Getting Cut Sucks

I’m not a professional athlete. Not even fucking close. Let’s just get that out there. Nobody has ever relied on me to make a team except my very own ego. I don’t know the tremendous weight of expectations on the shoulders of an athlete trying to make the league. The seemingly endless effort put into the pursuit of a dream that suddenly hits a brick fucking wall. 

There are few moments as painful as not making the team.

The first time I ever got cut from a team, I was trying out for a Grade 6 basketball team. I went to the try out. Stunk it up and didn’t play basketball for the next 20 years. Looking back, I suppose that I didn’t deserve to make the team. I just showed up, laced up my sneakers and went for it. No practice. No prep. No scrimmages. Nothing. 

I cried. I said basketball was stupid and walked away from a sport before I even had a chance to start. It actively discouraged me from trying a fun team sport for two decades.  

The second cut went deeper. 

I tried out for other teams and made them - rugby, soccer, hockey, ultimate frisbee. But the next time I was cut, I was 17 years old. I was trying out for a team to represent my province at a national frisbee tournament - the British Colombia All Star team. I got relegated to the B team. That one hurt more because I knew that I was on the bubble and I saw myself beating people who made the team in tryouts and drills. 

But the coaches had decisions to make and that was one of them. And it put a giant fucking chip on my shoulder - that whole summer was dedicated to this internal battle to prove them wrong. To show them that they had made the wrong choice. I remember an inter-squad scrimmage in preparation for Nationals where we - the ragtag group of B teamers -  took it to the A team. They were not happy. The coaches were pissed. I was bubbling with piping hot righteousness and joy. Fuck that felt good. 

New city. No credibility.  

When I moved to Montreal, I had played ultimate frisbee at a competitive level for a couple of years. But I’d only played co-ed. Never in the men’s division (open, as it’s called in ultimate). I’d heard that a bunch of the best players in Montreal were coming in from all across the province to make a superteam in the co-ed division. A bunch had just found success at worlds, so they were ready to supplant the system and create a new team. 

New team. New tryouts. New city. But I lacked credibility. Nobody knew who I was. I barely spoke French. And I remember being nervous and being extremely mediocre on my reps at tryouts. I wouldn’t call it “being cut” from that team, so much as “never ever having a shot.” 

New opportunity. Same sport. 

Being cut forced me to look at an opportunity that I never would have considered otherwise - playing open. I was told that I wasn’t good enough, tall enough, fast enough or skilled enough to play open. I’d played it the year before on a joke team so that we could go to Nationals. But I didn’t think that I’d stand up as a serious player on a top team. Well, I was wrong. I made it. And not only that, the captains saw fit to try me in a new position - handler - that would be my go to spot for the rest of my ultimate career. 

The experience taught me what it was like to really practice. To get coached. To take feedback. To see the field from a different perspective. It taught me real strategy. And what it was like to be part of a team that competes against some of the best talent in North America. It felt fucking awesome. 

Cash in that chip on your shoulder.

There’s shit you can control and shit that you can’t. You don’t control a coach’s decision. When you’ve been cut - whether fairly or unfairly - that’s the reality. Anger doesn’t do shit unless it makes you do shit. You can walk away - like I did with basketball. Or you can lean into the slight of being cut as a motivator to get better. Or you can look for a new opportunity to open up.

- Christian

The Hard Thing About Doing Easy Things

I don’t know how I do it. But sometimes I find myself making the easy shit super hard to do. 

It’s not all aspects of my life. Making time for daily exercise and movement is easy for me, whereas I know it’s hard for others. 

But writing. Fuck. God damn. I feel like it’s been fucking impossible to build it as a daily habit. 

It’s as if I create a friction point in my brain. Something that I have to talk myself into. Or more often than not, talk myself out of adhering to a commitment that I’ve made to myself. 

To procrastinate. To push it off. Or just avoid it altogether under the guise that I’m too busy.

And why? Because I want to avoid some short term discomfort. And I knowingly trade the short term avoidance for long term pain. Seriously! It’s stupid, but I fall victim to it more often than not. 

And the amount of time, energy and anxiety created by avoiding doing the thing often adds up to more pain than the act of doing the thing itself. Foolish, I know. 

It’s been this annoying pebble in my shoe. Something that grates on my sense of self. Something that feels like it’s eroding who I believe myself capable of being. Because when I lie to myself, when I break a promise that nobody else in the world knows about but me … it’s still a broken promise. It’s a failure to hold myself accountable. 

Honestly, I found it so frustrating that it was one of the reasons that I started therapy in 2019. That’s right - it wasn’t a giant suppressed trauma that came to a head. There was no crippling relationship breakdown. No dehabilitating substance abuse or anxiety. I started therapy because I was annoyed that I was procrastinating my writing. 

And I know that the only way out is through. No matter of systems, writing partners, dedicated writing time or whatever can get the words down on paper. It’s about the internal battle in my head. Winning that inner dialogue between the part of me that wants to create excuses to avoid writing, and the part of me that wants the results that a consistent writing practice provides.  

To write through the discomfort. To hold myself accountable. To publish. 

And I find it like running. The toughest part is not the act of running. It’s the distance of time between when I’ve made the decision to run and when I actually get out there and move my feet. That’s the time when my mind starts making excuses. Starts negotiating with myself to cut the run short or put it off for another day. 

But the run - the actually act of running - is enjoyable. The endorphin hit that I get from walking through my front door good and sweaty comes with a feeling of accomplishment. 

And it’s the same for writing. I fucking love the act of pounding the keyboard. Of letting a beautiful stream of consciousness out onto the page. Even the act of rewriting and editing - find that enjoyable. 

But the moment before I start. That seems to be the hardest part. 

- Christian

Becoming My Own Will Smith

The push you need can come from anywhere. It’s easy to get trapped in our own heads. To think of excuses not to do something. To push off making time for the things that you know will make you happy. To fill our days with mindless distractions of busy work. And it’s times like those that the right push can start the ball rolling in the right direction. Mine came from Twitter.

I was tracking Will Smith’s most recent journey from Fresh Prince, to Hollywood mogul, to dude who put on a few too many pandemic pounds, to the guy trying to get in “The Best Shape Of His Life” … to man trying to inspire others with his story via his memoir. This was the guy whose famous drive and work ethic stated that he would rather die on a treadmill than have someone outwork him. And he was out here setting lofty goals … and missing them. A slow(ish) time for a 5k run. Missing his publisher’s deadlines for chapters for his book. Not hitting his weight loss goals. And just generally being burnt out.

And I thought, “Wow”. This is so important. What’s happening in him being vulnerable about his failures, his misses and his straight exhaustion is he’s showing that he’s human. That the Hollywood grind that got him to the top ain’t always pretty. That failure happens. And sometimes when declare a big goal publicly … you fail very publicly.

It reminded me when Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan kicked off the mental health discussion in the NBA. When they were very open about the struggles that they felt. The anxiety and depression that they were dealing with. Being open about the struggle. About the need to seek help. About how it helps to talk about it. And to think that these conversations will influence a generation of people that look up to these athletes, entertainers and influencer and know that it’s okay to face struggles. (And if you’re looking at the season that DeMar’s having right now, knowing that the struggle makes you stronger).

So here I am. Trying to figure out how to become my own Will Smith. To inspire someone else. By sharing my experiences. I don’t have the perfect answer of how to do it. But I know that I have to start.

I’ve tried to codify some of the with my podcast ”Make The Cut”. But the goal of that is to help the next generation of talent break into pro sports. The focus is on other people, their journeys, their lessons and their advice. I haven’t spent time on a platform to share my personal learnings. They’re always obsucated by generalizing the lesson so as to not embarass myself with a real life example. And maybe to think that it will be more easily applied to others’ lives and contexts if it’s not a specific example about getting chewed out by the President of the Toronto Maple Leafs for unfollowing a bunch of shitty accounts on Twitter.

There’s a tiny voice of mini imposter syndrom trying to tell me that it might be hubris to think that my story and my experiences can help other people. But I know that it’s bullshit. You can learn a beautiful lesson from any person on this planet if you dig deep enough. And I know that the most rewarding times for me at work is to share those experiences (those of you who have worked with me know that through our “Fail Fridays” or “Monday Recommendations”). And see people apply those lessons, get better at work. At life. To level up by their own will and hard work.

So here’s the start. Here’s how I plan* to do it:

1/ BE RUTHLESSLY AMBITIOUS

Ambition can me people feel uncomfortable. Fuck, there’s definitely been times where it made me feel uncomfortable when I witnessed it in other people. But for me that discomfort was really jealousy. Jealousy that someone else was willing to have an audacious goal and the balls to state it publicly.

That somehow their journey to chase down their goal would shine a light of me not doing it for mine. Or that their potential success would detract from my life by comparison. We humans are interesting characters. When we can’t root for each other to be successful … man, it’s toxic. And a decade ago, I was able to examine that in myself and reconsistute how I thought about ambition.

And now it’s about being public about it. This isn’t manifesting some bullshit. This is about being outwardly clear with my goals so that other people can help me with them. I want to be the top dog running a marketing team. Make ambitious work. Grow a brand to global dominance.

2/ OPTIMISM + HARD WORK

People don’t fall into success. It takes hard fucking work. Consistently. But just because the work is hard doesn’t mean that it needs to suck. And that’s where optimism comes in. The belief that it’s going to happen. That those goals are going to be crushed. That the grind and hard work is for something worthwhile.

3/ BE OKAY WITH PUBLIC FAILURE

I worked at a place where nothing was a failure. Nothing. Every single project was a success. Every single thing we did with our fans was the right thing to have done. That was the culture of the company. People were always spining something as a win. And that’s a load of bullshit.

The organization was not magically better than other places. It wasn’t batting a thousand. It was sweeping failure under the rug. Refusing to acknowledge it. Refusing to shine a light on it and let lessons be learned. And that’s destructive. Mistakes would be repeated a couple of years later. It was a joke that every three years there would be a restructure, but it was really just two structures that we would swap between.

So I’m going to be okay with public failure. And I try conduct myself in a manner as if all of the things that I say and I do could eventually be public. There are plenty of moments when I was wrong, but I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. Let’s let others learn from our mistakes. Let’s illuminate the lessons learned from failure, not just celebrate the stories of success.

4/ PUBLISH THE NARRATIVE

Write. Write. Write. Or maybe turn a video camera and make some content. But be conscious of not just living the experiences and holding those lessons tight to my chest for me to know, but to share them. To put them out there as permanent content in the world that someone can find. It might be a couple of days from now, it might be a couple of years from now … but the goal is to positively impact one person’s mind.

And be comfortable with all chapters of the story. From the start. To the struggle. To the success. To the fall from grace. To the grind it out to start again. It’s not about just celebrating experience viewed through rose coloured glasses. It’s about sharing the raw lessons that might be uncomfortable to write about, but will help inspire people.

5/ BE WILLING TO CHANGE MY MIND

The Will Smith of 20 years ago is not the Will Smith of today. Over a decade ago, he was preaching hard work hard work hard work. At the expense of sleep. At the expense of your health. At the expense of everything. But that’s not the Will Smith of today. He’s grown to understand that vulnerability demonstrates more strength than putting up an impenetrable facade.

And they say that a characteristic of intelligence is being willing to change your mind in the face of new information. Whether it be from my own personal experience, from scientific research or from patterns learned from other people’s lives, my goal is to be right. And more often than not, that means admitting to being wrong in the face of new data.

Excited to start this journey. And I appreciate you being here for the first step. I don’t know where it’s going to end up, but I know that it will be forward.

- Christian

*Subject to revision

There Are No Individual Championships

There are solo sports. But there are no solo championships.

Sometimes it's you facing a single opponent. Boxing. Tennis. MMA. You're locked in. One on one. At the end, one person exits the court, the ring or the cage as the winner.

Sometimes it's you against the herd. 100 meter heats on the track. Battling through the crowd at the start of a triathlon. Trying to time your kick versus the field as you round the bend in the 1500m.

And sometimes it's you versus the best that you can do. A lot of track and field events are like that. Gymnastics. People take turns and you're just trying to clear the best result. The best score. But it's just you by yourself out there in the moment try to beat your previous performance.

At the end of the day, one person gets to stand atop of the podium. One person gets to raise a trophy. One person gets to hang a gold medal around their neck. One athlete. One competitor. One champion.

Except championships aren't won alone.  Every champion has the will. The determination. The skillset. The desire. The athleticism. And the focus required to win.

But they didn't develop those alone. They have mentors, coaches, and a team. Their ability to earn the right to stand on top of the podium is a direct result of the preparation, process and skills they built along the way. The skills developed by their team.

George St Pierre is widely regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists on the planet. He won titles in both the welterweight and middleweight division. He went 26-2 across his professional career in the UFC. But each one of those 28 times he was locked in a cage with an opponent, he wasn't alone. He worked with Freddy Roach on his boxing, John Danaher on his jiujitsu and Firas Zahabi on his overall fight strategy. That on top of training partners, nutritionists, athletic trainers, recovery specialists and more.

Serena Williams has Patrick Mouratoglou. Michael Phelps had Bob Bowman. Usain Bolt had Glen Mills. None of those coaches received an Olympic medal or championship trophy. But each of them created the environment for their athletes to win.

A great reminder - no championships are won alone. Even in individual sports.

- Christian

How To Silence Your Inner Critic

Sometimes the greatest opponent to doing great things is that little voice inside your head. The best thing to do to shut it up is to DO exactly what that little voice says that you couldn’t.

Because that little voice inside your head is afraid. It’s afraid of trying something and failing. It’s afraid of succeeding and having everything change. It’s afraid of challenging the status quo of the everyday pattern of your life.

Ignore that little voice inside your head. Instead, listen to the feeling in your heart that’s begging you to create or try something new.

 - Christian

Push Send

There's no better feeling than publishing. Than putting your work out there. Than putting the pedal to metal and creating something that is out there in the real world.

Ideas are great. Strategy is great. But putting things out there is life giving. It builds energy. Momentum. Excitement.

As the Chinese saying goes, "talk doesn't cook the rice." You need to actually get out there and do.

The one fortunate element of my personality is that I'm not a perfectionist. I value publishing over perfect. That's why you've seen mistakes / typos / grammatical errors on this blog. I don't triple check. I don't agonize over getting the exactly right word or phrasing. I just push publish.

Because to me, it's better for things to be out there than not. It's better to get thoughts out of my head and into the real world than worrying if they're the right ones.

Why? Because the cost is low. The worst thing that could happen is someone reads an article, sees a post, listens to an episode of a podcast and doesn't like it. The worst thing that could happen is that nobody reads it. The worst thing that could happen is nothing.

So there's very little to lose. And the best thing that could happen is that what I publish gets read. Impacts someone's day. Impacts someone's week, month or year. That someone finds it valuable and passes it on to someone who needs to read it.

And regardless of those external reactions, I get to do something that I love - write. And I have the privilege of putting my thoughts on paper. I get to embrace the gift that writing gives me - an outlet of excitement.

So push publish. Push post. Push send.

What have you got to lose? Nothing.

- Christian

Perspective

15 years ago I was unemployed and living in my friend’s mom’s storage room in the suburbs of Toronto. I mean, unemployed isn’t exactly right - I had an unpaid internship at Leo Burnett where I was forced to dress up as Tony the Tiger. I paid for stuff with winnings from playing online poker. I appreciate their generosity so much because it allowed me to stay near Toronto and break into advertising. My buddy’s mom was happy when I moved out because it meant she could go back to not wearing pants around the house.

10 years ago I moved to Montreal. I thought I was a fucking baller because the agency that had hired me was paying for my move and put me up in a swanky hotel for a couple of days. I knew one person in the city. And about 25 words of French. Work was life. And life was work. I was grateful for the opportunity because it’s was my big break to work on global brands and sports. I remember trying out for a frisbee team and didn’t get a second look. That hurt. But it pushed me to play a different position on a different team.

5 years ago I was living in New York city. I had just started a new job after getting fired for the first time in my life. It was a huge blow to my ego. But it taught me a couple of things. Have an emergency fund. Good talent is rare, shitty bosses are not. Be nice to everyone. Do good work, because your reputation matters and follows you everywhere. Oh yeah, and people will pay handsomely for good talent. I found out that I was being underpaid by 40% at the place I was fired from. I’m grateful that I was able to learn that one person’s shitty opinion of your doesn’t define your worth. It gave me heaps of confidence going forward.

4 years ago I was back in Toronto. I took my first job in pro sports with the Toronto Raptors. I didn’t know anyone at the company. I didn’t have an in. I was just able to slog through the process of 500+ applicants and get it done. I took a 50% paycut to take the job. I’m grateful that my wife had a kick-ass job. It afforded me the luxury to make that choice instead of taking a job I would have hated that paid more.

3 years ago I was leading marketing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I got to walk down to the ice before the home opener. I just stood in the empty stadium and took it all in. Such a privilege. What a great fucking team of people that I got to work with. I made mistakes. I got educated right quick on the heirarchies of hockey and how different it was from basketball. I’m grateful for the masterclass that I received in corporate politics, leadership, team building and how to sell shit in.

1 year ago I saw a job posting for the Los Angeles Rams to lead their brand team. They were looking for someone native to LA. They didn’t want a Canadian. It would be a move to a different country. Different timezone. Different business. All with a family this time. I’m grateful I applied.

Today I am here. Here in the present. Planning for the future. I’m grateful for the experiences that I’ve had. The struggles. The trials. The wins. The losses. They’ve given me the know-how to succeed in this moment. Today. They’ve built up my patience, my resilience, my creativity and my self-awareness.

Don’t forget to look back. Especially on the hard days. It makes you grateful for how far you’ve come.

- Christian

What Creates Value

Investing creates value. 

Kindness creates value. 

Long term planning creates value.

But some stuff doesn’t. 

Meetings don’t create value. Communication does.

Annual reviews don’t create value. Regular feedback does. 

Defending the status quo doesn’t create value. Acting differently does. 

Opinions aren’t valuable. Facts are. 

Ideas aren’t valuable. Execution is. 

Snap reactions aren't valuable. Thoughtful responses are.  

Good intentions aren't valuable. Meaningful actions are. 

Generic advice isn’t valuable. Contextual examples are. 

Mistakes aren’t valuable. Learning from them is. 

Holding knowledge isn’t valuable. Deploying knowledge is. 

A single data point is rarely valuable. Patterns frequently are. 

Always on culture isn’t valuable. Rest and recovery are. 

The value you pull from the past is from your learning.

The value you pull from the present is from your performance. 

The value you pull from the future is from how you prepared today. 

And above all, value is created through action. 

- Christian 

Do Hard Things - The 75 Hard Challenge

April 27th. That’s when I started. Well, restarted. 

A month into the stay-at-home order in California, I was disappointed in myself. I wanted to use the quarantine as alive time instead of dead time. I had a vision of writing an article every day. Reading a book a week. Working out every day.

But I was struggling. We had just moved my family from Toronto to Los Angeles. We had a toddler and a newborn. No childcare support. All that while trying to build a good reputation at a new job. It was rough. 

I was struggling to keep my head above water. Was I in bad shape? Probably not. I was working out four or five times a week. I was eating relatively healthy, but doing the dad thing where you finish your toddler's macaroni & cheese. And drinking. I was hitting three beers a night four or five times a week. Nothing terrible … but still, nothing great.

Most of all, it was the looming presence of constant stress. Something that I was never able to tune out. From work. From our downstairs neighbors harassing us. From parenting. I wasn’t using this time at home to become a stronger human being. I wasn’t thriving. I was barely surviving.

And I don’t want to be a person who treads water. I want to be someone who swims for shore. If I’m spending most of my week with my kids instead of at the office, I need to be a good example. Have energy. Take pride in hard work. Practice patience. All of the shit that I was definitely not doing. 

So I decided to take up a challenge. Those who know me know that I love taking them on - a 30 x 30 run challenge, 5 day fasts, Whole30 diets. All that shit. I love making a commitment that eliminates thousands of decisions. When I have to do the mental gymnastics of whether I should work out today or not, that’s when I fail. When I follow a program, that’s when great shit happens.

I found my quarantine challenge -  75 Hard. The theory is this: do a couple of key things that you know are good for you for 75 days straight. No cheat days. No rest days. No compromise. And if you fuck up on even one of those things, you start again. 

“THE 75 HARD LIST - THINGS TO DO EVERY DAY

Follow a diet
1 workout (45 min)
1 outdoor workout (45 min)
Read 10 pages of a real book
Drink 1 gallon of water
Take a progress picture  ”

— Andy Frisella

Are any of these tasks hard? No. Did it seem like one of those bullshit internet click funnel coach challenges / fitness instagram hashtag? Yup. But then I realized that Andy Frisella, founder of the challenge, had put all in the info is out there. For free. By design. It wasn’t a complicated scheme to trick you into giving your email or your credit card info. Or as one my favorite podcasters says “It’s free. Not enter your credit card free. Just free free.”

So I started. 

And failed a week in.

Then I started again.

And failed four days in.

And then I started again.

And finished it 75 days later on July 10th.

Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes. Will I be doing it again? 100%. It wasn’t for fitness. It was to build resilience. To reinforce the commitment to myself that if I tell myself that I’m going to do something, I’m going to fucking do it. No inner debate. Just get it done or don’t put it on the list. 

Here’s what I learned:

Lesson #1 - SYSTEMS > WILLPOWER

The first two times that I attempted 75 Hard, I failed. Plain and simple.  I attribute that failure not to a lack of willpower, but a lack of planning. I thought - in the way of Forrest Gump - that I could just start and keep going … and going … and going. I could will my way through it. I was wrong. To succeed, I needed to build the right systems. To design my environment, days and routines in a way that makes it harder to fail than to succeed. 

So I built a routine. One that I would stick to for 75 days straight. Wake up, chill with my toddler and then take the progress picture. 

The next big step in the chain I knew that I had to do was get buy-in from my wife. There’s no way that she was going to clear almost 11 hours of exercise time a week … especially when we didn’t have any childcare support. She was running on fumes as much as I was, so I knew I had to solve it. 

So this is where I built the biggest step in my routine - my morning jog. I would take my toddler out in the stroller and do a jog while he ate his cereal in the stroller. Mom would get to rest for a bit early in the morning, I get to hang out with my son and the outdoor workout got done. I would also end up drinking a little more than a liter of the daily water for the day. All done before 8AM. Perfect. 

After that, everything seemed to be downhill with momentum. Building a morning routine had me well on my way. This allowed for flexibility in the rest of the day to get the rest of the 75 Hard tasks done. It made it easier.

Having clean ready-to-eat foods in the house made it impossible to cheat on my diet. Having no alcohol in the house made it a lot of work to drink. Having an accountability-buddy back in Toronto made it tough to skip my second workout. The systems picked me up and made it easy to do the hard things day after day after day. 

Lesson #2 - JUST GET IT DONE. 

Some days are awesome when everything goes right. Some days have a three year old busting out a 45 minute tantrum while you’re trying to finish a strategy for a new uniform launch. And when those days drop into your life, that’s when you realize that done is better than perfect.

The act of sticking to your commitments - especially when things get hairy - builds resilience. The consistency through the tough times are votes for the person that you want to be. The satisfaction in knowing that you dragged your I-don’t-want-to-go ass out of the house to finish your last 45 minute work is untouchable. The feeling that comes with checking that box and getting it done especially when you didn’t want to … I love it. 

As Neil Pasricha says, action causes motivation. It’s getting the little stuff done every single day that builds the motivation to get out and do it again tomorrow.  No excuses.

Hard days come and go. Just get it done. And celebrate yourself when you do. 

Lesson #3 - THE POWER OF COMMITTING TO YOURSELF

I didn’t publicize that I was doing this. I barely told my wife until I was a month in. I waited two months until my sister knew. I never posted it to social media. 

I wasn’t struggling for praise or support from other people. I was struggling for myself. I knew that making a commitment and holding myself accountable to it was more powerful than social pressure. 

I find it easy to make excuses to myself. I think a lot of us are like that. You know the right thing to do, but you opt to let yourself rationalize yourself out of having to do it. You balance the mental math of “I went running today, so I can eat this delicious donut lying around.” You didn’t plan to eat that donut. You just gave yourself some bullshit rationalization on why you can’t hold back. Same for procrastinating at work or at home.

But by showing up every single day, I knew that I was building confidence in myself. Making it easier to believe that I was going to finishing it. Making it harder to bitch out on my commitment to myself. Once I was over the halfway mark, I knew there was no going back. I had invested so much time and effort into the process that I wasn’t about to throw it away. The downhill was definitely easier. Not easy. But easier. 

The progress picture on Day 1 vs Day 75.

THE LAST LESSON - DOING HARD THINGS IS REWARDING

I love doing hard shit. It started because of my ego. Because, if I fail it’s no big deal. Normal people would think that it would hard be hard to do that anyways. And if I succeed, it separates me from the people who didn’t make it. Or even better - the people who never even tried. 

But now it’s more than that. It’s greater than fluffing my ego with meaningless comparisons to other people. It’s about the challenge of chasing my full potential. To wake up and see what I can actually do. 

As an athlete. As a businessman. As a writer. 

As a boss. As a friend. As a father.

As a husband. As a son. As a brother. 

Doing hard things build our resilience. It makes us more flexible to different conditions. It constructs the confidence that we can survive tough shit. Like job loss. Like a recession. Like tragedy. 

Like a pandemic. 

My favorite memory from the whole process was about halfway through. My three year old son had been with me on a bunch of runs / jogs / hikes. And he wanted in. So what started as a father-son hike ended up being a father-son hill runs. Proudest moment of the year. 

- Christian

Hopping Off The Plane At LAX

I won a job as the new VP, Brand Experience for the LA Rams. I say won, because there was definitely luck involved. I was at the right place at the right time ... and happened to be qualified. It was kind of like poker - I worked hard to build the right hand, know how to play it correctly and was patient. But there was definitely luck involved. As there always is in life.

There were 1,900+ applicants for the job to lead the Brand Experience team for the LA Rams. A good football team. One of the biggest markets on the planet. The opportunity to contribute to a brand that impacts culture. Check. Check. Check.

My chances of my application being seen - nonetheless pass through screening - were slim to none. 

So I took my own advice. I called out to my network looking for an in. I reached out to the hiring manager directly. I got a phone call. I built a PDF designed to tell the story of who I am (because people would rather click on an attachment than a link), I did my research and came prepared. 

And then I waited.

Then I met with some more people. Then I waited again. 

Then I got asked to meet the team president. Shit. Amazing news! The best advice that I got before meeting with him? Just be you. Cool. That's helpful, so I did. I knew that there were other extremely qualified candidates gunning for the role. So even if I didn't get the job, I wanted to walk away with some knowledge. I mean, how often does anyone get to sit down 1-on-1 with an NFL team president? 

So I thought ... what would Shane Parrish do? Or Adam Grant? Or Jordan Harbinger? Ask a bunch of questions and try to suss out the systems he uses to make decisions. Try to figure out how he structures his thinking. How he thinks about building culture for both the team and the business side. How he measures value and on what timeline. 

He probably just thought that he was drinking coffee and having a conversation with someone. I was on the other side of the table desperately trying to balance retaining the information he just shared and continue the conversation down an interesting path.

And I was fortunate enough that the CMO placed her faith in me and I got the job. 

I will need everything that I learned from my time in advertising and the client side. How to articulate strategies. How to build buy-in. How to get shit done. And I will need to keep learning.

And now I'm on a plane to LA to start this off. To work with a great marketing and brand experience team. To tackle challenges I don't even know exist. To get a crash course on the different cultures in LA. To wrestle with insane fanaticism of NFL fans. And figure out how to create a couple million more. This time, for the LA Rams. 

Wish me luck!

- Christian