Aaron McHugh is an executive transformation coach, writer, podcaster, adventurer, author of Fire Your Boss: Discover Work You Love Without Quitting Your Job and career liberator who is learning to master a sustainable work-life play rhythms woven into his every day routine. He hosts the fast-growing podcast “Work Life Play,” leads Reboot Your Life experiential weekends, speaks widely, and is an Affiliate Advisor for Aberkyn, a division of McKinsey & Co, helping drive large culture transformations in North America.

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When he’s in his happy place he’s on road trips in their 1974 VW Bus, aka The Joy Bus, catapulting them into many father-daughter adventures together.

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He and his wife Leith live in Colorado Springs, CO. They are celebrating twenty-seven years of marriage in December. Their marriage survived the death of their twelve-year-old daughter Hadley in 2011. Their twenty-four-year-old son Holden lives in Costa Mesa and is thriving in recovery five years clean and sober. Their youngest daughter lives in Orange county with her brother.

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In 2015 they rebooted their lives, sold their house and all of their belongings to reboot their life and start their life over again. It hasn’t been easy, but they would do it again. They love traveling, drinking box wine and spending time with their creative, hilarious and courageous kids.

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Talking Points:

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• why are we talking so much about feelings?

 

• discussing his catalyst for change - finding my life experience was very different at home to work - I can handle and suffer better than anyone else, or the story I told myself until I could not. 

 

• discussing whether his employers really know of his burn out? 3 “I did not know what to do with the pain or invite anyone in to deal with it” - dealing with shame and lost the ability to even care - “if you don’t prioritise your life someone else will” 

 

• asking questions - I do know I want to experience my life and work differently, so what would that look like - felt lighter to start small (10) 

 

• being ready for the conversation of change (14)

 

• the naming of self, heart and head, soul, we are created to be fully integrated like every other animal (16)

 

• solving big gnarly problems with our whole self - Jerry Colonna

 

• reading from his book - discovering work you love without quitting your job - Fire Your Boss (22)

 

• we don’t have a heart change then we cannot change interiors then we change the exteriors then we keep repeating the same patterns each time (29)

 

• dealing with loss of his daughter and recovery to thrive again, little 't' traumas and capital T trauma - I did not realise how many little t traumas during life - a little 't' is anything that is unwanted that has a lasting mark on us (35)

 

• Laurence Gonzalez, Surviving Survival - very few people move to thrive - ability to distance from the event and how can my pain became useful to someone else, finding people who have similar trauma and help then - to process through grief - install new experiences into our operating system (41)

 

• being in optimal performance to serve others - buying his VW camper van (48)

 

• discussing how slow can you go - 50 “learn to expand our skill sets in our different modes of travel” play with different speeds and modes - you must build in recovery for that - living life as a professional athlete cannot go 100% all the time - just does not work 

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• podcast Work Life Play - what would it take to thrive in all aspects of life (59)

 

• his work at McKinsey - Aberkyn, we have to use all of our faculties to solve these big problems, dealing with Trust - the Emotional Quotient - 

 

“what if we looked at less about what we are doing and begin to ask the question of how we are experiencing it” (69)

 

• discussing the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz - (71)

 

To contact Aaron click on the links below:

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https://www.aaronmchugh.com/

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