That’s been the reaction to most of my life.
High school dropout. World-famous DJ. Got banned from the US. Went bankrupt. Built a multi-million dollar tech company. Hypnotized 5000+ people on stage. Wrote 4 books. Took on climate change because why the hell not.
Now? I’m chasing serendipity instead of goals. Waiting to be in the room when something impossible becomes inevitable.
350+ articles and 7 years of figuring this out in public are here if you want them. So is my story.
I use email as my primary contact point. It’s how people can best reach me, and its how I’ll contact people back. I think email is important and worth saving as a primary tool because no one owns it. It’s part of the original internet. As people hopefully break free from some of the large social media sites, it’s the one thing that still connects all of us. That’s...
I’ve added a new task to my daily routine: Add to my List of Gratitude. Feeling gratitude for the things in my life gives me happiness. The task is simple. Open up the Word doc I keep the numbered list and take no more than 5 minutes to add to it. I have to add at least 1 per day, but can add as many as I feel inspired to in that time frame. If I don’t take all 5 minutes, but added to...
I launched this blog just over 1 year ago. I started it because I wanted an outlet to share my thoughts and experiences with those who cared to read it. There was no secondary purpose to this blog. I wasn’t trying to build a business or build Followers. With no agenda, I was able to do what I wanted to do, which is try to help others and no ulterior motives of trying to sell a product or...
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Everyone takes stock this time of year. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what is next for me. The biggest change for me is the New Year used to have promise and potential, things I hoped would happen. Now I’m in a place of feeling complete, and actually embracing that and resisting anything else, so I struggle with some of these old exercises. This year I’ve...
A lot of people who read this blog work as as “Solopreneurs”. Outside of a regimented work space, and perhaps starting a whole new life as an entrepreneur, it is easy to let things slip. Especially in this modern world of never ending information blasts and notifications. I’ve been learning more to use time as a tool, instead of being an enemy. Instead of seeing it as a deadline to stress...
I came across an interesting article, Boasting how many hours you work is a sign of failure, and a light bulb went off for me. Of course it is. The opposite should be true! I live the opposite and I realized I have for almost all my adult life. I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting, and realized I value my schedule above everything. Now I plan for what I want to do around the schedule...
I’ve been watching the ongoing discussion of social media with great interest. It’s been an interesting decade since Facebook took over. I was an online pioneer, but the one place I never transitioned to were the big social media platforms. I resisted at first because I could see how much time people spent on them. This was apparent right away. I made a conscious decision that my time...
I read a lot of articles these days about maintaining a Work/Life Balance. It’s good that people realize the importance of having a healthy life outside of their work. I’m not sure when it started to be looked at as more important, but it’s something I’ve always lived. A friend of mine used to joke that I was “successfully underemployed” because my work week...
This is a strategy I’ve created and put to use most years as the holidays approach. For a lot of small/home based businesses there is a point around the end of the year (usually starting with American Thanksgiving and ending well into January) when normal business stops operating. People want to take breaks, client prospecting slows down, marketing efforts stop, and the distractions increase like...
I came across a quote this week from Arnold Schwarzenegger about how he is NOT a self-made man, despite often being described as that. Everyone needs help and gets help to be a success. People like to say they are self-made, but leave out parts of their story. Usually those parts are not insignificant. I like to think of myself as bullshit free, and I like to think of myself as self-made because...
I’m an ideas guy. I get inspiration all over the place. I’ve learned the hard way I need a way to capture ideas when I get them, even if they’re partial and semi formed. Those are the ones you’re most likely to not recall later. This is what I do: -I have an open Word document that I write ideas down. Thoughts. Blog ideas. Business ideas. Anything I come up with. This...
I recently became aware of a term called Survivorship Bias and how it specifically can be applied to entrepreneurs. Wikipedia defines it as : Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions...
I’m fortunate to be at the place in my life that I am. I have this pasted to my wall to remind me:
Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope it’s of assistance to you in some way.
I was speaking to one of my “Incubees” this week, about a win that involved putting themselves out there and attending an event and talking with people. They accomplished the goal (go to the event and talk to 2 people), but were commenting on how much energy it took to psych themselves up to go. I couldn’t help but relate my own experiences. It’s hard to put yourself out...
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted this recently, talking about how a dream of his was crushed but only now many years later does he see what opportunities opened up because of it. I really related to this because I have a similar story. I file this one under “Hard lessons learned”. Back in 2000 I was in the peak of my DJ career. I was performing around the world...
This is a recurring thought of mine because it is so significant. What do I have control over? If I can’t make someone do something, like hire me, or book me, what can I control? I can control the number of new people I prospect. I set goals of talking to people and having conversations. When I used to do direct mail I could control how many postcards I sent out. I would learn how many...
A good hour of any work day of mine is spent quiet, away from everything. Usually this is a walk. I do not take my phone. This time away is super productive to me. That’s why I include it as part of my “work” day. I usually don’t go out with any sort of agenda. It’s just time for myself. But inevitably as I walk and enjoy being outside, the sky, the trees, the...
I think about this a lot. What is success? Ultimately it needs to be a personal vision. What is success to you? For a long time I permanently attached Success to “Financial Success”. It was always the goal I was chasing. Money to improve my life, money for a home, money to have the life we wanted. A big money thermometer was on my wall. The biggest gift money has been is the security...
Recently, a visual metaphor appeared to me. I saw myself paddling a canoe down a river. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about “what’s next?”. The canoe metaphor gave me permission to just enjoy the journey, that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and there is no rush. As I pondered this metaphor some more, I also realized I can’t see far ahead...
In a lot of ways, creating a business is much like being an artist. There is no one way to create art, and certainly no one way to create a business. You can even fail at it, junk it, try again. Develop your craft and get better each time. For me personally, I’ve always followed my own path for how I wanted to do it. Most of the time I made it up as I went along. Sometimes it worked...
There’s a lot of things I’ve just done without realizing it. I’ve operated naturally on my own, but now I have a word for it since it’s something that is spoken more in today’s world: Being a Solopreneur. For the last 20+ years, I’ve operated all my businesses out of my home desk. That desk used to be in my living room, now I have a dedicated bedroom office...
A lot of people dream of taking a hobby of theirs into a full-time business. But should they? I would consider this long and hard. One of my hobbies is collecting pinball machines. I’ve built an arcade in the basement of my home. I get a lot of pleasure from it, both from the experience today with it, and also how it goes back to when I was young and the memories I have of being in arcades...
I feel like I’m in a unique situation. I write to share my experiences and lessons learned, but am doing so from a position of success. So much success, that I’m not looking to sell anything. So that allows me to be honest, and tell things like how they are/were. At the same time, these true stories I feel run so counter to the “instant success formulas” being peddled...
I’m not sure how many times I’ve come across new entrepreneurs who get caught up in busy work, instead of doing what it is they are here to do. That is generally one of my first bits of advice – stop the busy work. Start generating money, the quicker the better. What is busy work? Websites, social media, promo pieces, writing a book for promotion, head shots, business cards and...