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 experiential workshop-October 13-15 Colorado Springs www.aaronmchugh.com/rebootworkshop

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 quickly. C'mon man. Something was seriously wrong. In March 2015, the energizer bunny energy was now sold separately. No more workouts, marathons, and little sleep. Everything took longer, and my symptoms were paralyzing. And of course, I didn't want anyone to know. Pride anyone? CHEAP GAS AND NO MAINTENANCE. This high performer was sidelined. Using cheap gas, ignoring maintenance and wanting every repair quick and inexpensive just to "get back out there" was to my demise. The hard driving me was a thing of the past. But how could this be? I was only 45, and although I could still get more done than most people, it was not at my "high performance" pace and energy level. This Superman found his kryptonite, and I'm allergic to kryptonite. Not cool. I was almost 30 pounds over-weight, felt horrible, and didn't have the energy to do anything about it. Just lovely. EVER HEARD OF "ADRENAL FATIGUE?" I HADN'T. At some point in life, everyone needs a coach, mentor or guide, and this high performer was finally ready. My stress and pace had damaged my adrenal glands that produced my energy. Something had to change, or it would shut my body down. With my life physically and emotionally on a downward spiral, I reached out for help from a good friend who had been in my situation but even worse. Telling her was like the dam breaking. Fortunately for me, she knew the symptoms and even better, the solutions. To be honest, this scared me. I was the sole provider for my family and was forced to change. Everyone always saw me as the person with unlimited energy, and now I was, well, human. This was not going to be a quick fix. I had blown an engine and needed to learn how to run the race differently. RESTED, REFUELED, AND RE-ENGAGED. My life completely changed by learning how to sleep (for the first time since college), take breaks, and planned downtime. You just never hear of high performers resting. I also learned proper nutrition, fitness, and energy was creating activities to refuel my body and energy to re-engage back in life every single day. As a result, my health and energy have been coming back, and the weight is gone. I'm finally getting my girlish figure back along with my confidence. My experience and learning have created a passion in me to help others find and develop their "energy edge" so they can maximize their productivity and excel in what they feel called to do in life. As a result, I can help save time and increase impact. Isn't that what we want in the end? Your energy is the key to your ultimate productivity. I learned the hard way. I want to teach you the lessons learned and the secret sauce.

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 favorite wisdom literature says, "There is nothing new under the sun." I choose to believe that ancient wisdom can help guide us through our present day culture. Land replenishes when you give it a break. The laws of our universe eventually apply to us also. I'm excited to see what grows in my soil after "the soil's natural nutrient balance can be restored." What fields in your life could use some rest? Where are you demanding production as the priority over health? If you choose unproductive for a season, what good things can grow later?

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 Capitan's biggest, steepest, blankest face—the Dawn Wall. This epic assault took more than seven years, during which time Caldwell redefined the sport, found love again, and became a father.

Full post, pictures and interview transcript here.

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