Today’s post was inspired because I had written a quick email to incredibly busy but super generous media superstar Chris Brogan with whom I had befriended years ago at a blogging conference in Chicago.

In this morning’s email, I had asked him how I could enlist the help of well known bloggers with great influence (called “sneezers” in the social media business) who could help me get the word out about my forthcoming book Obstacle Illusions:  Transforming Adversity Into Success.

Because my email was short and to the point where I voiced my desire to make it a win-win situation when contacting blogging superstars, he responded within a few hours with a link to a blog post he wrote about how to use social media to help get the word out for a book you’re writing:  An Author’s Plan for Social Media Efforts (for those who don’t know him, Chris is a highly respected social media expert so he sure walks his talk).

While looking through that very helpful list, I surreptitiously came upon another post he wrote called The Importance of Story in Your Life.   While I tried to read his lips on the video (not an easy thing to do for some strange reason  – he’s super articulate in person), I became more and more intrigued about the importance of story in a person’s life.   In that post, he wrote about Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (this is Chris Brogan’s affiliate link–please help him for he’s been so very generous with me).

The story goes that Miller wrote a best-selling book called Blue Like Jazz.  The book ended up selling more than a million copies but unfortunately his other books didn’t follow suit.  That’s when he had writer’s block and actually avoided his publisher for quite some time.

One day two movie producers contacted him, telling him they wanted to make a movie out of his life (hey, that’s my dream!).  But his initial excitement went straight downhill when they told him the movie would have to be “doctored” to make it more appealing to the masses because apparently Donald’s life didn’t have much drama, suspense or adversity to overcome (italics are my own thoughts/assumptions).  As a result of that encounter, he had an epiphany of sorts and suddenly found renewed purpose at which point he set out on a journey to change his own life for the better and make a difference along the way.

Miller decided that if  his life was a story, why not make it a better one?  The point is you can move your life from what you might think is dull to something inspiring enough to share with others.   A good measure of what you really think of your own life is to pay attention to how you respond to the question “How’s your life is going?”  If your answer has consistently been “Same old, same old,” well golly, that should be a clue right there!

That got me thinking about my own life – just who am I?  Is God my storyteller?  Or am I?  Are all the things I’ve achieved (like becoming the world’s first deaf instrument rated pilot and award-winning stockbroker) merely saavy marketing sound-bites or are they really my life’s story?   Based on my speaking website and the book I wrote, you’d think I’ve turned them into catch-all marketing phrases to inspire people to hire me or buy my book.  Nothing wrong with that but really – what’s my story?   More importantly, what’s yours?

As Miller writes, you get the  feeling that life means something but what?

Incredibly intrigued, I stole a sneek peek through Amazon’s “Take a Look” feature and was enamored with how Miller starts out by saying that we actually don’t even remember half of what happened with our life!   How very true!  Do you remember every single detail?   Other than some of the highs, lows and most embarrassing moments (which I write about in my book), probably not.

Have you ever wondered what exactly your life means, especially when you can’t remember half of it?  Again, just who is the storyteller?

You or God?

I think Miller will have some interesting things to say in his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, don’t you agree?

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