What waiting for my cancer results taught me about uncertainty
Continue readingCategory: Life Advice Blog
The Birthday
What hospital isolation taught me about socially distant connections
Continue readingThe coin flip
What my so-so odds at beating cancer taught me about overcoming obstacles
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to adapt some of the content from my books and videos into mini illustrated stories. Here’s my first crack at it — enjoy!
Continue readingLuck: Lessons learned from a man named Frank
We all like to think we’re in control of our lives. But as I learned from a fellow cancer patient, luck is still very much part of the equation.
“I’ll see you when you get out,” I said, shaking Frank’s hand.
Part of me knew I was lying. I’m no doctor, but I had a strong hunch that I was shaking the hand of a dead man. I had lost a lot of weight following my bone marrow transplant. But Frank? Frank was positively skeletal. Continue reading
Handing over the reins: Lessons learned from banshee babies and buttered butts
As I learned from being a terrible babysitter, the best bosses don’t freak out when mistakes are made and give their employees time to get better at their job.
I don’t have kids. But I’ve got to think that trusting your children with a babysitter can be a nerve-wracking experience. Particularly if that babysitter is someone like me or my brother Nicholas. Continue reading
Why “Never give up” can be awful advice: Lessons learned from sleeping on a woodpile in a snowstorm
Perseverance and commitment are awesome. But as an ill-fated camping trip in March taught me, sometimes we just need to know when to quit.
Refugee Connections: Lessons learned from digging wells in Ghana
I arrived at the Liberian refugee camp in darkness. Without electricity, it was hard to see much of anything in this settlement outside of Accra, Ghana, where more than 40,000 asylum seekers lived. Our van’s headlights offered us myopic glimpses of our surroundings as the driver slowly navigated the maze of rutted, dirt roads toward the volunteer guesthouse. Continue reading
10 Ways to Seize the Day and Achieve Greater Work-Life Balance
When an angry man in Alberta chastised my definition of work-life balance, I stared at him like a doofus with nothing to say in response. And as I discuss in my latest guest post on Tiny Buddha, it wasn’t until I was half-way to Regina that I figured out what I should have said…
Click here to read my article 10 Ways to Seize the Day and Achieve Greater Work-Life Balance. Continue reading
5 Cultural Traditions the World Needs More Of
I recently had the opportunity to guest blog on Steve Aitchison’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life site. Pop on over to have a looksie, and while you’re at it be sure to check out the other great personal development articles there!
Click here to read my article 5 Cultural Traditions the World Needs More Of
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Putting Yourself Out There: Lessons learned from blood and glue fumes
Sharing your creative work can be scary. Real scary. But wobbly knees or no wobbly knees, putting yourself out there can also be extremely rewarding.
How to Break a Bad Habit: Lessons learned from wearing a clay helmet
Growing up, boyhood and bad habits went hand-in-hand. No matter how hard my mother tried to steer us kids in the right direction, we seemed determined to return home for dinner muddy, bloody or both.
The Importance of Community: Lessons learned from chasing a Killer at 2 a.m.
It’s 2 A.M., there’s a killer on the loose, and it’s up to me to catch him…
No, that’s not the opening line to my new thriller novel. That exact situation literally happened to me recently. Now, I really wish I could leave it at that and have you believe I’m some badass secret agent. But I feel obliged to reveal a couple other minor details about that night. Continue reading
How to cope and keep going when times get tough (my guest blog on Tiny Buddha)
Life is full of difficult moments. Sometimes we can find ways around them. A lot of times though, we just need to power through them. I’ve had the good fortune once again to guest blog for the uber-awesome advice website Tiny Buddha, where I share five ways to help you weather the storms life throws your way.
(You may also be interested in the other post I did for Tiny Buddha, Lessons from Almost Dying: Appreciate the Everyday Awesome.)
How an optimistic attitude can help you succeed
Since my bone marrow transplant in 2008, my blood type has changed from A-Negative to O-Positive. That change has become a metaphor in my life about the importance of turning negative situations into something positive. In this guest blog on the website Wealthy Gorilla, I explore the benefits of a positive attitude in life and in business.
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Lessons from Almost Dying: Appreciate the Everyday Awesome [Tiny Buddha]
I had the privilege to write a guest post on one of my favourite life advice websites, Tiny Buddha. In this story, I talk about the “reasons to fight” list I made during my cancer treatment and what it taught me about enjoying life’s simple pleasures. Check out my article here.
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Nurturing Imagination: Lessons learned from launching a fireball into a house
I wouldn’t describe my mom and dad as helicopter parents. Partly because giving us a long leash was just their parenting style. Partly because with eight kids running around like a bunch of maniacs, you’d need a whole fleet of helicopters to keep track of us. Continue reading
Owning Up to Our Mistakes: Lessons learned from getting shot in the eye with a pellet gun
“Kids these days.” It’s a familiar expression used to express disapproval of how far today’s youth have drifted from the virtuous and well-behaved ways of their elders. But you only need to hear a few stories from my dad about his ridiculous childhood shenanigans to see what a crock that is.
Case in point: the fateful Christmas he got a BB gun. Continue reading
Benefits of Camping: Lesssons learned from five farting men in a yurt
Farts. The butt of so many jokes. The joke of so many butts. Growing up, I firmly believed that flatulence was infinitely funny; that cranking one out and laughter went hand in hand. Always.
But a winter camping trip with some friends proved I was wrong. Dead, stinking wrong. Emphasis on the stinking. Continue reading
Asking for Help: Lessons learned from my so-so odds at beating cancer
It takes more than the luck of a coin flip to navigate life’s tricky waters.
Adapted from my ebook Going on a Bear Hunt: Five things cancer taught me about overcoming obstacles, available as a free PDF download. Continue reading
Thinking Things Through: Lessons learned from nearly swallowing a severed human toe
There are 3 items on my ultimate bucket list. Joining Captain Dick’s World Famous Sour Toe Cocktail Club is one of them. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this… unusual… drinking tradition, Sour Toe cocktails are found exclusively at the Downtown Hotel bar in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. Entry into the prestigious club is easy enough: you simply have to drink a shot of whiskey… Oh yeah, and your class has a severed human toe in it, which must touch your lips as you take your drink. Continue reading
Wearing Things Out: Lessons learned from my see-through swim trunks
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.
My back sucks. Partly due to bad posture. Partly due to an aversion core-strengthening exercises like sit-ups. Partly due to the unhealthy ergonomics that come with using a kitchen table and wooden chair as a desk. Continue reading
Life’s Shortcuts: Lessons learned from a Sunday stroll through stinging nettle
Cutting corners in life can have painful results.
Whoever said two heads are better than one clearly weren’t thinking of me and my brother Nicholas. Individually, we could make sensible—even smart—choices. Together? Yeah, not so much. As teenagers, we’d often hatch plans that seldom went smoothly, like the time we decided to embark on a two day hike up the Nine Mile River near our home in rural Southwestern Ontario. Continue reading
Life’s Twists and Turns: Lessons learned from three bison
In August 2013, my girlfriend Ashley and I loaded up my Hyundai Accent and struck out from Waterloo, Ontario on our way to Vancouver, British Columbia. We drove through the US on our journey west, and indeed, it was a very American experience. Continue reading
Failing Your Way to Success: Lessons learned from being blindfolded and left in a farmer’s field
Whenever my extended family gets together you can usually count on three things: a lot of boxed wine, a lot of Euchre and a lot of jackassery. Our Easter celebration a couple years ago delivered on all three counts and included an activity that my Van Osch cousins came up with: the Blindfold Game. Continue reading
Getting Out of Debt: Lessons learned from my sister getting stuck in a pit of clay
A lot of words come to mind when thinking about debt. Stuck. Mired. Drowning. Buried. The images these words conjure up remind me of a story from my childhood.
As a kid, my youngest sister Meghan would often join my brother Nicholas and me on our adventures to the “Death Cliffs”. Admittedly, a bit of an exaggerated moniker. The Death Cliffs were in fact a section of high muddy banks along the Nine Mile River near our hometown of Port Albert, Ontario. Continue reading