Work Life Play With Aaron Mchugh

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. 

I have this theory that all of our experiences, our misfortunes, our victories, our relationships, our shortcomings, our unexplained mysteries of our life are useful raw materials. It reminds me of the periodic table of elements that represent the building blocks of all life. When combining multiple elements, they take on new properties and create new matter. I think our life is like this. We never fully understand which experiences and which occurrences of our life will eventually be drawn upon to make something important. I believe they are all raw materials for our present and future. They are individually useful no matter how small or difficult or forgotten. They make us who we are. Embrace the mystery of the raw materials of your life. Here's a little shout out to Joel Spicola, my partner in entrepreneurial dreaming back in 2000. We dreamed up Cubicleplanet.com, "Uniting cubicle-dwelers across the planet". I included our Cubicleplanet radio commercial that we cut as part of our business plan that we Fed

write yourself a better story If you could reimagine your life again...what story would your write? Maybe you feel stuck in a life rut or simply feel you aren't living the life you were made for. It's easy to find yourself down a path you didn't want or you're eager to do something new. People like us want to live a meaningful life full of intimacy, connection, joy, creativity, beauty and adventure. We rebooted our life, sold everything and started our life (and marriage) again. We will help you explore what a well-lived life means to you and how rebooting your life can radically improve the story you're living. Also, just because Leith and I are co-hosting doesn't make this a marriage conference. It's open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you're at in life and your relationships. GRAB YOUR SPOT TODAY May 5-6th, 2017 COLORADO SPRINGS, CO Unplug Your Life For some mysterious reason, everything works better when you unplug it. Our lives, our careers, our relationships and our health can become more f

This episode is from 11,000 feet on New York Mountain outside of Eagle Colorado in a backcountry Yurt during a recent ski hut trip I went on with 7 guys. I recorded a few of our conversations that ended up being about a couple of movies like La La Land, Simon Birch and the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. We talked about the lessons those movies have taught us about our own life.

Here's the download on Allan Branch. He's a serial entrepreneur, rebuilding a 30' sailboat, homeschooling his kids, growing and selling a SaaS company, traveling with his kids for 12 weeks a year paid for by the business but still feeling like a crappy Dad most of the time. Check out our live event on May 5th & 6th Rebooting Your Life. You deserve a fresh start. www.aaronmchugh.com/reboot  

This Adventure log is from a recent trip I took with my brother to the Baja California in Mexico. I've dreamed about sea kayaking this area for over a decade. I fired up my microphone throughout the trip while adventure was actually happening. Some of the audio quality is great as I forgot my windscreen for my microphone. I hope you can listen past the blowing wind or mic bumps. Consider it a real-life rough cut authentically inviting you into the adventure with us. Here is the Sea Kayaking Baja guide service Paddling South. I'd highly recommend joining them for an adventure.

Andy Molinsky, PH.D is an expert on behavior in the business world. I interviewed him about his new book, REACH: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence. Andy Molinsky is a Professor at Brandeis University’s International Business School. Andy helps people develop the insights and courage necessary to act outside their personal and cultural comfort zones when doing important, but challenging, tasks in work and life. Rebooting Your Life-Everyone deserves a fresh start. May 5th & 6th Colorado Springs, CO full signup event details here https://www.aaronmchugh.com/reboot/  

In the intro of this episode, I play a Haka I recorded last summer at my nephew's World Series Baseball game. The young men who put on this Haka chant was from the New Zealand baseball team. If you're familiar with Rugby then you've likely heard this before. The All Blacks Rugby team puts on a great show of this warrior dance at the beginning of every match. The translation of the Haka is "I might die! I might die! I might live! I might live!" I fired up my microphone at 9,000 feet after a cold wintery night sleeping in the car. As I brewed some coffee for my French Press, I offer some thoughts on the options we're faced with as we consider living fully in the life we have. Rebooting Your Life-Everyone deserves a fresh start. May 5th & 6th Colorado Springs, CO full signup event details here https://www.aaronmchugh.com/reboot/