CHER: Dream-state Life Design
A Blueprint for life.
Life as it is. Here. Now. A 1970s film camera snaps shut, hot wax hisses on the stove top, bass slaps out of PK speakers with excitement oozing into the atmosphere, and—thirty hours into a charity walk—the horizon finally blushes pink. The essence of life detailed in emotive experiences.
Every sense is shouting the same command: start. begin. now.
That ignition fuels C‑HER: Creativity, Health, Education, and Relationships. A four‑pillar framework that turns everyday experiments into a life with room to breathe, build, belong, live-in-dream.
CHER; An Origin Story
The truth? We were just bullshitting about life until it turned into a system.
A mock of a serious life, while being dead serious about creating it. That polarity was the game we kept playing — laughing at ourselves while quietly building something that mattered.
We looked at all the big frameworks — ten pillars, twenty rules, fifty commandments. Impressive, but about as fun as reading tax law on a Friday night. We’re minimalists. We wanted something lighter. Something you could actually live with. Reset.
Step one: LUNCH. LUNCH. LUNCH!
Scrambled eggs, whole avocados — no half serves. Food came first. The framework followed.
And honestly? It only worked because of who I was building with: call ‘em coach. The (GRHAET) greatest human alive today. And somehow, he sees that in me too. That’s the real engine under C-HER: mutual belief, life lined with laughter, and the guts to design our life foundations together.
C-HER was born — and like most births, messy-as-ever. Umbilical cord around a crying baby, tears waterfalling. Beginnings can look like that.
Not theory. Just food and friendship. And the ongoing joke that life is an old, beat-up, tequila-soaked manual we’re still writing — page by page, meal by meal, avocado by avocado, and 762kms logged talking through ideas on the Vancouver waterfront.
C-HER
Creativity — Pure expression. The space where ideas turn into things: a photo, a project, a business, even something playful that didn’t exist yesterday. But creativity only flourishes when the other three pillars are steady — health for energy, education for tools, relationships for courage.
Health — Fuel you can trust. Not about extremes or aesthetics, but about saying yes to life when it calls. Strength, rest, stamina, adaptability, joy. When health holds, everything else stands taller.
Education — Compounding growth. Skills and knowledge that stack over time. Some save you hours, some drive your goals, some you chase just because they light you up. Every bit of learning pays back more than it costs.
Relationships — Multipliers. Alone you can move, but with others you can fly. Trust, shared goals, and joy turn single steps into momentum. Strong relationships amplify everything.
Together, these four spin like a flywheel:
Health strengthens Relationships.
Relationships open space for Education.
Education builds confidence for Creativity.
Creativity completes the circle with meaning & fulfilment.
That sweet C-HER cycle; Four simple pillars, designed to keep you moving.
You go girl!
Pillar Deep Dives
2.1 Creativity — Expression Unlocked
Creativity is the fireworks show — but only once Health, Education, and Relationships are steady.
For me it comes in seasons. In the fall I carve out bigger pockets; in summer I slip it into smaller windows — like today, 27 degrees outside, content, writing this.
That rhythm has given me space to:
Shoot dozens of rolls of film — learning an old camera, new stocks, black-and-white, even double exposures.
Hand-pour container candles until they finally burned right.
Start a music series.
Shape this blog, and the company behind it.
Starter move: Speak it out loud. Sometimes accountability is just telling someone. That single sentence can break the anarchy of nothing — and kickstart creation.
2.2 Health — Universality
Health is universality — a body and mind that can say “my body can do that.” Not about perfection, just having the capacity to say yes to whatever life serves.
Wide-eyed So Delicious Cinnamon bun ice cream at midnight, Yes. 7am Mountain bike; Also, YES!
My field tests have been proof:
Half-marathon in a Hawaiian short suit
30-hour charity walk for Take a Hike
Recovering from ankle surgery → Valhalla peaks
Bikepacking in New Zealand — rain, gravel, serene silence
Longest single-day ride — (shout out to Jess B. for the hype)
Working on sleep and rest — recovery is training too… Oh, being 34.
Two Vipassana retreats — twenty days of silence & counting
I even joke about living to 127. My great friend made a calendar for each year. Aim high, laugh about it, and stack the habits that let you last.
Starter move: Pick your weakest link — sleep, focus, strength, adaptability. Run experiments. Go.
2.3 Education — Always Be Learning
Education is compounding growth — and NOT school. The only F you get now is when you screw up your finances, your relationships, or your health.
Learning in your 30s isn’t optional. It’s either figure shit out, or life drags you. Half the time it’s inspiring — the other half it feels like trying to download life skills on hotel Wi-Fi: slow, glitchy, and usually cuts out right when you need it.
My field tests have been proof:
Will Smith’s book: WILL — lessons in resilience, ego, and messy humanity.
Learning tools like Notion and Reclaim.ai — wrangling chaos into systems.
Pitching myself into self-employment
Figuring out self-employment — funnels, automation, all the behind-the-scenes. Laughter. Languish. Joy.
Photography experiments — black-and-white, double exposures, film stocks.
Chasing curiosities — clothing design, dance, the kind of neatness that keeps me alive.
And, unlearning — social media, dating apps, ‘smart’ phone: Kaput
The punchline? At 34, for me, lifelong learning often means re-searching the same thing I thought I had figured out last year, ahh, or yesterday — while praying no one finds my search history.
Starter move: Pick one skill that would actually change your week. Not ten, not five — just one.
2.4 Relationships — Dream-Team Dynamics
Categories: Self, Family, Partner, Friends, Colleagues, Strangers, Mentors.
Relationships multiply everything. Alone you can move, but with others you can fly. And sometimes crash harder too — but at least you’ve got company.
My field tests have been proof:
Parents — working to improve our connection, once calling from a van in Dude Chilling Park on stolen Wi-Fi.
Partner — having the relationship end from broken trust, then committing to rebuild in a different way.
Friends — setting 1-1 calls and phoning my closest friends each month on the date of their birthday.
Self — respecting myself way more through boundaries, compassion, and time.
Strangers — creating small micro-moments when I’ve had the capacity.
The punchline? Relationships are the only arena where you can screw it up completely and still end up laughing, hugging, or at least learning.
Starter move 1: Pick one relationship. Rate it 1–5 on Communication, Goals, Trust, and Joy. Take the lowest score and act on it this week — a coffee, a thank-you, a hard conversation, or even a simple text that says, “I see you.”
Starter move 2: Next time a stranger asks how you’re doing, say “grateful” instead of “good.” Then trade what you’re grateful for. A tiny moment of beauty, born from nothing.
Pg. 376: End Notes
True freedom isn’t a trophy. It’s not waiting at the finish line. It’s built in the tiny, messy experiments you stack every day. That’s all C-HER is: four pillars to lean on, wobble on, climb with. Health. Education. Relationships. Creativity.
Since swapping a desk job for this flywheel, life has flipped. I’ve 4×’d my hourly rate, worked a four-day work week for nine months, gone fully remote, earned Canadian permanent residency, and started building — and actually living inside — my dream life. Along the way I healed major injuries, rebuilt family bonds from across the world, and met my partner offline, eyes up, in a way no algorithm could script.
I’m not perfect — far from it — but I’m more real than I’ve ever been.
So grab one spark today. Try something tiny. Fail at it, laugh, and then try again. Life doesn’t hand out trophies. It hands out blisters, bad coffee, and the occasional breakthrough.
Been waiting six years to pop this one out.
Start tiny,
Start now,
