At the depths of my crisis, my acute imposter syndrome, my overwhelming anxiety, it got to the point where I felt you could hold a gun to my head and order me to do the work I needed to do, and it still wouldn’t get done. You would have to kill me and I would accept my death. The fact that I was making millions of dollars during this same time period compounded everything to me. I couldn’t...
There’s a feeling I trigger often in people. Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself. When you’ve been in the audience for one of my events, one of my Zooms, read one of my articles, or watched a video of mine. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, until very recently. It was instinctive in me, I make myself feel good when I do it, without realizing it. My superpower is: I elicit awe in people. I do...
I used to carry so much shame about my failures. I never spoke them. I hid them from the world. I projected my strengths and hid my weaknesses. I only spoke about my victories. Yes, that sort of works, and it will impress some types of people, but at some point it just wasn’t working for me anymore. It fed my imposter syndrome. My list of failures I carried like the chains the character Marley...
I can’t remember when I first had the idea for my memoir, Requiem for my Rave. I realized at some point I had such a unique story and so much mayhem, it could fill a book. I think it was only as my DJ career was winding down did I realize I had an “ending” now and could start thinking about the book. In 2005 I spoke publicly about it for the first time, of my intention to write it. I started the...
Every time I get caught in a thinking trap about what I’m thinking I “should” be doing or am supposed to be doing, it’s because I’ve fallen into comparing myself with other people. I’ve never sold a company. I don’t know how to “exit”. Everything I’ve ever done in the past I ran until I was complete and I moved on and did something else. I abdicated instead of delegated and reduced my role...
At the worst of the depths of my imposter syndrome I felt like Bernie Madoff. I had fooled the world, or at least that is what I thought. It was only a few years ago, as I looked for things to do with myself, I didn’t even feel qualified to judge a high school business competition. Seeing those teenagers in their suits and ties, future MBA students, and here I was, the high school drop out...
I recently was watching the movie Kill Bill on Netflix. I saw it when it was new and was enjoying revisiting it. There was a scene that jumped out at me with new gravitas. It was a scene between “Bill” (played by David Carradine) and “The Bride” (played by Uma Thurman). This is a transcript of the monologue from that scene. Bill As you know, l’m quite keen on comic books...
I’m really practiced at gratitude. It’s with me all the time. I took an entire year to practice gratitude and that lesson has stayed with me in an automatic way. These past couple of weeks there’s been a lot of articles and discussions marking the anniversary of when everything changed from covid. My local newspaper had a headline that I found particularly striking:...
After writing for my blog for over 3 years and 170 articles, I have come to some truths about myself. I value peace and freedom in my life above everything.I’m in a privileged place where I don’t have to do anything (I recently started thinking of myself as “retired”).I live a decelerated life.I like using technology, but try to avoid being used by it. That means I don’t use any social media...
By 2012 my life was on a trajectory I hadn’t experienced before. Real financial stability. I had huge monthly dividends arriving, had moved out of my apartment, had a bank account flush with cash and for the first time in my life nothing to worry about. There was one fly in the ointment though – my brain was so conditioned to worry, to my precarious life, to living on the edge, that...
“I’ll work for free” was how I got my first job. At age 12 I walked into a newly opened computer and video game store and somehow had the courage to ask for a job. When I was turned down, working for free was my solution. They accepted. I worked for free for the next several months, then below minimum wage (because I wasn’t even at legal working age). I was paid $3.00 an hour, when minimum wage...
During the years I felt like an imposter, I was under tremendous fear of my ideas being ripped off. I would go through such lengths to hide and obfuscate my innovations. At the time I believed it was the only thing I had. That if someone copied it, I was useless/worthless/replaceable. Recently I watched someone share in public their business building strategy. I know this person, have spoken to...
Some time ago a coach I knew shared a story with me about the year he spent volunteering in a homeless shelter. One day this homeless man came in, with absolutely no possessions except 3 plastic bags. He had been robbed at a park, all his meager possessions were stolen. His one remaining possession was an old cell phone. The robbers had taken it, it dropped on the ground and the battery fell off...
I was recently watching The Chef Show on Netflix. It’s hosted by Jon Favreau (Movie director of Iron Man, Lion King, The Jungle Book, actor). He was visiting Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse in Las Vegas, and was grilling steaks in front of Wolfgang. He then handed one of them off to Wolfgang to inspect. Wolfgang cut it open, saw the perfect medium rare, and then they had this exchange: Wolfgang: Jon...
Disclosure: Today’s article came about from asking myself these 2 writing prompts: 1) What do I need to hear most right now? 2) What scares me? And then I was inspired to write about my Impossible Dream. I did a quick search of my blog and I see it’s never been written about before. So something in me has held back sharing it openly. I’ve written in the past how a favorite...
I have decided 2021 will be the greatest year of my life. How that will be exactly, I don’t know. It will be incredible because I will make it incredible. I will control the things I have control over, and like the AA prayer, accept the things that I don’t and the wisdom to know the difference. I will live aligned with myself and who I am. I will create from that place. I will do things that...
I started this blog exactly 3 years ago. This will be the 160th article I’ve written for it. When I started it, I was in a dark place and starting the blog was my attempt at trying to figure out “What’s Next?”. I was making millions of dollars and feeling like a fraud. I was really unhappy. I have lived experienced that money does not buy happiness. I knew the status-quo was untenable, and began...
I’ve had an incredible 2020, there is no getting around it. On every metric – personal, financial, business, mental, family, health, happiness, everything has come together this year in a way I’ve never experienced before. I don’t claim perfection, everyone will have their challenges, but I do practice focusing on the positives and this year has been an incredible one for me. That...
Chris Frolic · The Scariest Thing I Did This Year If 2019 was “My Year of Gratitude”, 2020 was my year of “What Scares Me?”. I continued to put myself in hot situations, specifically doing the thing that scares me. It has gotten a lot easier over the year, and now because of all the benefits of each of those actions I’ve become addicted to doing the exact thing I’m frightened of. Only good comes...
It’s easy for me to get things done by myself. To power through, to not count on anyone, to not ask for permission. To just take action, accountable only to myself. Most of my great stories all start that way. A lifetime of relying on myself has made me who I am. Now I’m seeking new challenges in places that are not easy for me. What made me who I am, and what I’m capable of was created from a...
“I’m out of here!”, my 12-year-old shouted. “Kevin, there’s a freaking pandemic going on, we’re in lockdown!”, I responded back. “I don’t care”, he replied. “Kevin, I love you and will support you”, were the last words I said to him. Kevin put on his jacket and walked out of the house. I had no idea where he was going to go. Kevin had reached his...
There’s a feeling I’ve regularly experiencing lately. The best word I can use to describe it is “pride”. Pride sometimes is seen as negative, especially when it’s about comparing yourself with others. Usually pride is used to compensate for one’s shortcomings, and then creates a story of why they’re better than someone else. On a recent call, during a...
My birthday just passed. Normally I’d take my family to a nice restaurant and that’s our treat. This year, because of covid, that went out the window. We’d stay home. Because I “lost” something, I asked myself how can I celebrate my birthday this year? I came up with 3 things: Gratitude Acknowledgement of what an incredible year this has been Spend it with my family...
I was having a discussion this week about money. The common challenges most people have with money were coming up, primarily the difficulty in valuing yourself. During the discussion an insight came to me that I wrote down: Money is a byproduct of my awesomeness. Be Awesome. I liked that statement as soon as I wrote it. It made me feel good. I immediately shared it with everyone. With a lot of...
I live a decelerated life where I don’t use social media and don’t chase followers. This blog only gets a few visitors a day. I had decided early on I was going to not use traditional metrics and break every rule there is. It gives me pleasure every time I do something like that. The people that need to find me find me. I love knowing I’m your secret weapon (or that I can be)...