Work Life Play With Aaron Mchugh

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. 

Sir Edmond Hillary claimed he climbed Mt. Everest, "Because it's there." Reframed, I think he meant "Because I can." Not everyone possesses the athleticism and grit to achieve the summit of Mt. Everest. We conceded the fact that we are not trained Himalayan mountain climber, therefore, lacking the necessary capability and capacity. The problem is most of life doesn't present itself in a simple -easy yes or no format. Instead, we face viable offers, requests, and demands that fall within our areas of capability. Available capabilities without an accurate resource assessment lead to being over-committed, over-extended, producing subpar results. The frontier-the unfamiliar challenge to explore is to commit our abilities, only when we genuinely possess capacity resources to fund the new endeavor. Start making your decisions based on your available resources, Only commit to what you earnestly know you can support from your available capacity. Get real. Do Less. Do less better. Check out our Reboot Your Life experi

Today my guest is Bryan Buckley host of The Energy Edge Podcast. We met last year as part of an entrepreneur conference he hosted and subsequently Bryan had me as a guest on his podcast. Listen to the episode here. If you resonate with our conversation about busy to burn out and the exhaustion cycle, you might enjoy my free 7 Practical Steps to Restoring Balance. Get access here. Here is Bryan’s story from his website. WHEN YOU LIVE FAST, YOU CRASH HARD. In 2011, my body started kicking back. Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong which was good and bad news. But I knew. And, I chose to ignore it since there was too much to do and not enough time to do it. To be honest, I didn’t want to stop and rest. My identity was in my drive and producing results. What would happen if I fell behind? What if I was no longer needed? It happened – the crash. It was like a high-performance car driver always doing a 100 taking a sharp curve at 70 marked for 30 and hitting the wall. This time it hit back, and I didn’t get up quic

I told a friend how I unplugged from producing my podcast earlier this summer. He’s in the publishing world, and he understands how difficult it is to build an audience and keep people’s attention. The advertised best practice is to continue doing what is working. I’ve spent the last six years turning out new podcast episodes every month, and I’d grown it to 8,000–10,000+ downloads per month. He used a term that summarizes why I needed a break from podcasting, “Fallow ground” “…some farmers and gardeners let their land go fallow – or unplanted – so that the soil’s natural nutrient balance can be restored…it became more and more unpopular to leave land fallow and unproductive in Western societies. The production won out over soil health. ” Timothy Baron Hunker.com To leave the land unproductive yes that’s why I took a break. I know that the podcasting world might say it’s crazy to walk away and intentionally leave my land fallow. Is it possible that the health of my soil is more important than production? My f

From reluctant public figure starting as a teenager, Tommy Caldwell is driven...no really driven to push beyond...far beyond where all other's would have quit. "If you get a chance to explore what nobody has....you have to do that" From Tommy's website... The Push: A Climber's Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits. A dramatic, inspiring memoir by legendary rock climber Tommy Caldwell This engrossing memoir chronicles the journey of a boy with a fanatical mountain-guide father who was determined to instill toughness in his son to a teen whose obsessive nature drove him to the top of his sport. But his evolution as a climber was not without challenges; in his early twenties, he was held hostage by militants in a harrowing ordeal in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Soon after, he lost his left index finger in an accident. Later his wife, and main climbing partner, left him. Caldwell emerged from these hardships with a renewed sense of purpose and determination. He set his sights on free climbing El Cap

I love GoPro’s tag line, Be a Hero. Be the Hero of the life we already have. Being the hero in my life isn’t about fame, fortune, spotlights and ego. I think it’s deeper than that. I think being the hero of our lives requires us to show up and own the golden moments, our glory, our mojo, our love, our sharp whit, our manna “Yeah, can you believe I did that? Killer!” The stuff of our life that would be perfect for GoPro’s photo of the day highlight real. And…every true hero is flawed. Being a real hero also requires owning the deleted scenes. The scenes of my life that I’d rather omit, “yeah…. can you believe I did that”. The cutting room floor footage, our mistakes, shortcomings, character defects, and bloopers. Be the hero. Own it all. Be gracious and kind to yourself

I am listening to Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown on repeat. I keep revisiting a phrase he uses, Protect the Asset. His idea is that you and I are the asset of every story, every beginning, every good endeavor that we imagine and therefore we need to protect us. Protect the asset.

Rolf Potts is a travel writer, essayist, adventurer and teacher. I discovered Rolf Potts from listening to Tim Ferris. Rolf's book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to The Art of Long-Term World Travel is attributed by Ferris as the basis for his stick-it-to-the man 4-Hour Workweek. I sat down with Rolf Potts over Skype from our Joy Bus to learn from him about learning to live curiously. Potts calls rural Salina, KS home after having his pick of equitably frugal options abroad. His Mid-West roots pulled him back to be near family and friends. Key insights from Rolf Reframing your thinking enables you to power jettisons from real life to discover long-term world travel. If you wait until society tells you to go, you never will. We forget how easy it is to give to ourselves. Insulating yourself from discomfort limits our travel adventures. How to build a Time-Wealth philosophy to create enough time to experience the travels you dream about. GO. GO. GO. Stop waiting. About Rolf Potts Rolf Potts has reported fr

The importance of creating a life list and define what you're aiming at. In this episode, I share my list with you as examples of the kinds of stuff you might want to consider yourself. I updated my Life List in 2016. It sits above my desk on my wall, notated with progress, adjustments and new additions. The point is to make it apart of your everyday life. It provides me a filter for my decisions and priority setting.  This Life List is a reflection of the Work Life Play that is important to me today, Saturday, January 2nd, 2016. It is subject to change and revision. I am aiming my intentions towards these goals, events, experiences and quests. I want to live a life of Adventure, connection, passion and curiosity. I will invest in meaningful relationships, experience all that this life has to offer and challenge myself in my Work and in physical accomplishments.    

Last fall, I gave a keynote address at USA Cycling's annual coach's summit event on the topic of my book, Fire Your Boss. Accomplishing Big Things: Acting Like a Pro 8 Minutes At a Time Big goals are sexy. We love the idea of tackling big life-changing achievements. A funny thing though, not everyone makes it to the finish line. But what happens when we start breaking down those big goals and finding a space for them in the small margins? In this keynote, I’ll teach your team how Acting Like a Pro 8 minutes At a Time will transform how they maximize their small margins to help: *Close the gap between where you are and where you want to be *Identify the voice of the Amateur and the Pro in your life *Understand the next right thing is within your control *Regain power over the story you want to live “Aaron McHugh was an outstanding keynote at USA Cycling’s 2016 Coaching Summit. In the coaching world it is imperative to be and act like a pro. Aaron’s anecdotal stories and life experiences were easy for coaches

I met Rachael O'Meara on a boat ride on the Columbia River in Portland, OR. We were both attending Chris Guillebeau's WDS event. We share a similar story of pushing the pause button on our lives to find a new and improved path. You're going to love her story. Rachael O’Meara was a customer support manager at Google when she realized she was burned out and needed to reassess her path. The best way to do this was to take a “pause”—a time-out to create space for her inner voice to be heard and to align her actions to lead a more fulfilled life. Pause: Harnessing the Life- Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break (on-sale April 4, 2017) is her new book, serving as a GPS for others looking to slow down before speeding up again. So what is a “pause”? Rachael defines a pause as any intentional shift in behavior that allows you the space to experience a mental shift in attitude, thoughts, or emotions that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred. Pausing can be as simple as a five- minute walk outside, or a day spent unplug

David Wilcox is an American folk musician and award-winning guitarist. He picked up a guitar after hearing a fellow college student playing her guitar in the stairwell. He quickly discovered the power and authority that music held in telling stories of the heart.  I've listened to David's music since the early 1990's starting with his album How Did You Find Me Here. In this intimate interview, David plays his guitar, riffs on an idea that we talk about-The Illusion of Ease and offers some meaningful insights on the language of the heart.  This interview is one of the proudest moments I've experienced in the one hundred plus episodes here on Work Life Play.  Please enjoy and savor this hour with David Wilcox.