An Open Letter To My Dying Friend

I have a friend who drives asleep at the wheel. His wife sees it, his friends watch and I know he used to acknowledge his chronic behavior. Fifteen years later I think he lives in a sleep-like state no longer outwardly struggling to admit how much he wants to be awake. His wife says, “he won’t change.”

Years ago, I witnessed him come to for a few months. He was thinking about taking a job that would require a total deviation from their current way of life and he was so excited and hopeful. I don’t recall the details, but either he didn’t ever really apply for the job or somehow the dream fizzled out.

Either way, he went back to sleep. He’s incredibly talented, generous, witty and powerful when he chooses to be. Decades of slumber appear to numbed his senses. You could try to talk him out of it in hopes of jarring him to awareness. I’m not sure if it would help. But please give it a try.

The problem is that he has a beautiful life with a beautiful family and a great career. At face value, it appears there is nothing wrong. Those closest to him know that his current reality is a dismal glow of the fullness of what he’s made for-and so does he.

An open letter to my dying friend

Brother, I see you and I can only hope that someone or something will snap you out of your perpetual slumber you call a life. Outwardly you could win all types of awards for most reliable, most steady and full of integrity. But what about you, the man? Where are you? Do you remember when you used to laugh so hard you sounded like Santa Claus?

Remember when you lived in the tension of what you most desired and your current reality? The tension seems to have vanished. Not because you are content with your life, but because you’ve shut down, stopped caring, stopped dreaming, stopped longing for something more. You have an incredible heart for the people you love most, yet your heart for yourself seems to have withered.

I wish you to awake. Come back to us. Don’t throw in the towel. Don’t tap the buzzer. Don’t say “this is just the way I am”. Wait. There is so much more time left on the clock. I fear you’re becoming most of what you vowed to avoid simply because you’ve given up.

I know there isn’t a magic bullet or spell breaking word to speak, but I know you’re still in there. I know the deepest part of you is still alive, still lucid, awake and curious. Only you can choose to come back to us. Only you can willingly enroll your heart back into your daily life. I’m so sorry for the pain, the loss, and the heartache. I promise you there is a path forward where you can hold the tension of the pain and simultaneously a new hope.

I pray you will choose a wholehearted life well-lived knowing all of its pitfalls, risks, and uncertainties. I promise it’s better than the certainty of dying a slow death from the inside out.

With you and for you,
Aaron

And So The Story Goes

I’m flying over the Norwegian Sea returning home from another week in The Netherlands. I attended my second week of training to become a facilitator of transformation as part Aberkyn. I spent the week at a Roman Catholic monastery, and I wanted for nothing, other than my family and friends back home.

The pace of work was steady each day, but I didn’t feel tired like I used to feel sitting in a conference room all day listening to someone drone on like the school teacher in Peanuts cartoons “wwwhhhhaaaahhhh wwwhhhhaaahhhhh”. I felt the congruence of the work with my soul. I could see so many pieces of my life converging into one. All of the hardship, all of the beauty, and all of the years of business flowing into one new emerging season.

Let me be specific. I’ve been dragging around a sharpie marker bag the last two years. In this new work, PowerPoint isn’t allowed only markers:). I’ve attended a recovery group for the last couple of years, and we go around the circle and “check-in.” Every morning we start a client workshop, we facilitate a “check-in.” The list goes on and on and on.

I’m going to go ahead and ask a question, How is this possible? As I write, I hear a rainbow spectrum of your responses. Let me take a stab at naming what’s in the air. You might say, “well, yeah some people are just lucky” or “well, you’re a good person, and you deserve it.” A few of you might immediately hear a whisper, “That will never happen to me. This is the way things are, and I’m stuck here.”

So which is it? Is it that some of us win and some of us lose? Are our futures pliable and can they be shaped? Are you stuck and foretold to stay in the same broken story, crap job, distant marriage, dissolution, or financial predicament you’re in now?

My experience says it’s whichever version of the story you tell yourself is true. Like a Broadway play, we embody the character (our beliefs) to match the role we’ve told ourselves we’re here to play. How do you start writing a new story? Become the kind of person who can embody the character you want to play for the new story you desire to live.

When we touch our lives with a lightness, a brightness flowing from a deep well of agreement resonating with God, Spirit, the Divine we can become the new story we desire. Our life begins to take shape externally from the life we’ve created internally.

And so the story goes.

Lessons From A Monastery

I’m listening to a rooster crow outside my window on this foggy morning in The Netherlands. The monastery I’m staying at has a daily rhythm giving continuity to each day, the rooster crows, the coffee brews, a meal is served, and a moment of silence observed.

There is a purposefulness to every routine. I watched a young man with down syndrome dutifully sweep cobwebs from the foundation of the building-brisk-brush-shuffle-review. My soul finds delight in this pace and intentionality of life. When my interior life, my desire for rest and ease, finds a habitat that matches my insides, I feel at home.

Lessons I can bring home with me

  • A moment of silence observed before every meal.
  • Finding a quiet moment throughout the day to walk outside.
  • Recognizing and acknowledging that I have everything I need right now.

It’s Time For a New Truth Over Your Life

In High School, I dumped dish soap in the fish tank in biology. I denied I had anything to do with the floating fish and suds. The principal later confided in me that I’d “never amount to anything.”

Some voices in our life carry a disproportionate amount of weight. Things that were said a long time ago in an unrelated context keep playing in our heads decades later as if they are the gospel truth.

Is there a voice from the past giving you lousy advice today?

Which old stories aren’t serving you any longer?

It’s time for a new truth over your life.

Action Equals Possibility

An inch forward creates three hundred and sixty degrees of new possibility. You don’t need all of the answers; you need to move forward. Study and research are useful-even imperative, but at some point, you must move and commit to an inch of forward progress.

Consider it an experiment, fact-finding, and prototyping to try something new and see what happens. With every brave step towards something elusive and unclear, your new forward position delivers clarity. Gift yourself with the reward being tied only to the movement forward-not the outcome. Each further action creates new possibilities.

Keep going-

Aaron

How To Start Podcasting

After nine years of podcasting, 200+ episodes, lots of people ask me about what it takes to start a podcast. Here is my advice on how to get started podcasting without a lot of money, time or expertise. 

The easy button is 

  • Record it: There are so many options to pick from. For the easiest, use Zoom and record (requires converting to audio afterwards) or buy $40 Call Recorder (below) and use your Skype account plus your iPhone headphones with a microphone to record an interview
  • Host it: Once you record the conversation, you will need to upload the recording to a Hosting provider. Podbean is a free option and super easy to use. 
  • Distribute it: Submit your podcast to iTunes for distribution. 
  • Celebrate: You can be up and running in 3-4 hours time and within a week iTunes will approve your podcast. 

Everything else from here is more complicated, sophisticated and costly. Stay above the line to simply ship and get going. The risk of below this line is it can take a lot more time, money and patience. I chose to stick with the easy button for the first two+ years of podcasting.

If you want to take the plunge and buy gear

Desktop microphone USB Blue Yeti $109 Amazon

For in-person interviews

I use an older Zoom H4N PRO Digital Multitrack Recorder

I use a pair of Shure SM58-LC Cardioid Dynamic Vocal Microphone with cable $109 Amazon.

Skype and Call Recorder

This is the easiest way to record a Skype call. You can call a guest Skype to Skype or from Skype to a phone number. Push record and you are off and running. $40 for the Call Recorder software. 

Hosting: Free to $15+ per month

Podbean is the simplest. Soundcloud and Libsyn are additional options. There are tons of choices, but these are really simple. I use Libsyn.

Submitting to Podcast Networks

I’d recommend hiring someone to do this unless you are fairly technical. This gets into RSS feeds, URL’s, show descriptions, and other tech. Podbean appears to have a simple too suite to help remove the distribution technical stuff. Read here. 

Distributing your podcast

Top networks to consider having your podcast on iTunes, Google Play  Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher, and tons of others. Each has a unique process for submitting your podcast. Again, having a technical person do this for you will likely be more efficient.

Podcast Editing

I don’t enjoy editing, but I’m dangerous enough to do some myself. I use Garageband for editing. The better option is to hire someone.

Final Polish: Auphonic low tech software to assemble an edited podcast. I use this software to polish the final podcast and publish directly to Libsyn, my hosting provider. Think of this as a final step.

Determining Show length

My advice is create the podcast episode that you want to listen to. If you like short podcasts, then make it short. Most podcasts are between 20-45 minutes in length. 

Show Logo design

99 Designs is a great affordable option for creating a graphic for your show. I use Ginseng Creative and Bottle-Rocket Design for all my creative.

Transcription service

If you want to offer a transcription as part of your show notes, I use Speechpad they run around $1 x minute. There are other options but this is the only one I’ve used. 

Show frequency 

I publish once to twice per week. Averaging towards once. I take a break at least once during the summer and over the holidays. I know people who batch episodes to cover these outage periods. I’ve yet to be ahead of the game. I view my podcast Work Life Play as a body of work project that builds over time. In the end, consistency wins.

Integration with WordPress

There are required plugins like Blubrry podcast that are required in order for your podcast to play from the show notes page. Another example of a technical component. 

Knowing You Can’t Go Back To The Old Way

I’m learning about the difference between change and transformation. Change is iterative and revisionary. Transformation is becoming someone different. When transformed, our core beliefs and needs revolutionize which result in new thoughts and behaviors.

I’ve always donated old clothes I don’t wear anymore to Goodwill (thrift store). After spending four months gutting our five-bedroom home of ten years, donating our wedding china and liquidating our bloated life, I can never go back to every closet being full, every shelf being occupied and tripping over things I don’t love to find my favorite shirt.

My value system transformed from feeling happy from owning a lot of stuff to measuring my wealth and happiness by the amount of peace I experience from simplicity and clarity.

I know I can’t go back to the old way.

I used to attempt to return every email and every phone call by day’s end. My inbox grew too large and my influence out-scaled my capacity. I tried software tools, sorting my inbox by sender, and ignoring certain threads.

Iterative changes eventually resulted in my inability to finish it all. I’d often get out of bed in the middle of the night to return a handful of emails in hopes of falling back into a restful sleep.

The hard truth I accepted was that I was, in my mind, attempting to never disappoint anyone. The story I’d told myself was, “I can avoid other people’s displeasure or disappointment if I always attempt to make everyone happy. I’m ok if you’re ok.”

Transformation insights: I accepted my limitations, my limited capacity and the reality that not every task should be completed and not every email warrants my reply.

My needs transformed from aiming to make everyone else happy to define what makes me happy. Less, but better makes me happy.

I know I can’t go back to the old way.

Where is a revision or change simply not working?

Where is transformation needed to discover a revolutionary solution?

“A growth impulse from deep within our innate potential

As if something pauses, creating space for a new possibility to arise

Hidden patterns come to the surface

Allowing a letting go and dissolving of deeply held beliefs

Creating space for Knowing to arise

A felt shift in root perspective of how we see ourselves in the world

As this expansive view enters our consciousness we cannot go back

An awakening to a new reality

A realization of our true nature, I am this

A shift in awareness”

Inspired by Gita Bellin

Transformation through awareness resulting in new responses and choices.

Hope Stays Alive When

I’ve been thinking, but I’m not entirely sure how to tell you about what I’m experiencing just yet. Here are a few nuggets.

An action is required for transformation to happen. Talking about, thinking about, and dreaming about change isn’t enough. Doing something and trying something different creates possibility.

We are not failures. We fall short, we make mistakes, and we can screw stuff up, but we’re never beyond the reach of love and forgiveness. Love wins. Everyone gets a do-over(s).

Hope must be cared for, nurtured and protected. Hope stays alive when we steward even the smallest glimpse or the thinnest thread.

Keep going,

Aaron

You Are the Only YOU

You are the only you that there has ever been and will ever be. For real! You are the only YOU. And what’s wild is we don’t come with an owners or instruction manual. What I mean is that your uniqueness, your gifting, your story, your life experiences, your love and losses are so unique and yet the only way to really understand how to wield your power, your grace and your purpose is to understand how you operate best.

Requiring an intricate answer for each of you that only you know the answer to (my experience says Spirit, God, Higher Power, Deeper Wisdom knows, but He invites us into the discovery).

We’re on a treasure hunt together friends. Let’s go find more of what is rightfully yours.

And this is how we keep going,

Aaron

Our Powerful Possibilities of Tomorrow

I used to believe there was a silver bullet, a perfect moment, a portal of time that opened waiting to transport me into my desired future reality. Contrary to my imagination, I’ve discovered there is power in simple steps of action decoupled from the pressure and demands of outcomes. Each activity forms a strand of DNA connecting to the previous creation, daring act or fractional tilt towards your desired destination.

I’ve met people who don’t think about their actions, they just act. I’ve met those who calculate every move like Bobby Fisher during a chess match, and they too make a move. The likeness is within the action, the movement and the power of beginning.

Momentum requires action. Fine tuning requires action. Resilience involves movement. The magic potion is concocted the instant our commitment, our desire and our action meet to create our powerful possibilities of tomorrow.