I am a few chapters into Hero on a Misson: A Path to a Meaningful Life by Donald Miller. It was released a few days ago in the middle of January, 2022. They hooked me with the pre-sale – I got a free online course as a result. As promised, a day after it was released the Amazon truck delivered it to my door.

Who is Donald Miller? I found about Donald Miller when I started Q2Leader. If you listen to podcasts then you know how it goes. You somehow find a podcast to listen to (admittedly actually finding a particular podcast is oftentimes not easy). You listen for a bit and if they have guests on you learn about their guests. Oh but surprise surprise, the guest has a podcast too! And, oh, wouldn’t that be great to listen to…

I’m not sure which podcast Donald Miller was a guest of…thinking back it could have been one of three or four. Nonetheless, I was intrigued by his approach to marketing. The approach involves story where the product or service provider plays the role of the guide and the customer plays the part of the hero. Think Yoda and Skywalker. Yoda has the knowledge and skills to guide young Skywalker in the ways of the Jedi. And, when Luke takes the training to heart, voila, he’s a heroic Jedi Knight fighting the oppressive and evil Empire.

Donald Miller hosts a weekly podcast and does a fair number of interviews (especially when he has a book in the works). I heard him talk about story and its application to marketing. A good story has a victim, a villain, a guide and a hero. I expected this book to be a lot about these four characters and how they play out in real life.

This is not a book about marketing. In the first few chapters Miller uses his personal history to explain victims, villains, guides and heroes, and his transformation from victim to hero. Now I’m understanding the subtitle a bit more: A Path to a Meaningful Life. The purpose of this book is to provide that path, the instructions, to get to a meaningful life.

Or at least that’s what I think will take place. I’ll let you know when I finish the book!

However, I still want to share a few passages that caught my eye in the first pages of the book:

“What if we are much more responsible for the quality of our [life] stories than we previously thought? What if any restlessness we feel about our lives is not in fact the fault of fate, but the fault of the writer themselves and that writer is us?”

Hero on a Mission p. 4

“All we need to know to fix our stories are the principles that make a story meaningful. Then, if we apply those principles to our lives and stop handing our pen to fate, we can change our personal experience and in turn feel gratitude for its beauty, rather than resentment for its meaninglessness.”

Hero on a Mission p. 5

“…human beings have the ability to make meaning.

If we choose a project to work on; if we open ourselves up to the beauty of art, nature, and even other people; and then if we can find a redemptive perspective for our inevitable pain, we will experience a deep sense of meaning.”

Hero on a Mission p. 36

That’s pretty much where I got so far. I didn’t go into the book wanting or expecting a path to a meaningful life (ok, I wasn’t paying attention to the subtitle), but I’m finding it interesting so far.

More updates when I get further through the book!