Craig Brain

I don’t know where to begin this conclusion.  It feels like a daunting task. I am not a naturally gifted, empathetic writer like Levi. I don’t have profound, deep thoughts like Craig.  One thing I know for sure, though, is that my husband is a different person from the nineteen-year-old I met in 1995.  Of course, he would be different in appearance. His hair was as long as mine when I met him. Later, when he proposed, he sported a bleached-out bowl cut. Then it was jet-black. Then highlighted and manicured. I think dreadlocks were the only style I never saw (thank God).   Excerpt of Jeanette Gross via Craig Brain. www.CraigBrain.com

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” Psalm 30: 11-12  I saw this most clearly after they asked us to become as children for an entire day. Grown adults, playing games, gift-giving, feasting, and laughing that culminated in a dance party, where the weeping we’d done that morning was literally turned into dancing.   I felt all of the vindictiveness fall away from me. All of my anger and unforgiveness and self-pity and insecurity and overcompensation and the need to prove my worth…removed.  I buried it. I held a funeral for every negative pattern I’ve inherited, or created. Every generational curse I’ve embodied. I stood in a graveyard and delivered their eulogies.  www.CraigBrain.com

Does your brain ever turn off? Can you check out of it? Is it telling you positive things or negative things?   It recently occurred to me that "normal" doesn't exist, because my normal isn't yours. My mind exploded when I realized that Jeanette could shut hers off when she cleans the house. She says that the activity replaces the thinking and quiets her head.   I have no idea what that's like. You mean you can vacuum to quiet the noise? No amount of activity ever does anything other than add to my internal chatter. Cannabis has helped me experience a bit more of that quiet, but my attempts to articulate it always devolve into some media outlet reporting the ways that "Pastor Craig Gross says that weed makes him closer to God," twisting the narrative.

Pain is an incredible teacher.  If only it didn’t hurt so much.  It occurred to me while reimagining all of these journal entries for this project that I haven’t written much about my mom.  The definition of “take for granted” is to fail to properly appreciate (someone or something), especially as a result of overfamiliarity. If the truth is that I’ve taken advantage of my mom, it certainly wasn’t intentional, but it’s painful, nonetheless. It’s crazy to think that something as incredible as “overfamiliarity” could result in anything other than acknowledgment, appreciation, and praise. And yet, I sometimes wonder if it is precisely because of her consistent presence in my life that I haven’t given her the credit she deserves.  www.CraigBrain.com

Our constant need to capture and share every waking hour of our lives is making us miss it entirely. Everyone wants to show everyone else what they’re doing. We want to say we’ve been there. We’ve done it. In the process, we miss being there. We miss doing it. We share the present at its own expense, scrolling through comments about a moment we posted but missed as much as everyone responding with their woes on our feed. www.CraigBrain.com

I get excited about seeing other people get excited.   The trip my uncle afforded my dad and me inspired our family to pay his kindness forward to one of our friends – David Dean. In 2016, the Cubs made it to the World Series for the first time in over one-hundred years. I don’t know a bigger fan than David, so we sent him, his dad, and his son to the game. His wife sent us a videotape of him opening the letter with the tickets, and watching his disbelief turn to joy stirred something inside of me that I’ll never be able to describe. All I knew is that all I wanted to give that to people as often as I could. More and more. I wanted to keep fulfilling people’s bucket lists.    www.CraigBrain.com

Every adult, to one degree or another, functions from negative patterns that were ingrained in them during childhood. To break free from those patterns - to establish new, healthy ways of being - we first need to identify what they are. In other words: we're diving headfirst into the deep end. If you've made it this far into the Craig Brain journey with me, then you've likely gathered how much of an investment I make in self-discovery. Personality tests. The DISC. The Enneagram. Myers-Briggs. Kolbe. Etc. I love tools. I've dedicated much of my life to learning how to wield the ones I've managed to get my hands on and to create usable tools for others to use, as well. www.CraigBrain.com

One night, my wife and I were talking about what we should do for our twentieth wedding anniversary.    We decided it'd be fun (and far funnier) to throw a massive celebration for our nineteenth, instead. Who the hell throws a random nineteenth wedding anniversary party?   We had a blast. We invited all of our closest friends to meet us for a few days in Las Vegas, Nevada, told them we'd be hosting a costume contest, and offered the winner $1,000 in one-dollar bills, which we presented to them at dinner, crumpled up inside of an old briefcase.   www.CraigBrain.com

In 2014, I wrote the following email to a woman at the Tourette Association of America. -- To Whom It May Concern, First, though I am writing this letter to you today, I would ask that you do not share the following story publicly. At least for the time being. Last week, I wrote a friend of mine – a renowned storyteller and videographer – with the idea that my wife Jeanette and I have been considering: sharing our son’s story. And, inevitably, our story. As parents, painful as it is to admit, we didn’t do this right. You’ll see what I mean in the ensuing pages. In conclusion to this story, I have attached a brief write up as penned by Nolan, detailing his experience. The combination of our narratives should give you a clear picture of what the past few years have been like. We haven’t shared this story with anyone. Given Nolan’s current acting and modeling career, we’ve been cautious. We don’t want to ruin his shot at growth within the industry he loves. How, then, can we share our experience in such a way th

Hotel properties, in my opinion, have the best spas, and especially in tourist-trap cities like Vegas. Jeanette and I enjoy the Aria and the Palazzo, and of course, the Cosmo was where my "official" Spa Day encounter with the Lord took place a few years back.   Anyway, this time around, Jeanette and I decided to try out a new place. We each scheduled appointments for a massage and a facial at the resort we were already at, but when we arrived, the desk clerk informed us that they'd accidentally overbooked their beds. They had a space for Jeanette but asked me if I would be willing to take my session in our hotel room, instead.   I obliged. The next thing I know, my wife's off in her spa-world, and I'm stripped down to nothing but a pair of boxers and a bathrobe, following an attractive young woman back across the hotel grounds to a room that isn't mine. I felt uncomfortable and all-too-aware of myself and my surroundings, massage table ready and music playing lightly into an unfamiliar atmosphere, i

I wanted to close out this Work & Workmanship section with something a bit more pragmatic– less “self-reflective journal entry” and more “practical thoughts on getting ideas launched and work accomplished.” As mentioned previously, I work with a ton of solopreneurs–people who set up and run businesses on their own. Perhaps they eventually scale to include new employees, or maybe theirs is a model that allows for an ongoing “one-man-show.” Either way, most of these creative/business types are full of so many ideas that the limitless possibilities before them usually aren’t as freeing as they are paralyzing.  Here, I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. I honestly believe that anything is possible, and I love it when I have the opportunity to instill that belief in others. On the same token, though, I have to acknowledge that the “American Dream” narrative has left a huge number of people disillusioned by the letdown that life can be when reality seems intent on pummeling dreams into submission. “Anyth

People get popular (or–if not popular–discover some measure of success) doing what they love to do. But growth, success and/or popularity involve maintenance, and it doesn’t take long before you’re stuck in the weeds, where working on “maintaining” your passion replaces all that you were passionate about in the first place. I’ve had to do my fair share of learning about all of this, as well. I’ve come to discover that I enjoy strategizing with and talking to people, not sitting in my tiny bathroom-office and building funnels for them. I like helping people figure out how to thrive in what they actually love. That’s what I’m passionate about. That’s what I love. And no, that’ll likely never wholly extinguish days (or seasons) that we hate, but the point is that mutually-beneficial, complementary and/or appropriately delegated roles spur us along toward a life that isn’t bogged down by a dead-end cloud of dismay at what it has become. The point is that we are better together. www.CraigBrain.com

How often do we dream without ever even trying to chase after our desires, quenched by insecurities that keep us from giving ourselves permission to start? I did my best to silence every no with a yes.  To look past the fears that arose, and the what ifs?  To replace can't with can try.  www.CraigBrain.com

I’ve always hated talent shows, and I’ve always thought that we should probably be calling them something more appropriate, like: Not-So-Talented-Shows. Like, “Hey, would you like to come watch me be not-so-talented on stage tonight?” That was before my newfound interest in dance. I’m now two weeks past the letter I wrote to my daughter before her solo competition performance when she stole the show with her choreograph to Bon Iver’s Creeks, and at this point, I’m learning to observe “the talent show” through a different lens. www.CraigBrain.com

Our education system is broken, and with over one trillion dollars in U.S. College debt, I think it’s a waste of time and money.  Of course, God decided it’d be fun to give me a daughter who is a Number One on the Enneagram – the Perfectionist – who wants to go to college because it’s the right thing to do.  She’s a black-and-white-thinking rule-follower, and I’m a black-and-white-blending rule-breaker.  We’ll see. I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me. www.craigbrain.com

My question for you – grown-ass-adult that you are – is: whether or not you’ve got a job that affords you the privilege of choosing your employer… are you capable of being a reliable employee? Can you hit a deadline (without having to be chased down)? Can you be counted upon to reach a goal?  Are you disciplined enough to create your own?  Do you need some sort of junior-level assistant who might be able to take on the grunt work that’s bogging you down so that you can scale your business? Do you need to give your wife your calendar?  Do you need to bust out a dictionary and check out what a calendar is? It is possible to be a responsible adult. To set an alarm and get out of bed before you’ve hit snooze for a full hour.  I joke about The Babysitter Club for “contractors, clients, and rock stars” because they’re/we’re often the ones who know the least about creating healthy rhythms in and from which to function. Frankly, no matter how put together or enviable those folks might look on Inst

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