A Decade of Work Life Play Anniversary Edition

Morgan:
Elton Trueblood once said, "A man is made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life. When he plants shade trees under which he knows full well, he will never sit." Friends. It's Morgan Snyder with Aaron McHugh on another episode of the Work Life Play podcast. And normally it would start with Aaron's voice, but we are taking a bit of a, a celebratory detour today, a celebratory pause today to mark a decade of Work Life Play. Aaron, I want to welcome you into the Work Life Play studio for this podcast. Welcome.
Aaron:
Hell yeah. Yeah, buddy. 10 years.
Morgan:
10 years. I had to start with that quote because I've been thinking about a decade and I'm just reminded the way us humans measure life is far too short in its intervals, but nature you know, nature is our first sacred text that's ever been given to humanity. And there's something about nature that I believe is meant to rescue and reorient the soul. And there's something about the time and the pace. There's this brilliant book, The Hidden Life of Trees, I recommend to you all that we've both explored together. But that quote that a man starts to discover the meaning of human life when he plants a tree under which he knows full well, he will never sit a decade, is a really good measurement if there is one in a human life. So we're here to mark the decade and tell some stories, here's some observations, and take another pass at Work Life and Play.
Aaron:
Yeah. Love it. What that brings up for me is in the, the book, the Hidden Life of Trees that I've learned to love is just recently, I was in the, on some peaks over the weekend here in Colorado, and there were these massive trees that were cut down because they'd probably just blown over. And they were obscuring the trail and they came through with the chainsaw. When you actually look at the rings of the trees, 10 years on a tree is not very long. These massive, they're probably 80, a hundred year old trees. Okay. But 10 years isn't just isn't that many if you go to the center of the rings and come out 10. I think what's interesting about that analogy and then that story of providing shade that you may or may not ever actually benefit from, where I can relate to that as here with Work Life Play is in our world that we're living in. -The modern world, 10 years of having a podcast is unusual and it's not very long in the story of stories.
Aaron:
What I think is fun with that is to be playful around. In the beginning when I started this, I was trying to wrangle one of our friends, John Dale, to come be a co-host with me. Okay. That was the beginning. I was like, let's do this podcast thing and have an opportunity to interview people so they can tell their stories. You and I will host it, and we're going to call it, I'm going to call it Brown Bag, CEO, and The Brown Bag, CEO was going to be lunchtime podcasts where you go for a run, take a brown bag lunch, and have a kind of informal, organic conversation with CEOs was my plan. And Jon was like, you should definitely do that.
Aaron:
I want a, WE Where's I, we're going to do this together? He's like, no, no, that's not for me. And so, then I began, I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to find some guests and I'm going to book the guest first and then figure out how to actually record a podcast second. So I reached out to these two people. One was a kind of up and coming new author. One was a new c e o of a basically a startup. And I reached out to both of 'em. "Hey, I'd love to have you on my podcast. It's called Work Life Play. When are You Available? "I didn't go into, I've never recorded an episode. The podcast doesn't actually exist. It was just like, you know, bold action first figure out later. So fast forward, you know, 10 years, many, many, many hundreds of podcasts later. It's really fun to see. Yeah. My little tree has got 10 years of rings on it. Not enough to sit under with some shade yet, but yeah, definitely a worthy endeavor.
Morgan:
You know, what's powerful about the 10 years of Work Life Play is I bump into second generation stories of lives impacted by work-life play now in my world. So it's, you know, I read Fire Your Boss, or I heard this one episode, or McHugh did this adventure on a low budget or a short amount of time that I didn't think was possible, and then I did this thing and now my buddies are doing this thing. It's that second generation. There's something about the maturing over time of people personalizing it. Right. They're taking they're not trying to recreate your world. That's level one. Right. Of just some sort of like false comparison that some feels like, if I can, if I can rearchitect your life, Aaron McHugh's life, then I'll be happy. And then you quickly realize the best life I could have is mine, but just an integrated version. Yeah. Right. A wholehearted version of me is the best life I could ever have. And so how can I learn from you? And, and so I bump into those people and those stories demonstrate that there's something true, good and beautiful that's being recovered. That started with Brown Bag c e o as far as your public, right? Sure, sure. Right idea. And it's, it's working. It's working and yeah. It's good to
Aaron:
I had a guy recently reach out to me and he was saying something to the effect of, Hey, I've heard about you for a while. Finally dug into your stuff and realize that you have this kind of liberating framework for how to live well and Work Life Play for me, has always been about my own exploration without knowing exactly what it is for others or how to explain, I'm, I'm attempting to explain my own experience and then just share that broadly. And that's looked many different ways over the years. Like, I remember one time I had this guest and I said, love to interview you for a podcast, but I have a little twist in how I'd like to do it. Yeah. I'll meet you at the Newport Beach Pier. My kids and I are going to rent a surly with fringe on top, which is like this bicycle carriage thing.
Aaron:
You and I'll sit in the back and we'll do the interview while the kids ride us up and down the boardwalk. You good with that? . And she was like, yes, I live four miles from there. I've never been in a surly with fringe on top. Hell yeah. Let's do it. And I remember I rocked up once too early and there was a CEO of the Walt Disney family basically trust, essentially, and they have this museum in San Francisco. And I said, listen, my grandfather worked for Walt Disney in the early fifties at Disneyland. I'd love to come interview you about the life and legacy of Walt Disney and how you're stewarding that. Could I rock up to your office? I've got some microphones. Podcast was like kind of even, what is that mean? Yes. That kind of early. And it was like in the parking lot.
Aaron:
I remember seeing Diane Disney, who was Walt Disney's daughter, one of his daughters while she was still alive. And I remember walking in just thinking, am I really going to do this? Like, I flew all this way, I was on a business trip for client stuff, and then I kind of squeezed in and threaded this little podcast project thing. And when I look back over the years, like I realize that that is a theme of this. I'm running experiments. Yes. I'm constantly experimenting with life. And none of it is this. I never feel unafraid or courageous and bold. I just feel deeply curious and I'm willing to try the next thing. Now as a result of that, many years later, I can look back and now more easily articulate a framework, if you will. Around what is Work Life Play been about all these years.
Aaron:
And in the beginning I thought I was around doing work you love living a life that's meaningful to you and playing a lot more to me, undergirded in my case, with a deep life with God. I recognize that may or may not translate for everyone. And that's okay. For me, though, Work Life Play has no periods, no exclamation marks, no hyphens in between. It's all one integrated together story. It's taken me 10 years to be able to articulate what it is I've been chasing the whole time. In a new, more fluent way that enables for even more access for people. Yes. And like you're saying, it's not about replicate my life. It's around, I believe these are truths for us that we can recover and integrate into the modern world that we live in that will produce a lot more aliveness, wholeheartedness, and connectedness with the people that we're entrusted to care for as well as the work and the impact that we're here to create.
Morgan:
One thing I hear you saying is it's taken 10 years to articulate what is work-life play. But the other thing that I want to call out in what I hear and how you're saying it, is there has been congruency over the last 10 years in that's been in you all along. But like you said, it's taken 10 years of experiments to figure out what that is about. Right. The undergirding, the underlying, you mean you rocked up to my house for a podcast in the bus. And, you know, most of the podcasts I do are in a pretty dialed in studio best practices with the idea of let's capture the best audio, and we're sitting in the street in your bus. And I'm going, well, this is kind of different. And the context was the gold. Right. It just, it just drew out our joy and stories that I don't think we would've accessed.
Morgan:
But in risk taking. One thing I want to name Aaron that I see in you that I think because of your temperament, I think you assume it's people's normal practice, but I think most people, particularly men get hung up on this. And it's risking enough that you fail regularly. Like the phrase that I use often is kind of this internal mantra is what I am doing in my life is failing forward. in other words, I hope to push the limits in risk taking in my work of the things that undergird me as a human where I fail a lot because I believe that failure's one of the greatest teachers, but we live in a culture that actually trains us to avoid failure. And you fail really well. You're failing forward. And now because you've continued to persevere, to be curious, to retool, to rethink, to reevaluate to make two degree shifts. You're now at 10 years and you can articulate the congruency of Work Life Play, but failure's been a really big piece of it. What do you think about that?
Aaron:
Yeah, I think it's really fair and astute of you that I do innately. And for me, experimentation is, feels like it comes natural. And maybe that's because I've had so many things in my life unexpectedly go wrong. And what I mean, for those of you that have listened before, when our daughter passed away 12 years ago when our son was in drug rehab, we, we just had a lot of those kinds of big, traumatic, unexpected events in our life and all of the mini traumas of the days of living in those years also. And I think in some ways it was like long-term planning was somehow, I don't even know, like reminds me of like a juice press. It was like somehow that was just, I had to let go. Like this deep level of surrender of long-term plans, five-year plans, this management by execution and uncertainty equals yielded result it was like I couldn't make that work in my life.
Morgan:
Yeah. And that at the time was a strong kind of source of peace for you, right? Yeah. At least I have a Plan.
Aaron:
Yeah. I was, I'm good at plans, but I was failing regularly in my ability to bring a plan to life. And so just repeatedly time after time after time again, disappointment, disappointment, disappointment. Like in the smallest of thing. Like, let's go on Saturday to the pool with the kids, and then my daughter would be in a grand mal seizure, you know, Saturday morning and we'd plan for it all week. Okay, well, we're not going today. And I think those are the, in those hidden years when I wasn't podcasting, when I wasn't, it wasn't being seen for what I was doing. I was grappling with a lot of that. And so I think back to the spirit of experimentation and failure, there was just so many failures on a micro level. And then things like, okay, great, I'll start a podcast, or I'll self-publish a book or I'll, and it'd be like
Aaron:
Oh wow. I had like 200 downloads on a podcast. And I was like, well, I, that's something you're going to feed your family on. Like, well, I guess maybe I'll just keep doing this business thing and then, but how do I begin to integrate more of who I am into who I am wherever I am? Whereas early on my objective was work-life play was the escape hatch for me out of the assignment that I had in career because I was finding my career very limiting in who I was and all that I had to offer. So I needed a sandbox that I could go experiment in that had, you know, the implications of risk. Were really small. Yes. Like big deal. So what if nobody listens, but my mom , I'm still doing it. Like my mom's our biggest fan probably even today, .
Aaron:
Thank you mom. . And that's okay. Yeah. And I think for me it was like the risk of not doing it felt like I was somehow was like cancerous inside of me. I can't not do this. Parker Palmer writes about it, what's the thing you can't do? You're not able to explain why to yourself nor anyone else, but you still cannot not do it. And to me, that's a powerful question that you spend enough time in quiet with a candle and a cup of coffee and some prayer in the morning. Those kinds of big questions can find room in your life. Yes. And to me, out of that work-life play has always been this place in which I can't not. And then back to the analogy you opened with, with Trees, you and I also love this book called The Man Who Planted Trees, and it's about this beautiful story of him, A hundred acorns at a time per day planting across the French countryside that was barren and hot windblown decimated.
Aaron:
And over the course of his life, he created a forest and forests that created forests of forests. And it became in uninhabited places became thriving Well, springs of life. Yes. And to me, that's a metaphor for a lot of, when I drop a podcast, when I write a blog, a book is many more than just a single acorn, but I view those as acorns. I'm planting a tree and to your opening quote, I may not be around to see what shade this provides, but I'm going to just keep planting trees, keep planting trees, keep planting trees, I can't not do it. And I also believe that deeply we are all connected and as I thrive and you thrive, so we will thrive together. And that's how the whole thing is the rigged for our, for our benefit.
Morgan:
Yes. I want to linger on one idea that you said there because you, you do have a unique place from Work Life Play to some of your kind of tent making work in the world. Chimney sweep, I know what we'd call it in this context, but your vocational work in the
Aaron:
World. Yeah, yeah. Client consulting work,
Morgan:
Your client consulting work in the world. You see a lot of lives. You actually get a 30,000 foot and a ground level view of lots of different people and cultures. So there's a couple questions I'd love to explore from the way you see it, where many of us have a really limited slice of the pie from our social location. So this idea, Aaron, the risk of not doing, you know, you made the comment, there's the thing that we can't not do. And yet when you say that, I go, well, partly I'm doing it, and then partly I'm holding back. There's the thing I can't not do, and yet I find myself not doing it. And what strikes me as I look on a decade of work-life play is you the student, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. You, you are a student by nature, but also by choice you've become a student, you've become the, the phrase I would use as apprentice for, for wholehearted living. We, we use the phrase we want to become lifetime l lovers and learners. And that's who you are. One of my mentors and a mentor of yours as well, long-term USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard, he talks about the idea of the cost of non-apprenticeship.
Morgan:
Planting trees is dirty work. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And that's why most podcasts don't last because you have to grind a lot. And so, apprenticeship is expensive, but I think out of a decade, my guess is you have visibility to many people to see the cost of non-apprenticeship. Can you put words to what have you observed? What do people need to hear?
Aaron:
Yeah. Such a great question. I'm looking at another quote here too from another one of our mentors, Eugene Peterson. And he wrote, "We live in a culture where image is everything and substance is nothing. We live in a culture where a new beginning is far more attractive than a long follow through. It's far more attractive than a long follow through." And I think the spirit of an apprentice is, and it's taken me a long time, you know, I don't remember that resonating with me when I was in my thirties Right. Like a long follow through. I was like, forget that
Morgan:
My whole world's new beginning.
Aaron:
Totally. I need more. Yeah. I, so, and now I think to your point, the landscape view, the aperture I get to experience the world through is really diverse mm-hmm. and really wide and really global. So the number of humans that I'm in contact with each year, each week, each day is fascinating. From Serbia to Istanbul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to Chicago, to Tupelo, Mississippi, it's a very different set. Yeah. And like you said, it's like somebody who owns a landscape company to somebody who's doing R&D on molecular structure for cancer drugs, you know, it's like very diverse.
Morgan:
Then you get the people in hotels, right. I mean, a hotel in Tupelo, Mississippi, in a hotel in downtown London.
Aaron:
Yeah, totally. Yeah. So from Switzerland to London to, I'm around the globe a lot with humans. A lot. And so it, it enables for me as a student to be an incredible, I'm always studying Yes. Right. And I'm always sampling, collecting the data. So good. Yeah. Data with the soul. Totally. Yeah. Data with the soul. So for me, I think what I see back to your question is what's missing is, I think it's cruel the way the world functions today in substances lacking a new beginning is far more attractive than a long follow through. And that soul is undervalued and human experience is maximum value. And what I mean by that is, as long as I have a good meal this week, as long as my Instagram feed is getting lots of likes, as long as I have these badass photos and do all this like amazing stuff, it must mean I'm fully alive. Right?
Aaron:
Well, I work with a lot of people and a handful of them, some of them are fully alive -I don't experience that many fully alive. I do experience people with a glimmer in their eye and a step they're taking towards fully alive for them. And I think the particularness that I just keep feeling more courageous about is if I keep taking risks, maybe you will too.
Aaron:
Maybe you will too. how I got where I am today was, and you, and I love this Wendell Berry quote about the zigzag lines of my life with that. I think it's so powerful to begin to look at your life as an observer, as a student, as an explorer, as a scientist. For me is all in partnership with God to see what is going on here, what's the story about what's up next? And I, what I witness is a lack of wonder, a lack of vitality, and a lack of zeal. Not all the time, but enough that it keeps me on the path of vitality, of zeal, of wonder, of curiosity, of exploration. Because there's, some of it is, I'm afraid, I'm afraid and, and not fears driving it, but it's in there. I guess I see the cost. back to your question. Yeah. The cost of not being an apprentice, which is just to me, like managing life or sleepwalking through life, or droning on and on, or the endless pursuit of the new, new beginnings that the shiny new thing, which doesn't create substance, which to me doesn't create joy, which doesn't create an integrated whole heart.
Morgan:
Yeah. It's fascinating. The cost is a big deal. Where again, in the early thirties or at the beginning of this, it wasn't as perceptible because everyone's kind of effectively climbing some kind of ladder. Right. Making some kind of name for themselves, getting something going, making a little money, working their hustle. And yet you, what I hear you saying is there are a lot of people that should be really well based on their human experience Absolutely. From what you observe, but you get under the covers and under the hood on their life. Right. Your work sends you into the intimate places of their story. And what you see is there's great cost to not being apprentice, to not risking, to not being curious, to not listening to the soul and treating yourself like, yeah, I love Dallas. What he says is, "it's not accurate to say we have a soul as much as it is to say we are a soul." That, that's pretty important,
Morgan:
. That's good. You are a soul. That's a very different orientation, isn't
Morgan:
It? Exactly. I got dropped my little girl off at school today, you know, and we're going in carpool and we do human things, but we are souls. Yeah. And if you are a soul, then your soul matters. In that quote that you had mentioned we draw that from Wendell Berry and Jabber crow. And, and what's so beautiful in that story, he's a man not just reflecting and celebrating a decade, but it's seven decades of apprenticeship. And he's looking back at a life that frankly would look a bit haphazard and honestly disappointing to some, and even to himself. He became a barber when what he wanted to do was be a professor he thought, or a pastor because he loved learning. He loved the classroom, he loved teaching. He loved something that maybe we'd name like guiding or shepherding. And yet he followed the curiosity.
Morgan:
He took the next risk. He, I, he faced his grief. He fell in love with a woman who was married. Wendell Barry tells a story, it's not his autobiography, but he's telling the biography of his soul. And he basically dealt with the grief of, we can't go to the swimming pool because my handicapped daughter isn't able to do that after all this arranging. And so he's looking back over seven decades and he sees most of his life. He says, "that I'm going to have, I've had, and I can see what it has been. I remember those early years when it seemed to me I was completely adrift. And at times when looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error. But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken and maybe even as straight as possible from one end to the other. I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led. And I will leave you to judge the truth of that for yourself."
Aaron:
Unbroken Lines. Yeah. Man, I just, it's a gut, heart, soul punch. Every time I read it, hear it. Especially having you read it, the dark woods of air. Gosh, I relate to that. Mm. I just so relate to Surely I've at points in my life, surely I'm lost. Surely in the, I'm in the dark woods of error.
Morgan:
Can you take me to one that I see your tears. Yeah. This is very personal. Yeah. Can you take me to a moment? Seemingly,
Aaron:
I mean there's, there's many. I think a lot of 'em come around early in career. I remember these opportunities to take a big job, move from Colorado and go, go be a big deal for somebody or something. I flew down to Tampa. I remember I met this guy for an interview, was going to work for this big corporate company that you'd recognize the name of. And I met him at the airport. He came in late, he's wearing no socks and slicked back hair and talked about being with the Bush family the night before. And he was just a raving asshole. I remember like, there was like a, a steady job income of this title. It was like, you get prestige title, predictability and whatever. And so I remember talking with this guy and feeling like I, I spoke with his second in command after he did his little parade thing with me, and then left and I sent him back home, .
Aaron:
His buddy walked me back to the airport hotel, little connected deal. I said, what's it like working for him, working with him? He's like, "it's like a rocket. You gotta strap yourself with to it" Wow. "And you don't know where it's going to go, but you just gotta sign up for the ride." And I remember flying home and just feeling like, really? Is this what I gotta do? This is what I gotta do to be successful, strapped myself to a rocket and to this person who I could tell had no substance. And I just remember feeling like-there was a pool of the paychecks security benefits, The title. I was like, I could get all these things my family needs and I would look good on LinkedIn and I'm supposed to want, or supposed to need.
Aaron:
And I was like, you know what? I just can't. But the feeling of that, it was like soulfully. I can't, practically speaking though, is this one of the moments where I'm actually in the dark woods of error and I should have, or I need to do this because that's, this is just what's in front of me. And I think there's so many of those kinds of choices that I've made over the years where I really felt the, I might be this up. Yeah. And you know, even this summer, I took two months off, I turned 50 and I stepped away from client work for two solid months. Never done that outside of like a medical leave of absence. When I'm like sideways in a therapist's office, just took it off, stepped away, and let my life come to an idol as best I could.
Aaron:
That was a huge experiment. Financially, it was an experiment. Responsibility-Wise was a huge experiment. Culturally, modern life in interpretations by others is a huge experiment. And I have moments even while doing it Yes. Asking, have I done it again? Right. So, sir, am I in the dark woods of air here? But I soulfully know and believe this is the experiment that I am to run, to honor this moment in my life. I'm 50 years old, I'm halfway or more than half, we don't know. And I'm not willing to let this moment pass without underscoring it in a significant way. , I'm going to celebrate as far on the trail as I've made it as an explorer. I, I'm not to the destination. I don't even know what the destination is, but I'm not willing to let it go by without a moment of pause, reflection, celebration. And I refuse to live on a treadmill. And part of that does, however, produce these moments, these seasons, these stretches where I can look back, feel like I'm off base, but then I can look back to the other part of the quote about actually they're unbroken lines. Yes. I am being led and I feel a relief in that. like I've always been led and these beautiful zigzags of my life. These you know, seemingly
Aaron:
Really Left field things turned out to be incredibly powerful in the version of me that I'm continually experimenting with, integrating more and more of so that who I am here is the same me I am everywhere
Morgan:
I am Being led is so risky to risk embracing because we need to relinquish control. Right. To really lean into what if, what if there is something stronger than me, greater than me? What if there is actually a sacred intention, something good at work on my behalf? Yeah. And that's why I love that last line. I will leave you to judge the truth of that for yourself,
Aaron:
Which to me is so inviting.
Morgan:
So speak of inviting In light of that, I want to take a risk and ask you another question. And I would say I, I want to go off script, but we don't have script, so we're going to go off the script that we don't have. Because, and you're in your fifties and we're celebrating decade. It just feels like we're losing the ability to in, in a loving way to love ourselves and love people. So I want to ask you about that being led. There's a quote that one mentor gave me that was really helpful years ago where he said, experience very rarely furnishes its own interpretation. And so it can be very dangerous to link experience directly with interpretation and our, our souls reach for a story, a narrative to give some sense of peace. That's human nature.
Morgan:
And we, and we scheme and we grapple until we tell ourselves a story that we can sleep at night to make sense of reality. Yeah. But what I hear in all that you're beautifully articulating to us today, Aaron, is there is this undergirding, there is this confidence in something or someone that's leading you. And I just want to invite a chance for you if there's anything you wanna say to people that trust you to say like, where does this hope come from? What's below Yeah. That is the thing that's leading you in a way where you can navigate the kind of things you've put words to today and be okay. Like what would you wanna share?
Aaron:
Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about this actually. And I started looking at Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan . They did gospel albums. Aretha Franklin's You know, call it some of the greats. Yes. And they would, you know, Johnny Cash-Folsom Prison Blues. Right. That's what he's known for. Yes. And he did this really cool gospel album.
Morgan:
Interesting.
Aaron:
What I'm thinking about is exactly that. Is like I'll allow you to judge the truth of that for yourself,
Morgan:
Of your gospel album.
Aaron:
Yeah. Like, so the Jaber crow line. You just read like the last line is, hey, you can judge for yourself. And here's what I've found, here's what I've discovered. Here's what I've deepened in. And I was writing this morning in my journal this opening line is what makes me useful is I'm awake, alive, and attentive. I'm on a quest to the second mountain. I have a grounded and rooted sense of self. I know who I am and whose I am, who I belong to. And for me on my gospel album, I belong to God.
Aaron:
I always have. I always will. And I've seen too much of in life in particular experiences. I watched my daughter's spirit while she died, leave the room. No one can ever convince me we do not have a soul. I watched her soul in her body. I watched her soul leave her body and there were 28 witnesses in the room who saw the same. So for me, I don't need to go around convincing people about their soul. To me it's just a fact. Now the choice is what do we do with the soul that we are Yes. That to me is the choice I choose to engage. How to be fully alive is an integration of soul, starting with soul to me, anchored in a life with God. Where I find my gospel album is informed by my experience globally. Right? Yes. Right. And diversity wise Yes. From recovery communities to different religions, to is I find it incredibly unhelpful to be like wrangling over religious. Yes. I refuse to have any participation in it. what I choose to. And I love Richard Roar talks about it. He's like, how can we be the life of God to the people that are in our life?
Aaron:
I'll leave it to you to, and judge, you know, the, in the interpretation of that, I choose to be a conduit. I'm deeply rooted, deeply connected in God's life, in the presence of God in my life, in my body, in my relationships consecrated through the life of Christ. That's my path. And at the same time, I'm not an overt evangelist for converting people to Christianity. I think it's another topic. I am an ambassador of the life of Christ in me. Whether I use words for that or I choose to use love and action for that. And what I find is that that is intoxicating. Yes. That is inviting, that is curiosity building. And so that's my way, that's my gospel version of let's come a little closer and have a conversation about soul. I hold a belief that Christ is alive in us. If you do, if you don't, that's okay. , but let's still align around. There's more going on here. Yes. There's more happening here than just what appears on the surface of our modern world and how might we come together around the likeness that we share versus the wranglings around the differences that we see. And I find especially from the work that I've had the opportunity to be in the recovery community
Morgan:
Yes.
Aaron:
In 12 step programs and a lot of that, and my son's seven years, seven and a half years sober now, it has been the biggest gift of my life to see people with lots of different vernacular find hope and move forward with substance in their life and how they're grounded and how they're connected. Everyone's on a particular journey in that. But I choose to be, my buddy calls it like redesigning the front door. Yes. So that it's inclusive and welcoming.
Morgan:
Yeah. There's so much in that because it, everything you just shared flows out of that fundamental belief in your heart of I am being led. Like the story actually doesn't begin with me, doesn't begin with Aaron McHugh, doesn't mean with Morgan Snyder. We find ourselves swept up in a story that we play a vital role, a very particular role, a story that has a heart of God that is trustworthy and is in control. He's capable of holding everything that we find in the human experience and we're okay. And to come to that confident place. Then you, I hear you saying like, you can set a table and if people want to come, great. And if they don't, it's okay. And a table is a feast with all sorts of different dishes. And one of the things that I hear echoed in you that's so inviting, Aaron, is that CS Lewis talked about this in a brilliant book.
Morgan:
So it was World War ii. He was in the trenches in World War I, he actually did trench warfare. So watch the movie 1917, that was CS Lewis. And then in the forties in World War II, he was asked to give a series of broadcasts on public radio in Europe to present what is the gospel, what is the invitation to the life of God? Because it had become so familiar and institutional that it was basically lost. And they trust him to recover it. And so what's really fascinating, he took a series of these public broadcasts and made it a book. And in the introduction to that book, he describes something very similar to what you just said. He basically said, I have found my home in the life of God. I live in his home. And he said, my work is to invite people to join me in this house in the hallway if they so choose.
Morgan:
But understand in a home, there are many rooms. And he said, I believe it's very important for everyone to find their room. But the particularity of that room is less important than what the room is. It's that you choose a room. In other words, I know you very intimately and I have the, the privilege of knowing behind the scenes and the depths of your faith and your life and your family. But what you're saying here is like, that's not your mission to convert people to the life of Aaron McHugh. Right? No. Your mission is to invite them home. It's a homecoming to a house. Absolutely. That's welcoming. That has room for every person. Yeah. And there's something of knowing the heart of God in living out as an apprentice, that actually you can be comfortable with people. One friend says to create a space of belonging before people believe so much of religious space Absolutely. Says, if you believe, then you belong. But the kingdom of God is a space where it says you do belong. Quite apart from what you have come to believe. We will sort that out over time. Welcome home son. Absolutely Welcome home. Daughter.
Aaron:
And to your point, whether you my friends listening, whether if you, you've ever bothered to ask the question, well, why does Aaron do this or that? That's totally up to you. You, you don't ever have to ask that question of why what you would notice if you, when you come to my house, if you were to ever to come to my house, our doormat says, come as you are. Because now why does it say that? Because we believe you belong. Why? Because we believe that God says we already belong. So we're not in the business of all that other stuff. . That makes it difficult to feel like you're at home in our home. You're home. Welcome home. Come as you are. And what we're continually experimenting with is broadening that. Welcome. And what I'm learning to do is reading my journal.
Aaron:
Here is another one that I have from, I was with David White recently in the UK in a small group, and he was doing some teaching with us and he was reading this, this poem, kind of prayerful poem that he was reading. And the last line I wrote down so this is taking us a little bit different direction here, He said, "the part of you that you thought was foolish was the wisest voice of all." For me, that's another one I would add for this 10 years. Is in the same way I'm learning to be more welcoming out of a deep rooted belief that everyone belongs. Well, that was started in a question for me is, well, where do I belong? And I often struggle with feeling like I struggle with that question. I belong everywhere is what I've learned. But I often experience this loneliness throughout because I'm not exactly like whoever I'm with. I don't know if that's a human experience, but the story back to you, what you mentioned early on, like the story in my head. Well this, linking it to this quote here from David White is like, the part of you you thought was foolish 10 years ago when I started this, I really, I really have struggled continually in pockets and times about feeling like this whole thing is foolish.
Morgan:
Meaning what? What's the thing you're saying? Work Life Play, doing a podcast. Podcast. Right. Trying to publish a book. All that. Staying as a mercenary.
Aaron:
Yeah. Career choices. Publishing a podcast. Am I really going to do a marriage podcast with my wife called Love Wins. And we're going to drag all our stuff up and then do a transcription of it. Oh my gosh. And it's like 19 pages long of all of our trauma. Like for real, for real. Am I going to do that for real? Am I really going to drive over here again on a whatever morning to meet you and ask you to interview me? Because it feels foolish. Yes. Like no one's going to know I haven't shipped a podcast in nine months most people probably just think it's dormant and it's getting ready to get turned off. Yes. Well, to me, Work Life Play is alive.
Morgan:
Absolutely. It's been maturing.
Aaron:
It's been maturing and deepening. Right. So here we are, but am I going to really ask you as a favor? Yes. As a friend, would you be willing to risk with me? It feels foolish. But it turns out it's the wisest voice of all. The wisest voice in these last 10 years in who I belong to and why I do what I do, what I believe, and these risks I keep running. Well this is an experiment. This is a risk. Morgan, when we had, when I had a hundred thousand downloads, I called you and asked the same thing. Hey, I have a hundred thousand downloads in my podcast. It's not a million, it's not 10 million. It's not so and so such and such is, but
Morgan:
It's not two. And there's more than your Mom listening. My mom couldn't have done all those .
Aaron:
Would you interview me about? And let's like my 50th birthday, let's stop down, let's mark this, let's celebrate it, let's underscore it. And it was beautiful. It was such a cool thing. Well now it's, you know, many, many more than that. What's cool is we're doing it again. But it's that same thing as that part of you you thought was foolish, was the wisest voice of all. And I'm learning, part of integrating more of my whole heart is to learn to trust the part of me that feels foolish is probably the part I need to listen to most. Cuz that's where the frontier is. That's where the exploration is. That's where the risk is. That's where I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm in experimentation land. I don't know if this will work. And I'm willing repeatedly to keep putting myself out there On the edge so that I can live a more fully integrated life in, in ways that I'm alive, awake, and attentive.
Morgan:
There's another idea that you're getting really close to that I would love to bring up as kind of enticing and disrupting for everyone listening. Because I see it in you and I see it in the work of work-life play that is an important place of exploration for every human soul. You have a superpower, you have a couple superpowers. We all have a couple unique superpowers. I was, I was signing a book yesterday to send to Shila Buff, and I've been just living and saturating myself in the interview that you and I have been talking a lot about with John Bernthal and from the real ones and hi. His story's been blowing my mind and I have a superpower of doing a little bit of planting acorns every day. , it's my superpower. I can get up every day and do a little bit of a thing and not think about the sh hold the shade tree as a vision Yeah. ,
Morgan:
But just till the soil. Yeah. And I send a book every day to somebody by over time with this idea of just loving people that come onto my radar that I believe are like-hearted. You have a superpower, and I would love for you to name it as an invitation for each of us listening to become more curious of what is that superpower that's set within us that's hidden, but it's meant to be a hidden fuel in something that we don't want to minimize take for granted and something that's worth cultivating that it ends up being one of our greatest treasures when we're seven decades looking back. Tell me about your superpower.
Morgan:
The one that's on my mind, you can let me know if this is what you were thinking of, is I've been really embracing that I am an explorer and I am the spirit of adventure. And that with that, it's, I'm seeing it repeatedly where I have a superpower enabling people to come along to do, let's put it in a category of what might feel like impossible or improbable or doubtful or just uncertainty. It's like, come with me. You know, , sorry. It's like I think of Matthew 17. It's Christ said, like, come with me. If you wanna recover your life, get away with me and recover your life. I'll show you how to do it. And I, what I realized is like that there's a part of me that embodies that spirit of, as I am being led, I invite people to leave behind the ordinary to, it's the Walter Mid, it's and the Walter story, it's Sean O'Connell is Sean Penn's character. And I realize more and more I'm, I look like him.
Morgan:
Yes, I
Aaron:
Do. Yeah. And I just need some bushier hair. And as, even as I'm aging with some wrinkles and some gray hairs, it's, I'm embodying that spirited adventure of come with, come with me. Now I'm being led that same way. But I believe as a result, I can be the face of God for people in that spirit of adventure, in that spirit of exploration, in that getting out on the edge to be out of the comfort zone, to leave behind ordinary, mundane, predictable certainty, which is often tyranny.
Morgan:
The tyranny of the mundane friends. We're at 10 years, we're marking this moment, and the good news for you, if you haven't been with Aaron for 10 years, is there is a treasure chest of resources. So my invitation to you is go back, pick up a copy of Fire Your Boss. There's such rich treasures, especially for this hour of the revolution of workplace, which we didn't even get into in this episode. But pick up a copy, recover the fresh gifts in it about identity, and become the person you were meant to be. Send a copy to someone that you love, or someone that's come into your life recently that just needs the paddles put on their chest to get their heart beating again. Just bring it, give 'em the paddles. Get into the Work Life Play podcast. Go back and discover an older treasure for the very first time. Aaron, it's an honor to be with you. I celebrate your life in this moment, and I'm excited to do this 10 years from now
Aaron:
Again. Yeah, for real.
Morgan:
In closing this 10 year episode, is there one idea, one thought, one treasure that you'd like to leave us with to linger on the road ahead?
Aaron:
I want to close with reading this James Michener poem, I guess is what you would call it. "The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing to him. He's always doing both" Friends. This is good for you. Let's keep going.