Be Present And Love Well with Bob Goff

We are continuing our 5 season celebration with the re-release of this interview with Bob Goff. On the heels of his new book release “Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose Rediscover Your Joy,” it seemed the perfect time to revisit this gem. One thing Bob Goff does amazingly well is love people – even difficult people. You’ll love this conversation with him where you’ll discover how we can love people without an agenda, how we can have more meaningful conversations and how we can all chill out a little bit!

Listen to “Be Present & Love Well with Bob Goff” on Spreaker.

Interview Links:

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Transcription:

Julie Lyles Carr: I’m Julie Lyles Carr and this is the AllMomDoes podcast where we are celebrating our fifth season, and so I’m calling back to some of my favorite interviews that, if you’ve always been around, great, maybe you heard this before, but I definitely want you to rehear it again. Or if you’re new at this, this may be the first time you’re hearing this interview as we pull it forward from the vault.

This episode was one that when we first began dreaming about the podcast, I so hoped we could get this guest on, and it was the wildest thing. In the early days of the podcast, we were able to do so. And the other thing that I couldn’t believe when my producer Rebecca called me was, she said, listen, he’s available for the interview and you just need to call him at this number.

And it’s the number that’s in the back of his books. And I thought, really? This can’t be real, but I dialed that number and guess what? It was. It was Bob Goff. So take a listen to this incredible episode. As we celebrate five seasons out of the AllMomDoes podcast. Here’s Bob Goff.

Julie Lyles Carr: Well, you are amazing, and you are absolutely living the message of your new book. So, tell me about this new book.

Bob Goff: Yeah, well, the next book is called Everybody Always. And for the people that had read Love Does, that, I would say Love Does is like, let’s go get a puppy. And Everybody Always is, let’s go raise the puppy. How many, a little bit more challenging. It’s all about how you love people who creep you out. There’s a lot of people that you get along with, but it’s the people that are actually difficult to deal with it that will give you a report card on where that

Julie Lyles Carr: My content coordinator and I were laughing because you know, your newest book is sitting right up there in terms of pre-sales and it’s right next to boundaries, the book boundaries. And we got so tickled because we were like, this is, is this like the anti-Boundary book? You know, so yes, yes. We, we were just cracking up. It was like of all the books for that to be next to.

Bob Goff: Actually, you know what beautiful though is that would be an illustration. Like you can think of all the people that are your friends, like you’re quite a few that are very different than me. And so I’m not trying to surround myself with people that are the same. I’m not trying to surround myself with people that are really difficult either. I’m just trying to be really present wherever I am, and you’re going to find difficult people.

But I spent, most of my life doing is avoiding these people that are difficult. And I noticed that Jesus spent all of his time engaging the people that were difficult. So, I thought, well, this is great. I write a book, I’m five years late, but I really didn’t have anything to say until I saw just this quarter of a twist and the culture. Everybody was just so much on edge. If you notice that?

Julie Lyles Carr: I have and trying to figure out the right ways for people to be in touch. And then yet we have situations where people seem to take advantage of that. So, tell me about the wisdom of walking like Jesus in dealing with difficult people, and yet, how do we do that in a culture that’s becoming kind of paranoid.

Bob Goff: Yeah. I guess what we need to do is not avoid each other, but we also don’t need to raise our voices with one another. And I’m a trial lawyer. I win cases for a living. I just actually win arguments, but I’m not trying to be Jesus’ lawyer anymore. And I think that’s an important change in my life. I just, uh, I think he’s not in the crib anymore.

We’ve got this thing figured out, but what he wants is some humble people who will just enjoy the people that are actually kind of hard to be around. So, I’ve been working on it. I’m actually going to go visit one today.

Yeah. So, like instead of avoiding them, which would have been old Bob, that new Bob is saying, wow, let’s not, let me learn some stuff. But I’m not going to learn this by raising my voice. I, the only time I raised my voice was to yodel, so it’s just being kind. And then you see the cover of this book, it looks like there’s a bunch of balloons, kinda like a throwback to Love Does. But I have a witch doctor school in Northern Uganda, is that creepy? I have 250 witch doctors that are just the creepiest people I’ve ever met in my whole life. Uh, they’re involved in all kinds of bad stuff. And, uh, a couple of years ago, I just decided, man, I better start engaging with these people instead of waving a bony finger at them and telling them they’re bad guys. I want to engage them and get to know their names. So, we’ve graduated hundreds already. And I flew down there when it was time to get a cover for the book, and I asked them if they, I could use their fingerprints and make the cover out of their fingerprints. Isn’t that awesome?

Julie Lyles Carr: That’s incredible. I’m hoping that you’re going to be ushering in a new season because it has been a season of such vitriol and fighting and, you know, social media posts that are so nasty on the part of whoever stands anywhere, whether you consider yourself, you know, a political liberal or conservative or whatever. I’ve been really fascinated by this story between Jimmy Kimmel and Sean Hannity. Have you been following this? Have you seen this?

Bob Goff: I am gathering from what you’re saying that they’re at each other a little bit. I know what I do. Um, I I’ll do a tweet each morning. I haven’t had a quiet time in 20 years. Mine are super loud. I’ll take everything I thought of the day before, and I’ll just spend some time reflecting. I’ll go to all the source documents that I rely on to steer my entire life and I’ll say, I know that sounded right, but is it actually true? And if I know it’s true, then I’m not going to put a Bible verse on it. I’ll just make a tweet, and that’ll be the tweet in the morning. Cause I’m not interested in talking to big religious guy into Jesus. I want the guy at the tire store to know he’s just accepted and welcomed and loved. That there’s a place for everybody. Um, so every once in a while, it only happened a couple times a year, but there’ll be a second-year seminary student, that’ll say something kind of angsty, and so what I’ll do as I go into his or her feed, and I’ll try to learn one thing from them. I actually kind of make them my teacher. I’ll learn a new word. You know, it’s just something, cause they’re obviously different me and a little on edge. And then as soon as I’ve learned one thing from them, then I block them. It’s like a going away party. You just don’t need to swing at every pitch anymore. It’s all good. Don’t worry about it. If we know why we’re doing what we’re doing,I think we’d be in great shape. And most people don’t know why they do what they do. They’re just ricocheting off each other. That makes great pinball games, but it makes for a lousy life.

Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. Well, and I’m fascinated in this, um, Hannity- Kimmel thing, because they were going at each other. You know, like you were saying, I mean that we were seeing that a lot. All of a sudden, Jimmy Kimmel has decided to apologize to Hannity. Hannity’s accepted. Hannity’s kind of owning his part. They’re saying they’re going to start dialoguing. And for our listeners who don’t know who maybe who these two players are, these are two different guys in news and entertainment talk shows, and they stand in very different positions on some different issues…I’m a little encouraged, Bob. I got to say I’m a little encouraged if we can start dialoguing instead of diatribing, what might change in our culture?

Bob Goff: Yeah. One of the things that happens is we spend a lot of time trying to be like each other, uh, and you’ll never end up being like Jesus, if you’re trying to be like each other. Um, so the whole idea is to figure out who you want to become, and then just take these little baby steps in that direction. Um, to say it oftentimes, the baby step that you take isn’t with somebody, like, you’d be easy to get along with, but find somebody who’s difficult and then just ask them something about, uh, what they’re hoping for, uh, with no judgment. And then not loving people with an agenda, because as soon as love has an agenda, it isn’t love anymore.

So, with zero agenda, other than just being present and learning, know why you believe what you believe, and then just go engage everybody. And there’s something that’s actually beautiful. I’ve turned these people that, uh, that I didn’t have that much in common with, and honestly still don’t turn them into my teachers. I’m trying to teach myself to become a little bit more humble. I’m trying to learn some lessons from them and their worldview and their life. But I don’t need to adopt them all. Um, but I can, uh, engage, uh, all of those things. It’s just been great. And if you do that, it’ll be constantly misunderstood.

Julie Lyles Carr: Why do you think we have so much fear of people that seem unfamiliar to us whose positions or thoughts or approaches seem unfamiliar to us?

Bob Goff: Oh, it’s because we’re all amateurs. It’s amateur night. I’d never seen anybody that goes pro at loving people, you know? Could you imagine they have a leather, uh, like, you know, bodysuit and they’d get their sponsored by target and Pennzoil and all that because they’re a pro at loving people.

I think we just, we’re anxious, we’re all amateurs and we’re trying to figure it out. But one thing that I’ve found is that, uh, grace is this beautiful antidote to just realize when you’re live with a grateful heart for what’s happening in your life, then you can be a little bit more generous about your opinions with other people.

And I was actually just talking to some friends yesterday about generosity. This whole idea of generosity, that’s where my genealogy came from. It used to be people of noble birth. Those were the generous one. And then they said, a hundred years later, became people that were actually noble and what they did were the generous one.

And then it changed, like a hundred years later to people that stretched out their hand, those were the generous ones. Isn’t that beautiful? I think of all the stories that have impacted me about, even Jesus, telling a guy to just reach out your hand. He could have fixed it, but there’s something about reaching out your hand to one another, um, that it’s like a, like he made the first move that we need to make the second move, and it’s sports. So, and it, isn’t just this hallmark, yippy-skippy kind of thing, but you just know why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I’m just gonna try to be more generous in my opinion about people. A little bit more generous about the assumptions that I make about it.

Cause you got, you know, yesterday, uh, there was a wedding planner somewhere, and she was praying for rain or for sunshine, and the farmer was praying for rain. Just know that there’s different things that people have going on that are important us. And, um, and it doesn’t make you passive, it actually makes you participant. Like get with the program. You start seeing the plot that’s unfolding in everybody’s life.

Julie Lyles Carr: How do we do an agenda-ectomy? I mean, you know, cause sometimes I think even my agenda, sometimes it’s even a little hidden from myself. I don’t even realize, you know, that I’m approaching somebody with a little hidden agenda. And some of our agendas are more obvious. How do we do that? How do we do that self-check for an agenda and get it out of that conversation when we’re trying to love someone well?

Bob Goff: Maybe it says, starts with figuring out what your own insecurities are. And we reflect that differently. Right? So, some people are insecure and they mean things to people and other people are insecure and they’ll say anything to any. And other people are insecure, so they jump out of hot air balloon, or they run for political office.

If you could figure out how you’re wired and what it is that is making you do the things that you do. So, for instance, I’m not going to engage in arguments with people. It’s not because I don’t know how to win them because I’ve never lost one. I went in for 11, but I, uh, I’m trying to figure out where does that come from, where I need to feel, right. I had a stupid webpage when I started Love Does. We wrote this first book, Love Does. Gave all the money away. We sold millions of them. And so, we just go around the world, starting school, and I, and so one of the, one of the things that I did, foolishly, where I had this webpage that said, like, serving the poorest of the poor. Like I was stepping over poor people.

And I realized, you know, that’s just me being insecure. I’m trying to get validation from other people about what a swell guy I am. What if I just like my world view? What if I could just believe that God uh, created us in his image and that that would be a dot, then I don’t have to engage in all the puffery and, uh, all the like fella, coasts and all that anxious. It just, chill out. If you see people that are driving down the highway, they’re all hunched over their steering wheel. Like they’re just terrified. They’re just driving, scared it. And that’s just like makes for bad drivers. Uh, and then you’ll see somebody else from the fifties, they got one of those decors stuff and they’re just kinda sit back.

I think we need to just chill out a little bit. Not be so hunched over the steering wheel in all of our conversations and ricocheting off people when somebody does something. Cause they’re in here. I would just be generous. Well, well, what’s my next step. I was just going to be present. Uh, and it’s so simple, but so hard, cause we got everybody answering their cell phones and checking the emails and all that. So, to actually be present and sweet we’re. At practice, we throw the softball back and forth while we’re talking. And if you answer your cell phone, you’ll always see, come up with these beautiful little habits and traditions in your life and the lives of the people around you to say, we just, you know, throw your cell phone in a bucket of water or something, but to just actually be present with one another.

So I’m like 100% here with you right now. Like it’s just me, and we’re talking. About thinking about a, I got a catch. I’m not thinking about anything. I’m like 100% here and it’s because I’ve carved this new groove in my brain. And I’m trying to not just have it a little tiny groove. I’m trying to turn it into the Grand Canyon.

If you want to change your habits, you need to carve some new grooves in your barin. My friends just tell me the person who schedules everything, they only tell me what I’m doing today, tomorrow, and the next day. Isn’t that crazy? Literally, I’m just present with you right now. And I haven’t even looked at what I’m doing tomorrow, but I promise you this, I don’t know what to do three days from now. And it’s this discipline. I want to go Grand Canyon on that. I want to be present. And that might be a long way of explaining this idea of how we get out of the, uh, of this routine, this loop that we’re in of arguments and raising voice. Just be present and be loving with the people that you’re with. Uh, and then move on to the next one.

Julie Lyles Carr: I think that is amazing. And, you know, I think part of my challenge sometimes, and being present, particularly with people that I feel are a challenge, or difficult, is I kind of get into difficult person fatigue. Like to me, that’s like a real syndrome. Like somebody I’m trying to love well, but they’re just wearing me out. So how do we overcome that?

Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. We’ve got a new acronym. I love it. So how do we, how do we prep for that? What do we do for those kinds of fatigue moments that can come because even Jesus got tired? You know, even around some of the challenging people he was dealing with.

Bob Goff: Yeah. So, we paddled across the lake and 15 minutes later, everybody showed up. I wrote that one too. So, what I tried to do, is surround myself with people that are really safe. Like they’re like Switzerland, nobody’s mad at them. They’re not mad at anybody. So, find some people that are safe to surround yourself with. You know, when your last day here on earth, you’re going to have room for eight people around your bed, and so I figured out who were my eight people that I want around my bed on my last day here. And what I’m trying to do is surround my life with them right now. And that’s been really beautiful. I’ve sent each of them a text message. I said, you’re one of the eight, they’re like, what’s that mean? I’m like, don’t worry about it.

Your eight are going to change and my eight are going to change, and you don’t have to send another text message. Just like that idea, find your eight, surround yourself with them, because they’re going to surround you someday, um, and then having surrounded don’t stay there. Like don’t stay surrounded. We’re not like these fortresses who want to like, just then engage the world, and engage difficult people without agenda. Um, we have this thing we say in our marriage is a hundred percent kindness and 0% drama.

But if you engage people with kindness, and not a lot of drama, you don’t have to get all hurt, make a big deal about it. Those that you’re hurt about, whatever. To just like figure out where did that go. Just get real with that, that hurt. Um, and then move on with it, like get over it. And if you need to talk to some more people, find your eight.

Julie Lyles Carr: I love the idea of the eight. Part of the reason I love the idea of the eight is I have eight children. So, I made my own.

Bob Goff: Yeah, totally.

Julie Lyles Carr: We got another program. Yeah. And, uh, it’s, it’s really cool, that idea of the eight, because I think sometimes we try to find validation in how many buddies and friends and how big our network is, and I think it’s important to be very inclusive of people and to have a lot of people in your world, but I think sometimes we, we confuse those who are supposed to be the most intimate to us with a huge following. So how do we kind of navigate in a world now where I can pop on social media and see who likes, you know, my post or my, whatever, how do I distinguish between those who are supposed to be my eight, and those that I’m just supposed to be loving well and serving?

Bob Goff: Well, well, I’d say the first thing that popped to mind when you said that is if you take away what you’re known for, whatever’s left, is who you are.

Julie Lyles Carr: Say that again. Say that again.

Bob Goff: Take away the whole lawyer thing, whatever’s left, is who you are. Y’all wrote a book and put them, they’d be like, take away balloon boy, whatever’s left is who you are.

So, I’m just constantly doing that for myself. Right now, I visit with people and, but take that away, you know what my big ambition, I just want to be a grandpa someday. But figure out, um, uh, take away all the things that you’re known for, and then just say like this beautiful start over. You get to begin again and to say, who is the next version of you?

So, I spent a lot of time talking to this 79-year-old Bob and the 69-year-old, the one that’s a little bit more poised, that has a little bit more life experience. If you’re 21, talk to the 31-year-old person, version of you. I think that would be, get us a little bit more settled down. That you’re not in the immediate moment.

You’re not ricocheting off everybody. Uh, and that 31-year-old person, I have one that is 10 years older than you, will be a great guide to get you to those eight. Okay. Who are the people you actually want to do like with, cause you’re eight won’t care what you do? They could care less that you talked to people over the phone and write books. They just love you for who you are.

Julie Lyles Carr: You’ve kept the satellite dish of your heart and your soul wide open. You have a lot of people in touch with you who want your ear, who want your wisdom. What is a resounding heartbeat you’re finding right now throughout the wealth of the, of humanity? Who is your research group? What do you find is the heartbeat of what people are longing for today?

Bob Goff: Oh, people just want availability. Like that idea that people don’t follow vision, they follow availability. Everybody’s got an opinion. They’re like toilet paper, but not everybody’s available. And so that’s why in the back of the books, I just put my cell phone number. But that’s it. I don’t make appointments with people. Why? Because they just want, because you don’t make appointments with friends, and I just assume friendship. Uh, so that idea of just constant excessive availability. Now, if that’s going to wreck your life, don’t do it. Figure it out who God wants you to be, and then go live into the most authentic, genuine version of that. Yeah, I think that’s all we, all of us want.

It’s love and purpose and connection and a couple authentic relationship. So if you know, zero in on that, if that’s your shopping with every day, a lot, love purpose, connection, and a couple of authentic relationship, then you’ll go find him. Want to know something interesting, and then I need to scoot, if you grab one handful of sand is 400,000 grains of sand, wiki, Wikipedia wouldn’t lie to me, but a little bit more or less, depending on the size of your hand. And if you be 12 people a day and live 92 years, that’s what 400,000 looks like. See a handful of people every day, and a handful of people over your whole life. I want to just have 12 meaningful conversations each day.

That’ll get us where we want to go. So, this counts as one. And I’ve had several more today, but I I’m not at 12, but I will be before the end of the day. And it was yesterday, and it will be tomorrow. So, to go a little bit deeper, talk a little bit more, consider the things that your friends are saying. Take lots of notes. I’ve taken notes on what you’ve said already, and I’m going to think about that on the airplane. And it’s going to try to sort out for myself if there’s some more, I can learn from that.

Julie Lyles Carr: Well, we thank you for having a conversation with us today. It’s just been a delight and hey, I can verify, you call this guy’s number and he, he picks up the phone. It’s awesome.

Okay. Okay. So noted. So noted.

Check out the show notes for all the links, info, and other goodness from this week’s episode, with a big, thank you to our content coordinator, Rebecca. I’ve got a request, please go like, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a difference in helping other people find the show. And I’ll see you next week, here at the AllMomDoes podcast.

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