Breakthrough Anxiety + Stress Through Play /w Charlie Hoehn

Charlie is the best-selling author of one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read, Play It Away, and just released his new beautiful book Play For A Living. He’s a marketing guru, who has helped the likes of Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi, and Gary V reach the #1 spot on major bestseller lists. He also brings the distilled wisdom of your favorite authors to you on his podcast, Author Hour Podcast.

This interview has been a long time coming. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ve probably heard me mention Charlie’s book, Play It Away. It has certainly changed my life and it’s why PLAY is one of the 10 habits I do every day for a happy and more creative life. It was great to reconnect with Charlie and I can’t wait to hear how this episode inspires more play in your life.

In today’s episode:

The safe path seemed too risky for post-grad Charlie. He shares exactly how he got the attention of his dream employers after repeatedly failing with job boards and careerbuilder.com.
Play is an essential ingredient to life. You can go your whole life without psychologically needing to work, but your brain needs to play. If you suffer from depression or anxiety, try adding play to your life.
If you struggle with even knowing where to start playing, taking a look into your play history may help. What did you do for fun when you were a kid?

Enjoy!

If you want a remarkable life, there is no recipe for that. You need to go and create it yourself.

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Listen to the Podcast

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Some Questions I Ask:

Give us a little background. [1:30 ]
How intentional was it to disregard what you thought you *should* be doing, to pursue what you felt was right for you? [6:00 ]
How important was it to deconstruct other people’s lives to figure out how to pursue your own? [8:45 ]
Contrast where you went and what you learned by NOT going to get your MBA versus what you think you would have had you gone that route. [12:30 ]
What was the flipside and drawbacks of working your tail off with Tim and your dream job? [18:50 ]
Did that one party bust you open? [21:53 ]
Would you say that you fully crashed and burned? Give us the low low. [24:50 ]
What helped you turn it around? [26:45 ]
What did you actually do to “play”? [35:30 ]
What’s the connection between mindfulness and presence and play? [38:00 ]
How long were you suffering? [42:42 ]
Is Play for a Living and extension of Play It Away? [51:00 ]
Where can people pick up your books? [53:38 ]
Can you share your family board meeting? [54:38 ]
What are some of the things on your Marriage Meeting agenda? [55:45 ]
What are you doing to play now? [58:07 ]
What’s on your hot list of inspiration right now? [59:40 ]
Where can people find you online? [1:07:20 ]

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

When a college degree didn’t prove as fruitful as society promised, Charlie’s post college plan was to work with people he admired and see if anything came of it. Quite a bit came from it… [2:40 ]
Why Charlie wanted to work with Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, and Ramit Sethi. Here’s the original email sequence that got him in the door with Tim. [14:30 ]
How Tim expanded Charlie’s brain. [16:00 ]
The tale of Charlie and my first encounter that sounds more like the plot of The Hangover than I remembered… [19:00 ]
Even though Charlie was working his dream job, he recognizes that it wasn’t sustainable in the long term. Not enough sleep and too many stimulants burned him out. [21:55 ]
The laundry list of prescriptions Charlie tried to combat his anxiety and what ultimately worked… play. [27:15 ]
Check out Stuart Brown’s book, Play. [28:35 ]
Dr. Peter Gray has measured the correlation between the decrease in play in our schools and the increase in depression and anxiety. [30:00 ]
How Charlie’s book, Play It Away, found me at a perfect time when my anxiety was growing and helped me squash it. [31:10 ]
How to use your past “play history” to figure out how to play today. [36:09 ]
How to use play to lift those up around you. [40:25 ]
How I play and track my play. [44:30 ]
Jay Buhner ripped off my home run. [50:35 ]
Family Board Meeting – How Charlie and his wife compartmentalize their “adult issues” to a weekly meeting. [54:54 ]
Charlie hosts The Recess Project at Zilker Park in Austin and they play. [58:50 ]
Check out Charlie’s podcast, The Author Hour Podcast where he talks to authors about their books. [1:00:00 ]
One of the goals between my wife, Kate, and I are to put the principles from the book, Nonviolent Communication, into practice every day. It helps us commicate and also has helped me communicate personally and professionally. [1:01:00 ]
For another book on successful communication in difficult situations, check out Charlie’s recommendation of Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss [1:05:04 ]
Brene Brown’s Braving the Wilderness and Ryan Holiday’s Perennial Seller are other books I’m currently reading. [1:05:50 ]

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