Ken Fite

Of the many things I’ve ever written, my dad’s obituary has to have been the hardest.

I wrote it at my mom’s house, bleary-eyed and tired from a week of spending time at my dad’s side in the hospital, rushing my mom around from place to place, and making funeral arrangements.

When I finished writing the obituary, I sent a copy to the funeral home, my pastor, and my family. Then I stared at the words that I wrote for a long time, not feeling good about them, at all.

They were accurate. They were short and sweet, like an obituary should be. But they didn’t tell the real story about my dad. I started to think about the years of his life, May 9th, 1931 – January 2nd, 2016, and my eyes focused on one thing: the dash between the years that represented his life.

That’s where the real story lived.

Last week I wrote about my dad’s death. This week, I’m writing about his life.

At Christmas dinner, he sat across from me and told me the same story he told so many times before, about a bad boss he once had at a Bank he worked at. After the man called him into his office and accused him of having bad credit, which he didn’t – it was a mistake, my dad told his boss off, the door slipping from his hand as he left his office, causing the entire glass room to shake so badly that everyone in the office stared at the boss as my dad walked off. We laughed at the story. The guy never questioned my dad again. My dad taught me to stand up for myself.

When my dad was a kid, he got a phone call from “the phantom” who wanted to fight him out in the woods “in twenty minutes.” He didn’t hesitate at all. He put on his cape, told his mom he would be right back, and went to the designated spot to rumble with the mystery caller. He ended up standing on a rotting tree stump which gave way and hurt his arm as he fell to the ground, but managed to scare “the phantom” who ran away. He never found out who the phantom really was. My dad taught me to be courageous.

A few years later, my dad and a friend somehow figured out how to rig their own broadcast radio station in his parent’s basement. What was supposed to be used for fun became a full-blown radio station as my dad climbed the tree in the backyard and brought an antenna with him, making his homemade setup the most powerful radio station in Anniston, Alabama, causing the FCC to knock on his parent’s door and make him shut the whole thing down. My dad taught me to take risks.

One day, while walking through the woods, my dad heard someone calling for help. He walked closer and came upon a cliff and saw a kid hanging off the side and holding onto a root, desperate for someone to help him climb up before he couldn’t hold on any longer. My dad saw the huge drop off and although he was scared, he found a way to save that kid’s life. When my dad pulled him up, the kid didn’t even say thank you – he just ran off, happy to be alive, but never to be seen again. My dad taught me that everyday people can become someone’s hero, if they choose to be.

When my dad was in the Air Force in the early 50s, he decided to drive home to Alabama one Christmas when he had some time to be away and a friend of his and fellow airman, who happened to be African American, was headed the same way. My dad offered him a ride and along the way, decided to stop at a bar. His friend said he didn’t think that would be a good idea because it wasn’t the “right kind of bar” and he was right. Although the bartender gave them a hard time, my dad insisted that he give his friend a drink. My dad taught me to stand up for what is right.

In the 70s, he went undercover with his cousin, the famous writer and journalist Jack Nelson, to investigate the KKK for a story his cousin was writing for the L.A. Times. Although he was just along for the ride, it was a thrill to be a part of that, and he created a memory and a good story worthy of being told over and over again. My dad taught me to do things, even if they scare you.

Looking through pictures for the funeral, I couldn’t help but notice how happy my dad was whenever he was around children. My niece created a wonderful video tribute to my dad and my favorite picture, one I’ve never seen, or maybe I just never noticed before, is of my dad holding me and looking so proud to be my father. He seems to have the same expression in every picture with his kids. I remember him sticking his tongue out at little children while in line at the grocery store and making goofy faces to try to make them laugh. What used to embarrass me now warms my heart, knowing just how much he loved little kids. My dad taught me to love my children.

I’ll treasure these stories and what he taught me in my heart for the rest of my life.

But this isn’t really about my dad. It’s about you. And it’s about me.

It’s the dash between the years that represents every challenge, every victory, and every story that we create while we live our lives here on Earth. The dash is a little character, easy to overlook, but represents our character, and who we are as people and how we live our days. It represents the decisions that we make and how we respond to the many everyday problems that we face.

The good news is that if you’re reading this, it’s not too late. You’re still living the dash. You can decide – right now – to pay more attention to your life and become more intentional about it.

That’s why I write. It’s my way of making sense of the world. It’s my way of keeping myself accountable. It’s my way of leaving something meaningful behind. My experiences. My stories.

When I have a tough decision to make, I’ll try to remember my dad, and I’ll try to understand that when it comes to decisions, sometimes the best choice is the one that will make for the best story.

Because it’s in the stories that we live and tell to others that leaves our legacy. It’s the stories that will forever live inside of the dash. And it’s the stories that will keep those we love in our hearts.

My dad went to be with the Lord last Saturday.

After what I think was probably his first helicopter ride ever as the doctors rushed to try to save his life, and several days in another hospital, he finally let go. In 38 years, I never heard my dad say that he felt sick. Not once. He was so strong and someone that I will always look up to. My hero.

The next day, after we had called all of our family and my dad’s friends, I left my parent’s house and drove the thirty-five minutes home. I had one more person that I needed to tell. My son Kyle.

Noah is only three. He wouldn’t understand, I figured, but Kyle is seven. He needed to know about what happened and I was very worried about how he would handle the news. He and Noah had visited my dad in the hospital a few days prior. We knew from some friends that it might be a good “in between” step. The boys each drew rainbows, which we taped to the wall of the hospital’s ICU. They kept asking why Paw Paw wasn’t waking up and shushing me every time I’d speak louder than they thought I should. They didn’t know the truth yet, that Paw Paw wasn’t going to wake up.

I drove home in silence for the first time in ages and I thought about what I would say to Kyle. How do you tell a little boy that his grandfather is gone? I wasn’t sure how he would take the news.

After I got home, the boys and I played and wrestled for about half an hour. Then, my wife and I sat on the floor and told Kyle that we needed to talk with him. “I wanted to let you know that Paw Paw went to heaven,” I said and Kyle gave me a look that said that he wasn’t sure how to react.

“How do you know that he’s in heaven?” he asked and my wife Missy and I looked at each other and then explained that we knew that’s where Paw Paw was because Jesus was in his heart.

For a brief moment, Kyle looked like he was going to cry. I saw his lip start to quiver almost as badly as mine. He was almost there. But, then Kyle did something completely unexpected.

He started smiling. He was happy. I think he may have even done a little dance. My heart sank as I realized that maybe he didn’t understand what I was telling him and I was going to have to be more direct. But, Kyle beat me to the punch by asking if that meant that Paw Paw died and I said Yes.

I waited for tears, but they never came. Only more smiles. Kyle was overjoyed to know that my dad was no longer in pain. He was so happy. It’s not the reaction I expected, but it should have been.

In Proverbs, it says to “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” I should have had more faith in my son, knowing that my church, my wife, and I have been talking about heaven all of his life and that when you get to go there, it’s a good thing.

May we all have the faith of a little seven-year-old boy. No more sadness. No more tears. Only joy.

May we all have the courage to believe that there’s something more after this life is over.

May we all smile, laugh, and maybe do a little dance when we lose someone we loved so much.

I was very proud of Kyle. And I know that my father was as well. I hugged Kyle and told him that I loved him. I ruffled his hair and patted him on the back twice. Once for me. Once for Paw Paw.

I’ll miss you, Dad, and will never forget you. I love you, Pal.

And I know that I’ll see you again, because Jesus is in my heart, too.

I just went to the dentist for my six-month checkup. Monica likes to ask me open-ended questions whenever she cleans my teeth which is probably the most awkward thing in the world. I’d much prefer a blink once for Yes, blink twice for No routine. In my mind, I sound like a wounded whale when I try to answer her while she’s poking around with a tarter scraper inside of my mouth.

So this time, I decided to try to avoid – or at least delay – the bi-annual awkwardness by preempting Monica with a question of my own, just as she was getting started.

“Are your kids ready for Christmas?” I asked and closed my eyes, pleased with myself for buying a minute or two of non-awkward whale response time.

Monica said that they were but told me that she was struggling with her daughter, Rose.

She wanted everything she saw on TV. Monica tried explaining that Rose had a lot of toys already, much more than other, less fortunate kids, but the little girl wasn’t buying it. She saw an ad for Barbie’s dream house and wanted it. She saw a commercial for the new game Pie Face and wanted it. If it was on TV, she wanted it! Rose’s Christmas list was becoming never-ending.

And her mom decided to do something about it.

So she decided to drive her daughter to the mall to pick an angel to adopt from the angel tree. Each angel on the tree lists a child’s first name, age, gender, and sizes. It’s a program sponsored by the Salvation Army to help less fortunate kids get the clothes that they need for Christmas.

When Rose saw the tree and her mom explained what they were doing, the little girl stared at it for a long time. Monica told me how proud she was, watching her daughter start to understand that each angel on the tree represented a little boy or girl that would soon have Christmas presents.

Then her daughter walked up to her mom and said, “How can I get my name on that tree?”

We laughed and I mumbled some nonsensical comment that sounded like my whale had now become beached and Monica agreed with me and started polishing my teeth. I wondered if dental hygienist training included lessons in speech pathology so they could understand their patients.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation. This morning, I woke up before the boys who would soon be ravaging through the many presents under the Christmas tree and I started to think about the reality of how throughout the year, but especially on Christmas, we all have our own “trees” that we want to put our names on. They may come in many forms, but we all have them.

There’s the tree that many people have who are still waiting to find the right person to spend the rest of their lives with before they can be happy.

There’s the tree of having a better home to raise a family in, one with a bigger porch or a fenced-in yard or something else that we say we need to be happy.

There’s the tree of seeing a dream come true, whether it’s becoming a full-time writer, or a stay-at-home mommy, or anything in between. A tree we focus on too much sometimes that it keeps us from being happy in the moment.

There’s the tree of wanting a newer car, or better clothes, or a less stressful job, or more money, or… the kinds of trees we all desperately yearn for is like Rose’s Christmas list. Endless.

What we fail to realize is that just like real trees, every tree in our lives has a different season.

The new home you just had to have isn’t as perfect as you thought it would be once you move in. The dream job you wanted eventually becomes not-so-dreamy. What once shined brightly becomes old and dull after a while. The thing we had to have in order to be happy gets replaced by another tree that will really make us happy if we can just put our name on it and call it ours.

Only it doesn’t. Not, really.

Understand that the trees in our lives are only temporary. They don’t last forever.

This Christmas, try to focus on the things that really matter. Spend time with people that you love. Pay attention to the look on your kid’s face when they open their presents. Enjoy today, no matter what you may be going through. Know that struggles come and go and waiting until everything in your life is perfect to be happy is time wasted.

And know that there’s only one tree that we should care about having our names pinned to, the one tree that won’t fade away. The one whose birth we celebrate today.

Merry Christmas.

I almost didn’t write this post today. Not because I overslept. Not because I had writer’s block.

I almost didn’t write this morning because my blog was down. With bleary eyes, desperately waiting on my coffee to brew, and adrenaline starting to flow through me because I only have a few hours until my Saturday morning posts get emailed to my readers, I contacted my hosting company to understand why I was getting a connection timeout error. Tech support told me that they were aware of the problem and were working on it as fast as they could. There was no ETA.

But how will I write my blog? What about my readers who expect a new post today? I thought.

So I almost gave up. I was this close to walking away and saying, Oh well. Nobody will notice. Maybe I’ll just write it tonight or tomorrow or whenever the thing comes back online. But then I remembered something a friend told me once. A memory that comes to mind very often, actually, any time I get myself in a situation like this or have a difficult either/or decision that I have to make.

Think in zebra.

In college, my friend Tony used to tell me this all of the time. Whenever I’d have a tough decision, should I do A or B, Tony would tell me to find a way to do both. “Think in zebra,” he’d say and it annoyed the bejesus out of me. I didn’t like the advice back then. Things seemed to be more black and white to me than my friend could understand. But eventually, I came around and realized that he was right. And when that happened, I started applying the advice to every aspect of my life.

When I wanted to go back to school to check off the goal of getting an MBA, even though I had a newborn and a demanding job that would have been terrific excuses to put my dream on hold, I almost put it off as something to do later when the kids were grown. But instead, my amazing wife offered to watch our son so I could spend hours studying and insisted that I knock it out while I could and I did, taking more credits than I thought I could handle but ended up being just fine.

When my alma mater sent me a rejection letter in the mail, I was devastated. But I thought in zebra and enrolled in East Carolina’s online MBA program instead and I had to laugh when I found out where my testing center was – the business department at the very school that I wanted to attend. What felt like a slap in the face ended up being a blessing in disguise. The proctor happened to be the assistant to the dean and urged me to reapply after a year of straight A’s. I got accepted and graduated a few years ago with that MBA from the school I wanted to go to, UCF. I could have given up when I didn’t get accepted. But I decided to think in zebra and found another way.

When I wanted to become a writer and I read that I’d have to dedicate at least two hours a day learning the craft, I could have given up. I could have said that the only way someone can spend that much time learning a new skill is if they have a cake job, no family, and no outside commitments. Instead, I thought in zebra. How could I do both? That’s when I realized that if I could get to bed two hours early, I could wake up two hours early, and use that time to learn and practice before my day started. (That’s how the idea for my latest book was born, by the way).

Even last night, I wanted to go for a walk, a new habit I’m trying to form to get in shape and spend time thinking, but I also needed to work on edits for my first novel that I’m finishing. Think in zebra, I thought to myself. So I walked a mile instead of two and came back home and edited another chapter before going to bed. I found a way to do both. Thinking in zebra is not my default response when it comes to decision making. Twenty years later, I still tend to forget my friend’s advice.

So here I am. Typing this up in notepad like it’s 1992. And wouldn’t you know it – my Website just came back up. I guess I’ll be able to send you my blog this morning, after all. Right on schedule.

That’s how this works. Stop thinking that decisions have to be A or B. Stop telling yourself there’s no way out of the situations that you find yourself in, no matter how difficult they may seem. There’s always a third option, a way you can do both. You just have to take the time to look for it.

Stop thinking in black and white. Start thinking in zebra.

Thanks, Tony.

Every Sunday I do my grocery shopping at the same place and at the same time. And every Sunday I do the same thing when I check out – I talk with my cashier. I ask them how their day has been. If it’s been busy for them. Just chit-chat to avoid the awkward silence that exists in the five minutes between the Hello when they start scanning and when they tell me how much the bill is.

While that’s the origin of why I started talking to my cashiers, that’s not why I talk with them now.

Now I make conversation because I like to see their face light up when someone, a perfect stranger, sees them as more than an obstacle between the grocery store aisles and their car door. I do it because I like to see the difference in their demeanor from the customer in line ahead of me to when they start talking with me. And I like walking away and hearing them greet the next customer with more enthusiasm than they had before I showed up and connected with them.

That got me thinking about the time of year that we’re in.

We have two more weeks to search for the perfect Christmas gift for the people that we love. Two more weeks of standing behind overly enthusiastic people ordering Pumpkin Spice lattes. And two more weeks of trying to find more hiding spots for that stupid elf on the shelf that we knew we shouldn’t have let enter our house when Santa sent him this year because the thought of finding two weeks’ worth of hiding spots stresses us out. In less than two weeks, Christmas will be here and our kids will be tearing into their gifts with a twinkle in their eyes and ready to go outside and play with that new toy that we bought which we hope will entertain them long enough for Mommy and Daddy to sip their “special egg nog” and relax for once. Then the parents will exchange their own gifts, a new pair of socks or a robe or something that their spouse thought they needed.

But I’ve become convinced that the present that the people in our lives really need is our presence.

We like to believe that offering our time to a worthy cause will have to be as complicated as signing up to go on a mission trip to Africa. But it’s not true. That’s a lie we like to tell ourselves so we have a good excuse for being selfish and lazy in the smaller, less dramatic moments in our everyday lives. The truth is, offering our time by giving someone the gift of presence can be as simple as sitting on the couch and being fully engaged with a loved one and listening to their thoughts, concerns, and dreams. It’s seeking first to understand before worrying about being understood.

While giving someone your presence might not be complicated, it is inconvenient.

It means you’ll have to be intentional with your intention. No phones. No Facebook. No TV. No thinking about self-imposed to-do lists of things you “have to get done” right now that in reality could have been done weeks ago. Giving your presence might be the best Christmas gift you could give someone this year. And if they don’t celebrate Christmas, give your presence for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Festivus or Flag Day or maybe just because it’s grocery shopping day.

When was the last time you showed someone how much you cared about them by being fully present? By looking in someone’s eyes while you talked with them instead of connecting with dragonheart57 on Twitter or watching a cute cat video on Facebook while having a conversation that mattered deeply to the other person but a conversation that you were half interested in?

This year, let’s give the people that we say we care about a gift that nobody else can give them – our presence. This year, when we hand someone a gift we can’t wait for them to open, let’s give them another gift, one that they’ll never see coming. One that they’ll be thinking about for hours, days, or maybe for the rest of their lives. Stop searching for the perfect gift. You already have it.

Your presence is the one gift we all need this Christmas.

My three-year-old woke up crying at one o’clock in the morning on Wednesday.

As a parent, you quickly learn to recognize your kids’ different kinds of cries. There’s the I don’t want to go to sleep cry, the I’m hungry cry, the I had a nightmare cry, and my all-time favorite, the I-bet-you-didn’t-want-to-get-any-sleep-tonight-so-I’m-going-to-make-sure-you-don’t cry, too.

But this one was different. It was the cry – no, the scream – of a little boy in severe pain.

Noah told us, the best he could, that his leg was hurting. We tried to get him to walk and he limped in severe pain. I stepped away and when I came back, I noticed that my wife was crying, too.

She wasn’t crying because our little boy was hurting. She said she was crying because on Monday, he was complaining about his leg and she brushed it off – but now the pain was back.

And she was crying because this was the same way that a nightmare started for the family of a little boy named Cannon who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma that she follows on Facebook. My first reaction was to look up the symptoms on my phone to confirm for myself.

Warning: don’t ever do this unless you want to drive yourself crazy before you can see a doctor.

So, being half asleep, I typed ‘bone cancer leg’ into google to see what the signs and symptoms were to watch for. It read “…pain in the affected bone is the most common complaint…at first the pain is not constant. It may be worse at night…and the person might limp if a leg is involved.”

I did another search and came across a post by a mother who ignored her daughter’s complaints about her leg hurting because the pain kept going away and eventually took her to the doctor and received bad news. I thought about Noah and how Missy said his leg was hurting two days before.

Why would his leg hurt on Monday and not again until Wednesday? We asked ourselves, becoming more worried as Noah’s screams got louder and more intense.

An hour later, we finally got some children’s Tylenol in him and Noah fell asleep. Missy and I went back to bed, too. But I could not fall asleep. When my alarm went off at five, I went downstairs.

For the first time in eighteen months, I didn’t write. I prayed. Harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life.

I prayed that there would be some other explanation. Some reason why he had this pain in his leg. An answer for why the pain was not constant. Why it hurt so much. Why it left and why it was back.

An hour later, I heard another scream, so I went upstairs to lay down with him. After I calmed him down, I put a hand on his back and as he fell asleep, I realized that while I had laid down with my oldest son many times while he fell asleep, I had never done that with Noah. It was the first time I had really watched over him as he slept and I listened to him breathing. And that’s when I lost it.

As he slept, I rubbed his back and I whispered about all of the things that I was sorry for.

I told him that I was sorry for No being my default answer most of the time. No, we can’t go in the backyard to play in the sand table. No, we can’t blow bubbles. No, we can’t go outside.

I was sorry for saying No when he would sometimes ask for a piggy-back ride because my back hurt. My back didn’t always hurt. Sometimes – no most times – I was just being lazy.

I was sorry for showing favoritism to his older brother, if I ever had. It wasn’t intentional.

I was sorry for being so gruff all of the time instead of listening and being understanding.

I was sorry for not being interested in things that interested him. To parents, everyday things seem mundane. To little boys, the mundane is magical. I was sorry if I took any of that magic away.

I was sorry for not capturing all of his special moments like I had for his big brother. I could have written a book with all of Kyle’s milestones that I wrote down, from losing his first tooth to going “pee-pee-in-the-potty” the first time… five years’ worth of  memories captured before I lost interest.

But I had nothing written down for Noah.

I thought about what that would mean if God-forbid something really was wrong with him.

How would I remember all of those special “firsts?” How would I remember his first words or the first time he called me Daddy or the first time he threw a Chicken McNugget across the room?

When he woke up we took him to the doctor who ordered x-rays, an ultrasound, and blood work.

The results confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis – something called toxic synovitis – which sounds scarier than it is. The problem was in Noah’s hip, not his leg, and it was just a temporary inflammation that caused limping and pain. When I looked up the symptoms, I felt a lot better. It’s common in children between three and eight and the pain starts suddenly and mostly at night.

To say that Missy and I were relieved would be an understatement.

I think as a parent you tend to assume the worst but hope for the best. While it worked out for Noah, that’s not always how this kind of thing turns out. We are blessed to have two healthy, unruly, wildly rambunctious, sometimes crazy, often uncontrollable, but always lovable boys.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

While I’d love to put a bow on this and say that from now on I’m going to be a perfect father, I can’t. Parents aren’t perfect. We get tired and overwhelmed and frustrated. We have long, hard days, and our kids are the ones who suffer. A week from now, we’ll all be back to our old, selfish ways.

But I will try to remember.

I will try to be better.

I will try to be a real father, one that gives piggy-back rides, even when I don’t feel like it.

Because in the end, it’s not the memories of our kids that really matters. It’s their memories of us.

My favorite story about how to deal with the haters in your life is Abraham Lincoln’s. Years ago, I read about the former president and was shocked when I learned about his early childhood.

His dad hated that Abraham wanted to learn how to read so he could become somebody.

Instead, Thomas Lincoln wanted his son to focus on learning how to use an axe and to become a carpenter, like himself. To use his hands and help make money for the family. But Abraham knew himself even at a young age. He wanted to become educated and go into law. Not carpentry.

So Thomas made fun of his son’s desire to learn. He told him not to read. He picked on him. He said he’d never amount to anything. And when tragedy struck, things got a whole lot worse.

When he was only nine years old, Abraham Lincoln buried his mother after she got sick and passed away in their cabin home. He loved her dearly. They had a very special bond.

She was kind to him and he was very much like her. She loved to read and he loved being read to.

But the day his mother passed away, everything changed for young Abraham. His father made him help build her coffin and bury his mom without a proper funeral. Then his dad left and disappeared.

No explanation. No instructions. No family. No babysitters. Their father abandoned Abraham and left him to take care of himself and his eleven-year-old sister for over a year before he returned.

He was so afraid of his father that when Thomas Lincoln finally came back home and tried to introduce Abraham to his “new mother,” the young boy hid behind some furniture.

Abraham eventually warmed up to her. She had a huge library of books and the boy read everything she had brought. They formed a bond of their own and she encouraged his reading.

Life could have been easier for the boy who became the 16th President of the United States, but ignoring his father was critical to forming the young man to become who he was meant to be.

We have to stop listening to the haters.

We have to stop believing people who tell us that we’ll never make anything of ourselves.

We have to stop listening to people who tell us that we’ll never see our dreams become reality.

We have to realize that the very presence of a hater means that we’re doing something right.

Remember that while our haters are loud, our fans are quiet. We like to focus our energy on the haters but don’t realize that the people who love us the most often speak up the least.

Haters have a burning desire to make us feel terrible, but our fans don’t always have the same desire to make sure we know we’re appreciated. They usually love us from afar. And that’s okay.

We can find haters and critics of our work everywhere, but they usually find us first.

When I received my first one-star review, the critic wrote, “Terrible writing and no real information.” But another critic rated the book five-stars and said it was, “Well-written and very informative.” How can two people read the same book and think it was “well-written” and “terrible” at the same time?

Because some people will love you and others will love to hate you. How do you deal with that?

You learn to not let the compliments go to your head or the criticism go to your heart. That’s how.

What we need to remember is that if we don’t have any haters, people who don’t believe in us and our dreams, then we aren’t doing work that’s relevant. The next time you happen to come across a hater – or more likely, they come across you – realize that they are necessary for your success.

It means you’re doing work that matters.

“How do you stay committed to a dream when you don’t see immediate results?” That’s the question I asked Jon Acuff, my favorite nonfiction writer, on Monday evening at Barnes & Noble.

Jon was in Orlando doing a book signing and taking questions from the audience before giving a talk about his new book Do Over, what Seth Godin called The best career book ever written.

I asked the question because I’m a new writer.

Although I’ve only been writing for eighteen months, and I’ve seen some momentum, I wanted to understand how long it should take someone new to the craft of writing to see success and also how to stay motivated when it feels like you’re not making as much progress as you’d like to make.

Jon gave me a three-part answer.

Look at the people who came before you and see how long it took them.

Jon said that although it can be dangerous to compare yourself to others, you have to at least understand the journey that other people in your situation went on so you can know what to expect on your own journey. In my situation, he suggested researching other writers to see how long it took them to become successful and using this as a reference point for my own adventure.

While giving me this advice, Jon made a side comment to me about how he actually gets this question a lot but doesn’t believe that very many people who ask that question will actually follow-through and take the advice they are given to heart and actually do what they’re advised to do.

I didn’t want to be that guy.

So I’ve spent the last few days researching writers and how long it took them to find “success.”

Although I just published my 7th nonfiction book – The 4-Minute Morning, I’m currently writing my first novel. So I decided to use James Patterson – love him or hate him – as a reference to see how long it took him to become a full-time writer with 114 New York Times bestselling novels, selling 305 million copies – more than Stephen King, John Grisham, and Dan Brown combined.

I found that Patterson’s first novel was turned down by 19 publishers. Even when The Thomas Berryman Number was published in 1976, it didn’t do much for his writing career. Patterson kept grinding away at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and eventually became the company’s North American CEO while he continued to write his novels each day.

It wasn’t until 1993 when Along Came a Spider became his breakout novel. It only took Patterson 17 years to become an overnight success. Although this is just one example, just knowing how long it took James Patterson to see any results really put things in perspective.

Find the cheat codes.

If you’re wondering how I write an inspirational blog post every Saturday morning, it wasn’t by accident. I modeled my style of writing after Jon Acuff. He’s the original, not me. If you want to write, you need to read a lot, and specifically the kind of writing that you want to replicate. Jon’s inspirational blog gave me the motivation to start this one a year ago.

If you’re wondering how I was able to write and self-publish seven books in a year, it wasn’t by accident. I didn’t magically wake up one morning and write a book. I modeled my production schedule after Steve Scott, a guy that writes a book every 30 days – that’s too intense for me but it showed me that it doesn’t have to take years to write a book.

If you’re wondering how I plan on finishing my first novel within 90 days start to finish when I’ve never written fiction before, it wasn’t by accident. I read a book on how to do it by James Frey and then I enrolled in a course on writing fiction by James Patterson.

Jon Acuff calls this finding the cheat codes and said they’re vital to make a dream become reality.

The example he gave on Monday was how adults can struggle to play a video game and our kids will say, “No, this is how to do it,” and take the controller from us and teach us how to get to the next level. Finding the cheat codes can save us time and help us navigate the real life pitfalls that we never would have expected without the advice from someone who’s done what we want to do.

What are you doing every day to work on your dream?

The last part of Jon’s advice on staying committed to a dream had to do with doing the hard work and staying consistent. He said that he’ll often meet someone who says they want to be a writer. So he’ll ask them, “Are you waking up early every day to write before work?” and they’ll say, “No.” “Are you reading books and taking courses to learn the craft?” “And they’ll say, “No.”

“So then, how exactly do you think you’re actually going to become a writer?”

When I looked into James Patterson’s history, I found that he did the same thing I’m doing. He woke up at five o’clock in the morning every day, seven days a week, and wrote for two hours. On weekdays, he wrote before going into his full-time job as an executive at J. Walter Thompson.

If you think dreams will become reality without putting in the hard work, you’re kidding yourself.

If you have a dream, find others who have gone before you to know what to expect on your journey. Find the cheat codes so you can stand on the shoulders of giants. Then get off your butt and actually do something – every single day – to get you one step closer to where you want to be.

Thanks Jon for the writing advice. And thanks to my readers who are on this journey with me.

Last week, I wrote on what I learned about blessings at a Starbucks after having someone pay for my coffee in the drive-thru one day and the shenanigans that ensued when I tried to pay it forward.

Then, the great red cup controversy of 2015 broke out with millions – no, BILLIONS – of supposed outraged “radical Christians” being angry because Starbucks removed all references to the Christmas season and hence Christ from their now plain red cups. The Internet got the crazy eyes and my Facebook feed overflowed with talk about the company’s supposed attack on Christianity.

So, I decided to do my own homework to find out what was so special about the annual red cup that supposedly had my fellow brethren-in-Christ so up in arms this year. Here’s what I found:

Last year’s cup looked almost identical to this year’s cup, only there was a faint outline of a bow.

2013’s cup had a single ornament, surrounded by leaves, triangles, and strange parallelograms that I guess are supposed to be reminiscent of the Christmas season somehow.

In 2012, the cup had a creepy snowman winking at the beverage consumer. (Nothing reaffirms my faith in Jesus Christ than a snowman and I’m surprised nobody protested its removal in 2013.)

The 2011 cup pictured a boy and his dog sledding down a snowy hill. The kid looks ecstatic but his dog’s face is stoic, as if he knows he’s headed for certain death, Thelma and Louise-style.

In 2010, the cup had a lady wrapped in a scarf with a coffee snobbish nose stuck in the air and snowflakes falling all around her with the words ‘stories are gifts’ on it. (What’s that supposed to mean, Starbucks! The Bible is “just stories” to you guys? You don’t know how close you came to igniting the people’s fury with this obviously unChristian yet still ambiguous message!)

In 2009, the cup had a silhouette of a tree with two ornaments that said ‘wish’ and ‘hope’ on them. The most Christmas-y of any of their cups, in my honest yet humble I-don’t-really-care opinion.

Let me settle the debate right now – Starbucks sells a brand of coffee called Christmas Blend. They also sell an advent calendar. And FYI, I’m pretty sure they still play Christmas music.

As far as I can tell, they have no plans to pull the plug on any of this, so we can sleep easy tonight.

I don’t know if Starbucks really hates Christmas. Or the second amendment. Or the military. Or <insert whatever it is that you care about here>. I don’t know a single person in my church that gives a flying crap about the red cup and will stop buying their coffee because of this nonsense. Come to think of it, I don’t know anyone outside of my church that thinks this is a real issue, either.

The truth is, one guy decided to make a video urging Christians when ordering their cup of Joe that their name is – wait for it – “Merry Christmas,” to force their barista, a.k.a. Starbucks, to make these plain red cups more Christmas-y and force the company put Christ back in Christmas.

Here’s the thing…

I’ll worry about Starbucks not saying “Merry Christmas” when they hand me a Pumpkin Spice Latte only after I get the courage to consistently say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

I’ll worry about how Starbucks shows the real meaning of Christmas on their coffee cups only after I figure out how to show the real meaning of Christmas to my kids this year when all they do is ask “Can you get me this?” every time they see a commercial after watching Bubble Guppies.

And if you really want to keep the Christ in Christmas, forget about Starbucks and make it a point this year to finally forgive someone who hurt you, no matter how long ago it may have been.

Call someone you haven’t spoken to in years and repair that relationship.

Give to the next homeless person that you see walk by your car at the next stoplight.

Treat people like you would want to be treated.

Feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

Welcome the unwanted.

Be a friend to someone who feels alone.

Love those who hate you, even when it’s a lot easier to just hate them back.

Or invite someone who may not have family nearby over for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

This isn’t a war on Christmas. It’s a war on focusing on the right thing (no matter the time of year).

The next time you see that stupid red cup with no words or illustrations, let it remind us all to fill in the empty space by intentionally doing something Christ-like that will really matter to somebody.

On Tuesday morning, I decided that I hadn’t consumed enough of my legally addictive stimulant of choice for the day, so I pulled into a Starbucks drive-thru to get some coffee.

I was in line behind a lady that was preoccupied and obviously not paying attention. You know – the kind of person that doesn’t pull up when the person in front of them has already pulled away.

My first reaction was to blow my horn. Not a long beep like “Hey you idiot, move!” More like a small, gentle beep to say, “Hey, get off The Facebook and go please ma’am, I need caffeine.”

But before I could, she pulled up and I ordered.

I was glad, too, because I had remembered that I just wrote a cringe-worthy story about a jerk in McDonalds a few weeks back, where my friend almost did the same thing. He almost blew his horn at the slow person in front of him only to find out that the delay was them paying for his meal.

And wouldn’t you know it – when I pulled up to pay for my coffee, the guy at the window handed me my drink and said, “There’s no charge for this one, the lady in front of you paid,” and smiled.

I drove off dumb and happy, drink-in-hand, feelin’ blessed and cranked up the radio.

But a mile down the road I had a terrible thought – I had broken the chain. A memory came back to me about a story I read of a Starbucks here in Florida where a lady had paid for the person behind her in a drive-thru and 378 people continued to pay it forward for 11 hours. I broke the chain! I thought again as I turned the radio off and set the coffee down in the cup holder and felt sick.

Should I go back into the drive-thru and pay for someone again? the ridiculous thought came into my mind as I tried to figure out how to make this right. I drove on and picked my coffee up and took another sip and for some reason, it didn’t taste as good as it did just a few seconds earlier.

I’ll go back tomorrow, I finally decided.

The next day I was running late. I still went through the Starbucks drive-thru, deciding that paying for someone the next day would be the next best thing. But when I got there, the line for the drive-thru was longer than I had ever seen it in my life. It stretched all the way through the parking lot and into the road. I waited in line for 15 minutes and there were still 10+ cars in front of me. It was like fate was telling me, You’re not going to be a blessing to someone today, sucker. Move on.

So I did.

I drove away from the coffee shop, now even later than I was before, and wondering how I was going to be able to “get even” for the blessing I had received. I had a pretty lousy rest of the day.

The third day, I tried again. I left the house half an hour early to have enough time to “pay the universe back” just in case the line was super long again, or I got stopped by a police officer, or I got a fender bender, or delayed by a train, or a flat tire, or a near miss by a deer that might come close to causing an accident, or a duck or some other stubborn animal that might decide to take a nap in the middle of the road. I was ready for anything that fate might decide to throw my way.

I pulled into the Starbucks and there was no line. Nobody was there. I wasn’t even sure if it was open. Of all of the things I was prepared for, this wasn’t one of them. The person taking orders came on the speaker and asked what I wanted and I took as long as I possibly could to order, waiting for someone to pull up behind me. They must have thought it was the first time I had ever seen a menu with coffee on it. I asked what the difference was between a tall coffee and a venti. Then I asked how big a grande was. They told me about a secret “trenta” size that I had never heard of and I welcomed them to opine as I looked in my rear-view mirror, praying for someone to pull up behind me. I took my sweet time and drove to the window to pay as slowly as possible.

I was worried that I was going to have to come back a fourth day but just as I was handed my change, I saw a car pull up behind me. “I want to pay for them!” I said to the guy at the window who probably thought based on my enthusiasm that I had just won the Florida Powerball lotto.

But they hadn’t just ordered a coffee.

The people behind me had also ordered a couple of sun-dried tomato croissants, oatmeal, and a few spinach wraps and to wash it all down, two cinnamon dolce lattes, a skinny peppermint mocha, and because tis the season, a pumpkin spice latte – enough espresso-based drinks and food for the entire family which I was convinced included two adults and at least six kids.

As I left, I thought of two lessons that I learned about blessings and being a blessing to others.

1. When someone blesses you, accept it. Pay it forward if you can, try not to break the chain, but try your best to just accept it and enjoy. That’s why you were blessed – someone wanted to do something nice for you. They didn’t want you to spend all day feeling guilty about it. They didn’t want you to feel like you had to reestablish the universe’s equilibrium of fairness. They wanted you to enjoy a free coffee. On them. No strings attached. Just because.
2. Don’t worry about timing when blessing others. I’m the kind of person that thinks about what I should have done after I’m out of a situation. Then I kick myself all day long for not doing the right thing in the moment. But our timing is not God’s timing. That highly-caffeinated and carbed up family of eight behind me may have been who I was supposed to bless after all.