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 love metaphors. I’ve learned I use them more than the average person. I did it so often and so easily most of my life I didn’t even realize it. Now I see it, and lean into it. I use metaphors to describe abstract or complicated ideas or even feelings and turn them into something easily relatable. One of my favorite metaphors is thinking of myself as a gunslinger. I think of watching...
My wife and I have been together for 23 years, 18 of those married. For most people that see us, we come across as a very successful couple, because we are. However, because we are always striving to be more, we decided to start couples therapy this year. The goal was to look back in 5 years time and say these most recent 5 years were our best years, in ways that we couldn’t comprehend today. I...
I was recently having a Zoom discussion with a bunch of online peers. Most were acknowledging, if not outright complaining, about how over-scheduled their lives are. Earlier in the call I had confessed that while a lot of them are taking this month off for vacation, I had never taken a vacation in my life. I am totally serious. I don’t know what that is. Every trip I’ve ever taken in...
I speak with people quite a bit who beat themselves up with all their “failure” stories. They think their failures mean they are not successful. The reality is failure is a necessary part of success. There is no one in the world that hasn’t failed, multiple times, at everything. The most successful people have the biggest failure stories. Myself included. We are taught to not speak of them, to...
As I write this we’re over 1 month into covid-19 quarantine. My kids were sent home for March Break last month and told they’d not be coming back for 2 more weeks. That’s been extended indefinitely. Everything has been turned on its ear since then. For the past couple of years I’ve been trying to work out “What’s Next?” for me, and that question now has entirely new meaning. As I wrestle with...
As I sat to write this week’s article that famous quote from Back to the Future popped into my head from out of nowhere. It’s the scene from the very end of the first movie. Doc has just returned from “the future” and now he’s taking Marty back to the future. Marty: Hey Doc, you better back up, we don’t have enough road to get up to 88. Doc Brown: Roads? Where we’re going, we...
I had a really bad day recently where I broke my “news diet” rule and checked my phone first thing for Covid-19 news as I woke up from bed. I read all the latest to immediately catch myself up. I then paid the price with waves of physical anxiety, chills, that I was convinced for a few hours I HAD it. I told my kids’ to not use the bathroom on the main level, I texted my wife...
For the last few years that I’ve been exploring “What’s Next?” I’ve been very successful at learning what it isn’t. As I test, explore, research, and play with ideas I’ve built a very long laundry list of things I don’t want to do. This includes everything from the fact that I don’t want to go into work somewhere, it has to be done from my...
At the start of last year I came up with an experiment – every day I would take a moment in the morning to add to a list of gratitude. You can read my previous blog entries about this here and here. To recap; Every morning I would open a Word document where I had a numbered list. I’d then take a moment and add to it. At least 1 thing, but as many as I felt in that moment. I usually...
I recently attended a 4-day workshop in my home city of Toronto. I decided to full immerse myself into the experience by treating it sort of like a “staycation” by booking a hotel walking distance from the venue. This meant after each day I would not go home. I would not visit my family and switch to being a family man. I would stay immersed in my experience, allowing myself time for...
I used to be ashamed of my lack of official education. I don’t have a single piece of paper with my name on it. I lost interest in high school and never even finished. Now, after all these years, I realize I’m a life-long learner. I found my own way to learn. Being part of a class curriculum isn’t part of that. Being an entrepreneur means I don’t have to prove myself to...
I had an interesting problem to solve this year. With my memoir Requiem for My Rave coming out, how do I promote it? I really value the peace in my life without using social media. I’ve written many times for this blog about it. If I’m going to practice what I preach, then I needed to come up with another way of promoting it. The other problem is that the community that the book is...
The Toronto Star did a feature on my past as a rave pioneer and my new memoir REQUIEM FOR MY RAVE. What is an interesting addendum to this story and relevant to my blog here is that a company then contacted me out of the blue and offered to mount it for me. I admire their “blue ocean” strategy of contacting people who appear in newspapers. This company is based in the US, so I assume...
When I have need of a contractor or subcontractor, I have learned the ultimate Litmus Test that cuts a good 90% from contention: Do they return phone calls in a timely, professional way? Simple as that. And if they fail that test, by not calling me back, they are cut from my list. Immediately. I will not chase someone to do business with them. If they can’t get back to me quickly now, how...
There is always emergencies. You might as well plan for them. Going into debt or having a credit card handy “for emergencies” is not prudent planning. There are simple emergencies like car trouble or replacing your broken computer (that you need to work), and then there are the really big ones like job loss. I like the Dave Ramsey philosophy of first getting a $1000 emergency fund...
Every single business I’ve created was started with next to no money. There is a term called “bootstrapping” a business, which means starting or creating without external money or resources. To this day I’ve never taken money or had outside investment. We’re inundated with startup culture stories of raising money. I always scratch my head when I hear people or...
I’ve written before about how much I enjoy being unplugged and away from things. Here is another one. Most days, weather permitting, I go for a 5km walk. It takes about an hour. I have a route worked out through my neighborhood. I do it because it feels good to be outside, out in the fresh air, good to be moving. It’s exercise, but that isn’t exactly why I do it. It’s more...
While my story reads pretty good, and I’ve had a lot of success in my life, the reality is every accomplishment took a lot of time and hard work. “The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.” – Elon Musk I could write a similarly sized bio of all the hardship and stress I’ve gone through. In fact, I have...
I’ve written a lot about my news diet, and the steps I take to stay focused and away from distractions. Especially when those distractions are for things beyond my control and just make me sad or depressed. This past week my wife, Robin, brought up some news item that was making her upset. She had avoided reading about it, but the headline and photos were all over her friends feeds as...
This blog is a place I’m going to share things that have worked for me. I doubt I’m going to offer anything new that someone hasn’t said before, but I am going to suggest that I am living proof that they work. So if you have a goal to model successful behavior from proven successful people, I humbly offer this. Have a Plan I credit goal setting with a huge part of my success...
I know this is totally contrary our world these days but I love being bored. And by “being bored” I mean not constantly distracting myself with electronic devices. Giving myself this boredom allows my mind to conjure and create. New ideas, solutions to problems I’m wrestling with, and general pondering. It allows my mind to form new connections and great things can come of that...
This topic is a little different than I normally blog about, but I thought I’d write about it. File this under “parental life hacks”. I have 2 kids, aged 11 and 14. Like everyone their age, they love their electronics. As a parent this can be a hard place to find balance because the electronics are so good at what they do (occupy the young person, relieve the burden from a...
I am not sure where I first heard this quote. It isn’t mine, but I absorbed it from somewhere and I think about it all the time. It’s such a simple thought, and a reminder of how stuck we can get doing the same things every day but somehow expecting that this time it will be different. I use this quote to ground myself. I’ll give an example of how I’ve used it. I’ve...