We were lucky to catch up with Skip Work recently and have shared our conversation below.

Skip , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

WorkAnalysis, LLC is a mission driven non-profit enterprise. My mission impossible… that I choose to accept… is to create a free-for-all… ABC’s of Happiness emotional intelligence bootcamp website… that declares war against grief & grief’s conscripts (man unkind)… and ignites every happy feeling in Mankind & Womankind’s emotional arsenal… so we can finally knock out grief… and blow that life-sucking-sucker to smithereens. It is a vision quest that inspires me eight days a week & twice on Sunday to develop, build, innovate & create… kick-ass Emotional Intelligence Bootcamps to make this mission impossible dream come true. My latest mission impossible is to train unemotional & emotional freedom fighters for emotional battle… so we can join all our happy forces… win the war against grief… and unleash happiness across the globe… once & for all.

This undertaking is the most challenging mission I have ever volunteered to accept. The only condition I had at the very beginning… grief’s unconditional surrender. While I know the odds of victory are slim-to-none… there will be at least one happy devil-dog fighting to the death for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… when this mission is done.

There are those who consider this mission virtually impossible. This is why I went virtual. I took this fight online… and created free emotional intelligence bootcamps for those who are kind… aka… Mankind & Womankind.

This mission has all the ingredients I demand whenever my creative juices boil over, and I feel the burning desire to achieve the unachievable. This is a reckless endeavor. It is “insane in the membrane”. It is a shot of happiness adrenaline volunteering to run through uncharted territory filled with grief landmines… while at the same time it is hysterical… dodging bullets of hatred from grief’s conscripts (man unkind)… whose only pleasure in life is shooting happy people down… dragging their prey… into their lonely pit of pain.

This mission impossible satisfies my need-for-speed in another full-throttle chase for Euphoria. I set out on this vision quest knowing that victory, however slight, would guarantee a fairy-tale ending to this pursuit of happiness love story.

The ABC’s of Happiness website is an outcry to Mankind & Womankind… to rekindle every KIND & UNKIND human emotion we get to experience on this Magical Mystery Tour Rollercoaster Ride called life. Happiness & grief, the two polar opposites of emotions, represent the pulsating heartbeat of a lifetime where our state of mind beats between the downhearted depressions of grief and the uplifting euphoria of happiness.

This is why I had no choice but to give grief panic attacks EQUAL BILLING with happiness counterattacks. The Art of War by Sun Tzu dictates…
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

This is why it is critical we learn to know our shared enemy & know exactly how to escape & evade that enemy. If we fail to know grief’s wicked arterial motives & lose sight of who we are… happy people will be exterminated one-by-one… or get captured & condemned to a life sentence in Grief’s isolated prison… forced to serve as a grief conscript (man unkind)… also known in mental health circles as the hurt people who hurt people.

With the Art of War as my guiding light… along with the blood oath I took 48 years ago where I solemnly swore to defend my country against all enemies foreign & domestic as a U.S. Marine… I created two one-of-a-kind SEE-READ-HEAR-FEEL emotional intelligence boot-camps. I did so to give our unemotional & emotional freedom fighters the upper hand before marching off to war.

My recruits get to SEE firsthand roadmaps of the many stages for each level of grief & happiness as they READ into each emotional journey from beginning to end. Each emotional level of pain of mind & peace of mind is triaged so we can diagnose grief casualties to figure out who requires an immediate PTSD mental health care operation… and who is ready, willing & able to get back into battle.

In the event any of our happiness warriors are captured by grief… we map out escape hatches for them to break out of prison and get back in the fight. At the same time, our emotional freedom fighters are given a musical soundtrack companion to HEAR each stage as they navigate through dangerous grief & thrilling happiness expeditions and FEEL the music ignite their emotions along the way.

This way our happiness warriors intimately know… how to fight grief’s deadly infections… how to inject the antidote cure then escape & break free from grief. The most important lesson they learn… emotional freedom fighters are never alone in their individual emotional duel to the death. They are not just fighting for themselves… they are fighting to preserve their own kind… Mankind & Womankind.

The ABC’s of Happiness bootcamp graduates are highly trained emotional freedom fighting musketeers.
One for all & all for one.
The story behind my mission impossible is inconceivable unless the following question is asked & answered.

Why would a broken-down retired Marine & put out to pasture before his prime professional thoroughbred with… zero medical or psychological credentials… zero universities offering a Doctorate in Happiness to fulfill a bucket list dream to earn an end-of-the-line PhD because unemotional “feel no harm” science deals with facts – not feelings… zero grief experts either willing or emotionally unable to lend a happy helping hand… zero religious affiliates willing to join a preacher-of-violent-knock-down-drag-out fight to the death against Mankind’s sworn enemy GRIEF… zero people who share this vision quest… zero financial backers or venture capitalists willing to invest in this snow-balls-chance-in-hell pipe dream… zero knowledge creating & curating a website (except “whose you’re daddy”… godaddy!)… zero editors, graphic artists, or publishers willing to help…

…volunteer to be the Chief Happiness Officer of an “if you build it… they will come” website… setting out on an impossible field of dreams declaring war against grief to “Make Mankind & Womankind Happy Again”… and march all alone into battle against a seemingly undefeatable foe… as an army of one?
The answer is… this is exactly how every revolution known to mankind… begins. The technical term is… a revolutionary call to arms.

Reckless Inclination – It just so happens…
I lived a lifetime taking leaps of faith, trusting my karma, trying my luck, taking a chance, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, being defiant, recklessly abandoning grief… dedicated to maintaining complete control of my life…
…so at least I had all that going for me.

Creative Inspiration – I can think of only one mankind… the kindest man in my lifetime… who inspired an entire nation… with his creative inspiration… but more important… he was the only guiding light who loved an insurmountable challenge more than me. My cherished real life mission impossible superhero (sorry Tom Cruise) was without comparison… Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If he had nothing less… he had a peaceful DREAM. That dream was to let freedom ring. He shared that dream with such clarity… anyone who paid attention was able to visualize his dream of NIRVANA. He was able to share his dream with such simplicity because he had BEEN to the mountaintop and SEEN the promised land.

On his last night on earth… knowing his life had been threatened and that he was in mortal danger… and those who loved him to death begging him to run for cover… by his own account… he was SO HAPPY. He was not worried about ANYTHING. He did not FEAR any man.

Dr. King was (and still is) a fearless awe-inspiring advocate… of Mankind, Womenkind, & all kinds of kind people’s unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He remains my one & only true… red-white-black & blue American Icon… whose soul purpose in life was to share his dream & try his best to… “peace” together a divided nation that was being consumed by hatred & grief.

If Dr. King’s words of wisdom cannot inspire you to chase an impossible dream… there is no way in hell a broken-down jarhead can do it. What I can do… is tell you that Dr. King inspired me to dream… my impossible dream… and image it to the point I can SEE it & FEEL it… even if no one else can.

Just like my kind of man said… once you imagine your DREAM of NIRVANA… once you’ve BEEN to the mountaintop… once you’ve SEEN the promised land… once you are no longer worried about ANYTHING… once you no longer FEAR any man… you will be SO HAPPY… even if tomorrow is your last day on earth.

Dr. Martin Luther King inspires all of us to have our OWN dream so we can be as peaceful & happy as he was. All we have to do… is take-his-lead to the point that each & every one of us believes… we all have the unalienable right to shout from the highest mountaintop… I have a dream!

Not his dream… which is without a doubt one of the most beautiful dreams mankind has ever known. Dr. King gifted us the freedom to dream OUR impossible dream. A dream of our own that is so clear you can FEEL it’s sparks ignite a passion. If we do that then… we too will be ready, willing and able… just like he was… to chase & share that impossible dream like there is no tomorrow.

Professional Skillset – I acquired two unique life altering-skillsets that more than qualify me to volunteer for this mission impossible.

1) Professional Troubleshooter aka a Problem-solver – In my military career, I evolved into a highly trained troubleshooting scientist with decades of experience solving complex problems in critical Air Traffic Control Electronics Systems. This enabled me to fine-tune my scientific problem-solving skills and transform my lessons-learned into the creation of TS4i (Troubleshooting for innovation, improvement, ideas & integrity).

I designed, tested & proved… TS4i works to solve complex problems in any organization. TS4i jumpstarts the endless hunt to innovate, improve, capture ideas & ensure the overall integrity of the group. I like to say… I figured out a way… to measure the emotional health of a company… when you treat it as a single living breathing human being.

All it took… use the basic scientific method we all learned in grade school: Observe, Question, Hypothesize, Results, Conclusion… and interview every single person from the highest to lowest employee (as if they were all human) asking these four questions:
1. What problems do you have here at work?
2. What do you need to make your job easier?
3. What do you want to get out of your work?
4. What ideas do you have that would make the company better?

By QUESTIONING everyone in the company you get to OBSERVE the overall health of the organization. Before going to work solving problems, meeting needs, satisfying wants & capturing new ideas… you document every HYPOTHESIS management has… to either prove or disapprove all of their theorical guesses.

Once all the problems, needs, wants, & ideas are packaged into a single database… after you analyze & group the common problems, needs, wants & new ideas into emerging groups… you have the RESULTS of the improved mental health of the organization after you solve all problems you can… meet as many needs & wants as possible… using all the new ideas that were freely given to you… just for asking.

What science calls CONCLUSIONS… a troubleshooter lists all the problems found & solved… all the needs met… all the wants satisfied as their conclusion. Where science digs conclusions as proving or disproving assumptions… natural born troubleshooters live & breath to FIX COMPLEX PROBLEMS. While this troubleshooting procedure will not provide any scientific PROOF of what went wrong… it will always expose the TRUTH and improve mental health of the body of work.

Now you can see how I’m using TS4i to solve the current problems of overwhelming grief, hatred & divide sweeping the nation. I interviewed as many grief victims as possible… adding a single question at the beginning of the TS4i troubleshooting procedure… “How does what happened to you make you FEEL?”… then followed up with… What problems are you having? What do you need? What do you want? What ideas do you have that would make you happy again?

This is how I was able to group grief… into nine different sneak attacks… dealing with an out-of-control crash into Death, Lose, Injury, Misfortune, Betrayal, Split Personalities, Tragic Accidents, Pure Evil & our own mortality. Never forget… TS4i not only helps organizations grow healthier & more profitable… it scientifically & emotionally SOLVES COMPLEX HUMAN PROBLEMS.

2) Unprofessional Learning Pioneer (Professionals do it for the money-Pioneers do it for free) – I also have what I consider to be my greatest superpower. I literally wrote the book on Pioneer Learning. The Last Lifeboat: learn, unlearn, relearn was my lifeline for all the passengers riding on the Titanic Education System… to help them when it sinks. I had to drum out the old & ring in the new… by turbocharging the definition of the word pioneering to include “learning how to learn, unlearn & relearn.”

The original definition was cool… but half-baked. It defined pioneering as “involving new ideas or methods and does something that has not been done before.” Somehow, the original definition completely forgot & neglected “education” by not including… “knows something that has not been known before”… as a critical component of pioneering. To do something you never been done before… to know something you have never known before… requires learning to do… learning to know… and learning to learn. Pioneering is a learning hat trick.

Thanks to my pioneering (learning how to learn, unlearn, relearn) skills… I know how to train myself (learning to do)… I know how to educate myself (learning to know)… and this allows me to do & know anything my heart desires. I can Nike up and “just do it” or exercise an NBC education propaganda commercial with “the more you know” and “just know it.” And I can do it all… outside the “education system.”

JSYK… I waited & waited 30 years for NBC to wakeup & follow the leadership advise of President John F. Kennedy… and change the commercial to “the more you do.” If I remember correctly… JFK never said… “Ask not what your country can know for you… ask what you can know for your country.”
I remember JFK’s awe-inspiring words to this day. “Ask not what your country can do for you… ask what you can do for your country.” I answered his call & I didn’t need to know why. But then again… I’m a die-hard pioneer who lives to train… and loves to educate myself by figuring out what are the critical things I need to know along the way.

Emotional Appreciation – I’ve had more than 39 knock-down-drag-out-fights with grief in various rounds of my life. No matter how many times grief knocked me down… knocked me out of my mind… beat me senseless… I have yet to fail to get back up and beat the tar out of grief… as soon as I came to my senses and fired up my happy impossible dream emotions.

With grief out of my mind… I was able to focus on my pursuit of happiness and recklessly go out of my way to quench my thirst for euphoria. I am delightfully content… but I am also mystified, pacified, gratified, justified, and satisfied. Proof is in the pudding because… against-all-odds I miraculously captured no less than 62 of 74 impossible dreams. In the 12 cases of so-called failure… I was still victorious in defeating grief because I ended up capturing impossible dreams I never could have imagined.

So, the answer is yes. I like to chase those impossible dreams like there is no tomorrow. I do… I do… I do… without a doubt… believe I can capture those dreams.

Based on my made-to-order reckless inclination, creative inspiration, professional & unprofessional skillsets along with my emotional appreciation of grief & happiness… it is entirely possible… I’m the only one qualified and crazy enough… to accept this mission impossible to “Make Mankind & Womankind Happy Again.”

This is, without a doubt, the most meaningful mission I have every volunteered to carry out. I thought for sure I would never find anything more meaningful than serving in the United States Marine Corps. Being a Marine gave me the chance of a lifetime to proudly serve my country… with the best of the best. As luck would have it… this mission impossible… is filled with new icing-on-the-cake meaning. It gives me a second chance of a lifetime to proudly serve all of Mankind & Womankind.

The emotional return on investment of this impossible dream generates an unbelievable feeling of satisfaction & joy. It is a twice-in-a-lifetime euphoric feeling for a past-my-prime professional… to truly believe that…I still have the creative juices overflowing, the talent, the skill, the experience & know how to “Make Mankind & Womankind Happy Again.” In fact, it feels like everything I have experienced over six score & eight years ago… has prepared me to turn this impossible dream into a virtual reality.

Striving to “Make Mankind & Womankind Happy Again” is so much more than a meaningful mission. It’s a final curtain call. It is a grand finale exposé I get to leave behind as my legacy. Accepting this mission impossible helped me discover the meaning of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… despite all the odds stacked up against me. This is what I mean:

¬ The meaning of life is fully realized the instant you beat the tar out of grief and embrace the thrilling & sensational emotions… and FEEL:

• undying faith 
• the awesome power of feeling acceptance, forgiveness, reckoning, repentance & the crazy notion of showing your deepest compassionate to other people who are hurting too & helping your fellow Mankind in your darkest hour and letting these cleansing feelings wash away your grief and allow you to escape to a Happier U. 
• unconditional love
• burning passion 
• assuming complete control of your one & only life
• the fearless pursuit of an undeniable need to change
• unadulterated creativity
• the euphoria of chasing or capturing an impossible dream
• ultimately finding pure satisfaction & contentment with your very own crystal-clear vision of what happiness means to you

¬ Mankind’s ultimate gift in life is getting to experience the entire spectrum of emotions… the good, the bad, & the ugly… and sharing those feelings with other people.

¬ Life’s purpose is helping Mankind (people who are kind) and defending our kind against grief & man unkind.
“Make Mankind & Womankind Happy Again” is the biggest stretch-goal mission impossible I have ever happily accepted.

I truly believe it is possible to fight this battle & win this war. We will either win this war by declaring war against Grief as fearless United States Marines… or go down fighting by getting our lights punched out like Dr. Martin Luther King. Brother King fought back by never defending himself or raising a fist in anger so his place would never be… “with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

I “hope with all my heart” you can appreciate the war & peace irony of the two polar opposites of “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before…” marching into battle against Mankind’s SUFFERING & GRIEF. The United States Marines & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr… both march… one with artillery & fully loaded automatic weapons ready to send evil straight to hell making their famous last stand on the black sands of Iwo Jima… the other marching “peacefully” all the way from Selma, Alabama to Washington, DC making his famous last stand against Racial Inequality in Memphis, Tennessee… both unafraid of “any kind of unkind man”… with visions of Patrick Henry sugarplums dancing in their heads…

“GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a service-disabled, retired United States Marine & professional put-out-to-pasture prematurely social insecurity recipient. I got into the higher education of human emotions after I could not find a university that offered a PhD in happiness. If you look around… there isn’t a Happiness Doctor available anywhere… and comedians are a dying breed. I thought… what the heck… why not be the first of my kind… to doctor up the human emotions of Mankind… and throw in a little comedy to boot… camp.
I was in the happiness business long before it was anybody else’s business. I started working full-time in my happiness business after my 44-year professional career was snuffed out… and I was forced into retirement.

I created two websites; The ABC’s of Happiness @ https://abcsofhappiness.com & Happier U University @ https://happieruu.com both of which were designed to “Make Mankind Happy Again.”
My mission impossible is to solve the tsunami-of-hate problem drowning the planet by going to war against grief. I created two emotional intelligence bootcamps to help people fighting grief… so together… Mankind can reignite our happiness fighting spirit all across the globe… and push back the tides of grief, anger & hatred.

What sets me apart from certified mental health professionals? I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for “the love of the game”… of life. My extensive happiness research is free. I am reaching out a helping hand to… the little, the last, the least & the lost… and all branches of courageous military service members fighting PTSD… who can’t afford professional mental health care. I want to reach out & motivate… all the nobodies… the somebodies don’t think twice about… much less care about.

I’m really proud to be a fighting representative of Mankind. I’m not-so-proud that my fellow countryman are trying to recruit me to choose sides in another Hatfield & McCoy family feud. We look like a bunch of angry hillbillies to the rest of the world… so caught up in anger, blame & revenge… we want to literally kill each other.

I fully embrace Mankind’s unalienable right for life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. (BTW this includes the Un-United & totally divided American States of Hysteria) I’m also extremely proud I exercise my right to drink the sweet nectar of adrenalin that supercharges my chase for euphoria.

Let it be known… I have not, nor do I want followers. I’m inviting my fellow Mankind to join me in this happiness revolution… reaching out to emotional freedom fighters… volunteers… recruits… renegades… pioneers… willing to go through two intense emotional intelligence bootcamps to train how to escape & defeat grief.

For those who want to drink more creative juice to unlock more secrets… behind the secret to happiness masterminded in the ABC’s of Happiness… I also created Happier U University that unlocks the secrets to the combustible learning engines that drove the creation of the ABC’s of Happiness.

Welcome too… 

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I was forced into retirement and put out to pasture… I had to unlearn how to WORK. I did so, so I could rediscover the true meaning of my life’s WORK. I hope you can appreciate the irony in this awakening since Work is my surname. The only defense… for my ignorance of what the word WORK truly means… is spending a lifetime living up to my namesake… Skip Work… for heaven’s sake. 

WORK – in the traditional sense of the word is a mundane daily occurrence: to perform work or fulfill duties regularly for wages or salary.
Go to work… get paid. This is the hamster wheel of life making it all about the money.

WORK – in the buried treasure archives of Merriam-Webster rests the classical sense of the word’s true meaning – work is an artistic production that explodes with creativity: something produced by the exercise of creative talent or expenditure of creative effort.

Cherish your work… exercising your create talent. This is the creative freedom that makes life beautiful in the eyes of the beholder… and has absolutely nothing to do with making money.

Listen up management… your only fault… it’s all our fault. We’re all killing creativity by making “work” all about getting paid wages & salaries at a J-O-B… performing & fulfilling regular duties.

That’s why “work” is no longer creative and why it is so unfulfilling! We simply needed to redefine what “work” really means… like I had too… in my happiness two-two.

This is why, I consider the WORK I do on my websites as my artistic Masterpiece. It gives true meaning to my life’s work. The joy I experience… now that American taxpayers thank me for my service with monthly retirement checks… I get to return thanks by rekindling my desire to serve my country & Mankind showing American taxpayers my heartfelt appreciation for their kindness… and how it makes me FEEL… like I’m the richest man in the world.

It also reminds me that being of service & going to work are two vastly different undertakings. I do not consider serving my country then… or serving Mankind now… as work. Being of service to every living soul on the planet makes me extremely happy. The mere thought of having to go back to traditional WORK… makes me realize it stifle’s my creative freedom and would put me back on the hamster wheel of life… making it all about moving up the ladder and making more & more money. 

This creative  awakening lets my imagination soar to the point… I once was blind but now I see… crystal clear… the Magical Mystery Tour Rollercoaster ride of life… we as the body & soul of Mankind… get to share & experience together is beyond magnificent!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

To be crystal clear & meditative… there is no such thing… as a non-creative.

I can sum up my motivation to be a creative with my favorite Latin phrase… Ex Nihilo. (Latin means romance BTW). Ex Nihilo translates to out of nothing, and it is the source that drives me to create something out of nothing. Knowing I was blessed by God with this incredible gift… it is my combustible motivation anytime I have nothing or feel nothing. Ex Nihilo reminds me on a daily basis I need to get to WORK & create something out of nothing.

An Ex Nihilo creative is a romantic at heart. In my case I have a romantic love affair with life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. I exercise my unalienable right to create something out of nothing every chance I get. Ex Nihilo drove me to the discovery… that creating something out of grief’s nothing is the sure-fire spark that generates happiness. Impossible dreams of Ex Nihilo ignite my happy feelings and extinguish grief nightmares that are constantly trying to invade my headspace.

I would also argue that all of Mankind is gifted at birth with the combustion engine to be a creative. We all have a natural-born instinct to create & evolve. Creativity is part of our human DNA. Natural evolution can be proven if we look around and see Mankind evolve from a kicking & screaming itty bitty baby to a peaceful senior citizen living with the knowledge their time on earth is almost done. These are the facts of the natural science of the creative science of life. Evolution is not rocket science. The real miracle of life is our natural-born ability to create something out of nothing.

Therefore… and forever more… from a creative standpoint… there is no such thing as a non-creative.
Like the heaven’s above I can graphically illustrate in my painting of life above & show picture proof that there is no such thing as a non-creative. A creative is a happy person chasing an impossible dream whose fire is raging out of control. A non-creative who suffers a grief of out control crash into a depression… is an unhappy person whose creative fire has been burned out & extinguished. The best way to help grief victims dig themselves out is to show them how to reignite their creative fires to see the light at the end of the dark & depressing tunnel that will guide them back up to the happiness mountaintop chasing an impossible dream.

To my favorite people of all time… the few, the proud & the brave… who stuck with me on this Too Much Information (TMI) overload… I truly hope you enjoyed this long & winding road to happiness. I’m writing like I’m running out of time because I am running out of time. I’m running out of time to feed Mankind & Womankind every juicy nugget I picked up along the way and I’m sworn to share every single spark to keep the fire burning after I’m long gone.

I also hope & pray that someday… everything I’ve done… helps Mankind kick grief’s ass. I plead with tears in my eyes… it helps each person who is kind… capture their impossible dream and find happiness beyond their wildest dreams… far above anything any of us could have imagined.

I also more than happy to announce… this is not the end… this is just the beginning! 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abcsofhappiness.com
• Other: https://happieruu.com