Once upon a time I had a LinkedIn profile. It wasn’t great. I was ashamed of myself and my story when I had created it. I downplayed all of my accomplishments, in a weak attempt at trying to appear more “corporate”. My imposter syndrome at the time also had its hands around me like a choke hold, and I didn’t even list my webinar company, StealthSeminar, by name. I listed myself as some sort of...
The webinar business I co-founded over 14 years ago just completed due diligence and closed its sale to a $100 million private equity fund that specializes in SaaS (Software as a Service), and now that particular part of my life is done. Even though I exited an active role with the company several years ago, I still retained 50% ownership and monthly dividends from that. It feels good to have...
During the peak of my DJ career, back in the year 2000, I was banned from entering the US after being caught entering to work as a DJ without having the required paperwork (Longtime followers of mine are very familiar with this story, and I wrote about it extensively in my memoir). I spent many years regretting my actions that led to that. This ultimately led to my eventual retirement from DJing...
I love “boredom”. I love playing with what are seen as negative words, and twisting them on their ear. Boredom to me is creating space for inspiration and creativity. If I fill my days with busywork, I remove the possibility of those “eureka” moments. Some of my most profitable and successful innovations were made walking to the store in my neighbourhood and simply walking without distracting...
I’ve had multiple distinct professional chapters in my life (the “what do you do?” question). Less spoken about, but very significant and formative to me was the eight year span I worked for a franchising video game retail chain. I started working for this company when I was only 12 years old, and spent 8 years there. For as much as I talk about my lack of paper education, this was an...
A good friend of mine, Shermain Melton, asked me a simple question last week: What do you stand for? What comes up for you when you think it? To take a stand means to believe in something. To defend something. To fight for something. Taking a stand means it’s worthy of you getting up in the morning and working towards it. It means you care enough about it that you want others to have...
(The following is an excerpt from my memoir, Requiem for My Rave. I’ve been asking myself lately what lessons I can share from this time in my life with audiences today.) It was March 2000. Robin, my girlfriend at the time and I were in the middle of making dinner. It was a night no different than any other. Robin was cutting some tomatoes, and I was working the stove with tilapia. It sizzled in...
Earlier this year I announced my 2024 book project, I made some progress, and then… something wasn’t right and I decided to listen to myself and put it aside instead of push myself through it. Four months later I was inspired again, and I realized that’s a big part of it… inspiration. It’s important for my process. It’s also the most common word used when people describe what they receive from me...
“But what if we’re caught? It will be humiliating”, was the fear in my head. Thirty minutes before this moment, my wife and I went out for a spontaneous walk in our neighborhood. Where I live, in Toronto, is near the factory for Bombardier Aerospace. They make passenger jets. On this particular Saturday afternoon we could tell there was something happening, with lots of people...
Here’s a powerful tool that I’ve created to help myself deal with some of my feelings lately around success and guilt. The point of it is to bring clarity in, and get out of the amorphous haze of letting the emotions run roughshod over you when they’re simply not even true and certainly not deserved. This has been modeled on previous tools I’ve created, except this time focused on the particular...
The best word I can describe my state of mind lately is “confusion”. It’s something I’ve felt before, and makes answering questions like “What’s next?” or even “What do you want?” very difficult. Nothing comes up. I’ve decided to be kinder to myself and stop asking, at least for a while. Confusion is different from “I don’t know”. “I don’t know” can be played with, and creatively explored. “I...
I recently wrote about banning myself from asking “What’s Next?” for 6 months. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus to understanding the implications of the word “next”. Whether it’s a “what’s next?” or a “next chapter” or even “who’s next?” made me realize something: Always looking towards the “next” thing left me unsatisfied with what I currently have. The base premise of looking towards “next”...
So you’ve been going through some old note books looking for inspiration from yourself. You’re seeing a lot of recurring and ruminating thoughts around “What’s Next?” going back for years and years. Stop it! Just stop it. Stop asking yourself that. If it worked, you wouldn’t keep asking. It doesn’t work – so stop it! You are forbidden from asking that again. It doesn’t work. It’s never...
I’m a big fan of The Sopranos TV series. I’ve watched it more times than I can remember. It’s such a superbly crafted and written show that every viewing gives me new insights into myself. I’m a different person, so how I experience it changes, every time. A quote from that show has been with me the last week or so: “You’re only as good as your last envelope.” The direct meaning of that is...
“There’s no way my doldrums compare to your grief”, I said matter-of-factly to my wife, while in front of our couple’s therapist. The whole session was a departure for me, to even allow the session’s focus on me at all. Almost always I pivot to how Robin is doing, and we start there, and often stay there. Because as far as I’m concerned my problems don’t compare. Robin is dealing with elderly and...
We’re living in a time of peak nostalgia. It seems everything was better back in the day. The thing is, we’re comparing the VERY BEST of the past with now. We forget all the crap. For every hit song, there are countless forgettable ones. For every iconic movie, there are dozens of others we can’t be bothered to watch again. I’ve been wondering if I’m suffering from nostalgia for my old life. One...
We live in a world controlled by algorithms. Our behavior is influenced and affected in ways we don’t understand. Places like social media use people (like you) as the product, to create content, for them to then serve ads on, to the real customers – the advertisers. Certain types of content generate more views, shares, and engagement than others. This lets the companies that own them...
Recently, I watched an HBO documentary series called “The Anarchists” about an anarchist collective in Acapulco, Mexico. They thought they had the answers for all the world’s problems, as they saw them. My biggest take away came later in the series when one of the founders realized they were all a bunch of broken people trying to change the world and that they needed to heal themselves first. It...
You’re feeling frustrated. I can understand. It seems like you’re marching around in the dark trying to figure out which way to go. Every time you think you’ve made some progress you’re back to the same old habit of trying to figure out what’s next. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward, and two steps back. But is that really true? Take a look at where you’ve been, what you’ve done...
I started writing one article a week 6 years ago. I had no idea or intention, other than I hoped to share my hard-earned wisdom with others. There are really cool services out there that will take the content of your blog or social media and turn it into a hardbound book in a single step. I now have 2 volumes, each holding 3 years of my life. I can’t say what it feels like to see my writing...
What happens when you bring together a high school dropout, a world-famous DJ, a former comedy stage hypnotist, a millionaire tech co-founder, and a master of the most powerful mindset tools on the planet, and let them loose at the world’s largest climate conference? All those people are one and the same person – Chris Frolic, living proof that there’s always an alternative path to take. Chris...
This blog represents this latest chapter of my life. I started it 6 years ago. As the New Year passed I started to have the typical thoughts about what was to come. So much of this part of my life could not have been predicted. I then began to wonder, what if you were able to tell me 6 years ago what the next 6 years would look like? Would I be happy with that? And the answer was hell yes. I then...
Back in the Middle Ages, England invaded Ireland. They built a fence across the border of their territory, called The Pale. To go beyond it meant you risked your life. Danger lurked beyond The Pale. Today, the phrase “Beyond The Pale” is commonly associated with behavior deemed unacceptable. However, I prefer to use it as a metaphor to describe the feeling of doing something...
Are you looking to be inspired, energized, and motivated to take on your own next, greatest, chapter? What happens when you bring together a high school dropout, a world-famous DJ, a former comedy stage hypnotist, a millionaire tech co-founder, and a master of the most powerful mindset tools on the planet, and let them loose at the world’s largest climate conference? All those people are...
So many people I encounter have innate human desires to “make the world a better place”, or “make an impact”, or “change the world”. What they are missing though is specificity. “Pick a lane” is usually my invitation. Get really specific. Once you do, a compass appears for you. Even if you don’t know HOW, or even IF (if you have an impossible...