(he can put his feet up because he lives here)

A few of my good friends got invited to the White House today (although  they didn’t ask me to tag along, so I’m not sure how good of friends we really are anymore…). In preparation for their visit, I sent them this email, which I will now share with you in case you get invited to the White House soon (if you do, please invite me. I will clear my schedule.).

Gentlemen,

In preparation for your visit today, I’ve put together the following list of friendly tips. You’re welcome.

1. Do not call the President “Barry”. He hates that.
2. Do not go snooping. It’s a federal offense.
3. Do not put your feet up on the desk in the Oval Office unless invited to do so.
4. If you want to stand out, call him “Dr. President”. Everyone else calls him “Mr. President” so this will put you a cut above.
5. Since President Obama showed us all his birth certificate, it’s only fair that you return the favor. Bring the original (long form).
6. Ask him why he has a Blackberry. How can he expect to lead the free world with 1990′s tech?
7. Ask him what his username is on Words With Friends. Tell me when you find out.
8. Ask Michelle if you can have a carrot from her garden. She won’t mind.
9. You might think it’s a good idea to bring one of those hand buzzers for shaking the President’s hand, but trust me, you’re wrong.
10. There’s a secret rule that if you find a leftover egg from the White House Easter Egg Hunt, you get a 10k tax deduction.

Have fun guys. Give Barry a high five for me.

-Kyle

What tips would you give someone visiting the White House? Share them in the comments!

I had a lunch appointment today at noon. I always try to be early if I can, so I arrived at about 11:55 or so. The person I was waiting for hadn’t showed up yet, so I stood off to the side and let people pass me to get in line.

After a minute or two, I noticed that the line was getting longer, so I decided to jump in and hope that my friend showed up by the time I reached the front of the line (he did).

By the time we got our food, the line was nearly out the door. The lunch rush had officially hit.

Standing in line at 11:57, it took me about two minutes to order. People who came in at 12:02 (just five minutes later!) stood in line for ten or more minutes. Five times as long as I did!

In lunch, as in life, it helps to get a head start.

People often ask me why I speak to teenagers, and I often come back to this answer: I want to give them a head start.

The truth is this: the earlier you get started on something (like, say… living a better story?), the better chance you have at getting really good at it.

Most people who are incredible musicians, painters, singers, writers, etc. started at a young age. When you’re young, you have more time for hobbies and things like that. As you get older, things like jobs and school and family begin to chip away at your schedule, leaving you smaller and smaller bits of time to do as you please.

Tiger Woods started playing golf when he was a toddler. True story. And he worked for years and years and years at it. While everyone else his age was learning to color inside the lines, Tiger was learning to use a wedge or get a ball out of a sand trap. By the time everyone else started playing golf in their teens, Tiger had over a decade of experience on them.

It’s possible to start late and still do well. The people who came in at 12:02 still got their lunch, it just took them a lot longer. If you’ve waited too long, don’t say “Oh well, I’ll never catch up now.” Just get started.

But if you’re still young, why not start doing the hard stuff now? Why not start learning the things you’ll want to know ten years down the road?

My friend Ben shared this Chinese proverb with me: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is right now.

The First Egg is the Hardest

Have you ever noticed that the first egg takes the longest? When you’re cooking eggs (or pancakes, or bacon, or anything involving a skillet really…) the first one seems to take FOREVER. But once that one is cooked, the skillet is hot enough to cook the next one in half the time, and the next one after that is even quicker.

The hardest part is getting started. Once you do that, things get easier.

The same is true of living better stories. The first step is what keeps most people from doing anything. “I don’t know where to start!” they say.

I hear this all the time. And I always respond the same way: Start anywhere. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you take the first step, no matter how small.

I’ve recently started taking a fitness class at 5 AM. Let me tell you, 5 AM comes early this time of year. It’s a struggle every time that alarm goes off, because I’m comfortable. I’m warm. And if I skip the class, I can sleep in for a few more hours. The cards are stacked against me.

So here’s what I do: when the alarm goes off, I don’t think “Here I go! I’m getting up and going to a fitness class so I can work out really hard and be sore tomorrow and have a hard time walking up stairs!” If I think of that, I will inevitably give up and go back to sleep.

So instead, I think “I’m just going to sit up. That’s it. Just sit up in bed.” So I do. And I tell myself “You can’t lay back down. You have to keep sitting up.”

(If sitting up is still too much, get one of these.)

Then I think “I’m going to go drink a glass of water. Once I do that, I am free to go back to bed. But I have to drink the whole thing.”

So I get up, go into the kitchen, and pour myself a tall glass of water. Ice cold water. And I drink the whole thing. And by the time that’s done, I’ve been standing up and walking around for a few minutes, and I had to turn the light on to get the water, so I’m pretty awake. Then I think “Aw, heck. I’m up. Might as well do the class.”

If I look at the big picture, I’ll be overwhelmed. But if I start taking small steps (just SIT UP, Kyle!) I’ll make progress. It’s sort of like that quote that runners use:  “No matter how slow you’re going, you’re still lapping the guy on the couch.”

Let me ask you this: What big thing are you avoiding because you’re overwhelmed at the thought of it? How could you take a small step towards that thing TODAY?

PS: I go into a lot more detail on this in the book. You should check it out if you haven’t. It’s on sale for $5.99 over at Amazon.

Karen Klein, the woman in the image above, is (I should say was) a bus monitor in upstate New York. She made a little over $15k a year.

The students on her bus taunted and harassed her, calling her fat, poor, ugly, and other things I won’t repeat here. One of them even videotaped ten minutes of the harassment and posted it on facebook for all the world to see. He was proud of his disrespect.

That’s where the story gets interesting.

Almost immediately, people began to react. Watch the video yourself and try not to cry. This poor woman is brought to tears as she is bullied from all sides by students who have no respect for her.

After seeing the video, a man named Max decided to do something. He started an online fundraising campaign in an attempt to raise $5,000 to give this woman a vacation she could never afford on her paltry salary.

Two days later, that campaign has raised nearly half a million dollars.

Can you imagine? In two days, going from being an elderly bus monitor getting paid $15k/year just to be bullied and disrespected, to making half a million dollars?

What an incredible story. And it goes to show that any story has the potential for change. Any story can turn around. Any story can have a happy ending.

I don’t know what you’re facing today, but don’t give up. Don’t let the bullies or the haters win. Live your life with dignity, refuse to stoop to the level of your attackers, and keep pushing through.

When I speak to students, I tell them “You don’t get to decide what bad things happen to you, but you do get to decide what part they play in your story.” This woman may have thought the bullying was the end of her story. She’s an older woman on a fixed income. She probably thought her best days were behind her.

But the kindness of strangers is a powerful thing, and it changed her story forever. This is no longer a story about the bullies. It’s a story about the enduring kindness of people, about the spirit of community, about lifting up the downtrodden.

If you’re up against it today, don’t give up. There’s still time for your story to turn around.

And if your story is going well today, ask yourself this: How can I play a part in turning someone else’s story around?

(P.S. If you’d like to see the video or learn more about the project, click here. Warning: the language gets a little rough.)

I came across a pretty amazing video today. It was an anti-smoking campaign in Thailand where they sent little kids around with unlit cigarettes. The kids would walk up to people who were smoking and ask for a light.

Inevitably, the smokers would tell the kids they shouldn’t be smoking. They’d even rattle off a list of bad things that could happen to you because of smoking: emphysema, cancer, etc. Keep in mind, they’re saying these things with lit cigarettes in their hands. Finally, the kids would hand them a piece of paper that said “You worry about me. But why not about yourself?” Below the text there was a number you could call for help with quitting smoking.

As a result of the campaign, there was a 40% increase in calls to the hotline.

When we see someone else do something foolish, we notice it right away. But when do foolish things ourselves, we don’t always make the connection. (More on this in chapter 8 of the book). That’s why viewing your life as a story can be such a powerful paradigm shift. Suddenly you begin to look at things through the lens of “Would a well-written character do this?” (instead of “Is this the easiest/most convenient/most appealing thing for me to do right now?”)

This is part of why I made the “Story of my life…” bracelets that I sell after events. They’re kinda funny if you get the joke, but they’re also a reminder to think of your life as a story, and to ask yourself, “Would a well-written character do what I’m about to do?” It seems kinda silly at first, but it works.

(in case you’re interested, here’s a link to the anti-smoking video. Pretty cool campaign.)

As a speaker, I spend a lot of time in cities I don’t live in. Occasionally, travel schedules leave me in a new city with a few hours to kill. When that happens, I try to take advantage of it by doing a little sightseeing.

Earlier this spring. I was driving back from a speaking engagement in LaSalle, Illinois. I knew I had plenty of time and nothing to do the rest of the day, so I stopped in Springfield Illinois to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. I’m a huge Abe Lincoln fan, and a civil war nerd in general, ever since I visited Gettysburg when I was a kid.

The replica log cabin at the beginning of the museum

The museum was incredible. You start out walking through a replica of the cabin President Lincoln grew up in. As you kept walking through the museum, you pass through his law office, his general store, even a replica of the front of the White House. Along the way there are interesting facts about Lincoln posted on the walls, pictures of him and the people he loved, and actual items that he owned and used. I loved this museum.

Then this past weekend, I was in Norfolk, Virginia. I had to check out of the hotel at 11am, but my flight didn’t leave until 6pm. Looking through the brochures in the hotel lobby, I decided to check out Nauticus, a maritime museum and science center.

Nauticus was bigger than the Abe Lincoln museum (it includes the USS Wisconsin, an actual US Battleship that you can walk around on). It has more stuff than the Abe Lincoln museum. Its subject is more recent than the Abe Lincoln museum’s. In every way, it outdoes the Abe Lincoln museum.

I got to walk around on this. It was big.

But I didn’t like it nearly as much. Truth be told, I didn’t really enjoy it at all.

At first I couldn’t figure out why. But after a while it hit me: Nauticus didn’t tell a story.

The Abe Lincoln museum was basically a walk through the former President’s life. Along the way you experienced his ups and downs, saw the challenges he faced, and saw how he overcame them. You learned a ton of facts about the President, his life, and the time period he lived in. But they didn’t feel like facts, because they were woven into the fabric of the story.

Nauticus was just the opposite. There was no storyline, no cohesive narrative, nothing that really tied the museum together. In one room you’d learn about commercial shipping. Next, you’d walk into a room full of replica missiles from a Navy cruiser. Then you’d go into a place where you could pet a live shark.

It was all cool stuff, but it just felt random. The only thing that tied it all together was that it all somehow involved the ocean. That’s a pretty broad category.

I walked out of there feeling let down. I felt like I’d wasted my money. Because while I’d seen a lot and experienced some cool stuff, it didn’t feel like there was a point. It didn’t feel like it all came together to mean anything.

As I’m starting this blog, I’m trying to keep that in mind. I have a wide variety of interests, lots of things I could talk about. But I’m focusing this on the topic of living better stories. I’m sticking to that one thing so that we can tell a story together, so that this all ties into a cohesive whole. So it all makes sense in the end.

I’m not just doing this with the blog, though. I’m trying to do it more and more with my life. Instead of being a random string of interesting things, I want there to be a clear storyline that runs through my life from start to finish.

Cool stuff is great, but it’s better when it tells a story.

If my fitness center was on the ocean, this is how this morning would have looked.

Part of living a better story is realizing you’re supposed to be the good guy. When you really grab a hold of this idea, it causes you to live differently, because you reevaluate your actions and behaviors in light of “Would the good guy in a story do/say/think this?”

For instance: I was leaving the gym this morning after a pretty grueling 5am boot camp class. On the way out, I held the door open for a lady who had done the class with me. The sun was just coming up, and she said “Isn’t it nice out? When I left Wednesday morning it was hot and muggy already, but today it’s perfect.”

The very first thing that popped into my head was “She meant to say Monday. Today is Wednesday.”

I was about to open my mouth and say “Don’t you mean Monday?” when I stopped. I realized that correcting her was not going to accomplish anything. It would just make me seem like a little bit of a jerk. We’re standing here talking about the sunrise and the beautiful weather, and the only thing I have to say is “Don’t you mean Monday?”

Oftentimes it’s not the big things that make people think less of us. I’ve never killed anyone or robbed a convenience store or anything like that. But the difference between the good guy and an average character is often found in the small details, the tiny behaviors that cause people to wonder why we acted a certain way or said a certain thing.

The good guy in a story wouldn’t have said “Don’t you mean Monday?” He would’ve smiled and said “You’re right. It’s a beautiful morning.”

So that’s what I did.

Tim Cook announcing something new and amazing, as usual.

Yesterday, Apple announced a new operating system for the iPhone, iPad, & iPod touch. It’s called iOS6, and it basically takes the same iPhone you already have and makes it even cooler. It made me think about an idea I’ve been toying around with for awhile: that your life is like an iPhone.

When you break it apart, an iPhone is just a whole bunch of sensors connected to a processor, a screen, and a speaker. That’s it. But when you put certain software on it, it can do some crazy cool stuff. You can do your taxes, video-chat with someone a thousand miles away, remote control a helicopter, or just about anything else you can imagine.

Before I had an iPhone, it always bugged me when people who HAD them didn’t use them for anything but making phone calls. I wanted to yell, “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT THING IS CAPABLE OF?! DOWNLOAD SOME APPS ALREADY! OR AT LEAST TRADE ME FOR MY LAME PHONE!”

Now that I have one, I make a point of browsing the app store on a regular basis just to see what this thing can do. I’m fascinated by what this tiny little white box with a screen is capable of. I’m constantly surprised to see what people have been able to do with this little box of wires. But I’d never know if I didn’t take the time to look.

Your life is the same way. At a basic level, you’re nothing more than a bunch of muscles and ligaments loosely tied to a pile of bones, with some nerves connecting it all. But when you put it all together, there’s some serious potential there. The human body is capable of incredible things – just watch the Olympics.

So is the human mind. It can be incredibly creative, amazingly intelligent, and unbelievably bold.

But if you never test the limits of the system, you’ll never know what it can do. If you never try new things or challenge yourself to reach new goals, you’ll never know what you’re capable of  – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You’re like the old lady who is amazed to discover that her iPhone has a calculator on it. If she ever saw Angry Birds, it would blow her mind.

Today, try something you’ve never tried before. Think about something you’ve always wanted to do, and find a way to try it. Wanna learn how to code your own website? Visit www.codecademy.com. Want to play guitar? Borrow one from a friend and have them teach you a few chords. Wanna learn a random skill? Check out www.instructables.com. Do something you didn’t know you could do. Find the limits of your system. I bet they’re far beyond what you thought.

What new skill are you going to try to learn today?

Friends, Romans, Countrymen. The time has come.

After years of resisting, I have finally broken down and decided to start a blog.

The main purpose of the blog is to talk about the idea of living better stories. I’ll document my own story, answer questions from readers, and share whatever tips I pick up along the way.

If you have questions, comments, or ideas for future blog posts, leave them in the comments below! I’m looking forward to seeing where this thing goes.