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...
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...
Here is the recording where I share my unique processes of writing, book creation, what’s important to me when creating books, and sharing the outline of my upcoming title: The Victory Lap: Redefining Success After Making the Big Bucks.
Last week inspiration struck: I would create my next book and have it completed and for sale in 90 days. I had a few inspired days of clarity, and I announced my plans to my community. I got some work done, and then… the self-doubt started to creep in. I started to regret that I had announced it. What was I thinking? This is completely self-inflicted. However, that was exactly WHY I did it...
Writing is a tool of my own self-mastery. When I write and share my story and what I’ve learned, it allows me to understand and crystallize what is actually going on within me, and then in addition benefit the reader, and the world. I also create autobiographical books about my life and what I’ve learned. Books are part of my legacy. They’ll be here after I’m gone. Every once in a while...
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...
A colleague of mine was recently part of a panel of “successful” people and interviewed on what success was for them. I pondered what my answers would be if I had been invited. Success is such a subjective topic. For me it goes far beyond financial success, although that is a piece. But so many people have money and are miserable. I don’t consider them successful. At a recent...
This week I came across a “Life Report Card” I wrote for myself in 2017. This was arguably a low period in my life when I was in crisis over what to do about leaving my company. I was dealing with huge imposter syndrome, feeling like a complete fake and my life was going to come crashing down. I was avoiding talking to my business partner for reasons unknown to me. I suffered terribly and hadn’t...
I was hoping to be back in the United States this week. A leadership group I’m a part of is meeting there. For the last couple of years I’ve been slowly addressing one of the biggest stories I carry around with me – how I got myself banned from entering the United States 24 years ago for working as a DJ without a visa. For a long time, I had simply given up and buried the entire...
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...