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...
Recently I received an email from an old fan. He and his wife were celebrating their 20th anniversary and listening to my DJ mixes had a lot of memories for them many years ago. He offered to pay me to make him a “cameo” type of personal video. Cameo is a website filled with celebrities that will record well-wishes for you for a fee. I’m not on Cameo, but I use Loom a lot to record videos, so I...
If I’m honest with myself, I can see that much of the fear that holds me back today is not my fear of failing at something, but what would happen if it was successful. These are some of the voices currently in my head: I don’t want to create a formal program or offering because people might sign up for it and I’d be committed to running it.The more attention I bring to myself, the more people...
Chris is an electrifying storyteller that shares stories that impact the audience. What changes for you as you listen to his story?
This week I attempted to enter the United States after being banned from entering 22 years ago (I wrote about it more in this previous post and even more exhaustively in my memoir). I didn’t succeed. They turned me back after detaining me for 3 hours. It was the scariest thing I’ve done in a long time, and it pretty much went how I worst feared it. It was a long shot that they’d let me in. I...
Robin and I are celebrating 25 years together this year (20 of those married). We often joke that we should write a relationship book, and I do think that will be a future book of mine. The early days of our relationship was documented in my memoir, and it was definitely a trial by fire. As young people with no support around them, we had to wrestle with Robin’s mental health crisis and...
Would you like to be part of something awesome? I’ve been struggling for a while, due to a lot of things outside my control, and I’ve felt directionless because of it. I could feel myself trying really hard to course correct, to find a new path. And then I remembered I already had the solution. I call it my Statement of Being. I haven’t read it in a while, and I can tell right away that has left...
This past week a book I was reading introduced a thought into my head that I’ve never grieved for the loss of a past life of mine. Specifically, my rave and DJ days. There’s no question that period of my life held a lot of trauma for me and took me some time to get over. That’s part of the reason it took me 14 years to complete my memoir. I always saw the completion of that book and being able to...
For the first time since I started my blog, in January 2018, I didn’t write a weekly article last week. That’s over 4 years and over 200 articles, week in and week out, not to mention publishing 2 autobiographical books. As I was thinking about what I might want to write about last week, I was inspired with the thought that the most difficult thing for me to do would be to not write and take a...
I’ve been dealing with a lot behind the scenes. One of the things I’m learning about myself is my natural habit of soldiering on in the face of huge adversity and not revealing to anyone else what is going on. I tend not to talk about the tough times in my life until they are in my past, and then they become stories I share. My challenge now is to share what I’m going through and allow myself to...
From my perspective and my own life’s experiences, there is only one thing that separates those that achieve great things from those that don’t; those that achieve take action, and the ones that don’t only dream. My own life forever changed because of an action I took when I was only 12 years old. I walked into a business and asked for a job. When they declined, I didn’t take no for an answer and...
I was recently involved in an exercise to introduce myself to a room of people by allowing myself to be seen in a vulnerable way and crafting a poem about who I am. I’m sharing this here, now, with you. I am Chris Frolic. I am audacious and goofy. I wonder how deep can I go within myself? I hear the theme song from Super Mario Bros. I see my wife’s face lying in bed looking at me. I want to...
I seem to go through fits and starts of wondering “What’s Next?” It’s made more complicated for me because for the first time in my life I’m in the fortunate place of creating from abundance. I have money and resources, and I definitely have the time. I have all the passive income I need from my business ownership. Every time I’ve answered “What’s Next?” in the past, it was coming from a place of...
I was recently invited and challenged to attend an event in San Diego this August. This triggers a lot in me. The short version of this is that over 20 years ago I was caught, detained and deported for working in the US without a visa as a DJ. This happened in 2000 (prior to 9/11 when we took the border much less seriously). The last time I tried was in 2005, when I was denied entry and held...
There’s a quote on my wall. It’s unattributed and I don’t know the origin. When I Google it, nothing much comes up. I don’t even remember where I got it from, but it made enough of an impact I wrote it down and put it on my wall. It says: Give people what they need, not what you want them to have. There’s so many times in my life, every day, that I want so much for people. And the cold reality is...
This past week I participated in an exercise, and was asked to come up with a 6 word mission. This is what immediately came out of me: Share my story, change the world. I was struck by how true that simple statement is for me. How I’ve been living in to it. You are a part of it. Every week I share my story. I do it because for too long I ran from telling my own story. It took me 14 years to...
One of the questions I’ve asked myself in recent years is why did things get so difficult for me later in life? Things like my imposter syndrome turned into a full-on crisis. The things I did to protect myself, like hiding from people, had me acting in completely unreasonable ways. I was afraid to speak up at my own family table. I spent years on stages and somehow got to the point where I felt...
On my recent “Ask Me Anything” someone inquired about what I refer to as “deep work”. This is an abstract thought and term, and this morning I was inspired to write this article about it. I would describe it as a culmination of everything I’ve been doing these last 4 years. Of a journey looking inward. Of understanding myself. Of healing. Of learning what drives me, and why I do things. Of...
Here is a capture of the Ask Me Anything I hosted on January 3, 2022. It was an experiment of me testing myself, showing up in a different way, sharing my wisdom in whatever way it was called upon, and kicking my year off in a strong way. Topics included Blue Ocean Strategy and using “pain” in your marketing, amongst anything and everything else that came up. I was very...
I’m trying something different this week. Instead of writing “What do I need to hear most right now?” I’m writing this article for 1 person in the Frolic 100. This is for Shannon. Shannon in an email to me had shared about the challenge of being on social media while creating a coaching business. This is what i was inspired to write. There’s a business metaphor that I love called “blue ocean...
A colleague once offered some constructive feedback, they said “You sure want me to like you” in response to one of my posts. I can see why they thought it, I write a lot about myself, my experiences, the things I’ve learned. The thing is, they had it wrong. It wasn’t that I wanted them to like me, it’s that I wanted to like myself. Almost everything I write about for the Frolic...
Something I felt very strongly back in the 1990s when I was part of the newly created rave scene was a feeling that we were onto something bigger. That we had the ability to change the world. When I speak to older ravers these days and bring this up, they enthusiastically respond with a “Oh my god, yes!” as they remember that feeling. Unfortunately, that moment in time passed. And then I realized...