I’m a big fan of The Sopranos TV series. I’ve watched it more times than I can remember. It’s such a superbly crafted and written show that every viewing gives me new insights into myself. I’m a different person, so how I experience it changes, every time. A quote from that show has been with me the last week or so: “You’re only as good as your last envelope.” The direct meaning of that is...
“There’s no way my doldrums compare to your grief”, I said matter-of-factly to my wife, while in front of our couple’s therapist. The whole session was a departure for me, to even allow the session’s focus on me at all. Almost always I pivot to how Robin is doing, and we start there, and often stay there. Because as far as I’m concerned my problems don’t compare. Robin is dealing with elderly and...
We’re living in a time of peak nostalgia. It seems everything was better back in the day. The thing is, we’re comparing the VERY BEST of the past with now. We forget all the crap. For every hit song, there are countless forgettable ones. For every iconic movie, there are dozens of others we can’t be bothered to watch again. I’ve been wondering if I’m suffering from nostalgia for my old life. One...
We live in a world controlled by algorithms. Our behavior is influenced and affected in ways we don’t understand. Places like social media use people (like you) as the product, to create content, for them to then serve ads on, to the real customers – the advertisers. Certain types of content generate more views, shares, and engagement than others. This lets the companies that own them...
Recently, I watched an HBO documentary series called “The Anarchists” about an anarchist collective in Acapulco, Mexico. They thought they had the answers for all the world’s problems, as they saw them. My biggest take away came later in the series when one of the founders realized they were all a bunch of broken people trying to change the world and that they needed to heal themselves first. It...
You’re feeling frustrated. I can understand. It seems like you’re marching around in the dark trying to figure out which way to go. Every time you think you’ve made some progress you’re back to the same old habit of trying to figure out what’s next. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward, and two steps back. But is that really true? Take a look at where you’ve been, what you’ve done...
I started writing one article a week 6 years ago. I had no idea or intention, other than I hoped to share my hard-earned wisdom with others. There are really cool services out there that will take the content of your blog or social media and turn it into a hardbound book in a single step. I now have 2 volumes, each holding 3 years of my life. I can’t say what it feels like to see my writing...
What happens when you bring together a high school dropout, a world-famous DJ, a former comedy stage hypnotist, a millionaire tech co-founder, and a master of the most powerful mindset tools on the planet, and let them loose at the world’s largest climate conference? All those people are one and the same person – Chris Frolic, living proof that there’s always an alternative path to take. Chris...
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...
Back in the Middle Ages, England invaded Ireland. They built a fence across the border of their territory, called The Pale. To go beyond it meant you risked your life. Danger lurked beyond The Pale. Today, the phrase “Beyond The Pale” is commonly associated with behavior deemed unacceptable. However, I prefer to use it as a metaphor to describe the feeling of doing something...
Are you looking to be inspired, energized, and motivated to take on your own next, greatest, chapter? What happens when you bring together a high school dropout, a world-famous DJ, a former comedy stage hypnotist, a millionaire tech co-founder, and a master of the most powerful mindset tools on the planet, and let them loose at the world’s largest climate conference? All those people are...
So many people I encounter have innate human desires to “make the world a better place”, or “make an impact”, or “change the world”. What they are missing though is specificity. “Pick a lane” is usually my invitation. Get really specific. Once you do, a compass appears for you. Even if you don’t know HOW, or even IF (if you have an impossible...
It was literally only a month ago when I was invited to attend the COP28 climate conference in Dubai. I was a powerful yes. As soon as I decided to go, I knew I wanted to get on a stage while there. That was my selfish desire. I didn’t give into the story in my head that it was too late. Within days, I made it onto the standby list for the Canada Pavilion, which even though I didn’t...
Chris, this is Chris, from one week in the future. Through a miracle of science I’m sending this letter to you after being in Dubai for COP28 for five days that you will receive before you depart for the airport. I know you’re feeling nervous right now, no matter how much preparation you’ve done. You’re wondering what will happen. I’m here to make things a bit easier since I have some details for...
Imagine if you could create a game that guarantees a win – empowering and emboldening, right? Here is the criteria: It needs to be scary. Something you’ve never done before. The game ends while still under your control. Once a decision is in someone else’s hands, the game has completed. Let me demonstrate; I have created a game that I win by playing for my visit to COP28: I will...
Richard Medcalf is a coach who inspires me. He works with CEOs who want to make a greater impact on the world by helping them release their own inner Freddy Mercury. What touched me most was when Richard disclosed he had spent years as a street mime. We discovered a shared background of a time when we were both less afraid of being our true selves, a part of us we later learned to suppress for...
“You should come with me to COP28 in Dubai”, was the simple invitation. “Your voice is needed there. No one there talks like you.” And boom, just like that, the invitation I had been waiting for showed up. The only question was: what do I do with it? It was “only” and exactly one year ago when I dared start saying a few simple words. An “impossible...
How is it possible that after almost 6 years and 280 articles, I don’t have a bigger audience than 100 people? I asked myself if I had to teach a class, on “How to have only 100 email subscribers after 6 years”, what would I teach? Make everyone have to actually look you up, and not be in any common places of modern internet (like social media) Bury the sign up form deep in the website, making...
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...
One of the best side-benefits of claiming an easily communicated impossible goal for me is the amount of connection it has created with new people. People are intrigued. People want to talk to me. People approach me. People want to help me. The conversation that follows is easy, because I get to share my story of how and why I got here. It’s easy to tell, because it’s my story. People want to...
Because an impossible goal is exactly that, impossible, you can’t lose. It’s liberating in a counter-intuitive way. Conventional goals have their place, and I’ve used them plenty in my life. Most of us come up with conventional goals, and feel tremendous pressure to complete them, or feel bad when we don’t. Or if we come up short, we still accomplished more in that failure...
Imagine the shifts to your impact, income, and life by declaring a truly impossible goal! On Monday September 25, 2023 I’m going to host a Zoom to help YOU unlock YOUR IMPOSSIBLE GOAL. This is exclusively for Frolic 100 members. I’m going to teach the 5 necessary parts of every impossible goal. I’ll work with some people live on the call to help unlock and up-level (and make it truly impossible!)...
“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...
The first weekend of August in Canada is a long weekend: three days during the height of summer. It’s a nice midway peak to the summer holiday and also serves as a permanent reminder of one of the most depressing moments in my life and how far I’ve come since. Exactly 15 years ago, I was a struggling comedy hypnotist, facing a precarious financial situation due to having gone through bankruptcy a...
“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...