Hot Mess Express

Your Inner Child Is A Dumbass A serious dumbass. Think back to all the things you did as a kid, and soon you’ll realize what a dumbass you really were. Curious? Yes. Playful? Yes. And in a lot of ways, dumber than shit. When I was a kid I didn’t realize you shouldn’t unscrew an electric outlet while it still had power. Although I did learn that lesson very quickly when I got shocked and thrown down a set of stairs. Psychology teaches that our beliefs that shape our worldview are imprinted in out subconscious by the time we reach our teen years. The things we learn, the examples we see, the things we believe, they’re all installed into your life’s operating system before you get your driver’s license. So, let me ask you this. If, when you look back, you realize what a dumbass you were as a kid…. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU LET THAT KID RUN YOUR LIFE?? That dumbass kid is like the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain controlling how to interact and respond to the world around you. Seriously. Every. Single. Limiting. Belief. Was imprinted on you by the time you reached your 10th birthday. Upgrade Your Operating System If you want to be successful, want a healthy relationship, and are tired of being scared of going for your dreams, then, Dorothy, it’s time to let Toto rip back the curtain and reveal the fraudster that’s been running your life. You’ve always had the power. You just had to learn it for yourself – Glinda The Good Witch You have the power to change your life. Your inner child is a great reminder to play and enjoy being present in the moment, but really doesn’t know shit about how to run your life. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Blame Elegantly Blame. It’s the great excuse maker. It’s so simple to point your fingers at other people, other circumstances, and blame them for your life sucking the way it does. Blaming absolves you of taking responsibility for having made the crap decisions that brought you to this point. This weekend, I watched the Tony Robbins documentary on Netflix “I Am Not Your Guru”. During one of the filmed interventions, he told a young woman that if she was going to blame her dad for all the bad shit in her life, she damn well better blame him for all the good stuff, too. If her dad was the person she wanted him to be, and they had the relationship she wished they’d had, she wouldn’t be half the person she is today. When you assume…. It’s easy to put our own assumptions on other people and say that ‘they should have known better’ or that ‘they CHOSE not to behave differently’, when the fact is that people can only operate with the tools they have in their box. When you quit assuming that other people would make the same choices, choose the same behaviors as you and accept that 99% of the people in our lives are simply doing the best they can with the tools they have…forgiveness and acceptance come easy. And yet there’s times when people desire to change, yet they simply don’t have the tools, the resources, the support they need to make those changes. They want to change, they just simply don’t know how or even where to start. Every single one of us is unique. We all have our learned patterns and behaviors. Every single relationship and every interaction shapes our worldview. We learn what we want and what we don’t want out of life through every interaction with others. If you’re going to blame others for all the bad shit in your life, you damn well better blame them for the good shit, too.   Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Nostalgia Is A Bitch Nostalgia is a seductive liar that smooths all the rough edges of your past.  Do you ever look back on your past memories and longingly wish things could ‘be like they used to be’? Do you wish you could rekindle an old relationship because you’re sure they were ‘the one that got away’? That’s nostalgia talking. It’s you longing for an imaginary past that never existed. Oh boy, when you’re dead, you don’t take nothing with you but your soul – John Lennon There’s a running gag in my family that is built around my grandfather driving off to heaven in his 1970’s Gold Mercury Montego, all of his belongings packed in the trunk, shouting “Who says you can’t take it with you!” as he disappears into the sky. Social media makes it easy to reconnect with people and relationships in our past. Sometimes that can be a good thing. Sometimes, though, it can be awful. You’re not the same person you were 10, 20, 30 years ago and neither are they. Your relationship won’t be as you remembered. When you’re creating the life you want, sometimes it’s best to leave those memories collecting dust in a box in your garage, and sometimes it’s best if you just throw them away. My grandfather (in my dad’s dream) may have asked “Who says you can’t take it with you?” The answer is nobody…but sometimes, why the hell would you want to? Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Every year, over 6 million men suffer from depression. Even so, it’s still one of those things that we just don’t talk about enough. Too many men struggle year in and year out in silence because society has taught us to believe that if we admit we’re struggling, we’re some how less of a man. As someone who has struggled with depression for almost 20 years now, I can say, with confidence, that that’s utter bullshit. Suffering in silence is the WORST thing you can do. Suffering in silence can lead to: Health problems Damaged relationships Troubles on the job Financial problems In fact, suffering in silence can make things even worse. I’ve struggled with this on and off for a couple decades…and perhaps even longer. Over the years I’ve learned: how to manage the ups and downs, how to recognize when a downswing is coming, and how to positively affect my mental state to lessen the severity and length of a downswing. Changing your physical state can greatly impact your mental state. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as it takes intention and sometimes sheer white knuckle tenacity to do so. For me, things that help me change my state are: Going for a walk Hitting the gym for an extra session Focusing on my posture while I’m sitting or standing Getting out in the sun Activities like this help me better manage my mental state. Oh, and if you listen to the end, you’ll find out why I tell noted theologian Richard Rohr to suck it. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Seven days in Hawaii changed the course of my life forever. Seven days and thousands of dollars. The year was 2012. I had taken my first jump into being an entrepreneur, a jump I took without a parachute. I was sick of my job, sick of living an ‘average’ life and finally bought into the belief that being an entrepreneur was my ticket to freedom. Man, did I have plans…. vacations, cars, philanthropy, you name it. Monetarily, my first venture was a Titanic level failure. It didn’t help that the company I joined went from personal development to real estate investing in a period of about 6 months, yet sometimes, even in crashing and burning, the entire course of your life could change for the better. In the summer of 2012, I took my entire family to Hawaii for a vacation/live event. Even though the investment in doing so was enormous, there was just something telling me I had to be there. I had to get to Hawaii, I had to take the entire family, or else I’d regret it for the rest of my life. If you want something you’ll find a way…if not, you’ll find an excuse. #entrepreneurClick To Tweet Between the event, the airfare, the hotel…the trip was going to cost more than I had ever spent in one place outside of buying my house or buying a car. Like I said, Hawaii was calling, so I put together the money any way I could think of. I pulled some out of my retirement I sold my car I did whatever I could to come up with the huge wad of cash it was going to take to get all 5 of us to Hawaii. In those 7 days: * We hung out on Waikiki * We visited Pearl Harbor * We sat in a room for hours learning from Bob Proctor * I met one of my best friends, Sam Crowley, who taught me everything I needed to know about going for my dream AND launching my own podcast The intangible things I got from those 7 days far outweigh the Armageddon like failure of the company I joined. You see, I wanted out of the job I had and the life I was living. I had long since decided that’s what I was going to do. It wasn’t until February 2012, when the dominoes started falling, and I started taking whatever actions I needed to take in order to get those 7 days in Hawaii that I truly made the decision to change my life. Unless you take action, you haven’t really made a decision – Tony RobbinsClick To Tweet You can ‘decide’ all day long how you want your life to go. But nothing is going to change until you take action to make it so. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, 

Once you decide to change your life and take action to put those decisions into motion, you can become addicted to the idea of making progress. You begin to see the danger in staying the same, the inherent riskiness in just maintaining the status quo. It’s as if the proverbial scales have fallen from your eyes and you begin to see things clearer than you’ve ever seen them before. Even more, the more progress you make, the more decisive you become, the more addicted you get. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, getting addicted to making progress and bettering yourself leads to a better life for you AND for those you care about. You become someone who can be trusted, who is a leader, who can inspire simply by going about your day to day activities. On the downside, though, it makes accepting where you are a near impossibility. Indecisive people begin to frustrate you. The pace of corporate life begins to drive you crazy. It can also drive you to jump into new business situations prematurely, whether or not they’re a good fit for you. After having a “come to Jesus” meeting with my boss, this became my life. I began to grow frustrated with where I was and what I was doing. I knew I was much more valuable than I was being given credit for. Yet I was still suffering the aftereffects of 7 years in the doghouse. I was also becoming addicted to progress. I was becoming addicted to personal development and continually improving myself and my skills. This began to show in my work and my coworkers began to look to me to lead. Eventually, though, it wasn’t enough. I could see the life I truly wanted within my grasp and I thought I had found the vehicle to get me there. Little did I know what taking that leap would mean…and how it would change my life in ways I hadn’t even imagined. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

It’s not much of a secret that I used to be a very miserable man. I always knew I was meant for something greater, I just didn’t have the tools or the confidence to go for it. I was one of the perpetual daydreamers, always living in an imagined future as an escape from the miserable life I was living. It took a great deal of pain, and a bold step in faith, before I had the courage to change things. There’s no such thing as an overnight success…or at least it’s very rare… like finding some Honus Wagner baseball cards at a garage sale rare. Most folks who seem to be an overnight success only seem that way because they woke up one night from the depths of a soul crushing nightmare and decided things had to change. Their, and your, story doesn’t begin where you think it does. Often, it begins long, long before you decided, and took action, to change your life. It begins that moment you’re staring in the mirror, and for the first time you realize that something has to change. That moment, the “What the f*ck” moment, is your pain threshold. It’s that point in your life when staying where you are has finally become more painful than getting off your ass and doing something about it. It’s your own personal “come to Jesus” meeting. My story began in late 2003, with the death of my gramma. Upon returning to work after 5 days bereavement leave, I found myself in the doghouse…somewhat unfairly…and working for a boss who would later refer to those 5 days in December as a ‘vacation’. The day I returned began a 7 year exile that lasted until the day I couldn’t take any more and presented my boss with a ‘manifesto’ demanding a raise and a a promotion. That day in 2010 would be the second milestone in my journey from miserable ass to hot mess. The more I’ve thought about the last 13 years, the more I’ve realized how important this story really is. I see in my Facebook memories and on Timehop exactly how miserable I used to be….and how long I was living in misery. I know a lot of y’all are living miserable lives and you’re looking for a sign to tell you which way to go. Let my story be your inspiration. Learn from my mistakes, and let this once indecisive engineer with zero confidence and even less self esteem show you how if I can climb out of the pit of despair, you can, too. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Nature exists in a constant state of change. Yet our human nature is to want things to always remain as they are. We can’t stop time, we can’t stop the world from turning, so why do we humans think that resisting change is the way to live? Simple. Change scares the shit out of us. Change makes us look at the unknown. It makes us take risks. It makes us vulnerable…and our highly developed brains are great at taking every negative possibility we can think of and magnifying it in our heads until it looks like a summer blockbuster horror movie. So what do we do? We stay where we are because even if our life sucks… it’s not as scary, or painful, as stepping out into the unknown. When you say no to changing, you’re saying yes to staying stuck where you are. That’s what makes human nature so completely screwed up! Human nature stands in direct conflict with the flow of the universe…and the more you stand opposed to the universe, the more you’ll be stuck, the more your life will suck, and the unhappier you’ll be. Change doesn’t have to be scary. In fact, it’s change that makes life memorable. Your best memories come from those times you allowed your human nature to embrace the nature of the universe and just allowed things to flow. The more you embrace the flow of the universe, the more you can direct your life’s path…and isn’t that what we all want? To not wake up some day, stare in a mirror, and wonder exactly how the fuck we ended up where we are? Learn to embrace the flow of the universe. Focus on changing your own human nature to match the nature of the world around you. Doing so will bring you a life bigger, bolder, and more awesome than you can imagine. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

You look in the mirror and all you see is a fraud. You see someone who doesn’t deserve the success they’ve achieved. You live in constant fear of being ‘found out’.  You, my friend, are one of the millions of people who suffer from impostor syndrome. Maybe you were told to be humble and to not brag when you were growing up. Or, perhaps like me, you accomplished some amazing stuff that wasn’t understood or appreciated by your bosses and they reminded you of that frequently for years. No matter the cause, the belief that you’re a fraud in spite of all the amazing things you’ve accomplished, all the challenges you’ve overcome is simply bullshit. Accomplishing great things but feeling like a fraud is a great paradox of lifeClick To Tweet Impostor syndrome is real…. how do you know if you have it? Well, if you’ve ever: Felt like you needed to work twice as hard so people don’t find you out as an “impostor” and all the additional praise and success only makes you work that much harder until you eventually burn out. Felt phony, felt the need to give answers you believe others want instead of an honest answer. Relied on charm because you felt your skills were inadequate and when praised you feel like it’s due to your charm and not your abilities. Avoided displaying any sort of confidence ….you might suffer from impostor syndrome. So, what can you do to break free from the chains of feeling like a fraud? * Start by simply saying thank you when you get a compliment Don’t dismiss a compliment with self-deprecating talk. You earned it, accept it…plus, shrugging off a compliment is insulting to the one who gave it to you. * Brag on yourself some Nobody is going to toot your horn for you. If you don’t brag about yourself, nobody will. * Accept that it is you…not luck, not fate, or good timing…that achieved what you achieved. Be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Start by doing these three things daily and soon you’ll break free from feeling like an impostor. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

The Wisdom of Master Shifu After watching Kung Fu Panda 3 today, I came away inspired. There is so much depth, so much wisdom in those three movies that I may just have to do a whole series on it, particularly the wisdom of Master Shifu. Now, on an initial glance, Shifu seems to be an impatient, cantankerous old cuss who really just does not see Po as being worthy of being the Dragon Warrior. When, in fact, he pushes Po to be the best that he can be even though he doesn’t see greatness in himself. In the third installment, Shifu has a line that just smacked me in the face. “If you only do what you can do, you’ll never be better than what you are” Wow.  How incredibly wise is that? Comfort, or doing what you know you can do, is the enemy of progress. Comfort is a long, slow death of your soul. Comfort will eventually suck the will to live right out of you. The end result of being comfortable is regret. Think about the last time you dreamt of something, some ideal that you wanted your life to be like. Why did you give that up? If you sold your dreams for a steady paycheck, how much did you sell your dreams for? Even if you love your job, are you comfortable where you are? Or do you dream of moving up in the ranks? Well, my friend, in order to do that, you’re going to have to do something new. You’re going to have to learn a new skill, strengthen an existing skill, make some new contacts…. …you’ll never get to where you want to be simply by doing what you can do. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.Click To Tweet Three years ago I decided it was time to do something new… and within a few months I had a new job in a new state closer to where I always wanted to be…..which is living on the beach. Had I always done what I could do, I’d still be miserable and full of regret. So, are you comfortable? Are you as good as you can be? Are you the best you that you can be? Or is it time to do something new? Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

You Are Entitled To Your Voice Years ago, back when I first started studying personal development, a mentor of mine introduced and exercise that detailed things in life that you are entitled to. There were, if I remember, about 6 of them. Three of them impacted me pretty heavily, one of them being that you are entitled to have a voice. Too many times I’ve seen too many people afraid to use their voice to speak out against what they believed was wrong simply because they were afraid to ‘rock the boat’ or afraid that it might create conflict. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothingClick To Tweet Over the years, I’ve learned to find and cultivate my voice. I’ve developed the courage to speak out against injustice…to lift up and encourage those who need it…and to simply let others know that someone DOES care about them. Learning to speak up also goes a long way towards correcting misunderstandings, gaining understanding of something that you don’t quite get, towards finding and cultivating a community of others with the same beliefs, the same goals, the same outlook as yourself. You are entitled to it, and others who would quiet it are those who are afraid to have their worldview challenged. Denying yourself your voice is just another way for you to settle for less than you desire…to lower your standards for the sake of conformity. To be nothing, just do nothing, say nothingClick To Tweet Speak up. Speak out. The world is waiting for you. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

Like many of you, I awoke this morning to the news that David Bowie passed away after an 18 month battle with cancer. It came as quite a shock and honestly, I wanted it to be a hoax. I wanted the news media to be wrong, as they had been about Bowie in the past. Alas it was not to be. For me, and many of my generation, David Bowie is, and always will be, an iconic figure. His music, his style, his politics, his spirituality, his sexuality…all the things about him were what made him larger than life. I cannot remember a time where I didn’t hear his music on the radio. Songs that have had huge impacts on me over the years are ones like Mott the Hoople’s “All the young dudes”, “Changes”, “Space Oddity“, “China Girl“, “Under Pressure”, “Golden Years”, and my favorite, “Heroes”. Bowie was a Sinatra like figure. He was cool, suave, debonair, and one helluva dresser…especially once he started wearing suits in the 80’s. He was unabashedly himself, calling out MTV for not playing enough black artists all the way back in 1983…when the M in MTV still stood for music. He collaborated with artists like Bing Crosby, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, David Gilmour. He’s influenced countless musicians, was a role model for kids who struggled with their sexuality, and a larger than life social justice warrior. His death, for many, is on par with the day John Lennon was killed. His passing leaves a large hole in the fabric of the world that nobody will ever be able to fill. He will be missed. You may not know where you’re going….but I guarantee it’ll never be boring. Farewell, starman.

Donald Trump: Genius? We’re well into the 2016 election year now and the candidate that has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for the last 6 months is Donald Trump. Now, to be sure, Trump is an exemplary assclown. Not only are his politic repulsive, but with the way he presents himself, it’s a pretty safe bet that personally he’s repulsive as well. Yet, at the same time, he’s a freakin’ genius. Why? He knows his target audience. He knows the language they speak. He speaks in black and white dualism that overrides logic and taps into people at an emotional level. He future paces almost everything he says. How does that make him a genius? Listen to the latest episode and find out why he’s a genius and how you, too, can be as influential has he is…no matter what your calling in life is. Hey… the Hot Mess Express podcast is now available on: iTunes, Stitcher, and Player.FM. Don’t just ‘think about it’…subscribe today.

We're all broken, just to different degrees, but we are. We're all also beautiful.  Each and every one of us. The other night, as my wife was flipping through channels, I overheard someone talking on one of the church channels, and they said something to the effect of they were "waiting on God to make their brokenness into something beautiful". I tilted my head like a dog hearing a far-off siren, and thought about that for a moment. I realized that's wrong. Life isn't about waiting for God to make the broken into beautiful.. [Tweet "Life is about realizing that broken is beautiful"] Think about it. How many characters in religious history, no matter the faith tradition, were broken people? Thieves, murderers, liars, adulterers...all of them who set out on their life's purpose as broken people and discovered along the way that they were beautiful. If we wait until the broken is 'fixed' we miss the opportunity to share, to inspire, to create community in our brokenness. We miss some beautiful things life has to offer. Too often we use our brokenness as excuse to avoid doing what we want. We hide behind the facade of perfection, thinking that our broken bits make us less beautiful than we really are. We hide our true beauty under a coating of bullshit fake beauty that, if someone stared at us too long, they'd see it was as transparent as Saran Wrap. Why the hell do we do this? Well, for one thing, our superficial, media driven culture bears responsibility for pushing unreal standards of physical beauty, of financial beauty, of relationship beauty, that we all just gobble up like so much crack. The other thing is that in order to admit how broken we truly are, we have to face our fear that some folks we've come to bullshit our way into relationships with just may not like what they see and hit the bricks. Well, that's life. The people who are meant to be around you will be, and those who aren't worth shit, won't. So admit your brokenness. Share your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your scars... and look at your self in the mirror and realize that broken person looking back at you is one beautiful son of a bitch.  

HME 4 –Make A Damn Decision! Point #1 – Weak Men ‘Go Along To Get Along’ Changing your mind and betraying your intuition leads to inauthenticty. If you don’t trust yourself, how can you expect others to trust you? Point #2 – Listen To Others, But Make Your Own Decision Advice and counsel of others is invaluable, but not the final say. The final decision rests with you. Be willing to be wrong Point #3 – Own The Outcome No matter what happens, take responsibility for the outcome. If it was the wrong decision, admit it and use it as an opportunity to grow. Questions Do you make your own decisions or let others unduly influence you? Challenge Start by making small decisions and stand by them. Tell others offering advice ‘thanks for the input, and this is what I’m going to do.’ Quote A wise man makes his own decisions. An ignorant man follows public opinion.