My guest today is Canadian Andrew Jensen, PGA pro tour golfer and avid spokesman for the pitfalls and hope for those of us who struggle with depression and anxiety. "I turned pro and embarked on just this lonely, isolated life and isolation is not good for the depressed brain." Rich, earnest and real. I know you'll enjoy his story today. 

In 2018, I interviewed Bryan Falchuk, author of Do a Day: How to Live a Better Life Everyday. What struck me about Bryan was how his lowest-life moment, became his redefining inspiration. Here’s what he had to say, “I walked into our room and my wife’s in bed, my son’s standing there and he’s looking at his mother who’s dying in front of his eyes and he turns and looks at me and it all smacked me in the face. It’s like, ’what are you doing? You’re failing her. You’re failing him.
And I’m feeling ‘why do I have to have such a miserable life,’ everything’s falling apart and somehow I’m still standing and I’m not homeless and I’m not, missing a limb or, some other much more extreme thing. So maybe it’s not as bad as I always am so insistent that it is and all that just hit me in that moment.”

What is the Cult of Average? Today, my friend and guest Tom Davis liberates our thinking by guiding us to a values-based operating system for our lives.

A ‘pay the rent’ lifestyle is one that is based on living life for other people. It's about paying the rent, paying my bills, going to my job, doing what everybody else tells me. What happens is, slowly but surely, I start to erode away. I start to disappear because the things that matter to me, my core values, the ‘why I do what I do,’ there is no time for them anymore. There's no me because I'm just trying to survive.

That's the problem with survival mode; all you're doing is getting through the day. You go home and you collapse and say, "I was so busy working, but what did I actually do that mattered?"

Usually, I wouldn't write an introduction to a podcast episode that I am the "guest" or the speaker. But hey, this is the best talk I've ever given at my new book launch party on February 1st, Fire Your Boss: Discover Work Your Love Without Quitting Your Job, What makes that accurate? Ninety of some of my favorite humans on the planet were in the room transferred to me through osmosis, and I gained strength as the evening unfolded. Which meant I spoke with boldness and brightness that I long to embody daily. The second and equally equitable, I love people. Deeply. I love the hearts, minds, and lives of people in the daily context of the world of work. My big heart and my decades of living on the front-lines of enterprise corroborate my assignment as a watchman to our hearts arousing at work.

Alastair Humphreys is unusual. He cycled around the world (46,000 miles) and rowed across the Atlantic Ocean unsupported. Those feats are unusual, but more accessible for the commoner are his microadventures, short, local, burts of curious wanderings out your front door. I'd pair beautiful and unusual together to give a crisper coupling of his leadership invitation to each of us "Live Adventurously". Motivational speaker, Author, and Good Human, Alastair is the real deal.

Peb Jackson is uncommonly attracted to risk and survival. Today at age 75 it remains true-it's in his bones. We talk about learning to empty yourself, living an adventurous life of the heart and in wild places where blank spots on the map still exist. 

Leith McHugh, my lovely wife of 26 years, is in the house today on the Work Life Play podcast. She's up to some amazing things in the world. We talk about "How McHugh's Roll" and the importance of inviting our children into our family ethos. She shares about her LEITH brand, and the coaching work she brings to women focused on identity and story.

My guest today on Work Life Play is Ultrarunner, Author, mom, and Outside contributing editor Katie Arnold. Katie's book, Running Home serves as the backdrop for our conversation, "A memoir about grief, motherhood, adventure, and finding your stride".

Los Angeles, CA isn’t immediately the community that comes to mind when I envision a backyard fine dining experience amongst new friends. On my recent Chasing Adventure trip to California, I purposed to orbit my decisions around people, adventure and a loose schedule. My son and I found ourselves in a story we didn’t anticipate. We didn’t realize that we were being invited into real connections with real people, not just a meal.

Picking up surfing isn't easy. Especially when you live a thousand miles away from the ocean. It's humbling being the novice. It's humbling not knowing what to do or how to do it. I think it is even more difficult as an adult man. Most men I know don't try things that they are not good at. In this episode, I talk about my experiences of learning to surf and stumbling forward.

During this episode, I talk about going out with my friend Curious Gabe as we parked near the beach for thirty-minutes and chased adventure. It was simple. It was quick and it was just what we needed. There was no planning needed. There was no big story that surfaced. This type of excursion is available to each of us. What are we waiting for?

I've spent too much of my life holding back. I want to extend for the full length of fun, let's not hold back but go for it.

Adventure Log #2 from my Chasing Adventure trip to SoCal. In this episode, I talk about the easy temptation to reach for my wallet and solve problems of discomfort. Instead, I choose to sit in the discomfort and see what unfolded as I chased adventure, work and relationships.

I don't believe that Work-Life balance is obtainable. The idea of a scale equally balanced with Work on one side and Life on the other is only temporarily obtainable. The only sustainable approach I have found to Work Life Play is in a constant adjustment of rhythm and flow.

You know Conrad Anker, you just might not realize how or why you know him. Let me be your tour guide circa de Conrad Anker's career mile markers. You will quickly recollect how you know him already. His personal mantra is Be Good, Be Kind, Be Happy. In this podcast interview, you'll hear how this approach to Work Life Play fits one of the top Alpinists in the world today.

Don't Do It For Fame | Don't Neglect Your Relationships

03 // Don't do it to pursue fame.

I find this one to be difficult. The truth is I do want to be noticed. Behind that shallow layer of hoping I’m seen, the deeper truth is I want my life to matter. When I am writing, the pursuit of fame can surface with its natural gravitational pull.

Here is how it can sound,

“Maybe so-and-so will read this and then he will share it and then his six million followers will read it”.

It is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I believe you’ve heard this whisper also. When I was writing with my focus on being noticed, it was crap. No wonder no one read any of it. When I made the shift to simply be authentic, a few people began to notice. There is great irony in this principle. The more we are authentic and relevant, the more the possibility of being noticed increases.

When the pursuit of fame is our motive, the less authentic and relatable we become. Whatever you are pursuing, do a motive check and remind yourself that what the world really needs is you to be authentically you. That is our best bet for being noticed.

04 // Don't neglect your relationships.

A friend told me about a saying from his mentor, “The grass is greener wherever you water it.” I’ve been married for over twenty years and I have not always regularly irrigated our relationship. When I was age 25, I thought my wife could be more like xeriscaping: drought-tolerant. Turns out she never signed up for an inch of rain every three months. I’ve learned the hard way that growth comes where you regularly water.

Trust me, your spouse, your friends, your family, your significant other, your sibling, your neighbor, your employees, your child... would gladly receive some relational watering from you.

Go find that watering can.

I’ve found a lot of people talk a good game about consistency, but in reality, they have a lot of false starts. Many people seem to struggle with consistently doing the work that needs to be done, whether it is in our jobs, on side projects, or in our relationships.

02 // Work on what you love.

Life is short. You are really good at something. Find that something and do that. Drudgery is for prisoners doing time for crimes committed. You haven’t done anything wrong, right? Stop doing what you can barely stand doing and start pursuing what you love. Too many people never do what they love. Even worse, they don’t ever explore the frontier to find what it is they love.

Questions to ask yourself?

1. When you used to be adventures, what did you do?
   What did you love before you got married, had a family and got a big job?
2. What do you believe stands in your way today to reclaiming your adventurous spirit again?
3. How can you begin to choose differently in small increments to provide room for adventure again?

• Why I believe in the Trifecta of combining all three Work Life Play
• How "succeeding" in any one category of the trifecta is not sufficient
• Why work-life balance by itself lacks long term sustainability
• How running with a rock on the bottom of the ocean taught me to play
• Why Fantasy Football and watching TV on the weekends is not the same as living adventurously

Podcast Highlights with Yogi Roth:

• Learn about Yogi’s inspiration from Emilio Esteves and Martin Sheen’s trek in 2010 movie The Way.
• How this act of bravery has reshaped his perspective on the definition of a tough guy
• Everybody has a story that is worth listening to, Yogi coaches us on how to man-up and ask
• In Life everyone is dealt a hand of cards, listen how Unapologetic Curiosity is our power play card.

Microadventures: a refresh button for busy lives.

WHAT IS A MICROADVENTURE? (From Alastair Humphreys & www.microadventures.org)
Adventure is the spirit of trying something new, trying something difficult. It is about enthusiasm, ambition, open-mindedness and curiosity.

We all have to pragmatically juggle the commitments and constraints of our “real lives”. But we can still have a microadventure.

Getting out into the wild, if only for one night, is enjoyable, invigorating and important. Today's podcasts explores the small, easily accessible, bursts of adventure that can happen right out our front door regardless of our fitness, discretionary income or large amounts of time away from home. 

Podcast Highlights:

• Bike tires rely on spokes to keep them balanced and "true".
• An imbalanced career is like a bike tire that isn't "true"; it's imbalanced, unsafe, and keeps you from finishing well.
• Our careers change, which is why we need to evaluate our careers with each new season.
• It's better to fix an imbalanced career now and be delayed than to go a long time on an imbalanced career trajectory.
• There are five spokes that balance your career:
  • The Work you do
  • The Company you work
  • The Compensation you earn
  • The Team you work with
  • The Relationship you have with your boss
• Take the time to grade each "spoke" of your career with a green light, yellow light, or red light.
• Get feedback from those closest to you to find where the balance is present or missing in your career.

Highlights from 99 Ways to Live Your Best Life

• Set a specific directional bearing on the course you want to take in Work Life Play
• Topics have a wide range: managing money, marriage, pursuing fame, becoming a better boss, personal fitness.
• Hear two of the backstories behind 99 Ways:
  • 10// Don't dip your quill in company ink
  • 04// Don't neglect your relationships
• Understand how to master the art of living a sustainable work-life-play balance

Starting in April, my life was upside down and sideways.

This is my story of my how I unplugged in order to recharge, hit the reset button, and started over.

Podcast Highlights:

• Understand the importance of understanding whose life are you actually living
• How to get real honest about the current trajectory of your Work Life Play
• How to count the costs of success
• Why unplugging for months maybe the only way you can really get clarity
• How selling everything we owned liberated us to start dreaming again

Learn about the Joy-Use Ratio. Small bursts of Joy can happen regularly if you come prepare and anticipate them 

• How to stop listening to the voices of disqualification.
• Understand why it is important to move forward with your ideas without consideration for the outcome.
• Learn how being concerned about what other people might think, actually contributes to us doing a poor job.
• Offering our best is the best rebuttal to every excuse we can come up with

Highlights from Podcast #32: Acting Like a Pro Eight Minutes at a Time 

• The difference between acting like a pro and becoming a pro is not neglecting narrow windows of opportunity.
• Take the opportunity that's right in front of you.
• Small margin plus consistency over time equals accumulative benefit.
• The gap between the life, marriage, income, adventure, fitness level, or anything else we wish to have can be closed over time with even small, intentional investments.
• Show up, invest your time, be consistent, and enjoy the benefits of your investment.

Quick Podcast Highlights from Miles:

• Understand the necessity of developing your EQ (emotional intelligence) to live, love, parent, and lead well.
• Hear how the doorway of pain has become one of Miles’s biggest gifts in life.
• How to develop harmony in the narrative of Who You Are and What You Do For a Living.
• Why creating new healing experiences can counteract life’s negative experiences.
• How the work of Donald Miller and Brene’ Brown will give you insights into how Onsite can help you live out the best version of your story.
• Why a subtle two-degree shift in our actions and beliefs can improve the trajectory of our life.
• What if we lead from the places that we formerly hid our shortcomings and flaws?

• Understand how adventure gives us greater confidence to tackle life’s challenges

• Learn why special, difficult-to-reach places in wilderness help us gain perspective on our life back at home

• Appreciate how adventure helps us lose control and “be out on a limb”

• Accept that adventure is a choice and is available outside our front door everyday

• Receive practical ideas on how to take your kids on your own adventures

Podcast Highlights:

• Carl's very personal story of loosing his home and facing financial ruin
• Learn how small financial misalignments with couples can become roots for divorce later
• Hear how Carl and I met over a financial transaction on the border of Colorado and Utah
• Learn how Carl started taking complex money ideas and translating those concepts using a sharpie marker on a napkin
• Carl tells the story about how the New York Times called him out of the blue to write his column
• Carl and I share stories about being raised by single-mothers and how that shaped our financial beliefs

Podcast Highlights:

• Hear how Tripp juggles his roles as a Director, Writer, Actor and On Stage Host
• The backstory on how Tripp and Tyler came up with the idea for their YouTube sketch
• Where Tripp and Tyler met and how they decided to start working together
• Working to find the right sponsorship partners is a key to Tripp's YouTube success
• Risk taking is part of Tripp's DNA
• Tripp offers advice on partnerships and navigating them well
• His story about boldly borrowing money from friends and family in college
• Find out why the Lines Between Play and Work are very blurry for Tripp
• Hear about his mantra "If I haven't failed at enough risks, but if I am not succeeding"

 American's do not take two-week vacations. Organizational culture, the volume of work and email compound by our addiction to busyness keeps us tied to one week vacations. In this podcast, I make the case for why we need to take two week vacations and the restorative benefits for our relationships, our work and ultimately ourselves.

Podcast Highlights:

• The History of IRONMAN
• Why the IRONMAN finish line should be on your Life List
• How Mike Reilly got his start calling IRONMAN athletes across the finish line
• How IRONMAN is a Human experience, not just a triathlon

In today's podcast interview with Andrew you will hear about the glory stories of being an adventure journalist.  Like any great story, there is another version that adventure magazines don't publish:

• How arduous the writing process can be
• How challenging it can be to balance doing what you love and making a living at the same time
• When you're twenty it's much easier to jump a plane to India, but when you have a family you choose differently

Podcast Highlights

• Learn how Martin's father grew him up as a footwear designer
• Hear how Martin actually invented the Locus Seat even before he started KEEN Footwear
• Understand how creativity, health, balance and productivity are derived from how we feel while working

• Find out how a box of donuts changed his life forever
• What were the most outlandish thing people agreed to?
• If you open yourself up to the world, the world will open itself up to you
• How to get out of your own way?

Share your story with Jia about your quest for rejection resilience. 

Email Jia Jiang

Gary is an entrepreneur, a doodler and an improvisation artist. He loves making incomplete stories.  He’s comfortable with the tension of the unknown and the awkwardness of the unrehearsed. He teaches improvisation stage techniques to improve communication between business people.

Podcast Highlights

Author Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival was the first scientific book on survival. In this interview we talk about the art and science of survival and the process of thriving post traumatic events. 

Podcast Highlights:

• What Dean’s wife said when he announced his desire to resign from his job?
• What race is he most proud of completing?
• How the classroom of running has translated to lessons for life and business?
• How you can join Dean for a run at a North Face Endurance Challenge?
• What races did he not finish the first two times?
• Why he wanted you to come join him during his 50 Marathons, 50 States in 50 Days?

Podcast highlights:

• What does it mean to be remarkable in an ordinary world?
• How Tess’s life was forever changed when she delivered a thirty-five minute speech.
• How this journey has forced her to decouple the intertwined elements of her identity as a person being tied to her job.
• What it’s been like for Tess to leave her job that she loved.
• “You jumped now you can’t even tell people what you want to do”.

Podcast highlights:

•   You have to read her Letter to CEO's, COO's, CIO's

•   You have to do work that lights you up

•   If you meet her at an event why you should start talking about yourself quickly?

•   What is a Less Experienced Equal?

•   How Pam could kick your xxxx if your ran into her in a dark alley?

•   How Pam started developing her voice picturing an imaginary thought bubble?

Keep going...

• We are not machines and the creative process cannot be treated like one
• Being creative is not limited to only artists
• Learn how Todd started the Accidental Creative on accident
• Hear how being healthy should be apart of every plan
• Insights into Todd’s newest book Die Empty set for September 2013 release
• What causes people to end up in the place of mediocrity?
• Learn what Todd does for fun
• How to not run out of your creative juices by age 30
• Ask yourself what are you disproportionately good at?

Buy Todd's book-The Accidental Creative.  I've been listening to it from Audible.com

The museum is absolutely amazing.

It is located in the Presidio in San Francisco. You will hear me describe a magical day that my family and I had riding tandem bikes from downtown to the museum and then across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Highlights:

• Learn how the Walt Disney Family Foundation created the museum
• How Walt took $40 and a cardboard suitcase to began Walt Disney Studios
• How Mickey Mouse was named
• How Walt's life can inspire you to do more in your life
• How Walt Disney started tinkering in the garage
• How the merchandising of Mickey Mouse was as important as the animation
• How no one believed that a full length animated movie would be successful

In this podcast I provide some of the back story to writing my recently released ebook, Don't Quit Your Job. Fire Your Boss.

I started writing it over the course of last year.  I underestimated the amount of time and energy it would take.

I understand now why writers say that once they are finished with a project they are long since "over it".

     I almost quit numerous times.  

I felt like maybe it was just important that I write it down for myself, but did not need to go through the exercise and investment to make it a market-ready released book.

In some ways the love of the story lessened as I neared the end.

If I had to guess, I would say I invested 150 hours into the writing, editing, and revising process.

My creative team easily put in another 100+ hours as well.

I am really proud of the yield, the end result.

     Read what Seth Godin and Jeff Goins wrote about my ebook.  

In today's Podcast:

• Hear additional storyline to a couple of key sections of the ebook.
• What it took for me to break the chains of indentured servitude.
• Learn how the character Jerry Maguire fed the original vision of this manifesto.
• I read a few selections and provide additional commentary.

Below are sample sections from the ebook.  For a full free copy download here.

Dedication

This mission statement is for artists, entrepreneurs, liberators, innovators, heretics, and, most especially, for forty-hour-Monday-through-Friday-work-week employees.

This is an invitation to unravel what the world has taught you about your work, your career, and your future.

Introduction

I am not telling you how to get rich quick. I am not selling you some tuition program or training course I have created.

Rather, I’m offering my experience and my story to you purely for your own enrichment and encouragement. I’m offering my pain, my joy, and my discovery freely in hopes that you, too, will find a new rhythm for your career.

I love to work.

I don’t work because I am a workaholic but because I love the invention and creativity that happens in my career.

When I fired my boss, my career transitioned to an entirely new plane of enjoyment for me.

You, too, can discover a new way to approach your work.

You, too, can have a brand new job starting tomorrow.

Indentured servants: Forty years of hard labor

In medieval times, indentured servants worked the land of a king for a fixed number of years until their debt was paid in full. The king owned the field, the crop and the harvest yield. He got rich, he ate and drank as much as he liked, and the servants learned to live on the crumbs from his table.

Kings love servants and minions.

Does this sound familiar to you?

For many people work can be a place where they feel like indentured servants. It can be a place where they feel obligated and stuck.

Many companies and leadership teams have this same ancient mentality. They believe that their employees are lucky to work for them. They believe that each worker is a replaceable cog. They are looking for compliant workers and employees, under the weight of needing to meet their own financial obligations, settle in for forty years of hard labor for the benefit of the company.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Why approach your workday with this kind of obligation? 

I was an indentured servant

I realized that I was looking for a partnership, not an obligation. I dreamed of being in a business arrangement where the company and I were equally investing in each other.

Believe it or not, it is possible. I found that part of the problem was that I was acting like a factory worker or an indentured servant. In fact, I was training other workers around me to relate to me as a replaceable cog.

Once I could name and describe this arrangement I could begin to navigate and craft a new arrangement. I stopped thinking and acting like an indentured servant and I started being a skilled craftsman instead.

Walk-n-Talk meetings

How Nilofer started walking meetings instead of coffee sit-downs.
As a result how she is logging between 20 and 30 miles per week.
You will want to read her Harvard Business Review article about how today Sitting is the smoking of our generation.

And check out the Los Angeles Times Article on her TED 2013 talk.

Recommendation: Don’t be sitting while you read her article.

This is not your traditional “How to” podcast.

We discuss topics ranging from what iPhone application to use for tracking calories to how fitness can be used as medication covering up deeper questions in your life.

If you are a competitive athlete or a couch potato wanting to get started, there is a nugget of wisdom for you.

In this podcast episode, Jon Dale and I discuss how we have navigated our fitness journeys.

In today's show Jon Dale and I have a discussion about living the truest version of your instead of trying to figure out what people want.

There are pitfalls to this:

• What if no one likes what you create?
• What will people think if you are authentic instead of entirely polished?
• How do you know when to mix topics e.g. Business, Sport, Family?
• Do you pay attention to metrics or follow your heart's leading?

Highlights:

• 24 HR digital fast -How & Why?
• How to compete with the 160M other bloggers.
• As you live the truest version of yourself other people will be liberated to do the same.
• How to start ignoring graphs and charts and increase your impact.

Podcast Summary

Mike Field-Sport. Life. Art.

In this interview you will enjoy Mike's humble almost bashful view of his story.

But don't be fooled.  He lives in a beautiful story of wealth.

Not necessarily of worldly monetary wealth but one of passion and art and friendship.

• Why we believe we need to consume more in order to be happy.
• How to live a simple lifestyle.
• How billionaires want to get back Life-Sport-Art

Highlights:

• How they differentiate Earwolf podcasts from 300,000 other comedy podcasts.
• How Jeff left the world of finance to start Earwolf with no podcast or live media experience.
• Hear how they changed the rules of the game of selling advertising.

Today my interview is with Lisa-Marie Cabrelli.  

We were in a small breakout group at Seth Godin’s Medicine Ball and really hit it off.  

I love Lisa's mantra no excuses make a living from anywhere in the world.  I think you will too.  

No nonsense power punch

In this interview Erica and I discuss:

Erica Dhawan is a globally recognized leadership expert and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. She is a Gen Y keynote speaker and researcher at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, working to bridge generational differences and drive business results.

A Quick Breakdown

• Stefan Loble did not inheret $1M and quit his job.
• He did not go raise VC (Venture Capital) or Angel investment capital.
• He did not have twenty years of experience in the men’s apparel industry.

What was his qualification for greatness?

Passion.

 Here are some of the highlights from the show:

• How I found and developed my writing voice
• What it takes to connect with influential people online
• When I stopped acting the amateur and finally turned pro with my craft
• The 1000-hour rule of proficiency and practice
• Why artists need to claim their craft before they create their best work
• How to serve your way into influential relationships and get people to take you seriously