About

Productive Flourishing is about the art of meaningful action. If you’re new here, you might want to take a look at the New Here? page.

What, exactly, is meaningful action? It’s the synthesis of productivity, personal development, and creativity. It’s that sweet spot between incessant daydreaming and mindless doing.

Other people say that this site is about productivity for creative people, business ideas for creative entrepreneurs, a safe haven for weirdos, inspiration and how-tos for thriving, and a place to read great conversations and posts. It’s all of those things, too.

This website is for you if you:

• are tired of living a life where you compartmentalize the physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual parts of yourself.
• can’t press pause on your life while you learn how to fix it – you’ve got to fix the plane while you’re flying it.
• are compassionate, creative, and trying to do great work in the world without selling out and losing yourself in the process.
• believe that your actions count and are willing to question whether you’re doing what matters.
• see that tomorrow can be a better day and are okay with rolling up your sleeves to make it happen.

My goal is to share information with you that helps you think clearer, ask better questions, and do the things that will enable your flourishing. That’s easier said than done, but hey, you deal with enough noise as is, and I don’t want to add to it.

I’ve been posting content to this website since the summer of 2007, and, with nearly 400 posts, we’re just getting warmed up. I hope you’ll continue to grow with us by getting free updates via RSS or email. If you’d like to help, please share the content you like on your favorite social media or social bookmarking sites.

About the Author

Some people have a hard time understanding who I am because I seem to be a mixture of contradictory traits. I’m philosophical yet pragmatic; compassionate yet disciplined; creative yet analytical; driven yet laid back; happy but calm. These complexities come through in the content I share, so if it throws you off, you wouldn’t be the first to wonder what’s going on.

I’m out to help people thrive by using their creativity and energy in ways that help themselves, those around them, and the world at large. While that seems fairly ambitious, the way we do this is by continually making small steps in the right direction – at a certain point, we look up and the thousand miles are behind us. We build a better future step by step and day by day, and it turns out that it’s possible to enjoy the building of that future in the present.

Who we are today is largely influenced by where we’ve come from, so you might be curious to know a little bit more about where I’m coming from.

Before I got into writing, thinking, coaching, and teaching about meaningful action, I was teaching philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln while I was completing my Ph.D. (in Philosophy) while simultaneously managing a career as a logistics officer in the Army National Guard. I’m happily married to a loving, beautiful, and brilliant woman – Angela, in case you see me refer to her in posts – so I was doing the best I could to be the husband, friend, and lover that she deserved. And then there was our house that we were remodeling…

On top of all that, I’m an incorrigible polymath – I’m constantly learning new things, which means I’ve constantly got a lot of stuff to do. My complicated, layered life was just an extension of my quest to learn and experience a bunch of new things.

Given that I learn by researching, experimenting, writing, teaching, and sharing, I decided to start helping other people become better at managing a whole bunch of stuff at once. While in the short term, I made my situation worse – after all, starting a blog/business on top of everything was just making another thing to do – in the long term, I figured out how to make my life easier and much more meaningful. It turns out that many of those same techniques and orientations will help you, too.

Today, my life is much less complicated, but by no means simpler. I’m finishing up my Ph.D. this year, but I’m no longer teaching academic philosophy. I’m no longer in the Guard, as of 4/1/2010. I spend each day doing what I love – helping people change the world by sharing ideas through this blog, designing products and programs that help people do meaningful stuff in the world, and helping individuals put some flexible structure into their lives through coaching.

That’s who I am and what I do. To learn more, well, you’ll just have to hang out for a while. I hope you do.

Random Stuff About Charlie
In no particular order with no particular relevance:

• My philosophical specialties are ethics and social/political philosophy. I’ve also done a lot of reading in American pragmatism, process thought, existentialism, classical philosophy, and Taoist philosophy. (I did mention I’m a polymath, didn’t I?)
• I was a multi-functional logistics officer in the Army National Guard. That means I (theoretically) know how to count, store, and move stuff from here to there.
• I deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in ‘04-’05. I was a transportation platoon leader for part of the tour and a plans officer for the other part. It was one of the best and worst times of my life.
• I’m a self-taught singer-songwriter who plays acoustic guitar. My style is like a combination of Jack Johnson, Amos Lee, David Gray, and Mat Kearney.
• I grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I’m multi-racial, in case you’re trying to figure that out.
• I was a cheerleader in high school. Were it not for pictures on Facebook, I might not have told you.
• I attended the United States Military Academy at West Point but decided it wasn’t for me. I had scholarships on hold and slid into undergraduate studies without missing much of a beat.
• I’m an Eagle Scout, but I’m no longer involved with the BSA due to personal disagreement with their exclusivist policies.
• I learned a lot of practical craft skills from my father who was a general craftsman. I learned the hard way that just because I can build stuff doesn’t mean I should.
• I hate running, as much as I wish I loved it.
• I keep things relatively clean and ordered because I get overwhelmed by big messes to clean up.
• I laugh a lot and my sense of humor can range from slapstick to academically dry. Sometimes this comes through in my writing, but I think people find me more jovial and entertaining in person.
• I have a hard time asking for help. It’s a flaw that I’ve gotten much better about over the last few years, but I could still use some a lot of work there.
• We have three cats. Like most cat stewards, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how I can love them but hate having them at the same time.
• I live in Portland, Oregon, which happens to be a vortex of awesome. At least in the summer…
• Due to a football injury, I can’t move the last knuckle on my right ring finger because that finger has a screw in it fusing those joints.
• I’ve been in life-threatening situations more times than I’d like to count. I get more scared thinking about them than I was during them.
• I’d like for Seth Godin, Merlin Mann, and Jack Johnson to know who I am. As far as I can tell, they don’t.
• I’ve always gotten along better with people 5-20 years older than me than with people my own age.
• I’m an old soul. At least, that’s what people tell me.
• I have a really good memory about some things. I often remember passages and facts from books I read 15 years ago.
• I love art and artists more than I love having art. Art and artists aren’t just limited to the black beret type, either.