It was literally only a month ago when I was invited to attend the COP28 climate conference in Dubai. I was a powerful yes. As soon as I decided to go, I knew I wanted to get on a stage while there. That was my selfish desire. I didn’t give into the story in my head that it was too late. Within days, I made it onto the standby list for the Canada Pavilion, which even though I didn’t...
Chris, this is Chris, from one week in the future. Through a miracle of science I’m sending this letter to you after being in Dubai for COP28 for five days that you will receive before you depart for the airport. I know you’re feeling nervous right now, no matter how much preparation you’ve done. You’re wondering what will happen. I’m here to make things a bit easier since I have some details for...
Imagine if you could create a game that guarantees a win – empowering and emboldening, right? Here is the criteria: It needs to be scary. Something you’ve never done before. The game ends while still under your control. Once a decision is in someone else’s hands, the game has completed. Let me demonstrate; I have created a game that I win by playing for my visit to COP28: I will...
Richard Medcalf is a coach who inspires me. He works with CEOs who want to make a greater impact on the world by helping them release their own inner Freddy Mercury. What touched me most was when Richard disclosed he had spent years as a street mime. We discovered a shared background of a time when we were both less afraid of being our true selves, a part of us we later learned to suppress for...
“You should come with me to COP28 in Dubai”, was the simple invitation. “Your voice is needed there. No one there talks like you.” And boom, just like that, the invitation I had been waiting for showed up. The only question was: what do I do with it? It was “only” and exactly one year ago when I dared start saying a few simple words. An “impossible...
How is it possible that after almost 6 years and 280 articles, I don’t have a bigger audience than 100 people? I asked myself if I had to teach a class, on “How to have only 100 email subscribers after 6 years”, what would I teach? Make everyone have to actually look you up, and not be in any common places of modern internet (like social media) Bury the sign up form deep in the website, making...
Sometimes I can get extremely frustrated with myself. That I’m not doing more. The word “should” starts to appear. I should be doing this. I should be doing that. I started this blog over five years ago. It represents a distinct and significant chapter of my life now. Five years is a lot of time. The negative thoughts I catch myself having always have to do with what I think...
One of the best side-benefits of claiming an easily communicated impossible goal for me is the amount of connection it has created with new people. People are intrigued. People want to talk to me. People approach me. People want to help me. The conversation that follows is easy, because I get to share my story of how and why I got here. It’s easy to tell, because it’s my story. People want to...
Because an impossible goal is exactly that, impossible, you can’t lose. It’s liberating in a counter-intuitive way. Conventional goals have their place, and I’ve used them plenty in my life. Most of us come up with conventional goals, and feel tremendous pressure to complete them, or feel bad when we don’t. Or if we come up short, we still accomplished more in that failure...
Imagine the shifts to your impact, income, and life by declaring a truly impossible goal! On Monday September 25, 2023 I’m going to host a Zoom to help YOU unlock YOUR IMPOSSIBLE GOAL. This is exclusively for Frolic 100 members. I’m going to teach the 5 necessary parts of every impossible goal. I’ll work with some people live on the call to help unlock and up-level (and make it truly impossible!)...
“Freedom” is a huge value of mine. For my entire life I’ve lived a life of freedom and possibility. I haven’t had a “job” since I was 20 years old. Since then, I’ve worked for myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Part of what motivated me was that I needed to make a living. I just happened to choose things that I was extremely passionate about. I lived on the edge and forced...
The first weekend of August in Canada is a long weekend: three days during the height of summer. It’s a nice midway peak to the summer holiday and also serves as a permanent reminder of one of the most depressing moments in my life and how far I’ve come since. Exactly 15 years ago, I was a struggling comedy hypnotist, facing a precarious financial situation due to having gone through bankruptcy a...
“Enough” is an interesting word. A quick dictionary definition is: “As much or as many as required.” I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how much is enough for me. I’m probably the first human in my family line to ever consider this question. For all but the most recent human history, our ancestors never had enough. Not enough food, not enough comfort, not enough resources, not enough...
I used a phrase in my last article, calling myself a “lifestyle entrepreneur”. I intentionally stated it, because I could feel the twinge of not wanting to. The most common definition of lifestyle entrepreneur is someone who creates the life they want first, and then a business to serve that. As opposed to most traditional businesses, where the business consumes everything (often at...
TLDR; My wife just got their (Robin is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns) dream job as a full-time cancer researcher at a top university cancer lab by back-dooring their way in with no formal education. Full pay and benefits! Longer version: It was only a few years ago, less than that, when one night I woke up at 3am and Robin was up in bed and we started talking. During that talk Robin...
For years I wrestled with a simple question: What’s Next? It served me in the past, and I easily answered it. I did new things, took on new challenges, reinvented myself, found more and more success. I wrote about it here on my website and created tools around it to help others. The problem was, it wasn’t helping me anymore. I was stuck. From this stuck place I took some much needed time for...
As someone who has wrestled with imposter syndrome for many years, and reached a crisis with it, I’ve become very attuned to when I see others dealing with it. The reality is that it’s almost everyone. The biggest tell for me is when I hear people dismiss amazing things they’ve done from their past. Everyone has an incredible story, if they saw it that way. I’m a strong believer that everyone has...
What’s the question that fills you with fear to even think about asking? What about my story do you find fascinating and want to know more about? What would I do if I were you? What clarity can I bring to your mission and road ahead? What one tool or strategy would I recommend that will change your business? What’s the one thing you need to hear that everyone else is afraid to tell...
Answer these 3 powerful questions: What are your superpowers? What is it that you do greater than anyone else you know? The insidious thing about answering this question is often your greatest superpowers are so close to you that you don’t even see them. You do them with such ease and effortlessness you don’t even value them. You might even be ashamed of them. They can take a while to identify...
I’ve had an idea for this book with me for some time. For years now I’ve been bookmarking and collecting stories of entrepreneurs who are innovating on climate change and creating a difference in the world today. I am SICK TO DEATH of the overwhelm. I HATE that children, including my own, are so inundated with apocalyptic messaging, they’ve absorbed that it’s inevitable. I...
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...
When the concept of an “Impossible Dream” was first introduced to me, it was my understanding that it be literally impossible. There’s no way to create 17 steps from here to there. It then becomes a place to come from, instead of a goal to get to. Who would I need to be, to be a person capable of this thing? And simply come from that place? One of my favorite exercises when talking...
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 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...