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...
Yesterday was my latest step in being able to re-enter the US (I was banned 23 years ago for working as a DJ in the US without a visa). Last year I tried to enter because I didn’t know what would happen. Turns out, I’m still banned. I at least answered the question of whether it was my fear keeping me out or them – it was them. I started the legal route, and yesterday was my...
“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...
“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...
Frolic 100 member Tim asked me about my referencing my “Hierarchy of Needs” in some recent articles. I decided to answer his question for everyone, and also clarify my understanding of it. This information is easily searchable on Google, but there’s only a single place on the entire internet which is my explanation of it. Right here. When I refer to a Hierarchy of Needs...
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...
I have two teenage kids in high school and they drive me crazy at times with how little effort they seem to put into their school work. This is a song as old as time. I do my best not to “tiger parent” them, and at the same time I know what they’re capable of. It drives me absolutely nuts. And then I look at the paralysis I can find myself in at times, where my pendulum can swing so far the other...
I got myself banned from entering the US way back in the year 2000 (working as a DJ without a visa). Last year, after 22 years, I decided to try and re-enter. I had been invited to a leadership conference, and thought it was as good a moment as any to try. A few different people stepped forward with offers of helping me by connecting me with lawyers, and I thought “Great! This is how it’s...
A little over a month ago Covid showed up in my home for the second time. The first time it showed up (from my oldest bringing it home from school), it wasn’t a big deal. This most recent time (my youngest bringing it home from school) was far more difficult. I was testing positive for almost 2 weeks, and dealing with flu symptoms which laid me out. My wife got it worse, with their symptoms...
I’ve been given a gift. A way of sending a message to a younger version of me. This is what I’ve decided to send to a version of me that was really struggling, around 6 years ago in 2017. Dear Chris, it’s Chris, from the future. Probably best if you don’t ask questions about how this is possible. Simply listen to me. I have this opportunity to tell you some things you’re going...
Except for very recent human history, almost all of humanity was spent in scarcity. Literal starvation, famine, war, struggle. I have Ukranian ancestry, my grandmother was born there in 1922. She grew up under Stalin’s Soviet Union, and a man-made famine where the food of Ukraine was stolen (this current war is like history repeating itself). My grandmother became an orphan at 6, and all of her...
A guest speaker at a function I was attending this past year reviewed my website and told me frankly, “You’d be an incredibly fascinating dinner guest.” His comment made me feel seen and reminded me of how far I’ve come. As recently as 2019, I was a guest at a friend of my wife’s house who was celebrating receiving tenure as a college professor. The house was filled with academics. I was as quiet...
I used a phrase in my last article, calling myself a “lifestyle entrepreneur”. I intentionally stated it, because I could feel the twinge of not wanting to. The most common definition of lifestyle entrepreneur is someone who creates the life they want first, and then a business to serve that. As opposed to most traditional businesses, where the business consumes everything (often at...
My road to “success” (however you want to define that) was never a straight line. There were times of tremendous struggle. It’s well documented in my DJ memoir that despite the surface successes, I never figured out the financial part during that time of my life. I slept on the floor of my office for 2 years (I realize now that qualified me as literally “homeless”), but even after things started...
TLDR; My wife just got their (Robin is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns) dream job as a full-time cancer researcher at a top university cancer lab by back-dooring their way in with no formal education. Full pay and benefits! Longer version: It was only a few years ago, less than that, when one night I woke up at 3am and Robin was up in bed and we started talking. During that talk Robin...
For years I wrestled with a simple question: What’s Next? It served me in the past, and I easily answered it. I did new things, took on new challenges, reinvented myself, found more and more success. I wrote about it here on my website and created tools around it to help others. The problem was, it wasn’t helping me anymore. I was stuck. From this stuck place I took some much needed time for...
As someone who has wrestled with imposter syndrome for many years, and reached a crisis with it, I’ve become very attuned to when I see others dealing with it. The reality is that it’s almost everyone. The biggest tell for me is when I hear people dismiss amazing things they’ve done from their past. Everyone has an incredible story, if they saw it that way. I’m a strong believer that everyone has...
What’s the question that fills you with fear to even think about asking? What about my story do you find fascinating and want to know more about? What would I do if I were you? What clarity can I bring to your mission and road ahead? What one tool or strategy would I recommend that will change your business? What’s the one thing you need to hear that everyone else is afraid to tell...
Wow, time flies. My very first blog post was January 7, 2018. I vividly remember it, because I vividly remember the state of crisis I was in during that time in my life. I was extremely unhappy, my imposter syndrome was at critical levels, and I was hiding from the world. I took the smallest single act of courage I could muster at that moment – I installed a WordPress on my website, which...
I’ve realized lately I had been clinging to a story that my best chapters are behind me. Some of the “Greatest Hits” playing in my head are: I’ll never have success again like I’ve had. I’ll never be on a big stage again conducting the energy of thousands of people. I’ll never make the money I’ve made so easily again. I’ll never create a business as successful again as the ones in my past. That...
It’s hard to fathom, but I’m marking the 5 year anniversary of a pivotal point in my life. In October 2017, I reached out to my business partner and co-founder, Geoff, and made a very difficult phone call. I had been avoiding him for years, for reasons unknown to me at the time. I didn’t know what to do about any of this, but I knew that continued avoidance was not the answer. I invited him to...
This past week I received this private message from someone new to me. Upon receiving it, I realized this was the first time ever I had received a compliment directly for my work on the company I co-founded over 12 years ago, that has been used by tens of millions of people. I had made it impossible before that. This made me profoundly sad for the person I was for an entire decade. Initially, I...
I just watched the second of 2 documentaries about the disaster that was Woodstock ’99 (Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage on HBO and Trainwreck on Netflix. I thought the Netflix one was the better of the 2). It’s given me a lot to think and reflect on. For me it is a strong cautionary tale of what can happen when you think what the world needs is yesterday’s solution from yesterday’s people...