Work Life Play with Aaron McHugh

In this episode, I caught up with Jack O'Neill and Cary Pierce from Jackopierce in Napa Valley from the Motor Lodge Inn in Calistoga, CA just before their live destination show. We talk about their music, their thirty-year journey, and the grit it required to get here. Twenty-five years, we talked, they sang, played and Jack blew his harps. They tell stories of their blue VW bus adventures and dri...

My check engine light is on in my 2004 Honda Pilot. I've had it checked, but they said it was okay but for how long? How long can I drive with red lights flashing warning signs? A couple of years ago, my life's dashboard was flashing red also. I kept pushing hard and ignored the symptoms assuming they too were "fine." Dashboard lights help inform us of hazards, problems, early indications of pendi...

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 respo...

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 lef...

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 -ea...

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 s...

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 u...

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...

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 woul...

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 ca...

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...

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 find...

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...

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, Dav...

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 neve...

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 adventur...

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...

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 cul...

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...

Big changes in life are often times made by subtle shifts in our approach. I learned this lesson on making a 2 degree shift from Onsite Workshops . I think it's a lot like using a compass and adjusting your compass to point to True North, instead of Magnetic North (declination). I used to believe that I had to make huge changes to my Work, Life, Relationships and Play. Instead, I discovered that s...

Alastair Humphreys in his book MicroAdventures: Local Discoveries For Great Escapes says, "Adventure is a state of mind, a spirit of trying something new and leaving your comfort zone. It's about enthusiasm, ambition, open-mindedness and curiosity". I think that invitation is a perfect frame for this idea. Wherever you live, mystery, possibility and adventure await you...if you choose to go lookin...

In this episode I outline the lessons I've learned in budgeting my emotional energy investments and expenditures. You can read the full post on the topic here . I experienced a burn out in 2015. I was emotionally and physically depleted. In my struggle to articulate what I was experiencing and how I got there, I began imagining my emotional energy using this idea of emotional calories. I started c...