Sometimes I can get extremely frustrated with myself. That I’m not doing more. The word “should” starts to appear. I should be doing this. I should be doing that. I started this blog over five years ago. It represents a distinct and significant chapter of my life now. Five years is a lot of time. The negative thoughts I catch myself having always have to do with what I think...
Frolic 100 member Tim asked me about my referencing my “Hierarchy of Needs” in some recent articles. I decided to answer his question for everyone, and also clarify my understanding of it. This information is easily searchable on Google, but there’s only a single place on the entire internet which is my explanation of it. Right here. When I refer to a Hierarchy of Needs...
The leadership group that I’m a part of reached out to Stacey Abrams, the politician, voting rights activist, and governor candidate for the state of Georgia, about being a guest speaker. She is so singularly focused on her mission for political change in her state, she applies a simple question to everything she does: Will this get me votes? She ended up not speaking for our group. When I heard...
My road to “success” (however you want to define that) was never a straight line. There were times of tremendous struggle. It’s well documented in my DJ memoir that despite the surface successes, I never figured out the financial part during that time of my life. I slept on the floor of my office for 2 years (I realize now that qualified me as literally “homeless”), but even after things started...
A truth I’ve been discovering about the super-rich and powerful is that they are no smarter than any of us. When Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted fraudster of Theranos, was able to get hundreds of millions of dollars from super-powerful people, I realized she only accomplished this simply because she got into the same room as them. They were blinded by a fraudster like what can happen to anyone...
When the concept of an “Impossible Dream” was first introduced to me, it was my understanding that it be literally impossible. There’s no way to create 17 steps from here to there. It then becomes a place to come from, instead of a goal to get to. Who would I need to be, to be a person capable of this thing? And simply come from that place? One of my favorite exercises when talking...
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...
This week’s article has taken more effort than usual. I’ve started and stopped over a half a dozen attempts. Maybe I’ll come back to them when my inspiration is better. I scrolled through the last year of daily journaling looking for inspiration and topics that I’ve not already written about. I could feel the pressure I was putting on myself to get it done. And yet, nothing was happening. The...
I’ve been on a “news diet” for several years now. This practice has come to mind again with all the turmoil and world events, which can seem quite overwhelming. We used to live in a world where news was delivered by newspaper once a day, and nightly TV news. Then in the 1980s that changed to 24 hour news channels (that needed content to fill). That expanded, and expanded again...
There’s a quote on my wall. It’s unattributed and I don’t know the origin. When I Google it, nothing much comes up. I don’t even remember where I got it from, but it made enough of an impact I wrote it down and put it on my wall. It says: Give people what they need, not what you want them to have. There’s so many times in my life, every day, that I want so much for people. And the cold reality is...
I’ve spoken a lot about a liberating metaphor I use, that helps stop me from comparing myself to other people. I call it “running my own race”. The best part of running my own race is I always win. The one trap I can still find myself in is “moving the goal posts”. The easiest example of that is around money. Some years ago, I had created a goal for myself called “Freedom 35”. It was a monthly...
This week I woke up with a waking thought. In my bedside notes I wrote: write your own obituary. I’ve barely read obituaries. I don’t know what goes into them. I haven’t had a lot of death in my immediate circle, so it’s nothing I’ve been exposed to much. A dear friend of mine reads obituaries and appreciates the good ones. We’ve spoken about how frustrating it can be for her to read a poor one...
On my recent “Ask Me Anything” someone inquired about what I refer to as “deep work”. This is an abstract thought and term, and this morning I was inspired to write this article about it. I would describe it as a culmination of everything I’ve been doing these last 4 years. Of a journey looking inward. Of understanding myself. Of healing. Of learning what drives me, and why I do things. Of...
Every time I think about how I chose to release my most recent book, of not needing to do anything more with it, of trusting that it is now out in the world doing its work, the word that comes to mind is “liberated”. By changing the rules of how a book is released, and what my expectations are, I liberated myself from all sorts of pressures of what I’m “supposed” to or “should” be doing now...
“You’re polarizing, but I’m really into you”, I was told this by someone in my circle recently. They didn’t mean it as an insult, and I didn’t take it that way, but it was an interesting comment to be on the receiving end of. I sat with it for a moment, and then I realized how OK I was hearing it. There is nothing I’d want to do different about how I show up these days. I find moments of feeling...
I recently updated my website to add Unorthodox Success, Secret Shame. I now have 2 books listed. Seeing multiple titles like that listed has made it really sink in that I’m an author. There’s no denying it. Doing one of anything can be a one-off or fluke, but when you’ve done it multiple times, it’s definitely “a thing”. I’ve gotten so much pleasure simply from seeing those 2 titles there, even...
There are 92 people on the email list for this blog. Of that, approximately 35% open each email. That gives me a weekly readership of 32 people. By any standard metric that seems tiny. Email lists are generally measured in thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions. Followers on social media sites are measured the same way. 32 people reading what I have to say barely...
Disclosure: Today’s article came about from asking myself these 2 writing prompts: 1) What do I need to hear most right now? 2) What scares me? And then I was inspired to write about my Impossible Dream. I did a quick search of my blog and I see it’s never been written about before. So something in me has held back sharing it openly. I’ve written in the past how a favorite...
I enjoy doing things never done before. I enjoy doing things BECAUSE they’ve never been done before. Something about making the impossible seem possible really fires me up. I can sense the joy it sparks in me. I like to state it as: I eat the words “It can’t be done” for breakfast. I love my role in sharing that with others. One of my favorite “easy” tricks is to ask someone...
I wrote and shared this with my children at the dinner table. I’m now sharing it with you. Dear Gavin & Connor. Daddy wants to share 5 things I’ve learned that will help you live an extraordinary life. 1. Take action. Most people don’t. They give into their fears and never find out what might have actually happened had they just done it. They find busy work to pretend they’re doing...
I used to be ashamed of doing things different from everyone else. Now it gives me pleasure. I learned this about myself and can now just tap into it. I literally get a perverse pleasure when I do things that are completely contrary to everyone else. All I know is I don’t want to follow the rules, so I’m not going to. I give the best I’ve got to my blog. I enjoy sharing my...
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...
This summer we had a socially distanced visit of another family to our backyard. They are old friends that have known me since my DJ days. One of them asked, “Chris are you working now?” I paused. Robin, my wife, answered for me, “That’s a complicated answer.” I’m continually challenging myself over what “work” is and how I go about it. If work is...
I love metaphors. I’ve learned I use them more than the average person. I did it so often and so easily most of my life I didn’t even realize it. Now I see it, and lean into it. I use metaphors to describe abstract or complicated ideas or even feelings and turn them into something easily relatable. One of my favorite metaphors is thinking of myself as a gunslinger. I think of watching...
My wife and I have been together for 23 years, 18 of those married. For most people that see us, we come across as a very successful couple, because we are. However, because we are always striving to be more, we decided to start couples therapy this year. The goal was to look back in 5 years time and say these most recent 5 years were our best years, in ways that we couldn’t comprehend today. I...