Work Life Play with Aaron McHugh

Today's interview is with Blaine and Sam Eldredge with And Son's Magazine. We talk about their eight-year dream of creating a print magazine, the power of transformation v.s. entertainment, masculinity as a lens by which we can view everything else, in defense of millennials, the joy of words, vulnerability and going first, the temptation to quit, brotherhood and hearing God's voice.

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 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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Which relationships bring you life? Do you know which relationships drain your energy? Begin by mapping your relationships across your work and life to gain insight about where you need to invest your time and energy.

Today's podcast is from session #1 from Reboot Live last October 2017. Last year, we held two Reboot Experience Workshop and took people on an inward journey to answer big questions like what do you want in life? And How do I find my path to a well-lived joyful life?

Mark Evans carves into leather hides to reveal light from darkness. As a kid, he started drawing and his Archimedes moment came when a drop of blood stained his new Christmas present, a leather jacket. He pulled out his boyhood knives to scratch off the blood which revealed this discovery of a now eighteen year career. To tell his story, we drove our JoyBus to an empty dirt road and retraced his life, love and art.