I read an interesting article this week about someone giving up their primary social media, which in this case was Twitter. I found this quote the most enlightening of the article: This resonated with me because that is the world I inhabit. It’s funny, because even though I am not a social media user, for many reasons, it’s power still affects me. It makes me question my own success...
I’ve added a new task to my daily routine: Add to my List of Gratitude. Feeling gratitude for the things in my life gives me happiness. The task is simple. Open up the Word doc I keep the numbered list and take no more than 5 minutes to add to it. I have to add at least 1 per day, but can add as many as I feel inspired to in that time frame. If I don’t take all 5 minutes, but added to...
I launched this blog just over 1 year ago. I started it because I wanted an outlet to share my thoughts and experiences with those who cared to read it. There was no secondary purpose to this blog. I wasn’t trying to build a business or build Followers. With no agenda, I was able to do what I wanted to do, which is try to help others and no ulterior motives of trying to sell a product or...
Everyone takes stock this time of year. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what is next for me. The biggest change for me is the New Year used to have promise and potential, things I hoped would happen. Now I’m in a place of feeling complete, and actually embracing that and resisting anything else, so I struggle with some of these old exercises. This year I’ve...
I came across an interesting article, Boasting how many hours you work is a sign of failure, and a light bulb went off for me. Of course it is. The opposite should be true! I live the opposite and I realized I have for almost all my adult life. I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting, and realized I value my schedule above everything. Now I plan for what I want to do around the schedule...
I’ve been watching the ongoing discussion of social media with great interest. It’s been an interesting decade since Facebook took over. I was an online pioneer, but the one place I never transitioned to were the big social media platforms. I resisted at first because I could see how much time people spent on them. This was apparent right away. I made a conscious decision that my time...
I read a lot of articles these days about maintaining a Work/Life Balance. It’s good that people realize the importance of having a healthy life outside of their work. I’m not sure when it started to be looked at as more important, but it’s something I’ve always lived. A friend of mine used to joke that I was “successfully underemployed” because my work week...
I came across a quote this week from Arnold Schwarzenegger about how he is NOT a self-made man, despite often being described as that. Everyone needs help and gets help to be a success. People like to say they are self-made, but leave out parts of their story. Usually those parts are not insignificant. I like to think of myself as bullshit free, and I like to think of myself as self-made because...
I recently became aware of a term called Survivorship Bias and how it specifically can be applied to entrepreneurs. Wikipedia defines it as : Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions...
I’m fortunate to be at the place in my life that I am. I have this pasted to my wall to remind me:
Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope it’s of assistance to you in some way.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted this recently, talking about how a dream of his was crushed but only now many years later does he see what opportunities opened up because of it. I really related to this because I have a similar story. I file this one under “Hard lessons learned”. Back in 2000 I was in the peak of my DJ career. I was performing around the world...
A good hour of any work day of mine is spent quiet, away from everything. Usually this is a walk. I do not take my phone. This time away is super productive to me. That’s why I include it as part of my “work” day. I usually don’t go out with any sort of agenda. It’s just time for myself. But inevitably as I walk and enjoy being outside, the sky, the trees, the...
I think about this a lot. What is success? Ultimately it needs to be a personal vision. What is success to you? For a long time I permanently attached Success to “Financial Success”. It was always the goal I was chasing. Money to improve my life, money for a home, money to have the life we wanted. A big money thermometer was on my wall. The biggest gift money has been is the security...
Recently, a visual metaphor appeared to me. I saw myself paddling a canoe down a river. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about “what’s next?”. The canoe metaphor gave me permission to just enjoy the journey, that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and there is no rush. As I pondered this metaphor some more, I also realized I can’t see far ahead...
In a lot of ways, creating a business is much like being an artist. There is no one way to create art, and certainly no one way to create a business. You can even fail at it, junk it, try again. Develop your craft and get better each time. For me personally, I’ve always followed my own path for how I wanted to do it. Most of the time I made it up as I went along. Sometimes it worked...
There’s a lot of things I’ve just done without realizing it. I’ve operated naturally on my own, but now I have a word for it since it’s something that is spoken more in today’s world: Being a Solopreneur. For the last 20+ years, I’ve operated all my businesses out of my home desk. That desk used to be in my living room, now I have a dedicated bedroom office...
I feel like I’m in a unique situation. I write to share my experiences and lessons learned, but am doing so from a position of success. So much success, that I’m not looking to sell anything. So that allows me to be honest, and tell things like how they are/were. At the same time, these true stories I feel run so counter to the “instant success formulas” being peddled...
I still wrestle with feeling like I don’t know anything. I think it will always be with me. Like, my biggest financial success was creating some technology, yet put me in a room with a bunch of tech people as they throw terms around I don’t know and I feel like a moron. Part of it is because I went about it in a very unique way. I remember watching a food documentary, watching these...
For a long time I struggled with acknowledging that I was having success in my life, but the way I achieved it, in a completely unorthodox fashion, always left me feeling like I faked my way to it. I recently came up with the correct word to describe myself and how I did this: Audacious. When I look up the definition of that word I get: Showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks. When...
I was just recently introduced to the concept of being “authentic”. As soon as I heard it, it really struck me. I realized immediately I have been a master of “Fake It Till You Make It”. It did work for me, quite successfully, many times in my life. I can’t even speak against that as a strategy. Certainly when you are starting out. But I’m in a different place...
As I embark on the next chapter of my life, one where I hope to help others like me, I’ve realized we are all unique. I will share my story, and hope it might inspire others, but there is no following in my foot steps. There is no secret formula. And certainly there are no short cuts. And that is OK. The quicker this is learned, the better. Prepare for the hard work. Prepare for things...
There’s a quote, attributed to Jim Rohn, that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. I’ve only recently become familiar with that quote, but realized it has come to play with me many times over my life. Often as I’ve started new ventures, as I was immersed in it, the people I was around were also in that world. We all fed off each other. As each of us...
Here is a link to a TED Talk from Tim Ferris that I found quite helpful. Instead of “Goal Setting”, Tim talks about “Fear Setting”. I used his literal exercise outlined in this video to help break some of my inertia I was dealing with in my life. Inertia from fear. I was paralyzed from making any changes and was suffering because of it. I worked it out, and that enabled me...
Years ago I came up with a “Freedom 35” goal. Basically, I calculated what my monthly nut was (all of my expenses) and would consider myself “free” if I had reliable automatic recurring income that met or exceeded that number. Not including work I had to go actually do (like gigs). 1 month before my 36th birthday, I crossed that line. That was a great day. However, at the...
As an adult, your life grows much more insular and you generally don’t get many opportunities to meet new people. The last big period of my life meeting new people was during my DJ days. I connected with so many people through a shared passion for the music and the scene. But that period ended, and everyone went on their own ways. As I worked on new things, I would connect with people that...