Once upon a time I had a LinkedIn profile. It wasn’t great. I was ashamed of myself and my story when I had created it. I downplayed all of my accomplishments, in a weak attempt at trying to appear more “corporate”. My imposter syndrome at the time also had its hands around me like a choke hold, and I didn’t even list my webinar company, StealthSeminar, by name. I listed myself as some sort of...
I never know when or how my next story will show up. This past Monday I was driving my sixteen-year-old to school. It was an unusually bright and sunny warm October morning. My son sat quietly, looking out the window. Later that same day I was planning to return to one of my old activities, playing with the Toronto Pinball League. I haven’t played regularly since before COVID and I’ve...
The webinar business I co-founded over 14 years ago just completed due diligence and closed its sale to a $100 million private equity fund that specializes in SaaS (Software as a Service), and now that particular part of my life is done. Even though I exited an active role with the company several years ago, I still retained 50% ownership and monthly dividends from that. It feels good to have...
During the peak of my DJ career, back in the year 2000, I was banned from entering the US after being caught entering to work as a DJ without having the required paperwork (Longtime followers of mine are very familiar with this story, and I wrote about it extensively in my memoir). I spent many years regretting my actions that led to that. This ultimately led to my eventual retirement from DJing...
I just turned 50 years old. A huge milestone. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am. A birthday tradition I started on my 40th birthday, and I returned to this year, is to tell my story to my children. I plan to update it and read it to them every 10 years. So at our dinner table last night, after dinner, I pulled out my story and read it to my children and wife. I wish my own father had done...
I love “boredom”. I love playing with what are seen as negative words, and twisting them on their ear. Boredom to me is creating space for inspiration and creativity. If I fill my days with busywork, I remove the possibility of those “eureka” moments. Some of my most profitable and successful innovations were made walking to the store in my neighbourhood and simply walking without distracting...
A good friend of mine, Shermain Melton, asked me a simple question last week: What do you stand for? What comes up for you when you think it? To take a stand means to believe in something. To defend something. To fight for something. Taking a stand means it’s worthy of you getting up in the morning and working towards it. It means you care enough about it that you want others to have...
(The following is an excerpt from my memoir, Requiem for My Rave. I’ve been asking myself lately what lessons I can share from this time in my life with audiences today.) It was March 2000. Robin, my girlfriend at the time and I were in the middle of making dinner. It was a night no different than any other. Robin was cutting some tomatoes, and I was working the stove with tilapia. It sizzled in...
It’s the end of summer, and both my kids are home from school wrapping up their summer vacation. My oldest is now in college, and this could be the last “lazy” summer I ever have with her in hanging out in the house. I’ve been kicking around ideas for new articles, and had some things I was excited to share, but then I realized “It’ll wait”. I’m...
Over 2 years ago my mother suffered a brain aneurysm. She was found confused on the street, brought to the hospital, had emergency surgery, and then was in a coma for over a year. At her advanced age brain elasticity isn’t the same as for a young person and her prognosis wasn’t good. She didn’t recover, was moved out of the neurology ward, and 6 months later was moved to a long...
Can a single day at an amusement park redefine years of anxiety and personal growth? Let me tell you how it did for me. After a lifetime of precarious financial living, personal bankruptcy, homelessness, living on the edge, dealing with eviction notices for late rent while juggling my young family, booming and busting multiple times, my financial situation permanently changed in 2012. I had...
Earlier this year I announced my 2024 book project, I made some progress, and then… something wasn’t right and I decided to listen to myself and put it aside instead of push myself through it. Four months later I was inspired again, and I realized that’s a big part of it… inspiration. It’s important for my process. It’s also the most common word used when people describe what they receive from me...
Last week I shared about a trip I was about to embark on with my sixteen-year-old son. The idea came from a conversation we had a few months ago, about a desire to do something one-on-one with each other, and he suggesting we do something we’ve never done before. I suggested that we take a trip and let serendipity guide us. We’ll make no plans, and see where we end up and what we do...
As you read this I’ve gone on an serendipitous adventure with my youngest. The plan is that there is NO plan. The only thing known is that we’ll be gone for 2 nights. Fully lead by serendipity. We will leave our house, and randomly choose a direction. We’ll follow instinct. After that, who knows what will happen or where we’ll end up. I’ve chosen to go with only one...
My Uncle Ugor just passed away. I’m actually attending his funeral as I write this. He spent a week in palliative care before he passed, and during that time my cousin’s asked for anyone that had stories to share to share them now while he could still hear them. I sent this. I was told he he got to hear it and was deeply moved. For that I am grateful. To Uncle Ugor from Christopher...
A paradox is generally defined as something (person, situation, action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases. I’ve come to the conclusion lately that my life is full of paradoxes, and they leave me in a state of feeling like I’m supposed to be doing something about them. However, what if by their nature of being a paradox, there wasn’t actually anything to fix or change? Because...
If I had to name a single thing that I am always in pursuit of, and that feels most missing from my life, it’s ‘Passion’. It seems like I once was filled with passion, and now I experience it much more fleetingly. Or, it at least feels that way. I’ve started to question my own memories as unreliable. Did I really feel in this passionate state all of the time when I was younger...
“But what if we’re caught? It will be humiliating”, was the fear in my head. Thirty minutes before this moment, my wife and I went out for a spontaneous walk in our neighborhood. Where I live, in Toronto, is near the factory for Bombardier Aerospace. They make passenger jets. On this particular Saturday afternoon we could tell there was something happening, with lots of people...
I’m not sure where I picked up the phrase “quality problem”, but I’ve been using it recently to describe the doldrums I have found myself in. I’ve written previously about the not-so-helpful habit of comparing my “quality” problems to other people’s “real” problems. Like some prior advice to myself, I’m going to “stop...
The best word I can describe my state of mind lately is “confusion”. It’s something I’ve felt before, and makes answering questions like “What’s next?” or even “What do you want?” very difficult. Nothing comes up. I’ve decided to be kinder to myself and stop asking, at least for a while. Confusion is different from “I don’t know”. “I don’t know” can be played with, and creatively explored. “I...
I recently wrote about banning myself from asking “What’s Next?” for 6 months. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus to understanding the implications of the word “next”. Whether it’s a “what’s next?” or a “next chapter” or even “who’s next?” made me realize something: Always looking towards the “next” thing left me unsatisfied with what I currently have. The base premise of looking towards “next”...
So you’ve been going through some old note books looking for inspiration from yourself. You’re seeing a lot of recurring and ruminating thoughts around “What’s Next?” going back for years and years. Stop it! Just stop it. Stop asking yourself that. If it worked, you wouldn’t keep asking. It doesn’t work – so stop it! You are forbidden from asking that again. It doesn’t work. It’s never...
“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...
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...