Work Life Play With Aaron Mchugh

My interview with Greg McKeown, author of the New York Times Bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, produced poignant questions that warrant an accompanying question guide. I believe lasting transformation can occur when we internalize these issues and principles. Greg delivered so much succinct and dense insights during our interview that I chose to break the conversation into two parts. I hope that you will earnestly consider the implications of these questions in your work, life and, relationships. 
 What is Essentialism?

“Essentialism is not one more thing-It’s about a whole new way of doing everything. Doing less, but better, in every area of our lives.” Our Challenge “We forget that we don’t have to do 
what we’ve done in the past.” The benefits of Essentialism
 “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”  Download the Transformation Q&A guide from my interview here.

Ashton Gustafson believes that there is more to life than prestige, accomplishment, trophies and ladder climbing. He believes that if we listen, taste, and smell the melody, the texture, and observe the nuances-we will find what we are all looking for. Ashton leads a rich podcast called Let The Music Play and has killer guests like Rob Bell and Richard Rohr to top chefs. Ashton loves life and is incredibly curious. 

I have an experiment for you. I know the holidays are stressful, over-scheduled, over-spending, over-eating and lots of time with friends and family. Here’s my idea-What if we left no good thing unsaid? We spend a lot of time with family during the holidays, and that can be very stressful. I heard once, “The reason they know how to push your buttons is that they installed them.” So if our buttons can be pushed quickly and we can push buttons with other people just as fast, what if we made a different choice this year? What if we lead with love and grace instead? One Christmas I realized I’d not entirely told my friends and family how much I loved them, individually, why I loved them. I thought maybe Norman Maclean was right, “It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.” Why is it so difficult to speak a good word over the people we love most? At their funeral, we would gush “He was my favorite uncle, I loved how he always asked me about my life.” My challenge to us all is this holiday seas

Guy Kawasaki was chief evangelist of Apple during the early 1980's Macintosh era. In this punchy, simple and short conversation Guy answers the following questions: What are you best at? What are you most proud of? What piece of advice do you give that people fail to follow? How are you GREAT at writing books, speaking, starting companies, and evangelising change? What key lesson did Steve Jobs teach you? The full transcript from our conversation is available on the show notes here. 

My guest today, Brian David Crane decodes for us the challenges of living and working anywhere in the world like loneliness, developing community and being productive when on Tuesday at 2 pm there is always another waterfall to explore.  The best locations to be a Digital Nomad according to BDC: Bali Poland Colombia Mexico Canary Islands Cape Town Explore your muse on Nomadlist.com for the best places on the globe to Work, Life and Play.  Since 2014, he's lived on four continents, and traveled to over 40 countries. He's currently based in Asia on the island of Bali. You can find Brian's work here. 

I find asking for help to be difficult. The truth is I don't like to ask for help. I'd prefer to do things on my own, to grit it out, use endurance and perseverance to push through. In this episode, I share a compelling story of how I learned why we should ask for help. I found myself in a maze that I was unable to escape and asking for HELP turned out to be the secret for escape. I could use your help in a couple of specific ways. My website and email list for Work Life Play have both been hacked over this past year. You probably didn't even know that case in point. As an exercise in humility and as a practitioner of this idea, I would like to ask for your help in helping me regain some of what was lost. 1) Would you consider sharing this podcast with 5 of your friends? aaronmchugh.com/PodcastSubscribe 2) Would you consider signing up on my website to hear from me over email? aaronmchugh.com/lemonade 3) Would you consider visiting my Work Life Play store as part of your Christmas gift shopping? aaronmchugh.c

My guest today is Joanna Penn, New York Times bestselling thriller writer. She writes inspirational non-fiction for aspiring authors. We talk about the business of being a writer, her habits, and routines, how she shapes her environment to fuel her creative work and shortcutting the process to get into the flow. I learned a lot from Joanna and appreciated her insights derived from her experience of leaving her day job to build a successful creative empire. She has excellent advice for self-publishing and marketing authors and compelling ideas, mindset shifts to make the work happen. You can find her work at TheCreativePenn.com

Last month, I quit my job. I decided I needed to clear my head before starting a new gig. I just returned from a 3,000-mile road trip out west in our 1974 VW Bus. I put together a Best Of list from my experience. My Instagram @aarondmchugh feed has all of the photos I posted from five National Parks, the best hikes, the kindest human I met, quirky roadside Route 66 Wigwam Motel, impromptu unplugged acoustic guitar set in Sante Fe, to our favorite camp spots and sunrise. Full post details here: aaronmchugh.com/3000miles

In this episode, I recorded a dispatch update from my VW bus road trip from Colorado to California. I'm chasing wild as I visit National Parks and enjoy the drone of the highway. Thus far, I've visited Capitol Reef NP, Bryce Canyon NP and Zion NP. I laid down a few thoughts on the benefits of pausing to reflect during a change in season. Check out my road trip photos on Instagram @aarondmchugh

I met John Montgomery at an Explorer's dinner in Manhattan hosted by Stefan Loble (Bluff Works founder). Everyone invited had some new bent of curiosity that drove their exploration. John's is world travel. It all started when his dad used to load them in the family truckster as kids and go searching for anything new. John's spirit of adventure embodies the Work Life Play mantra. Hear John's heckle "Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor you guys might ride motorcycles across the world, but have you ever taken a trip with all four of your kids?"  "Should we buy a new car or take a trip?" The Montgomery tribe ops for experiences over more stuff.  Mosaico Travel Services delivers the finest in custom travel to Central America, South America, and Antarctica. These regions are our passion—our exclusive focus. We have a deep understanding of our destinations—knowledge built on the first-hand experience over decades of travel. Because we know these locations by heart, no other team is better prepared to plan and deliver

Morgan Snyder, host of Become Good Soil podcast, and my close friend interviews me on Work Life Play in celebration of this podcast reaching 100,000 downloads.  We titled it "Then and Now" as we retrace through our friendship over the last thirteen years. We talk through the original seeds of Work Life Play starting back when I'd run at lunch and shower with baby wipes before putting my suit back on.  

How we handle disappointment reveals what we really believe about life. Everyone experiences some level of disappointment in life, but not everyone moves forward from the imprint of disappointment. Moving forward in a positive way is challenging. In this episode, I tell a story about a disappointment I experienced in 2014. I trained to race an IRONMAN triathlon in Lake Tahoe, CA. Unfortunately, it was canceled two minutes prior to the event start due to a raging forest fire nearby. Disappointments can cause us to make conclusions and agreements that last a lifetime. Maybe you can relate to these "Next time I'm not going to get my hopes up". "Why dream". "I'm not going to try again". "Why try so hard".  The problem is that we get stuck. We stay in that same emotionally frozen state and are unable to fully move forward with our life, our relationships, our dreams. The way to go forward is to allow disappointment and loss to have a place for a time. It is good to be sad and experience the grief associated wit

This episode is powered by the new Joy Bus T-Shirt in the Work Life Play store.  Last year, our city was unfortunately ranked among the highest for teen suicide. We were directly impacted. We knew our pending move-in day was going to be impacted by the grief and loss. We decided to shift the story-disrupt the inertia by infusing our day with joy and fun.  We gave away free ice cream to one hundred of our friends, strangers, new neighbors, kids from school and construction workers. We set up two VW buses, one with adult beverages and one Scoop Bus. Instead of taxing our closest friends with the crummy obligation of helping us move our stuff, we decided to reframe the story instead. Instead of “Hey can you help us move?” we reframed the offer to “You should stop by for some FREE ICE CREAM”. Free ice cream from the Scoop Bus I’ve helped a lot of friends move and I’ve hired moving companies. It is never really fun to move. As part of our Reboot, we decided to start our new move in a story like a carnival. “What i

I wanted to give you a Reboot recap from our live event a week ago. I think the best way to start is to share a few quotes from Rebooters, “The world needs to hear this.” “Excursions were amazing & life-giving!” “This changed my life. I’m leaving with a whole new perspective on life and how I need to change it.” "IT was awesome to step away from the insanity of our lives for a bit and reflect upon the life we want to craft." It is a big deal for people to brave change, even the idea of change scares a lot of people. The beauty of the Reboot experience is that you get to define your version of a well-lived life. Here are some of the big questions we tackled -What makes you come alive? -When you were eight years old, what did you do for fun? -What is the story you tell yourself every day? -What do you value most in life? Money? Freedom? Relationships? -Where in your life do you feel stuck in a rut? -How sustainable is your current life right now? -Which relationships in your life are life-giving? -Which rel

Joe was a recovering alcoholic who upgraded his addiction from booze to running. He told me if I tucked in close to his elbow and ran hard, he promised it would be tough, but he wouldn’t drop me. He’d won duathlon world championships, and I was trying to complete a Xterra off-road triathlon. Predictably every day there was a workout-no two-days the same. There was banter before the run and color commentary and coaching afterward. Drafting behind his 150lb frame eased my pain while my legs and my mind trained to sustain the pace on my own. I became known as the apprentice, “Schoolboy.” On his elbow, I became capable of running faster than I could accomplish on my own. The principles of aerodynamics made it possible, but his commitment to pull me along changed my life. Where are you drafting, gaining an advantage provided by someone else? Whose elbow could you tuck into for a time? Where could you become the apprentice for a season? This episode is powered by my book Fire Your Boss: A Manifesto to Rethink How Y

I yelled his name printed on his race bib, “Tim, YOU’VE GOT THIS.” I didn’t know him, but he picked his head up, stared 1,000 yards ahead and got going again. I was working an aid station at the Hawaii IRONMAN World Championship triathlon. These athletes were thirteen miles into the final leg of the 140.6-mile race. He had hours to go before he’d cross the finish line, but his eyes were fixed beyond the present moment, the pain and the fatigue. He had a vision for what was waiting at the end. The party, his family, settling the profound life questions. I’ve found incredible strength when I can look beyond what is immediately in front of me to the more profound truth, the more significant goal. I believe we can transcend predicaments, setbacks, upsets, disappointments, and detours when we can gain a grip on the truths that keep us going. Sometimes we just need someone, anyone, to yell our name and call us back into the game. This episode is powered by my free course 7 Practical Steps to Restoring Balance. Sign

In this episode, I caught up with Jack O'Neill and Cary Pierce from Jackopierce in Napa Valley from the Motor Lodge Inn in Calistoga, CA just before their live destination show. We talk about their music, their thirty-year journey, and the grit it required to get here. Twenty-five years, we talked, they sang, played and Jack blew his harps. They tell stories of their blue VW bus adventures and driving their 27' foot RV across the US one university town to the next. In 1988, Jack O'Neill and Cary Pierce, the "Jack O" and "Pierce" who make up the seminal acoustic duo, Jackopierce, were playing cover songs in a dingy club with a crummy PA in their hometown of Dallas, Texas. In a moment of young-musician desperation, they whipped up a tune on the spot called "Three of Us In A Boat" to elongate their set. That became a signature track for a decade-long career wherein the two-piece sold 500,000 records over six albums (two for major label A&M) and toured three continents, nine countries, and 44 states. After a

My check engine light is on in my 2004 Honda Pilot. I’ve had it checked, but they said it was okay but for how long? How long can I drive with red lights flashing warning signs? A couple of years ago, my life’s dashboard was flashing red also. I kept pushing hard and ignored the symptoms assuming they too were “fine.” Dashboard lights help inform us of hazards, problems, early indications of pending issues. For most of us, we assume something must be wrong with the indicator light. In reality, the blinking lights deliver essential messages that warrant our acknowledgment. -Slow down -Pay attention -Stop -Check performance -Take it easy -Pullover -Repair -Perform maintenance. I made this dashboard for my life to gauge in simple terms how things are going. Red-bad, Yellow-needs attention, and Green-good. Give it a try and see if any of your dashboard lights are flashing or if all systems are healthy and operational. Get Your Free 7 Day Crash Course to Restoring Balance. Rediscover your path to more joy. www.aar

You used to know how to play, but people like us can get pretty serious about life and forget how to really play. Remember when you'd jump on your pogo stick in the driveway until your dad came home from work? Back when I was jumping mud puddles on my garage sale BMX bike, I wasn't worried about my retirement account performance. There was a glistening in my eyes and radiance to my soul that responsibility and duty hadn't yet impacted. It was true for you too. Remember when you used to play flag football in the cold and mud? Remember when you wrote short stories about your dog Aspen and her adventures with ladybug girl? It was fun. It was playful and you didn't have to do it. You chose to do it for pleasure. Check out free my Restoring Balance seven-day crash course. 

Finding your sweet spot in Work Life Play isn't simple. Each of us has our own set of values, priorities, circumstances, and objectives. Our sweet spot, the narrow window or range where goodness, sustainability, and reward all converge. Finding your sweet spot will require you to make calculated trade-offs and curated choices. Reboot Your Life experiential workshop October 13-15 has four spots left. For signup details.