Nice to meet you 🤝
Nice to meet you 🤝
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Every now and then it feels right to reintroduce myself to my audience. Typically I know this is true when any or all of the following things align:
It’s been a while since I’ve sent anything out (like now!)
I’ve gone through some interesting life stuff (like now!)
Some new, diverse people have joined my mailing list and social media following (like now!)
New clients have joined my coaching practice (like now!)
Conversations with certain clients step into a new and energizing level of vision (like now!)
I feel like there are multiple threads that I need to draw together in my work (like now!)
You put all that together and it just feels right to make something of a fresh start. It helps me to overthink what I publish less because I know you’re all better prepared for what is coming. And the fact is I’ve been writing a lot lately and I want to show it to you! But an introduction is helpful to see how it all fits together. So, here’s a bit about me…
Hi, I’m Aaron, nice to meet you!
I grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin but settled in Stevens Point. Wausau is a great place to grow up. So is Stevens Point.
I have a wife, 2 great kids, a house in the country, and 3 cute cats. My kids both swim. The oldest has played lacrosse too. The youngest loves our chickens and has made something of a small business out of selling the abundant eggs that result. I have my share of family trauma, which is why I understand and help process it when my clients bring it up. I love to bike and take “ideation” walks. And I love my community. I’m very happy there.
I’m married to my best friend and we are on a search for truth.
I’ve been interested in many things for as long as I can remember, but I feel like I didn’t really have anyone around while I was growing up who understood my brain, so my development feels a decade behind. I’m working hard to make up for lost time.
Depression and Music
When I was in high school I got really depressed and was really only happy when I was thinking about music, so I went into music. In retrospect this may have not been the best career choice, but it’s the path I took. I don’t know how I would have seen otherwise. I work hard to help my clients, friends, and family make the best life choices they possibly can.
Building Businesses
After getting out of college I found that building businesses forced me to fill in many of the communication, empathy, strategy, discipline, and mindset gaps I had developed during my music education. This was an incredibly good thing. I’m very grateful for my experience as a small business owner and entrepreneur.
What I’m Building Now
I’m currently building a coaching and thought leadership practice that I work daily to communicate to the right people. It is the most fulfilling and challenging thing I have ever done, and perhaps will ever do. I’ve never found work that comes so naturally to me. But this actually makes it difficult to communicate because I’m never sure which insights are revelatory and which are mundane. And so I speak honestly and share myself because I feel that’s the best I can do. More and more people in diverse areas of the economy are becoming attracted to my message, so I know something is working. My clients include small business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, athletes, political leaders, and more. Their lives are busy and full, and the fact that they see fit to spend a couple hours each month in conversation with me is all the validation I need. I know I have a big message that is relevant to many motivated, intelligent, thoughtful, benevolent, and proactive people. I am working carefully to discern the shape and message of the vehicle that will speak to all these people and consistently find it to be a very discerning, vulnerable process.
What I Create
I write blogs and books, record podcasts like this one and this one, create social media content here here and here, release videos, give talks and presentations, and offer individual coaching and organizational consulting. I’m also a working philosopher with a bent toward metaphysics and existentialism (which I believe certain recent thinkers have revealed to be two sides of the same coin), a contemplative nondenominational theologian, an (unlicensed) mental health counselor, a compassionate social theorist, and a charter member of the Most Benevolent Order of the Brotherhood of Man (j/k! That’s not really a thing. But maybe it should be…🤔).
I have never felt so effortlessly and courageously prolific in any other endeavor before this.
Consuming and Creating
For the past handful of years I’ve spent an intense amount of time consuming passive content. This has included podcasts (primarily), but also YouTube, Netflix, and audio books. It felt like a responsibility. I don’t regret it. But recently my life has been shifting me away from that so that I can create more. In April my podcasting app went away. This weekend I finally hit legitimate “YouTube Zero”, which means that the watch later playlist that has followed me around since 2000 is completely empty. This feels new and significant, and I am now feeling the call to create and produce even more. I will still use YouTube because it is such a crucial piece in the current societal exchange of ideas. But I feel that I'm finally free of the endless content queue in a way that is joyful and liberating. Last year I wrote my first book which many of you have read or are currently reading, and I will have completed the second by the end of this summer. In fall of 2023 I found a focus music app that has changed my life. It keeps my noise canceling bluetooth earbuds busy without inundating me with podcasts, and provides an exhilarating soundtrack for my contemplation and creation. Game changer. You can pretty well bet I was listening to it when I wrote anything I have written (like this). I don’t know how people did thinking and writing before stuff like this. For a while this is the best you could get…
Some seasons are to consume, and some are to create. Listen to your intuition as you discern how best to spend your time in this current season, but don’t be surprised if and when it shifts, as it always does.
The Work I Do
I coach and advise people who are building companies and leading organizations. That might be you, even if you don’t think it is (all organizations are made of many sub-organizations and all organizations intersect with many others at countless points and levels of social connection). I know business, marketing, systems, management. But I think and read about philosophy and theology the most these days, because I find that all patterns of human motivation and experience boil down to the questions studied by those disciplines.
The World That’s Coming…
I also spend quite a bit of time thinking about the intersection of the political process, economics, education, company culture, entrepreneurship, and the arts. This is why I call myself a “commerce theorist”. I’m half scared, half exhilarated by the world that’s quickly approaching, and even here already. I hope we’re going to a better place, but fear that we’re not, and also realize that this is simply a perennial pattern that has shown up at many different points in human history. But we’re all wondering if this one is different. Here are some of the questions and issues that go into this. If you’re following me I wager you are interested in some, if not all, of these questions and topics:
demographic collapse
perceived existential threats like nuclear arms, climate change, AI
technological progress, resource management, and the human spirit
leaving Earth and the possibility of encountering alien civilizations
discerning the best economic and social systems in an era of unprecedented prosperity, and wondering whether class struggle is something from which we can ever truly be free
finding meaning and purpose in a pluralistic age
the nature of sacredness and its intersection with social groupings and, therefore, conflict
whether war is something we need to release tribal pressure or if we can truly have a world without it
the tension between stories of pain and deep personal and interpersonal significance
the value and boundaries of science and its best use in the endeavor of unlocking human meaning
the place of human creativity amidst the rapid growth of AI and related mental labor saving technologies
human happiness and freedom as balanced with traditional structure and discipline
the impact of digital social networks (for example social media and immersive multiplayer games) on our childrens’ mental health and socialization
the increasing acceptance of neurodivergence and its implications for the future of work, lifestyles, and the education system
the precise definition of “mental health”, if it means different things at different times, and whether it’s even a coherent concept to begin with
how we ought to reckon with past traumas and atrocities as we keep the past alive and step into a future of visionary optimism
the best way to help people work with their strengths and weaknesses as they seek fulfillment
the best way to balance hardship and reward; investigating the coherence of what humans even think or claim to desire in the first place
what it means to lead a life well-lived
I don’t know that the answers are different than they have been in the past, but it seems clear that things are changing faster than ever and that our solutions will inevitably include certain, very sharp, double edged swords that are with us to stay (like the internet, social media, AI, etc.). I intuit that much of the deep anxiety of our current time is a response to questions such as these, and the pandemic explosively and unpredictably catalyzed a process already in rapid motion.
My Creative Decision-Making Process
I do an intense amount of “internal” work which means that everything I say, write, or create comes after a long process of highly sensitive and intuitive thinking and feeling which has told me it is the right thing to do. Remember that when you read, watch, or participate in anything of mine. I spend a lot of time discerning which decisions are important and which are not, and that’s a perpetual and all consuming process! Above All I strive to be reflective and responsive instead of reactive. The way I model this process, I suspect, is helpful and transformative to my audience.
In Closing - Love, Resonance, Connection, Collaboration
I love what I’m doing now and what I see ahead. Can you tell? I’ve never encountered anything else that brings together all my passions and ideas in a way that is relevant for so many interesting, thoughtful and engaging people. And I’m happy to have you along for the ride.
What resonated with you the most? Please reach out and let me know. Every response from my audience is a salve to my soul 🤗
I’m available for leadership coaching, organizational consulting, and speaking. And if you know of any rooms, committees, boards, think tanks, or other such groups that you think would benefit from my thinking, please let me know and I’ll look forward to that conversation!
I’m working on some big things, so please watch for that. They touch on my insecurities and deep vulnerabilities, but they’re what I need to do. Time for me to GEAR UP ⚙️⬆️
Talk to you soon!