Strategies For Success: Don’t Self-Promote

In today’s me-centric culture, self promotion is the norm. My least favorite self proclamation is when people use words like “Guru” when speaking about themselves.

My good friend Morgan taught me, “The problem with self-promotion is that it has to be maintained”. Gulp. When promotion is up to us, there is rarely any sustainable momentum. It’s exhausting.

I read a great quote once, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth.” I really struggled with this for a while, desiring to be recognized by others. Whenever I had an itch to be recognized or found myself insecure enough to need a dose of self-soothing affirmation, I would say to others, “I’m really good at (fill in the blank)”. Thankfully, I never went as far as calling myself a Guru.

I’ve learned that allowing another person to praise you for what they see in you stands up over time and ultimately is contagious. I am a proponent of telling a good story about what I do, why it matters and how it’s different from the next guy. The necessary distinction between offering insights versus promoting myself comes down to my motive. I have to check mine every day.

Are you willing to do great work and leave the promotion up to other people?

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

Commence Reboot: How We Rebooted Our Life and Started Over

We thought about buying a zoo. Our second option was to live in a tour bus. Our life was in need of a reboot. We thought Anne Lamott’s prescription just might work: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Our family decided to unplug and reboot our lives.

In the spring of 2015, we sold our five-bedroom home and most of our belongings, including our wedding china. We ejected from our bloated suburban life and began a four-month unplug. We elected to chart a new life-giving course for our future by starting anew. Commence reboot.

Our McHugh Family in 2007

We had moved to Colorado Springs in 1994. We birthed and raised our three kids, built careers and were part of great communities. The life we built was beautiful—but intertwined with beauty were cords of trauma.

One cord is the loss of our daughter Hadley in 2011 At first survival was our only goal, one foot barely in front of the other. The problem with survival is it can become a way of living. After four years of grieving and learning to live again, we found ourselves stuck in a rut. Our survivor ruts had layers: behavior ruts like parking in the same spot at Costco every time; belief ruts like, We shouldn’t make too many long-term plans because you never know what can happen. We all agreed that surviving was honorable, but in order to find our path to thriving, we were going to need to reimagine our lives again.

Our family identifies a lot with the movie We Bought a Zoo. Matt Damon’s character, Benjamin Mee, is left to raise his two children after his wife’s premature death. As a viewer, you become eyewitness to the hole mom’s death leaves behind in the lives of the survivors. Benjamin recognizes their desperate need for a fresh start. Commence reboot. Insert peacocks, elephants, tigers, a ginormous Alaskan brown bear named Bart and an abandoned zoo.

We moved into a 500 sq ft apartment at 9,000 feet at Young Life’s Frontier Ranch and volunteered for six weeks

To facilitate the reboot of our internal “joy engine,” we spent the summer in Buena Vista volunteering at Young Life’s Frontier Ranch. We recognized that we needed help in finding joy again. We downshifted to a kinder pace. My wife and I spent sunsets in rocking chairs watching mountain goats skirt the high ridges as we began to dream of thriving. We dreamed of having chickens, access to trails from our backyard, a more sustainable work mode, a new home with a modern design and a simple clutter-free life.

Frontier Ranch at the belay station where Leith worked summers in college

I shouldn’t omit that this reboot was bumpy and imperfect. Our marriage was holding on by a few threads. Our teenage daughter, Averi, was angry we took her away from her friends for the summer. During our vagabonding, we boarded our dogs for three months while we bounced around between cities and spare bedrooms. Friends understandably thought we were crazy. Some days we thought they might be right. But we knew unplugging was our best hope for a life of thriving.

The Farm McHugh Home

Insert The Farm. We found a fresh start, trails, walking access to restaurants, cows, fishing ponds and a modern design by Keller Homes. Building our new home became part of architecting a new life. Our lot backs up to open space and a network of trails. Out our back windows we can see the steeple atop New Life Church where we launched 800 balloons concluding our daughter’s memorial.

The floor plan emphasizes big views with floor-to-ceiling windows, sliding glass doors that open up the back of the house to an outdoor covered patio. Most nights we sleep with our curtains open to view the city lights and Pikes Peak at sunrise. Sometimes it feels like we live on vacation. We imported our love for Hawaiian aloha by adding an outdoor shower. A backyard bocce ball court was inspired by our playful trips to Sonoma wineries. My wife’s favorite addition is the floating staircase with horizontal steel railing—big city sexy.

Looking out through the living room to the covered Aloha patio and our backyard bocce ball court

We have plans of finishing a sleepover room for our daughter’s teenage tribe. We envision bunk beds and hooks for zigzagging their hammocks. The reclaimed wood tile flooring on the main level easily disguises the dirt—perfect for two dogs and lots of kids.

Our home is a perfect alchemy of art, play, rest, peace, joy and connection. Reboot sequence successful. Start new life.

Our dining room table custom made for 12 people

Decor and Design

Kingsley floor plan by Keller Homes only available at The Farm: 3 bed, 3 bath, 3-car garage, 4,254 square feet. Front door color Surf Blue.

Twelve-person Roller L-Sectional in Lucky Turquoise by JoyBird. Yellow plastic dining room chairs from Overstock and white oak Sede dining chairs in Thunder Gray from Article. Custom 10-person maple dining room table by Denver-based Modern Craftsman.

This Field Report first appeared in Springs Magazine.

Rebooting Your Life May 5th & 6th | Colorado Springs, CO

We want to invite you to join Leith and I for a two-day event in Colorado Springs. We will explore how rebooting your life can help you reimagine your life again. Sign-up here.

We’ve heard from a lot of people who feel stuck in a rut or simply feel like they aren’t living the life they were made for.

It’s easy to find yourself on a path you didn’t want and you’re eager to do something new.

Here’s the gig.

People like us aren’t satisfied with humdrum, average, predictable and boring. We want to live a meaningful life full of intimacy, connection, joy, creativity, beauty and adventure

We promise we’re not going to convince you to sell everything and move to the mountains.

We will help you explore what a well-lived life means to you and how rebooting your life can radically improve the story you’re living.

P.S. Just because Leith and I are co-hosting doesn’t make this a marriage conference. It’s open to anyone and everyone, regardless of where you’re at in life and your relationships.

Self-Publishing: Lesson’s I’ve Learned Starting From Zero

People ask me about my experiences of self-publishing. I thought it might be helpful if I shared some of the lessons I’ve learned about the art and science of self-publishing.

This is an excerpt from a correspondence I had with another self-published author. He asked me about what I’ve done that “works”. I was hesitant to answer his direct question and instead offered some ideas about my approach to growing and scaling influence.

Author credibility vs. sales

I’ve found that self-publishing a book is more important as a credibility asset vs. a significant income stream by itself. Although I sell books every month, they do not compare to the revenue opportunity from a single speaking engagement. The speaking engagements have become much easier to acquire once I had a book published. I’m sure you’re finding this to be true as well. I wouldn’t recommend self-publishing a single book with the intention of it instantly becoming an independent recurring revenue stream.  Instead, think of your first book as getting into the game. Most successful authors are deriving their income from a repertoire of works, all contributing to a body of work (thanks Pam Slim for that idea). 

Breaking through a crowded noisy world

It’s very crowded. There are so many people who write and speak…or would like to. I’ve discovered that I need to giveaway 98% of my content for free in order to sell 2% of what I create. That isn’t perfect math, but it’s close. I hear a lot of first time authors, bloggers and podcasters talk about what they are going to sell before they’ve actually created anything meaningful or valuable. 

I believe you have to earn the right to be heard before you have enough people listening to ask for them to purchase anything from you.

I write a blog and produce a podcast. All of that content is free. But it has enabled me over 5 years to earn a voice of influence with subscribers/listeners. The best way to punch through a noisy world is have something meaningful to offer and do it over and over and over again for free. Then you won’t be “selling” anything. You’ll simply be offering practical tools and solutions to your tribe’s challenges. 

See my newest work 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life free digital download.

Picture from my Limited Edition coffee table book of 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life

I changed my messaging

I’ve found it’s important to concentrate on what/how I can help readers/subscribers vs why I’m credible. I’ve narrowed down my story to “I want to help you restore balance and discover a well lived life”. I’ve researched a lot of other authors-speakers that I like their work. They all took this approach “here’s what’s in it for you” vs. “here’s all the reasons you should listen to me”. 

I’ve found it’s easier to be heard in a noisy world if I distilled my message & talks into benefits to the reader/audience. See my speaking page for examples. Example in your arena, “I help top performers win more on the field and at home.”

I’ve found that people need a simple 5th grader friendly explanation to understand what we do and how it will help them.

Work Life Play -I want to help you restore Balance and discover a well-lived life

Results

I think the saying, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” fits well with results. I love that you have a goal of 1.9 million people. That’s cool. I’m less scientific in some senses. 

Seth Godin wrote a book called Tribes. It’s about the idea of creating and leading a group of likeminded people. He talks about the importance of creating raving fans vs. followers. He will say you only need 100 people giving you $1000 a year to make a nice living (paraphrased). But that means you have to have 100,000 or more followers to have 100 raving fans-the people who love everything you create. (Not literal math-example)

That takes time. Scaling influence takes patience, fortitude and guts. Listen to my podcast with Carl Richards– NY Times author he talks about his eight to ten years of scaling and growing trusted influence with his tribe “Real Financial Advisors”. His work is at www.behaviorgap.com

I’ve found this approach to be slow, arduous and lonely at times and immensely rewarding. 

There are a lot of tips and techniques out there….and gamesmanship to grow an audience. I find the challenge will always be keeping & retaining people’s attention. It’s longer and slower to build raving fans but they aren’t as fickle.

Less is More

I’ve found that Mark Twain’s quote is true, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one instead”. The noisier and more crowded the world gets, I find economy of words helps reduce the burden on the reader-subscriber to get the benefit. I’m not the fastest writer. And I believe less is more, which adds overhead to my creative process. I pay a lot of attention to word counts. The challenge is that sometimes I may not dive deep enough into a topic. I choose to write on a topic and then also create a podcast to flush it out further.

Here is a recent example of a post and podcast on the same idea,

Podcast: Learning to Budget Your Emotional Energy Investments & Expenditures

Field Report: Lessons in Managing Your Emotional Calories For Optimal Output

Guide vs. Hero

I’m really sold on the idea of positioning myself as The Guide instead of The Hero of the stories I tell. My favorite authors and speakers, call me forward and help convince me that I’m fully capable of tackling big challenges. I tire quickly of the writers/speakers who make it all about them and how to exactly emulate their success. Author Donald Miller taught me about this idea of positioning myself as The Guide and enabling my reader to be The Hero. 

The Hero claims, “I have this all figured out, here are the amazing lessons I have to teach you, I’m the expert, do what I do and how I do it. You’ll succeed if you do exactly what I did.”

The Guide says….“Look what I found. I want to share it with you. I think this might be helpful to you on your journey, endeavour, project, or quest. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Here are a few you pitfalls you want to avoid. You might be able to learn from my mistakes and hopefully not repeat them. You’re going to do great at this.”

The difference is the focus shifts to the reader as The Hero. The Guide (me) helps them achieve their objectives. Taking this approach shifts the attention off me and empowers the reader to step up and engage their role as the Hero.

This has helped me check my motives and reframe stories to help listeners/reader achieve their goals. Hopefully, I become a helpful guide vs. the focus of my achievements or wisdom (the Hero).

Amazon 

I’m told by other authors that Amazon creates 90%+ of all book sales. Less than 10% come from all other channels combined.

Secondly, having five to seven total works in your author store seems to be a higher probability of a tipping point. It helps drive up total sales by having multiple assets for a buyer to pick from or add to their cart. I’m releasing my second next month (99 Ways is releasing in Kindle in Feb ’17). Still a ways from the five to seven. But chipping away. I go to Rebecca Livermore with Professional Content Creation for my self-publishing advice. 

Amazon Reviews

It is important that your book has a handful of positive reviews that are from people who purchased your book. I found it helpful to go ahead and ask a few key people to provide an honest review. After you acquire 15-20+ reviews, which helps a potential reader feel at ease and eliminates the risk of “what if it’s bad”. My book Fire Your Boss is up to 27 reviews. Please add a review for me. It really does help. Everyone likes to make a safe decision. The more people who vote “yes” feels like it must be good.

Giveaway a lot of free copies of your book

I regularly drop ship free gift copies of my book from Amazon to a reader, podcast guest I interviewed and someone who wrote me an email asking about my work. I largely reinvest the money I make from book sales back into spreading the word. My original motive for writing Fire Your Boss was helping people rethink their career in order to experience more satisfaction and career fulfillment . This approach allows me to keep advancing that cause. 

Resources I go to: 

Michael Hyatt: Intentional leadership. Former CEO of large publishing company.

Donald Miller: Story Brand and how to make your reader the hero. Most known for his book Blue Like Jazz.

Seth Godin: Tribes and his daily blog. Can’t say enough positive things about him and his work. 

Jeff Goins: Incredible story from blogging to now best selling writer. Provides practical tools on how publish.

Rebecca Livermore: Creating professional content, self-publishing, promotion and book release strategies.

Jon Cook: Keynote Content, perfect for editing and content development help.

Lorie DeWorken: Mind the Margins, typesetting and book layout for self-publishing.

Ben Larson, Bottle Rocket Design, graphic design genius and content visualization.

Lessons in Managing Your Emotional Calories For Optimal Output

Are you tired? Worn out? A little dull and not sure why? Flirting with burnout? Have you been pushing hard? Just finished a long season of insane work hours? You’ve had tons of personal life crises for months on end?

I understand and I think this idea can help you get back to a more sustainable and healthy version of you.

Big Idea: Think of Your Emotional Energy Like Food

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 connecting my emotional energy with my physical energy, food nutrient intake, caloric requirements and energy management.

Today, my life is radically different because I’m learning to manage my emotional energy for optimal output. Our emotional energy is renewable if we steward our input of emotional nutrients alongside our emotional energy investments.

For decades I operated from the belief that my emotional energy was automatically 100% renewable every day. I was wrong. Our emotional energy is renewable, if we manage it well. Like any energy management system, you cannot use more than you create or store. Our emotional energy is like a solar battery gaining recharge by sun exposure. Put a solar cell in a dark room without light and it cannot regain its power.

Like solar power, our emotional energy will recharge from continual exposure to our positive emotional energy sources. Emotional energy nutrients are highly individualistic. Going for a run gives me positive input of emotional nutrients. For a non-runner it could be a negative experience which, results in an emotional energy subtraction or calorie burn.

Energy & Source = Recharge

My old way of living

I used to approach each new day without a plan for budgeting my inputs of nutrients with my energy expenditures. Long work day-check. Endless meetings-check. A friend who needed an ear-check. Kids that needed books read and put to bed-check.

At the end of each day, I’d wonder, “Why am I so tired? I didn’t do that much”. I now understand that my emotional energy was being depleted one emotional calorie at a time. Today, I live and budget my emotional calorie expenditures alongside my input of emotional nutrients for optimal output. I know that’s a mouthful of an idea. Let me unpack it more.

Emotional Calories and managing emotional energy

E.g. To run one mile, it requires 100 calories of energy

To complete a one mile running race, we accept that our body must either contain or intake enough energy in the form of calories, fats, or nutrients. For illustration purposes, let’s assume that it takes 100 calories to run one mile.

During the one-mile run, we understand that 100 calories will be depleted or burned. When the race is over, our body needs us to intake new calories to keep going the rest of the day. Finally, we appreciate that if we burned 110 calories during our run, we are either need to replenish those 10 extra calories or we may have had extra energy storage that we tapped into.

Either way, in order to accomplish the task of running one mile, it requires energy, calories, nutrients and stored energy. I believe our emotional energy is exactly the same.

Whatever you want to accomplish, create, build, renovate, change, refurbish, invent, conquer, birth and overcome, it requires emotional energy.

Emotional Cells

Emotional Calories-Energy Stored Within Our Emotional Cells

Stored within us are limited supplies of emotional cells. These emotional cells store energy. Energy is expended each day as we pursue our Work, Life, Play, Relationships and Health.

Emotional Calorie Intake of Nutrients

Emotional Caloric Nutrient Intake

We must begin to understand that our emotional cells must be fed with nutrients and soul food. I now understand that I have to have a steady diet of nutrients to feed my emotional calories. Things that feed my emotional energy tanks are:

  • Rest & sleep
  • Quiet
  • Time with my family
  • Adventure
  • Good food and wine
  • Laughter
  • Prayer and time alone with God
  • Doing work I love
  • Being around good friends

I’ve begun to think of these nutrients like a packaging label on a nutrition bar.

Activity: Hour long run with a friend in the mountains
Calorie nutrient intake: 200 calories [100 nutrients from running + 100 being outside in the mountains]

I am then able to invest those new 200 nutrient calories of stored energy into my responsibilities, my work, my creativity, my obligations and my relationships.

Emotional Calorie Nutritional Facts

Caloric Depletion

We must understand what burns and depletes our emotional calories.  Assign a daily emotional calorie count for these examples:

  • Difficult conversation (100 emotional calories)
  • Business Travel for three nights (100 emotional calories x 3 nights)
  • Stressful day (150 emotional calories)
  • Pace of Life is too fast (75 emotional calories)
  • Endless To-Do’s (150 emotional calories)
  • 100 new unread emails (75 emotional calories)

Rate of depletion

Individual activities can be compounded in their caloric requirement by your rate of depletion. I believe that e.g. prolonged stress, being in a leadership position, working 100 hours and difficult relational conversations significantly increase my emotional calorie rate of depletion.

Difficult conversation (100 emotional calories) x (5) conversations this week x (20% increase)
________________________________________________________________ 

=600 emotional calories of nutrients required to fuel these conversations

Emotional Calories and our expenditures

Resources:

Necessary Endings: Dr. Henry Cloud

I found this book very helpful in my shifting seasons. Dr. Cloud named many of my internal struggles and provided the affirmation that endings are natural and necessary.

Listen to the original podcast on How I Burned Out and Came Back.

Trip Report: Two Hour Surf Lesson in Santa Cruz, CA

I’m learning to surf. It is challenging living a thousand miles from an ocean. Each time I travel to the ocean, I attempt to get in at least one surf session. I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to either go with a friend or hire a guide. On a trip to Santa Cruz, CA, my brother and I squeezed in a quick adventure to catch a few waves between commitments.

On a good recommendation from my friend Curious Gabe we choose Richard Schmidt Surf School.

Gabe is a long-standing columnist and photographer for Surfer Magazine.

I asked him….

Who should we call to go surfing?

Gabe, being said “Definitely Richard Schmidt Surf School”.

Down the hill, wetsuit on, catching waves, wetsuit off, back up the hill all in three hours.

You should’ve seen our smiles.

When all the other guys at the men’s retreat opted for shuffleboard or a game of cards, we lived an Outside Magazine article.

How to book a lesson with Richard Schmidt Surf and SUP School

Lessons run about $90 x person and last about two hours. Contact them for availability. Yelp reviews

849 Almar Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 423-0928 or richardschmidt.com Bookings

Be Generous and Become Wealthy

People say they are generous, but most are not. Donations are not necessarily the same as being generous. I donate our household items to Goodwill that we no longer need. I make sure I keep the receipt so that I can receive a tax deduction for my donation.

There is nothing generous about donating my neglected things. Generosity costs us something. I know a very few select people that I would call generous. Let me describe what I believe generosity looks like.

Seth Godin
I shared a bowl of rice with Seth Godin. He prepared the rice in his rice cooker for 60 people attending his workshop. He could have ordered take-out. He could have left for lunch to get some time away from the crowd. Instead, he stayed and played the host as he served his new friends a healthy meal. He turned the meeting room into his living room as if we were all dinner guests invited into his home.

Why was this generous? Yes, it cost him some of his time and money, but mostly it cost him the human act of warmly serving another, “You first.” Generosity requires a human connection, eyeball to eyeball, life on life. I wish you could have been there.

Billionaires and Hammers
A friend of mine gave a few hundred thousand dollars to sponsor the tuition for 300 men to attend a retreat in Volcano National Park. He wanted to remove finances from the list of reasons why guys might not attend. He was generous so the guy swinging a hammer for a living didn’t have to say, “I can’t afford it.”

That same friend spends every day with billionaires. He is a witness to the gap between the upper 1% and a construction worker. Knowing how lopsided the world can be, his generosity leveled the playing field for the weekend. Generosity was the price of admission for every blue collar, hammer-swinging, neglected, forgotten, disrespected, honorable man that sat in that auditorium.

It worked. 300 guys attended and less than 15 of them paid for their ticket. “Let every guy know his ticket wasn’t free. It was paid for by someone.” Paid in full, it cost him something, but he gave it freely without a requirement for something in return.
I wish you could have been there to see their smiles.

Be generous and you will become wealthy.

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life No 21 Be Generous

Don’t Neglect Your Relationships

A friend told me about a saying from his mentor, “The grass is greener wherever you water it.” I’ve been married for over twenty years and I have not always regularly irrigated our relationship. When I was age 25, I thought my wife could be more like xeriscaping: drought-tolerant. Turns out she never signed up for an inch of rain every three months. I’ve learned the hard way that growth comes where you regularly water.

Trust me, your wife, your friends, your family, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your sister, your brother, your neighbor, your employees, your son, your daughter…would gladly receive some relational watering from you.

Go find that watering can.

Find the full list of 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download my free field guide.

Don't neglect your relationships by Aaron McHugh 99 ways
Don’t neglect your relationships by Aaron McHugh 99 ways

Don’t Dip Your Quill In Company Ink

I ride bikes most weekends with a group of guys. One of the guys, taught me this lesson.

Twenty-five years ago, his mentor gave him this advice, “Don’t dip your quill in company ink”. The summary is don’t mix romance and work. Without trying to be too crass, you can do what you will with your quill, but don’t involve anyone you work with or especially anyone who works for you.

Let me tell you a true story to illustrate the risks of not heeding this principle.

Early in my sales career, I won a company contest with the grand prize being a trip to the owner’s five-star horse ranch in Montana. The top 100 sales people gathered for a multi-day shindig bonanza to celebrate our company’s high performers.

Fast forward past the night of the Type A salespeople cutting loose, picture horse troughs full of beer, a country western band flown in from Nashville, TN, a stage built inside the indoor horse arena. It was a full-blown party.

The morning after the big palooza, the barely awake top 100 are assembled again in the horse arena for a buffet breakfast. The owner of the company comes riding in to give us a “Howdy-good morning” atop his favorite horse. He started in on a William Wallace type speech, thanking us for working so hard.

Despite the owners pulling on the reins, his horse was super distracted by something he smelled in the stacked hay bales 10 feet away. The horse caught a scent and wouldn’t stop nosing around this one corner. All of a sudden from behind the stacks, our married with children VP of Sales sits up. It was immediately clear that he had never made it to his bunk, but slept off his buzz there in the hay. Ok, we reminded ourselves, “He likes to party”. Milliseconds later, one of his female employees sat up next to him.

…It was not good. The whole company was there as witness to why your quill and company ink shouldn’t mix.

Be careful what do with your quill.

Find the full list of 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the free field guide.

Don’t Check Your Email 200 Times a Day

My friend Bill told me once, “Your inbox is full of stuff other people want you to work on.” The spirit of this principle is don’t be a slave to what other people want you to work on. You know what you need to do. Close your email and do your work. Develop discipline to only check email at certain times each day. 

The idea of always on, always available, always responding is a symptom of our inability to actually accomplish anything meaningful.

Find the full list of 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life here. Download the free field guide.

99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life No. 63
99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life No. 63

Self-Respect and Dignity Are Easy to Ignore But Difficult to Regain

I have a friend who served a thirteen months sentence in Federal prison for an SEC (Security Exchange Commission) violation. Concurrent with the US market collapse of 2007, the US government started a campaign to round up all the bad guys who they could punish and blame. My friend became the face of a thousand bad guys and received the full weight of the US government’s wrath and punishment. By his own admission, “I made a mistake” and ten years later he has paid his debt in full.

I had a tearful conversation with him after he served his first of two periods of incarceration. He told me a story about the man he used to be when he owned airplanes, vacation homes and earned millions of dollars each year. I didn’t know him when his life was governed by a drug addiction. I didn’t know him when he would disappear for a three-day bender in Las Vegas. I met him in the aftermath.

Like a city burned to the ground, he continues to rebuild his life. He paid the attorneys. His family is restored and under continual renovation. His wife and kids have extended him forgiveness. His community has welcomed him home again. He is starting businesses again.

But the slowest, the most agonizing back of the wagon train part of his restoration was regaining self-respect and dignity. Today he’d tell you, “I’ve got my integrity back and I am not going to lose it again. It cost too much.”

Although we may not relate to the high roller extremes of his story, we can identify with the allegory of his story. Self-respect and dignity are easy to ignore but difficult to regain. They are critical companions in order to experience wholehearted living.

Don’t ignore them. Don’t pretend they are not a big deal. Don’t succumb to the whisper that they can suffer a few bruises and bounce right back. No matter what has been lost, it’s never too late to start the journey back to self-respect and dignity. Be kind to yourself on the return trip. It’s going to take a while. Keep going. You’re worth it.

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

Self-Respect & Dignity from 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life
Self-Respect & Dignity from 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life