Something I’ve learned about myself, and continue to learn, is how attracted I am to new creation, and not re-creation. That is why I don’t do nostalgia, and I’ve never had an interest in revisiting the chapters of my life. At least, not in the exact same way.
I’ve also painted myself into a corner, where in recent years I will take on a topic or challenge, and then not feel any energy to return to it.
There’s a “rush” I feel when experiencing transformation, and after I’ve proven to myself I am capable of doing something, there is no fear, and no further transformation. So then I go on to something else.
Back in my DJ days I happened to have a constant inflow of new records and music, and the ability to mix the records in a new order every time. I never repeated the same mix. That kept it interesting to me (and dangerous – as I’m attempting a new mix every time in front of thousands of people).
In seems obvious to me now that I followed that career with stage hypnosis. Every show I am working with complete strangers and volunteers, making every show unique and different (and dangerous).
I’ve written 363 articles for the Frolic 100.
What if instead of coming up with new topics to write about, I came up with a way to challenge myself to remix them? Instead of mixing 2 records, I mixed 2 articles.
I’m going to attempt that right now in real time. I asked my AI to pick 2 randomly, this is what it selected, and I’m going to use the first ones it suggested:
Track A: “When the Dog Catches the Bone” (Published Jan 22, 2020)
Track B: “The world is a dumpster fire, but my toast was perfect” (Published March 5, 2025)
I set up an audio transcription and spoke freeform:
You can watch me do this live:
And here is the transcript:
Okay, so I’m about to attempt to mix two past articles that I’ve written for the Frolic 100.
The first one’s called When the Dog Catches the Bone, which I wrote in 2020. And then the other one is titled The World is a Dumpster Fire But My Toast Was Perfect.
When the dog catches the bone was me remembering a scene from the movie The Firm (1993), starring Tom Cruise.
He’s visiting a greyhound racing truck, and he’s talking to an FBI agent, and they’re watching a greyhound race. And the greyhound’s chasing after this bone on a machine.
And Tom Cruise asks, what happens when they catch the bone? And the FBI agent says, oh it’s terrible. They can never get that dog to run again.
And that’s always been a metaphor that I think about. And it was certainly true in 2020, and still true today, about a problem I have, which is the bone that I was chasing for a long time was money.
And once I achieved a certain level of stuff, which is the home that I live in, the things I have, and I also added that I’m no longer going to chase the word “more” as the answer to “what do I want?”
I felt like the greyhound that had caught the bone and doesn’t want to race again. So I remember thinking this way in 2020, and it’s also true today.
This continues to be a challenge for me. How do I motivate myself when the old metrics, the bone that the dog was chasing, doesn’t work any longer for me?
The second article was, The World is a Dumpster Fire But My Toast Was Perfect, and it was about practicing gratitude now, in the year 2025, when there’s so much overwhelming negative news, and how I’ve adopted a family practice at my dinner table with my children and my wife, that we share something that we’re grateful for each day.
And that could be something as small as a meatball that I was really enjoying, the weather, you know, it’s a sunny day, went out for a walk, or it could be more significant achievements that someone wants to share that they’re grateful for.
Okay. So those are the two articles. Now I’m going to mix them.
I’m going to crossfade them like a DJ crossfading two records. So what is it about these two articles now that I can mix?
How can I mix having gratitude in a world that feels like a dumpster fire with this feeling of a dog that has caught the bone and doesn’t want to race again?
So I’m moved to share right now in this moment that one, I’m grateful in this moment that these are the problems that I face.
Like a greyhound that’s caught the bone and trying to get it to race again. This continues to be an issue for me.
That article is five years old, and it’s reminding me, and I have great gratitude right now at this moment, that I have this timeline of articles, and I can point to and look at something from five years ago, 2020, when I wrote that, and can see these consistent threads that still exist that tie my story together.
I also believe in this moment, as I’m speaking, that money was never the bone itself.
It was always a byproduct of the things that I did. There was always other things that I was chasing, not the money, not the things, even though the money has given me this life and this home that I’m talking to you from.
Two years after I wrote that article about the dog chasing the bone, someone commented on my blog clarifying, actually, the movie was wrong.
Dogs love to catch the bone, and the trainers let the dogs play with it for a little while because it makes them happy.
And their purpose is to chase that bone. This person now, because I wrote about this and spoke it into the world, two years afterwards, they shared with me a clarification that the movie actually wasn’t accurate.
And for these dogs, their purpose is to chase the bone because it’s fun for them. They love it. They love that bone.
They love the chase.
I can’t help but feel gratitude right now. I can’t help but feel gratitude that I wrote about this story five years ago.
I can’t help but I feel gratitude that this person two years afterwards saw my article and posted that comment, which further gave me evolution in the metaphor.
And I’m grateful for this moment that today I’m challenging myself to combine two distinct articles and bring them together, which has given me this peace and this opportunity to share this with you.
END OF RECORDING
And there you have it. This morning I challenged myself to find a way to replicate the freedom of mixing records, but in my new medium. The first time is always the most difficult.
PS: I could have asked my AI to mash-up any two of my articles into something new, but that would have deprived me of my own growth, of my own transformation, and of inventing this new process I can deploy. I had to do it myself and I’m better for it.
What’s your single biggest take away from watching my process today?
