from getting involved in these needs because we tossed some money in the direction of the poor.”
  
  “If we have the courage to slide these beliefs under the microscope, we may find some misguided motivations for why we accepted them so readily.”
  
  “Remember, Jesus never had a problem with people who were uncertain. He actually chastised the people who feigned absolute certainty for the bump of power and prestige they thought their knowledge would earn them.”
  
  “What we need is a fully vetted and honest set of beliefs born out of safe and honest conversations and informed by a close reading of the Scriptures. Doubt, done well, can lead to immense clarity and purpose…Bring all your questions to Jesus. He can handle it.”
  
  “Stop pretending you don’t have any [questions]; rather, bring them to Jesus and ask for His help in sorting them out. This will take more than a dollop of time, introspection, and honesty, but it will give God something authentic of yours to work with—perhaps for the first time.”
  
  “He just said, ‘Come,’ and with this one word all the water in the Sea of Galilee shifted to Peter’s side of the tub.”
  
  “God often does as much on the way back from our failures as He does on the way there with our aspirations.”
  
  “Jesus engaged with Peter; he didn’t shame him. Jesus’ only question to Peter makes sense to me. He asked, ‘Why did you doubt?’ Peter had just seen the miracle of feeding thousands that very day. He had seen people healed and even raised from the dead. It’s tempting to think we would have behaved better, but would we? Do we?”
  
  “But I also think that loss, like doubt, is an invitation to step out courageously toward Jesus.”
  
  “Obeying what God invites us to do even before we understand it is an act of faith that God honors. When I tell God I want to have it all explained to me before I will obey, it makes faith sound like a negotiation—and it’s not.”
  
  “Availability can launch more dreams than you could ever imagine.”
  
  “He didn’t give me what he had the most of, which was advice; he gave me what he had the least of, which was his time.”
  
  “Keith Green passed a few years later in a tragic airplane accident, but the few intentional moments of his life he gave to me blossomed into a pattern that has changed the way I connect with people who reach out to me…Each of us is a conduit of love…We have the ability to shape and transform one another through the smallest acts of kindness and attention.”
  
  “That’s how I know I’m living an undistracted life: when I’m joyfully, abundantly, and unreasonably available to the people around me.”
  
  “None of us knows when our time here will end, but I think I know what my last minute or two will be like. I think that moments will be filled with tremendous gratefulness for the people I made time for and who made time for me.”
  
  “If being available isn’t for you, don’t feel bad. If it’s not your thing, love and embrace this about yourself. Just don’t complain about not being pursued by others.”
  
  “Availability spawns opportunity; opportunity inspires more availability; and the cycle carries on and creates deeper purpose.”
  
  “When the balloon was off the ground, she yelled, ‘We have liftoff! Look at it go! Where will it land?’ Three more sentence.
  
  Children who were once handed Kalashnikov rifles were now cheering and crying and hugging as they all became part of Uganda’s first space launch.”
  
  “God doesn’t keep score, and you shouldn’t either. When we are tempted to bring Him only our successes, God reminds us He delights at our attempts even when they fail.”
  
  “Keep showing up for yourself and the people who will benefit if you don’t quit. You are probably just a few sentences away from the next grand adventure…The angels in heaven are itching to look at your life and say, ‘We have liftoff! Look at you go! Where will you land?’”
  
  “The words we use usually come straight from our hearts, and those words tend to show others what’s happening beneath the surface in our lives.”
  
  “It was a reminder to me that our words might be costing our relationships much more than most of us realize.”
  
  “One week I happened to arrive a few minutes before we started. Brad pulled me aside afterward and said, ‘Bob, it really honors me that you are a guy who arrives on time.’ …He saw a better version of me that was within reach, and his words called it out of me….It’s now forty years later, and guess what? I’m usually on time wherever I go. Do you know why? Because I was rude to a kind man named Brad who told me decades ago I was a guy who honored others by being on time.”
  
  “We can actually speak that kind of courage and destiny over others, and the crazy part is, the people we do this to will become who we say there are.”
  
  “The more you hear beautiful, encouraging, life-giving words flowing out of your mouth, the more you know that is the person you’re becoming too.”
  
  “But have you ever experienced a total failure with no silver lining, no comeback story, no rising from the ashes? Some failures can’t be undone, such as the Hawaii missile debacle. As humans we are wired to see the villain and the victim in these moments…But hear this: God still loves us. God loves the injured and the inmate. God rushes toward the prodigal and loves the faithful. I’m glad this is God’s heart because His love for the undeserving is a reminder of His love for me, someone who is undeserving of it. That’s the way He loves you and will always love you. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Grace never seems fair until you need a little.”
  
  “What do you think your life is worth to God? A dollar? A million dollars? How about a billion dollars? To Him, there are not enough zeros to estimate the value of [you.] Here is the crazy promise of Jesus to us. When we fail miserably, spectacularly, epically, and when we become distracted by the less important things around us, the value of our stock with Him doesn’t drop. You and I are still the apples of His eye and the pulse of His heartbeat. To Him you and I are eternally valuable; we all are.”
  
  “The inevitability of a mistake doesn’t mean it is any less painful. It’s time we stopped acting like our failures somehow disqualify us from God’s love, when in reality these setbacks might lead to a keener awareness of it. The sacrifice Jesus made for us means that any failure we could ever conceive of is covered.”
  
  “We forego our purpose when we fake it in our relationships to safeguard a false feeling of safety.”
  
  “If we want to go deeper in our relationships, we can’t go shallow with our authenticity.”
  
  “…but the wisdom she drops on Pinocchio about the path to becoming real still holds a lot of truth. Listen to what she tells him: that becoming real is to become ‘brave, truthful, and unselfish.’”
  
  “Collecting more information about life and even about God is safe because it can create an illusion of progress, but it doesn’t make us any more real.”
  
  “The funny thing about relationships is that the people who stink at them often think they’re the best at them.”
  
  “They look like they are merely hustling for a payday or a fast car or a nice home, just trying to make it to the weekend or the next vacation—all to the exclusion of purpose.”
  
  “The things we have experienced, both good and bad, shape how we anticipate what will happen next.”
  
  “Simply put, the next version of you can decide not to let the past push you around anymore.
  
  Ask yourself: ‘What simply can’t be deferred any longer in my life?’ Are you putting off whatever it is because you were burned last time? Are you afraid? Me, too, sometimes. The fix is to get real about it. Call it out. Name it for what it is. Stop beating yourself up about it and instead, kick it in the pants…If you will do this courageous work, what has dogged you in the past will no longer be able to exert control over you.”
  
  “When I look at the life of Jesus, I see someone who was willing to question whether the way things were happening was the way things had to keep happening. His entire life was commissioned with the task of changing the way we interacted with God. To do this, Jesus had to become incredibly vulnerable and real and present. He laughed, He cried, He broke ranks with the social norms of the time.”
  
  “The game isn’t fixed, nor is the outcome predetermined. Live in a state of constant anticipation of finding a new gear and a better response than you’ve had in the past…Live an intentionally surprised life.”
  
  “I picked my life and backfilled my career…”
  
  “My guess is that the free work I offered was a better deal, but my generous offer didn’t need to be accepted to still be important—and yours doesn’t either. Building a case against other people when they decline your offers and availability will only distract you. Go with obedience instead. It will outperform recognition every time.”
  
  “I couldn’t be their staff member or their lawyer, so I decided I would just be this organization’s friend and good neighbor.”
  
  “I doubt I could have done these things if this organization had hired me all those years ago for free as a leader or for free as a lawyer. It turns out I make a much better neighbor than employee. I’m betting God knew this would be true as I reflect on how one obstacle after another was inexplicably thrown in my way on the path I thought I wanted. These disappointments I thought were roadblocks to my ambitions were actually plowing the road toward what I wanted even more—results that would prove to be much more lasting.”
  
  “Your daring ideas and the disappointments you experience will be catnip for new opportunities and additional paths forward toward your lasting ambitions—if only you will have the courage not to relent.”
  
  “I didn’t have any intelligent questions to ask her about the horse, so to fill the dead airtime I asked her what color it was. She dropped the horse off the next day, and it turned out to be brown with a black tail. I just told you everything I knew about the horse.”
  
  “Don’t be fooled into thinking everything that happens to you is a cosmic battle between good and evil. The author G.K. Chesterton famously said, ‘Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils.’”
  
  “Instead of becoming distracted by surprises, we need to take responsibility where we need to and action where we can. The mistakes we make aren’t outtakes to edit [from] our lives; they are bookmarks for the places where we learn the most [about] our lives.”