For reasons I cannot explain clearly, my momentum on my book has stalled. I went from being excited and inspired, to days and weeks passing with no progress. Once I hosted my recent Zoom on my creation process (with the actual evidence held in my hands of my past books), something about the whole project evaporated for me. It’s clear to me a large contributing factor is that I’ve already...
A colleague of mine was recently part of a panel of “successful” people and interviewed on what success was for them. I pondered what my answers would be if I had been invited. Success is such a subjective topic. For me it goes far beyond financial success, although that is a piece. But so many people have money and are miserable. I don’t consider them successful. At a recent...
I was hoping to be back in the United States this week. A leadership group I’m a part of is meeting there. For the last couple of years I’ve been slowly addressing one of the biggest stories I carry around with me – how I got myself banned from entering the United States 24 years ago for working as a DJ without a visa. For a long time, I had simply given up and buried the entire...
This blog represents this latest chapter of my life. I started it 6 years ago. As the New Year passed I started to have the typical thoughts about what was to come. So much of this part of my life could not have been predicted. I then began to wonder, what if you were able to tell me 6 years ago what the next 6 years would look like? Would I be happy with that? And the answer was hell yes. I then...
Yesterday was my latest step in being able to re-enter the US (I was banned 23 years ago for working as a DJ in the US without a visa). Last year I tried to enter because I didn’t know what would happen. Turns out, I’m still banned. I at least answered the question of whether it was my fear keeping me out or them – it was them. I started the legal route, and yesterday was my...
“Freedom” is a huge value of mine. For my entire life I’ve lived a life of freedom and possibility. I haven’t had a “job” since I was 20 years old. Since then, I’ve worked for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Part of what motivated me was that I needed to make a living. I just happened to choose things that I was extremely passionate about. I lived on the edge and forced...
“Enough” is an interesting word. A quick dictionary definition is: “As much or as many as required.” I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how much is enough for me. I’m probably the first human in my family line to ever consider this question. For all but the most recent human history, our ancestors never had enough. Not enough food, not enough comfort, not enough resources, not enough...
I got myself banned from entering the US way back in the year 2000 (working as a DJ without a visa). Last year, after 22 years, I decided to try and re-enter. I had been invited to a leadership conference, and thought it was as good a moment as any to try. A few different people stepped forward with offers of helping me by connecting me with lawyers, and I thought “Great! This is how it’s...
I just watched the second of 2 documentaries about the disaster that was Woodstock ’99 (Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage on HBO and Trainwreck on Netflix. I thought the Netflix one was the better of the 2). It’s given me a lot to think and reflect on. For me it is a strong cautionary tale of what can happen when you think what the world needs is yesterday’s solution from yesterday’s people...
If I’m honest with myself, I can see that much of the fear that holds me back today is not my fear of failing at something, but what would happen if it was successful. These are some of the voices currently in my head: I don’t want to create a formal program or offering because people might sign up for it and I’d be committed to running it.The more attention I bring to myself, the more people...
I could tell I’ve been feeling in the doldrums lately and decided to take action. I put out a last-second invitation to my Frolic100 list to witness me using my most powerful tool, what I call my Statement of Being. Things began to change for me the moment I committed myself to this. I now had a date on the calendar (only a few days away). I knew it was more important to me to do it, and be with...
One thing that has become crystal clear to me is from my years of working through my imposter crisis is that I have an incredible understanding of “How” I best do things. I learned this because to overcome my crisis I had to switch from feeling like a fake to owning my successes. I learned how to identify my retroactively provable truths, some of which is documented in what I call my “Statement...
I’ve been dealing with a lot behind the scenes. One of the things I’m learning about myself is my natural habit of soldiering on in the face of huge adversity and not revealing to anyone else what is going on. I tend not to talk about the tough times in my life until they are in my past, and then they become stories I share. My challenge now is to share what I’m going through and allow myself to...
“I’ve never seen someone so happy writing a $250,000 cheque for their taxes before”, said my accountant. The thing was – I was happy. I was happy I had the money, I was happy to put my tax bill behind me, no need for deferments or other tax planning trickery. Many years ago I avoided my taxes. I was late filing them, and my avoidance was so bad I didn’t file for years and went through a personal...
From my perspective and my own life’s experiences, there is only one thing that separates those that achieve great things from those that don’t; those that achieve take action, and the ones that don’t only dream. My own life forever changed because of an action I took when I was only 12 years old. I walked into a business and asked for a job. When they declined, I didn’t take no for an answer and...
I was recently invited and challenged to attend an event in San Diego this August. This triggers a lot in me. The short version of this is that over 20 years ago I was caught, detained and deported for working in the US without a visa as a DJ. This happened in 2000 (prior to 9/11 when we took the border much less seriously). The last time I tried was in 2005, when I was denied entry and held...
One of the questions I’ve asked myself in recent years is why did things get so difficult for me later in life? Things like my imposter syndrome turned into a full-on crisis. The things I did to protect myself, like hiding from people, had me acting in completely unreasonable ways. I was afraid to speak up at my own family table. I spent years on stages and somehow got to the point where I felt...
At the depths of my crisis, my acute imposter syndrome, my overwhelming anxiety, it got to the point where I felt you could hold a gun to my head and order me to do the work I needed to do, and it still wouldn’t get done. You would have to kill me and I would accept my death. The fact that I was making millions of dollars during this same time period compounded everything to me. I couldn’t...
I used to carry so much shame about my failures. I never spoke them. I hid them from the world. I projected my strengths and hid my weaknesses. I only spoke about my victories. Yes, that sort of works, and it will impress some types of people, but at some point it just wasn’t working for me anymore. It fed my imposter syndrome. My list of failures I carried like the chains the character Marley...
At the worst of the depths of my imposter syndrome I felt like Bernie Madoff. I had fooled the world, or at least that is what I thought. It was only a few years ago, as I looked for things to do with myself, I didn’t even feel qualified to judge a high school business competition. Seeing those teenagers in their suits and ties, future MBA students, and here I was, the high school drop out...
By 2012 my life was on a trajectory I hadn’t experienced before. Real financial stability. I had huge monthly dividends arriving, had moved out of my apartment, had a bank account flush with cash and for the first time in my life nothing to worry about. There was one fly in the ointment though – my brain was so conditioned to worry, to my precarious life, to living on the edge, that...
“I’ll work for free” was how I got my first job. At age 12 I walked into a newly opened computer and video game store and somehow had the courage to ask for a job. When I was turned down, working for free was my solution. They accepted. I worked for free for the next several months, then below minimum wage (because I wasn’t even at legal working age). I was paid $3.00 an hour, when minimum wage...
Some time ago a coach I knew shared a story with me about the year he spent volunteering in a homeless shelter. One day this homeless man came in, with absolutely no possessions except 3 plastic bags. He had been robbed at a park, all his meager possessions were stolen. His one remaining possession was an old cell phone. The robbers had taken it, it dropped on the ground and the battery fell off...
1. I’m not a coach. I don’t call myself one. 2. I’m a high school drop out without a piece of paper with my name on it. 3. I have an income that comes from a business I created and has nothing to do with coaching. I don’t rely on coaching for money. 4. I paid for and abandoned my coach certification. I threw that money down the toilet. 5. I don’t have large social media following. Well, none at...
My birthday just passed. Normally I’d take my family to a nice restaurant and that’s our treat. This year, because of covid, that went out the window. We’d stay home. Because I “lost” something, I asked myself how can I celebrate my birthday this year? I came up with 3 things: Gratitude Acknowledgement of what an incredible year this has been Spend it with my family...