Who is Bob Goff?

Bob Goff lights up whichever room he enters. On the outside, there is nothing that would immediately set Bob out from the crowd. Often wearing an open-neck blue shirt, and looking out through dark-rimmed glasses, what most defines him in the eyes of everyone he meets is the warmth of his smile and his cheery demeanour. He belongs to that rare breed of storytellers who sees the best in people and makes that optimism infectious. Listening to Bob Goff is like being in conversation with your favourite uncle.

His openness isn’t only what forms the colour of his character. It is also what inspired his first book Love Does.

Love Does is the ‘Yes Man’ of Christian altruism. It is the story of Bob Goff quitting his 28-year legal career one Thursday (‘I quit something every Thursday’ being one of his unique habits of happiness, going as far as him even quitting car-ownership), and deciding to follow God and prove that love isn’t just a nice thought. Rather, it’s an action that can change your life.

Love Does is also the name of Bob’s organisation which is committed to ‘fighting for human rights and providing education to children in conflict zones’. Working in Uganda, Nepal, India, Iraq and Somalia, his organisation has pursued what it means to love people. Not from a distance, but up close and in a way which makes a difference.

What readers most pick up from Love Does is that love can take you places you would never have expected. For Bob Goff, choosing to love people has taken him to impossible places. From taking his kids on a world tour to eat ice cream with world leaders, to confronting an angry bear, to being part of Ugandan Council; loving people is where life, and people, get interesting.

And now he follows up Love Does with a more challenging, engaging call to love not just anyone, but learning to love difficult people.

Everybody, Always calls out the bad habits many of us fall into. It’s easy to be nice to nice people; easy to embrace clean people. Filled with more stories of loving the unloved and the irritable, and discovering the worries and fears that hold you back from being open to life and other people. It’s a call to embody love. Whether that involves befriending a Ugandan witch doctor or losing his shoes whilst skydiving, the stories of Everybody, Always are engaging and often surprising. They are examples of no-limits love, of loving people as God loves them. Boldy, openly, and without distinction.

It’s a message that Bob Goff embodies completely. You can see it in his face, and read it in the amazing stories of where loving people has taken him. Yet he doesn’t make a big deal of this. Any of it. His approach is that of the kindly Clark Kent who, despite doing immense good as Superman, guards himself against pride. In a TED talk, he champions the idea that we should all “Be secretly incredible” - expressing love without letting on is certainly an art Bob Goff has perfected. That art of humbleness. Love Does and Everybody Always are the perfect first steps for anyone looking to grow in loving people unconditionally.

Everybody, Always was released April 2018 and is available to order today.