My business just sold to a $100 million private equity fund and I still found myself feeling like a fake

By Chris Frolic

In Business, Frolic's Story, Imposter Syndrome, Success Guilt, Unorthodox Success, Secret Shame, Vulnerability, What's Next

6 months ago

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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...

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I’m no longer “Banned in the USA”

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Happy2bInspired, Struggle, Vulnerability, What's Next

6 months ago

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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...

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On Your Next Birthday, Give the Gift of Your Story

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Frolic's Tips, Happy2bInspired

6 months ago

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I just turned 50 years old. A huge milestone. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am. A birthday tradition I started on my 40th birthday, and I returned to this year, is to tell my story to my children. I plan to update it and read it to them every 10 years. So at our dinner table last night, after dinner, I pulled out my story and read it to my children and wife. I wish my own father had done...

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What’s your relationship with boredom?

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, What's Next

6 months ago

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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...

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Frolic’s Guide to Reinvention

By Chris Frolic

In The Victory Lap, What's Next

7 months ago

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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...

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How to write impactful blog articles

By Chris Frolic

In blog, Frolic's Tips

7 months ago

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For the last 6 years I’ve committed myself to writing one article a week, which has generated 323 articles so far. That makes me an expert. When creating blog content, it’s important to get clear on 3 elements. Here are my own answers to these: What do I want? Clarifying my own thoughts into digestible form Creating a legacy of content and articles Create a story of how I’ve been spending my time...

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What do you stand for?

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, The Victory Lap, What's Next

7 months ago

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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...

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Lessons from the Underground

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Vulnerability, What's Next

7 months ago

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(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...

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Taking My Own Advice

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Frolic's Tips

7 months ago

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It’s the end of summer, and both my kids are home from school wrapping up their summer vacation. My oldest is now in college, and this could be the last “lazy” summer I ever have with her in hanging out in the house. I’ve been kicking around ideas for new articles, and had some things I was excited to share, but then I realized “It’ll wait”. I’m...

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Sometimes one-in-a-million works out

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Happy2bInspired

8 months ago

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Over 2 years ago my mother suffered a brain aneurysm. She was found confused on the street, brought to the hospital, had emergency surgery, and then was in a coma for over a year. At her advanced age brain elasticity isn’t the same as for a young person and her prognosis wasn’t good. She didn’t recover, was moved out of the neurology ward, and 6 months later was moved to a long...

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Attach *RED ALERTS* to these specific words

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Tips, Success Guilt, Thoughts

8 months ago

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There are 2 words/phrases that almost always show up when I’m feeling bad about myself: Should and Supposed to “I should be working harder on my book” Or “I’m supposed to be making the world a better place.” Here are some more of the ones I live with: I should lose weight. I’m supposed to be doing more with my life. I should make some more money. I’m supposed to be a good son to my parents. I...

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This roller coaster ride was literally 12 years in the making

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Vulnerability

8 months ago

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Can a single day at an amusement park redefine years of anxiety and personal growth? Let me tell you how it did for me. After a lifetime of precarious financial living, personal bankruptcy, homelessness, living on the edge, dealing with eviction notices for late rent while juggling my young family, booming and busting multiple times, my financial situation permanently changed in 2012. I had...

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Latest step in my 2024 book

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Happy2bInspired, The Victory Lap, What's Next

8 months ago

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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...

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One Step Forward, One Step Back

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Humans

9 months ago

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Last week I shared about a trip I was about to embark on with my sixteen-year-old son. The idea came from a conversation we had a few months ago, about a desire to do something one-on-one with each other, and he suggesting we do something we’ve never done before. I suggested that we take a trip and let serendipity guide us. We’ll make no plans, and see where we end up and what we do...

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Letting serendipity lead the way

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Humans

9 months ago

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As you read this I’ve gone on an serendipitous adventure with my youngest. The plan is that there is NO plan. The only thing known is that we’ll be gone for 2 nights. Fully lead by serendipity. We will leave our house, and randomly choose a direction. We’ll follow instinct. After that, who knows what will happen or where we’ll end up. I’ve chosen to go with only one...

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What childhood magic can you tap into?

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Humans

9 months ago

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My Uncle Ugor just passed away. I’m actually attending his funeral as I write this. He spent a week in palliative care before he passed, and during that time my cousin’s asked for anyone that had stories to share to share them now while he could still hear them. I sent this. I was told he he got to hear it and was deeply moved. For that I am grateful. To Uncle Ugor from Christopher...

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What Paradoxes are You Living With?

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Humans, Struggle, Vulnerability

9 months ago

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A paradox is generally defined as something (person, situation, action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases. I’ve come to the conclusion lately that my life is full of paradoxes, and they leave me in a state of feeling like I’m supposed to be doing something about them. However, what if by their nature of being a paradox, there wasn’t actually anything to fix or change? Because...

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How Getting Specific Helped Me Reclaim My Passion

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Frolic's Tips, Lifehacks

10 months ago

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If I had to name a single thing that I am always in pursuit of, and that feels most missing from my life, it’s ‘Passion’. It seems like I once was filled with passion, and now I experience it much more fleetingly. Or, it at least feels that way. I’ve started to question my own memories as unreliable. Did I really feel in this passionate state all of the time when I was younger...

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Let Fear be Your Compass

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Struggle, What's Next

10 months ago

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“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...

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Quality Problems are Real Problems

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Success Guilt, The Victory Lap, Vulnerability

10 months ago

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I’m not sure where I picked up the phrase “quality problem”, but I’ve been using it recently to describe the doldrums I have found myself in. I’ve written previously about the not-so-helpful habit of comparing my “quality” problems to other people’s “real” problems. Like some prior advice to myself, I’m going to “stop...

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How to Celebrate Your Success and Vanquish Guilt

By Chris Frolic

In Success Guilt, The Victory Lap, Vulnerability, What's Next

10 months ago

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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...

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Success Guilt vs Imposter Syndrome

By Chris Frolic

In Imposter Syndrome, Struggle, Success Guilt

10 months ago

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As someone who suffered from crippling imposter syndrome for many years (and eventually overcame it and even wrote a book about it), I am very familiar with the feelings of being a fake, of thinking someone is going to find out the truth, and everything I have is at risk. There can be no expansion without contraction, and those years of contraction, no matter how painful, were an essential part...

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The Gentle Art of Sitting with Confusion

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Struggle, Vulnerability, What's Next

11 months ago

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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...

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Revisiting “next”

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Thoughts, What's Next

11 months ago

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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”...

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Stop It!

By Chris Frolic

In Frolic's Story, Frolic's Tips, What's Next

11 months ago

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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...

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