Good Life Project - 2021 Inspiration, Ideas & Insights That Moved Us

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

As we bring this year to a close, and what a year it’s been, I’ve been reflecting on how profound so much of the past 12-months have been. So much change, uncertainty, and disconnection, inexplicably bundled with moments of profound hopefulness, connection, creation, and possibility. Along the way, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to sit down with over 100 of the wisest, most inspiring, genuine, kind, creative, and “tapped into source” human beings through the vehicle of this podcast. It has, in no small way, been an anchor, and a source of deep nourishment. So, I’ve been spending time reflecting on the people, conversations, ideas, stories and moments that’ve really moved me over this last year on the podcast, on a quest to distill them down into a handful of powerful moments that might serve as both a reflection, an honoring, and, in a weird way, a body of evidence that, yes, we still have much work to do in the world, but at the same time, there are so many beautifully big-hearted, open-minded, impact-driven humans who continue to live and give and create and offer and gather in ways that give me hope, tethered to the acknowledge that, even in hard times, there is good to be savored, and even in the face of adversity, there is reason to believe in the possibility.While it’s impossible to share every person, story, idea, and conversation, we’ve curated a handful of the conversations, ideas, and stories that’ve really stayed with me, generated amazing responses from our incredible community, and speak to the possibility of coming together to not just inhabit, but bring into existence the world in which we seek to live. So excited to share this 2021 year-in-review montage with you. If you LOVED this episode:You can find Valarie at: Full Conversation | Instagram | Understanding America: 20 Years LaterYou can find Peter Frampton at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis at: Full Conversation | Website | Instagram | Love.Period. podcastYou can find Andy at: Full Conversation | Website | Instagram | Creative Pep Talk PodcastYou can find Anthony at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Mel at: Full Conversation | Join The High 5 Challenge | InstagramYou can find Justin at: Full Conversation | Instagram | Man Enough PodcastYou can find Tara Brach at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Ocean at: Full Conversation | Website | InstagramYou can find Rev. angel Kyodo williams at: Full Conversation | Instagram | WebsiteMy new book Sparked.Check out our offerings & partners: Outschool: Inspire kids to love learning with Outschool classes. It's 100% fun, live & teacher-led. Explore over 100,000 topics and learn in small groups via Zoom. Perfect for ages 3-18. Join for free. To learn more about all Outschool has to offer and to save $15 off your child’s first class go to Outschool.com/GOODLIFE  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we bring this year to a close, and what a year it's been, right? I've really been reflecting on how profound so much of the past 12 months have been. So much change and uncertainty, disconnection, reconnection, inexplicably bundled with moments of profound hopefulness and connection, creation and possibility. And along the way, I've had just the most incredible opportunity to sit down with over a hundred of the wisest, most inspiring, genuine, kind, creative, and tapped into source human beings through the vehicle of this podcast and share these ideas, these people, their experiences, their lives, their insights with you and learn and grow.

And it has in no small way been an anchor and a source of deep nourishment. So we have been spending time reflecting on the people, conversations, ideas, stories, and moments that have really moved us over the last year on the podcast. And this is a nearly impossible task because literally every single person, every story has made a meaningful difference. But we've been on a quest to distill a handful of these moments in very particular conversations down into powerful experiences, excerpts that might serve as both a reflection and honoring, and in a weird way, a body of evidence that yes, we still have much to do in the world, but at the same time,

there are so many beautifully big-hearted, open-minded, impact-driven humans who continue to live and give and create and offer and gather in ways that give me hope. Tethered to the acknowledgement that even in hard times, there is good to be savored. And even in the face of adversity, there is a reason to believe in possibility. And while it's impossible to share every person, every story, idea, and conversation, we have curated this handful that really stayed with me, generating amazing responses from our incredible community and moments that speak to the possibility of coming together, not just to inhabit, but to bring into existence the world in which we seek to live. So excited to share this 2021 year in review montage with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is a good life project. The Apple watch series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. Hey, so we are going to dive into our year-end montage mashup lineup curation, whatever you want to call it. activist, documentary filmmaker, lawyer, educator, and faith leader, Valerie Kaur, who rose to global acclaim in late 2016 when her watch night service address asked the question, is this the darkness of the tomb or the darkness of the womb? The daughter of farmers in California's heartland brought up in the sick faith. Valerie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Law School, but it was 9-11 that launched her down the now two decades long path of activism and advocacy with a lens toward seeing the humanity in all people and what she calls revolutionary love. Here's Valerie.

You write so beautifully and you speak so beautifully about when you were a young kid, the relationship that you had with your grandfather and how central and how important he was in your life, especially when you were little. You're already going to make me cry. My grandfather helped raise me, so he was there before memory. He was the one who would rock me to sleep at night, whispering the prayers of our ancestors. He was the one who would drive me to school in the mornings.

I would play at his feet as he tended the garden in the backyard. And Papaji, I called him, he was my mother's father, I called him Papaji, Father. He was always humming the Shabbats, the prayers, almost like it was just a deep breath, you know. And I realized it wasn't so much that he was praying, but he was cultivating his orientation to wonder. I mean, he would just see the rainbows that appeared in the sprinklers and just say, Kamal ha, you know, how amazing.

He would look at the stars at night with me. We would talk to them as if they were our friends. I mean, you almost imagine it as childlike. And yet this man who was filled with a sense of wonderment of all around him was also the bravest person I knew. He was born in what is now Pakistan before the partition of India. And so he fought in World War II in the British Indian Army. I grew up with stories of him saving one canteen of water through the deserts of Libya and Egypt and saving that one canteen of water to wash his long hair while his British superiors laughed. But that's how important his hair, his turban was for him, the articles of his faith. I grew up with stories of him escaping the mass violence and the trains filled with the dead during the partition of

India during that when Pakistan was carved out of India and him and his family had to migrate to what is now Punjab. And I grew up with stories of him surviving the pogroms in Delhi in 1984. And every time in the face of death, he would recite this prayer, Tat diva nalagi bad brahm shanai, the hot winds cannot touch you. You are shielded by love. So my grandfather was the person I wanted to be when I grew up. You know, he wasn't just the gardener or the poet. He was the warrior. And he saw me as a warrior. I'm like, I'm a little girl in two long braids. And every time I'd come home running from the racial slur or the mean girls at school, he would look down at me and say, my dear, don't abandon your post.

Honestly, Jonathan, I feel like my whole life since my childhood has been this beautiful attempt to keep the promise I made to my grandfather to not abandon my post. So powerful in so many ways. duality of ferocity and the warrior side and the conviction while at the same time, standing in a place of utter openness to wonder, to newness, and to gratitude for every moment, everything, every person, every interaction. I think it's easy to look at those two states and say, well, how could they coexist? And yet he modeled them in this really powerful way for you. Oh, he did. You know, what a delicious tension, juxtaposition. It doesn't seem like it would make logical sense. And yet that's how he lived, how he saw the ideal and the Sikh faith in the Sikh tradition

is the Santh Sipahi, the Santh Sipahi, the sage warrior. The warrior fights, the sage loves. I began to see it as a path of much later in life, as a path of revolutionary love. I began to think, what does it mean to live into that every day? The sage, the Santh is enraptured by the world as it is. And the warrior, the Sapahi is laboring for the world as it ought to be. So how do we hold that, the both of that? And this is where I use warrior metaphors and I use birthing metaphors. I keep thinking the midwife, she says, breathe my love, and then push and then

breathe again. There's a surrender in the breath, an orientation to the present moment, to sensations, to being here now with you, Jonathan, and this magical moment that is just existence and being enraptured by it, finding it wondrous. And then in the next moment, taking the deep breath, after the breath, okay, we roll up our sleeves and what do we do now about Afghanistan or inequality or COVID or what is my role in the labor to make this world a more just place for us all? And what ends up happening is there ends up being a little bit of breath in the bush and a little bit of push in the breath. It just becomes a way of moving through the world, the sansapahi.

Yeah. It seems like one of the moments when you were younger that really changed you and started a process of waking up and maybe looking differently at the world around you. After you had been also surrounded by, it sounds like, kids who were very devout in their faith and very, very attached to the belief that there is one path, and that was not your tradition, that was not your faith, you were not a part of that. You had this experience with this one woman named Faye that seemed like it was just, it was, even just reading it was just so hard opening. I've been trying to find her. Yeah. We had exchanged letters, you know, oh gosh, 25 years ago. I haven't been able to find her, but I've been wanting to because she was the

first Christian I had met who didn't believe I was going to hell. I had so many encounters as a kid with, I lost best friends, teachers who tried to convert me. I remember a neighbor brought over someone who performed an exorcism on me because she said every time I was hearing a voice in me that said there were many paths to the divine, that was the devil speaking to me. So I had a number of really traumatic moments and every time tried to find, you know, respond earnestly. And there was this one day, one Sunday morning, I go to the Gurdwara with my grandfather and I'm listening to the kirtan, listening to the prayers, all of six scriptures, devotional poetry. And so worship is just listening to those poems set to music and song. So here's my grandfather closing his eyes,

just losing himself in the poetry, the surrender, the wonder into oneness. That's our practice. But I am like, my fists are clenched, my heart's beating fast as I'm thinking back to all of these encounters and wanting to fight back, thinking we are warrior people. What are we doing here hiding? So I left in the middle of the service. I got up, I marched out of that Gurdwara in downtown Fresno. I went down the street to the first church I could find and it was locked. So I went to the next church and I just pounded the door. And Jonathan, I don't know what I was thinking. I think I just, I was like, I'm going to confront the priest in front of the congregation. I'm going to fight for my people. I'm this teenager and the door opens and there's this light woman in this

beautiful flowery dress and the church is empty. You know, I'm like, that's when I learned that Christians usually finish their prayers before 6 to 1. We're a little later in general. And she was the church organist and she had been practicing and she said, can I help you? And I thought of some kind of excuse. Can I sit and listen to you play? She said, yes. So I sat in the pews trying to figure out how to get out of there. And she set her fingers on that organ. Oh, Jonathan, it was like a thousand birds leaving a tree at once. It was this burst of energy and harmony. And as the music went on, I closed my eyes and I could just,

I didn't know if I was in the church or in the gurdwara. And I had these images of Jesus and from his hands, not condemning me, but his arms outstretched. And from his hands, the forming of the Ik Om God, the central truth of the Sikh faith, oneness. And by the time she stopped playing, I was just sobbing. And she said, what's wrong? And I realized that I had finally tasted, and the Sikh faith is called sahaj, that ecstatic

moment of surrender, vismad, ecstatic wonder. I had experienced what my grandfather was trying to teach me all that time, but inside of a Christian church. So the irony of that, I had come to go to battle and I had found my sanctuary. And Faye, this beautiful woman, she said, well, tell me my love, why are you crying? And I said, well, I just can't believe in a God who would send me to hell. I'm like, oh, maybe this is my moment that I got to fight her. And she says, well, I can't either. I think there are many paths to the divine. I started laughing and she starts laughing and I'm like sobbing into poor Faye's blouse. She's holding me. And we sat there for a long time, just talking and laughing about, I don't know,

you know, it's like she chose to see me as someone who was a part of her that she did not yet know, you know, come sit, listen, tell me, tell me about you. And I remember returning to my grandfather, you know, I didn't even tell him what had happened. He just had this beautiful, soft smile. And we got in the car and returned home together. And that moment, Jonathan, stayed with me all my days. Yeah, I often wonder when you're a kid and you have an experience like that, that maybe lasts minutes. Yeah.

And there are these little, there are these like vignettes that just stay with us decades and decades later. And I think sometimes we don't even really understand what's been revealed until we revisit them way later in life and say, oh, oh, this is what really happened there. We just knew something happened. So they were so laden with emotion

that they become embedded in our psyche, but we don't understand what the learning is from it until we're much further into life and reflect back and it sort of unfolds. It's almost like all the little tiny traumas, the microaggressions, the conversion attempts are just like little tiny blocks of ice that had been in my body, just freezing parts of me. And that encounter was just like the warm water just melting it away. I mean, I feel like I often think of healing as the long journey of returning to one's body. And that freedom is, you know, being at home in your body and therefore at home in the world. And that moment with her returned me to my body, returned me to a sense of home in the company of another. And I do think that's why I've carried it so many years because it's the antidote.

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Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. So I love Valerie's take on love and oneness and seeing the humanity in each other. Next up, we have Peter Frampton. So Peter's musical juggernaut of an album, Frampton Comes Alive, took the world and honestly my life by storm when it released back in 1976, becoming one of the top selling live albums in history with anthemic songs like Do You Feel Like We Do, Show Me The Way, and Baby I Love Your Way. And back then, if you had told my 11-year-old self I'd be sitting down in conversation with

the long-haired icon who graced the cover of Rolling Stone, which by the way, he laments to this day, I'd have asked what planet you're on. And yet that is exactly what this year brought. Peter has lived through so many seasons, extreme highs and lows. And the very thing that launched him into global pop music fame, as I'd learned, was actually the inciting incident for his personal demise for years. As we spoke, he was grappling with a progressive illness that, as he shared, is slowly taking control of his muscles and will at some point very likely make it impossible to do the very thing he feels he was born to do, play guitar and make music. Yet he was also deeply reverent and philosophical about it, focusing more on what was good and possible. And along the way, he shared some wonderful stories about moments in his journey, in his life, in what can only be called a full contact life. Here's Peter.

When I think about one of the guitars, become iconic for using, the 54 Les Paul, there's an interesting, really kindness-based origin story of how you came to even own that guitar. Well, the whole thing is like a fairy story, really, from beginning and there's no end. And it's the gift that keeps giving. So yes, I was with humble pie it was 1970 i was playing film or west and i had just swapped my sg my gibson solid body body, S.G. Gibson, Les Paul, a 62, for a 335. Well, unfortunately, we played at such a loud level, Humble Pie, that every time I turned my volume up to solo, my solos sounded like,

it was just a mass of feedback, you know, and I was just and the band were looking at me like, what's going on? You know, so anyway, after after I came off, there was a friend of mine there that I knew from San Francisco and he's Mark Mariana. And a friend of his had told him that I was having problems. So he came down the next night. He said, I couldn't help but notice that you were having problems. He said, would you like to borrow one of my guitars? I said, oh, gosh, yeah, that'd probably be good. So he said, it's a Les Paul. I said, oh, I'm not too good.

I like SGs, but Les Pauls are a bit too fat sounding for me. So I said, but you know what? Anything is going to be better. So he brings it to the hotel the following morning to the coffee shop. He opens it up in the coffee shop, and it's just come back from Gibson, having been refinished in 1970. It was a 1954 guitar. And he had plumbed it for three humbuckers

instead of the P90 original pickups on the guitar and sent it back to Gibson. They'd refinished it. And I just took it up to my room in the hotel and I was playing it. And I just felt like this was the perfect neck. Everything just felt so... my room in the hotel and I was playing it and I, I just felt like this was the perfect neck. Everything just felt so.

And I played it on stage that night and for the rest of the nights for the, the show at, at, uh, Billmore. And, uh, it was, my feet didn't touch the ground and my solos were nice and loud. So I was just, and then at the end of the show or end of the run of the shows, I said to Mark, you know, I gave it back to him. And I said, I know this. I know what you're going to say, but I got to ask it anyway. Would you sell it? And he said, no. I'm going to give it to you. and i i mean i'm getting goosebumps right now um that was the beginning of the fairy tale you know that he gave me the guitar uh i have given him so many number ones of all the different runs of gibson guitars that i've been lucky lucky

enough for them to do for me. So he always gets number one. There's another one coming out soon. He's going to get that one too. And so I played it, I played it, I played it from 1970, 1980. We had this horrible accident, plane crash in Caracas, Venezuela, and we believed the all the stage gear was gone everything PA monitors backline guitars keyboards and

so when my tech went down a week later we were not in the country anymore we'd already moved on to Panama and when my tech went down there a week later, he said, there's nothing left. It's just, you know, there's a picture in the book that shows you what was left. And so anyway, that was it. So for 30 years, every time someone came to me and I had a black Les Paul in my hand, oh, is that it? Is that it? And I go, no, it's not the one and um so um

then as i said 30 years later i open up an email from my info at frampton.com and um there it is today. It's alive. You know, so I screamed and I looked at it and I, it's mine. That is mine. I could see it because they took the pickups out. I know everything about that guitar inside, outside, you know, inside the note, the volumes, everything, because I've taken it all apart so many times myself to clean it and update it or whatever. And I said, that's mine. But I wasn't going to tell them that. So anyway, there was a gray area of two years where the guitar was owned by someone on the island of Curacao, and he stashed it away.

It was too... He knew what it was, obviously his son the next generation that's why there's the 30 years wants to play guitar and says dad can i take that guitar in to be fixed it's not playing too well and so he said yeah go ahead and they didn't think about it the luthier he took it to knew as soon as he opened the case he went and he said you know he didn't say anything he just said leave it with me overnight and i'll get it playable for you so the kid comes back following day and he's and the luthier says you know what this guitar is don't you who's this day and the luthier says, you know what this guitar is, don't you? Whose this is?

And the kid just closed the case and ran out. So that was it. We knew who had it, but we didn't know where he lived. So in the end, the kid wanted a new guitar within 18 months, two years. And so he asked the luthier,'ll get rid of it for five thousand dollars um because i want to buy a new guitar so basically then it's still stolen merchandise so the luthier goes to the one of the officers uh in the government of curacao and uh says uh you know i think the government needs to buy this it'll be great for the island of curacao if the government buys it back peter can't put you in jail you know

i didn't want to put anybody in jail anyway i just wanted it back at that point and um so uh uh basically the minister of tourism and the Luthier bring the guitar back to me 32 years later. And we filmed the whole thing. You can see it on YouTube. It's me getting my guitar back, you know. And it's about 10 minutes. And it's a wonderful video. I love it.

I watch it every now and again because I just I remember exactly how I was feeling that day, you know, knowing that it was coming back, you know, it was. And then of course it made it, it went, we went straight from the hotel with everybody to Gibson. There was, you know, all these guitar aficionados, Walter Carter and George from down here. And so everyone's like looking at it and saying, yes, it's a 54, 55. So everyone was saying we knew what it was, but I just wanted everybody to see it once

and for all and say, yes, this is what I've always said it is. And so they kept it for about a month, Gibson, the custom shop, and they made it playable again. Unfortunately, the electronics weren't good anymore and pickups weren't good. So all my friends, I didn't know I had so many, Les Paul lovers, were sending me pattern applied full pickups and oh I can't thank

enough people and basically it's more time sensitive now than it ever was I think and

it made its debut at our Comes Alive 35 concert at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan and the stage went dark right before Do You Feel.

My tech put the guitar on a stand right in the middle of the stage and all the super-duper lights hit it at once and the audience went nuts. And it was the guitar's night. That's beautiful. If I offer up the phrase, to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life? Well, now things have changed over the years. A good life right now for me is to spend time with my children and family. I was an absent father because of what I did and do for a living up until a very

short time ago. So that's all I want now. I'm 70 years old. I've had an incredibly colorful life so far. And I'm so thankful. I can't ask for much more. So yes, I want to be the best dad possible from now on until I leave the planet. And I'm actually going to see my granddaughter for the very first time. She was born April 6th. And I'm writing this song, and it has the line where it's, I can't reach through the screen, but I can hold her in my dream. You know, and that's, I want to, but the reality of holding her in my hands, not through the screen, you know. And Wednesday's going to be a very good day.

That's beautiful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I love Peter's incredible stories and gentleness and reflection on what really matters in life. And next up, we have author, activist, public theologian, and the first woman and first black senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church, the Rev. Dr. Jackie Lewis. So growing up in church in the South Side of Chicago, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when she was just nine, it incited what would

become a lifelong devotion to activism and social justice that would eventually lead her back into theology and urban ministry after a season in business with the intention of really re-imagining what faith and church and community could be. And Rev. Lewis has been instrumental in bringing together what she calls a multi-ethnic rainbow coalition of love, justice, and worship that rocks her soul and has remained a leading voice in activism. I was incredibly moved by the space she holds in her heart for every person from every walk of life to be seen, welcomed, and treated with dignity while also being a strong advocate for equality and change. Here's Rev. Dr. Jackie Lewis. December of 2020. In the middle of the pandemic, middle charts, all of a sudden the building next door to it goes on fire. And this place, which has been in existence, this sanctuary, for what, 100 and something years, that particular building?

Since 1892, that building. And it's burned down. It's gone. It totally does make you feel like you're out of place. It really does. Yeah. I can't even imagine you discovering, you know, like that this place, I'm actually curious, what was, how did you learn about it? It was a Saturday morning and my granddaughter, Ophelia, was staying with me and John out here in Jersey. Her brother

was sick so we snatched her from her parents in Philly to separate the kids and she's just magical. She was a magical two-year-old then and we were comforting her because she was missing her brother and missing her parents and we went to bed really early. We went to bed when she went to bed, put her to bed. Eight o'clock, phone's off. Five o'clock in the morning, I hear my phone buzzing. So I guess I had left the ringer on and it's buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I wake up and it is one of my dear friends from the church screaming and crying.

The church is on fire. And I said, the church, you know, The church is on fire. And I said, the church, you know, the church is on fire. And I wake up John with my scream. My church, she says, our church, turn on the news. And we turn on the news and it is just a nightmare. We can't believe how hot the flames are, how engulfed the building is. And immediately, I turn on my ringer, and now my colleague Amanda's calling, and so-and-so's calling,

so-and-so's calling, and John's got the baby, and so I've got to get a car. So I say, order me a car, because from here, you know, who knows? And they do. And within, you know, 45 minutes, I don't know what kind of magical car it was, but I was in a car on the way to the city, crying, talking to people, crying and thinking, what kind of pastoring do you do right now? And I just was praying, and I thought, well, this fire isn't going to kill revolutionary love. And I say that out loud, and then I text it to somebody, and it feels like the comforting message is,

we can't believe that this is unbelievable tragedy and this fire will not destroy us. And we were in church the next morning, you know, doing digital church again. People came and like sat Shiva, I would say, at the building and just tons of people from the neighborhood and from the church. And we just watched the building burn together. And while our building was burning, our neighbors were smoked out in this women's prison association. And our members were helping them,

like, oh, let's go shopping. Let's help them get food and stuff. So it was a really incredibly selfless day and indelibly imprinted on your heart kind of day. Red Lewis offers such a powerful reminder that openness and advocacy can coexist. And next up is an offering from the conversation I had with Andy J. Pizza. And no, that's not actually his given name, but for all intents and purposes, it's what he rolls by these days.

Andy has built a stunning career as an illustrator, author of kids' books, animator, and contributor to the New York Times, Apple, Nickelodeon, and well, countless other mega brands. And he's also a fellow podcaster at the helm of the Creative Pep Talk podcast, which I'm a huge fan of. Andy was the kid who perpetually zagged when everyone else zagged. And at a young age, he saw that same pattern in his mom. Everyone said he was so much like her, which in part lit him up, but also kind of terrified him. Because in his mom, these same impulses were married to mental illness that led to a life of struggle. And he feared, well, that's where he was headed to until a realization dropped that would not only lead

him down his own path, but also empower him to embrace life differently and trust that he could make it work. And indeed he has. Here's Andy. Your mom, I've heard you described as going from tragedy to tragedy by trying to fit a mainstream box. Tell me what you mean by that. Yeah. So when I was really little, I remember just thinking, I didn't get to see her a lot, but like sometimes on weekends and then different times she moved away. So we'd spend a few weeks in the summer, but I was just crazy about her. I just thought this is the coolest person.

She's loud, silly. She draws, she drew Wolverine on my X-Men card binder. And it was like the coolest like cred in school of like, that is amazing. And I just thought she was the coolest person ever. And all of my relatives and everybody around me when I was really little would constantly tell me, you are just like your mom. You are just like her. And I was like, that is awesome because she is the coolest person I know. And then as I got older and she, you know, she left my family, she started a new family, left that family, gotten this really physically abusive relationship with a guy, ended up with a really hardcore drug addiction and a brain tumor. And this is all around the time I'm like 17, she ends up in a coma in the hospital. And those words from childhood end up coming back and haunting me because I'm watching her and I'm feeling all the empathy and pain for this person

that I was crazy about. But also even deeper than that is just the horror of those words in my mind that you are just like her. This is what happens to people like you in the world. And I think that, I think subconsciously, I don't think I realized that at the time, um, I didn't know that I had ADHD. Um, she's never been formally diagnosed, but I have a strong feeling that hereditary component is coming from her side. And I didn't know it subconsciously, but I think at that moment, I realized like she got here by trying to repress who she was. She was trying to be a secretary. She was trying to be a stay-at-home mom. She was trying to do all these things that just went against her nature. And so she would try and do well for a little bit.

And then she would just implode and just have to just blow it all up and go somewhere else. And eventually that all caught up with her. And so I think she was my greatest teacher of what not to do. And I think that fired me up. And actually from that time in high school, I thought, I know that the whole plan of like, just do the safe thing is so unsafe for me. Like that's not going to work. And so I thought I'm going to bet it all on doing what I love, which is art and performance and just going for it. So that's what I did. And I think that they had me have a job from as early as I could. So I was working a part-time job at 14 and that job, I was working at the movie theater and I'd have to like, I was the cashier and I would try so hard to like count the money, right. Pay attention. Like, and you know, even just the box felt like jail and I would just feel physically ill crawling in my skin. And then I would go get my boss would count down the

money and I would have lost all this money, even though I tried as hard as I possibly could. And so I end the day with like total shame. Like I can't even do the most basic role in society. Like this is the entry level job. I can't pull it off. And so I think by the time that was like 14. So by the time my mom went through really, you know, the worst of it, I think I just realized like, I have nothing to lose for going for it. Because if I try to do the right thing, this is kind of where it goes. And also, you know, I think in my really early life, one of the first beacons, it's funny, of hope was someone else who I know has ADHD, which is Jim Carrey. When I watched Ace Ventura, I thought,

this guy's a maniac and people are loving it. And I like that. Maybe this'll be okay. And he says something that I think really sums it up. He said, he watched his dad who was hilarious, who like Rodney Dangerfield thought was the funniest guy ever. Like Jim's dad, go try to be accountant and then fail and end up being, uh, just in cleaning services. And he said, you know, you can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well try to go for what you do. And I think I knew I would fail at what I didn't want. So that was just giving me license to like,

I might as well try the opposite of what she did. Yeah. I didn't know that it would work at all. I love the infectious energy and the ability to buck convention and blaze his own path that Andy brings everywhere with him. And next up, we have Anthony Trucks, who I had the amazing fortune to spend some time with in Napa, California earlier this year, before we sat down for this conversation. Anthony entered the foster system along with his two siblings when he was

just three years old and then spent years enduring a series of really difficult experiences before finally being adopted at the age of 14. Still, he struggled to be accepted and eventually turned to football, developing an astonishing level of skill and eventually getting drafted and playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And he was living the dream, but only for a hot minute until it all came tumbling down. And he had to reimagine who he was, what really made him, him. Anthony speaks to this moment in a really powerful and open, honest way. And with a lens towards self-acceptance and kindness. Here's Anthony.

It sounds like sports becomes sort of like part expression, part coping mechanism, part refuge for you. And, you know, you start to devote yourself to it at a pretty high level. Tell me more about how classmates come to school on Friday with their Jersey for the Saturday football game. And it's like, I want to do that. But in foster care, my adoptive mom was cool with it. They were fine. But my biological mom, she would find it simply because they wanted me to just out of spite. So I never got to play. I was really good at recess though. Really good at recess. And so I was like, the moment I got a chance, I'm like, I want to play football. In fact, I recall my biological mom making a statement at the court case when I was at the court hearing whenever I got separated and ended the parental rights of like, it's just because he wants to play football. I was like, well, that's part of it. So it was one thing. But it was the whole thing.

It was I wanted to be able to give in to something and feel like I mattered. That was it, right? It was I wanted to feel like I belonged in this world because I didn't really feel that. I was an outcast at school. You know, I didn't really have a, I literally didn't look like anybody else didn't fit in. I was the poor kid on top of that. It was just a mess. And so when I tried football for the first time, it was like this chance to be able to go and like, yeah, let some, some things out, get a sense of self. No one told you to slow down only to speed up. It could be loud, rambunctious, all that good stuff. And it was great, man, except for the fact that I sucked. That was the one part that wasn't so

much fun is like, there's, there's an emotional feeling you have when you want to do something, you try it out and you were not good at it. You go, man, this sucks. And what the joy was, it kind of dissipates pretty quickly when you're not only like not good at the routes and doing things to be a good performer, but you're also getting hit. So physical pain too with the emotional pain of it all. But it did, it became this thing where even though I wasn't enjoying it, I was loving it. I don't know if that makes sense. It was a chance for me to go and put a helmet on and just release. And so it did become a thing. And I think a lot of people go, well, is it because you had a lot of pent up aggression? I didn't have pent up aggression. And when I look back and I don't remember doing it because I was angry at the world, that was the weirdest thing. Like,

I don't, I do this day. I don't recall that. I recall it as more of like the kid with a smile on his face, running free in a field kind of feeling seriously. That was what it was. Now it worked that I was like, I was really good on defense. Give me a direction, I would go shoot through a line because I had a reckless abandonment. I didn't care about my body. I still don't to this day. It's a weird thing I do. But I just went through it. So it did give me that sense of like refuge, a place to go, a place to be, a place to be accepted for being the crazy me.

You build on your skill in football. You end up going to U of Oregon and then eventually stepping into the NFL. Yeah. But in almost the blink of an eye, what seems to be the golden ticket changes really quickly for you. Really quick. Yeah, man. All came tumbling down, right? Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. So yeah, I go to Oregon, man. I have a kid at 20 years old, meet my biological dad, and then I get a chance to play in the NFL in three seasons. Tore my shoulder in the last season, came home, had two more kids with my high school sweetheart.

We were the cutest couple in the yearbook. Still are, I guess, if you want to call it that. And, yeah, man, then all of a sudden I hit this massive crisis, this identity crisis of, well, who is Anthony without the game of football? Because that was who – I mean, I built that guy from 13 years of building, from the age of 14, you know. So I leave this game and there's a massive gaping hole. Victor Frankl calls the existential vacuum of what do I do?

And so I remember that there was this focal point of I got to get that feeling back. You know, it's like if you lost the job, I got to get that feeling back, get the job. Or I lost the girl, got to get that feeling back. It's like if you lost the job, I got to get that feeling back, get the job. Or I lost a girl, got to get that feeling back. Let me go chase girls again. I've got out of shape. Let me go get back in shape. Whatever that thing is that you had before, you identify with, you got to go do it again.

And I think for me, I couldn't go play football. So I was like, what's the next best thing? My degree is in kinesiology. Let me open a gym. So I opened a gym, and the gym became my new family, my new wife, my new kids. Like I was there from 6am to 10pm. I had just had newborn twins. So my new wife is at the house with a four-year-old and newborn twins. Like it's not indicative of having any kind of great life to be quite honest. But from the outside looking in, look at Anthony, he got this gym, he's leading, you know, it's good

and it looks good, but it's not good. So fast forward nine months in that business, I'm looking at bankruptcy because I had no idea how to run a business. My wife and I are at odds. She ends up stepping out of the marriage and I get divorced. I'm not a present father. I'm out of shape. I have no football. Quite literally, everything that made me me at that confident level was just gone, gone. And when you have this feeling like here was the worst part about it, Jonathan, it's, it's one thing to have it be gone and you sit there quietly calm with nothing there. But I would have to go to a gym where people were relying upon me to be there, happy and their motivation. And I had none, but I gave them more than I had before. And it's like this, I don't even know where I was

pulling it from. I kid you not, no idea where the energy was coming from for like a good six to eight hour days. And I would get in the car at the end of the night and I wouldn't even, I couldn't even bring my hands at a steering wheel to like turn it on and drive the car away. I was so drained and I endured that for a lot of months. And eventually I was like, I don't want to do it anymore. and this is life after the game like I'm cool man and I remember after a night where I got to watch the UFC game and like hadn't talked to anybody I was just in a complete fog I just I sent a text my friends and family said please tell my kids that her father was and drove off looking for rat poison

man it was like I'm done with this and thankfully there's no stores open but like that was like legitimate like the rock bottom like there I can't to this day remember a deeper, darker space that my heart and my mind has been than that of like, this all sucks. But the GPS on my phone allowed the police to find me. So they, you know, pull up, Hey sir, we got a report. I'm like, Oh, they're just crazy. Like, you know, I can talk so I can, I can, you know, use my, my word to get myself out of the situation. Like, we'll just head home. I'm like, all right, I'll just head home. So I head home and little did I know, like everyone was searching for me. So when I rolled up to the house, it was like 35 people out in front of my house from different walks of life, you know? And it's like, now I got more shame, you know, it's even more compounding. And I remember

that there was an ambulance there. Cause you know, they 51 50, you, if everything's crazy and, uh, they're like, Hey sir, obviously you don't need us. We're aware we can see you're fine, but do you want to go? I was like, uh, I looked at everybody else. I was like, yeah, let me go. So like, it was the first time, like, it's the first time someone willingly did a 51 50 and got in the car and took off. Like that was, I just didn't want to see anybody faced him, talked to anybody. It was just this wave of shame, man. And I remember getting to the hospital. My wife, she came to pick me up and brought me back to the house. And I remember we just sat and cried for a while.

It was a tough one because it was the middle of just a lot. I think she had guilt because of what had happened with the marriage and how she was operating it and what she had done. I had guilt from the actions not taught. It was just a lot, man. We were young kids with kids, dude. It was just a tornado of crazy and statistics unraveling, you know? And I remember there was like Monday rolls around. This was on a Saturday.

Monday rolls around. And this is where your question will get answered. And I go, because there's no playbook for when you go back to work after this takes place. There's no like step-by-step process. I was like, I'm just going to go back to work. I'm just going to go back to work and act like it didn't'm just going to go back to work and act like it didn't happen. And I go back to work and act like it didn't happen. Everybody else also acted like it didn't happen.

But one guy didn't. And one guy grabs me. He's like, hey, let's go to the back real quick. So we go to the back office. He goes, hey, first off, don't you ever in your life do this again or even consider it? I go, what do you mean? He goes, when I found out. Well, I didn't say, what do you mean?

I said, I know. And he says, when I found out, I threw up in the toilet. Like, what do you mean you threw up in the toilet? Like, well, I didn't say, what do you mean? I said, I know. And he says, when I found out I threw up in the toilet. Like, what do you mean you threw up in a toilet? Like, well, I'm sorry, man. What happened? He goes, well, I thought I'd lost a hero. And that was the thing. I was like, like, it just, it unsettled me in a good way. He says, at the end of the day, like you may not know it, but people in this community, we know what you've been through, what you've gone through, what you've accomplished. Dude, you're an incredible inspiration to a lot of people and you just don't even know it. And that was the moment when I like, I realized that there was something my life was,

I guess, was doing for people without, you know, me sharing it. Cause they only knew parts of it. They didn't really know the depth of it. They just knew kind of like foster kid, but nobody knew the depths of it. And that was the catalyst to me, like realizing how good it felt just to have somebody see me, to have a conversation. And then it led to more conversations and really unpacking like what was going on, what people saw and how they did things. And I think that was where I, it's like, I started feeling good just by having conversations. I think that was it. It wasn't this flipping of a switch cognitively of like, let's talk to people here. Let's check in their box. It was just, it started coming out.

And the more it came out, it was cathartic. It was the first time people really got a chance to see behind the scenes and get to know me. And I got to know them. I think that was also cool because when you share dark, other people share dark, they feel like they have a little permission. I think that was the big thing that moved me out of my place. And that's why when people ask me now, what do you do when everything's going wrong?

I say, you got to go around people and borrow joy. That's what I did, man. I I'd say borrow because it's not take borrow means I give it back someday, but I would, I'll bet you, if you go around happy people in a bad mood that you don't walk away still unhappy, you know, like, cause they find a way, like, come on, stop. We're going to go to the bar, hang out. We're going to go to the beach and get up, you know, there's, they'll a way, like, come on, stop. We're going to go to the bar, hang out. We're going to go to the beach and get out. You know, there's, they'll just drag it and go do stuff, but you're around it and it kind of seeps into you. And I think that's what I was doing those moments. I was just borrowing people's joy. I have more conversations, had more lunches, had more talks and just, and it started making me feel more connected to humanity again. Cause

I think that was the reason why I got to that dark places. I felt disconnected from the rest of my humanity. I thought I was the only one going through it. Nobody gets this. I'm less than it's I'm ashamed and embarrassed and guilty because I'm not playing football anymore. I'd lost a sense of me. And talking to people gave me a sense of normalcy and connectedness again. So I was so moved by how open and honest Anthony was and willing to step into a place of vulnerability, which is something that he shares with my next guest. So next up, we've got someone who's kind of chosen family to me, my dear friend, Mel Robbins. Mel is one of the leading voices in personal development and transformation, the brains behind two, not just one, but two global phenomena,

the five second rule, and now the high five habit. She's one of the top speakers in the world, coaches, I don't know, something like 60 million plus people online every month, featured in videos with more than a billion views. And she's also been through a brutal few years and is one of the more confident yet humble and kind people that I know. In our conversation, she shares very publicly her own inner dance with anxiety and compulsion, negativity, and self-judgment in a real relatable, non-sugar-coated way, and how even in the middle of a calamity of storms, she has learned to find a way back to her own big-hearted, worthy center. Here's Mel. I almost didn't do it. And if I hadn't counted backwards that Tuesday morning in February in 2008, my life would have gone in a different direction. I'd probably be divorced. I'd probably be an alcoholic. My family would be torn apart. That one decision to place a bet on myself, to do something, to try something stupid, it changed everything.

And so I stand on that stage knowing that if I didn't say that, the resignation, the beat down that most people feel, the overwhelm, you would be crazy to not dismiss what I was about to tell you. Because it sounds absurd given how big life can feel and how overwhelming it can feel. And, you know, intellectually we all know you got to change one day at a time, one action at a time. But it's the how you put that into place in your life that, you know, that's why the five second rule is so helpful. It's, it's a tool. It moves you from thought to action. It breaks old self-sabotaging patterns. It's a starting ritual to get you started. And it has changed millions of people's lives. And I'm going to tell you something,

even sitting here talking to you, knowing that 111 people have stopped themselves from attempting suicide by counting backwards, five, four, three, two, one, and asking for help. I'm going to go on record and say the high five habit is an even bigger and deeper and more meaningful idea and tool. And the reason why is the five second rule will get you started. The five second rule will get you started. The five second rule will keep you in motion. The five second rule will give you courage and confidence and motivation when you need it. It will help you do the things that you need to do in order to change your life,

in order to achieve your goals, in order to stop holding yourself back. But it doesn't solve the deeper problem. And the deeper problem is you have a habit of tearing yourself down. You have a habit of judging yourself. You have a habit of focusing on what's going wrong. And those negative habits are destroying your relationship with yourself. They are destroying your esteem. They're destroying your happiness. And so this tool that I, again, stumbled into during a very low moment has had a bigger change in my day-to-day life than the 10 years of the five-second rule has in just using it for the past year. So, you know, I wake up one morning feeling overwhelmed and beaten down and stressed out. We've all had that feeling, right?

Of you just wake up, the stress is right there. You're staring at the ceiling. I don't even need to tell you what's going on. It doesn't even matter because it's a feeling that you feel overwhelmed by your life. I use the five second rule, five, four, three, two, one, because I still 13 years later have to use it to get out of bed. And I make my bed and I make my bed every morning. And that morning I made it so I didn't climb back into it. I drag myself to the bathroom. I'm brushing my teeth.

And here's the thing. You talk about morning routines. You talk about habits. You talk about mindset. You talk about science. The fact of the matter is we all have a particular habit every morning. And that habit is to ignore yourself or to criticize yourself when you see yourself in the mirror. And as I'm brushing my teeth on this particular, very low, challenging morning,

I catch a glimpse of myself, Jonathan, and I think, oh my God, you look like hell. And I look at the woman standing in the mirror and she's got dark circles under her eyes and her gray hair is coming in and she looks haggard. She looks exhausted. She looks beaten down. Honestly, I felt sorry for her. And, you know, the thing is, is that what's interesting is I, you know, started kind of picking apart my, her tired reflection. I started to think about the day ahead. And that of course was negative. I woke up late. I've got to eight minutes for the zoom call. The dog still needs to be walked. And here's, what's fascinating. If you had walked into the bathroom, Jonathan, I would have turned on a dime. I would have been like, Jonathan, I know life sucks. It's not fair. You don't deserve this, but come on, dude. If anybody can face this shit, you can. I would

have known what to say. I would have been energized to help you. But standing there, seeing myself, I couldn't think of anything to say. And here's the other thing that's really important. I don't think I would have believed it because I didn't feel confident. I didn't feel resilient. I felt beaten down. And whatever it was, I didn't even have a bra on. I just suddenly raised my hand and high-f five the woman in the mirror because she needed it. And look, lightning did not strike that moment. It's not like my life magically changed. That's not how this shit works. But something shifted. I felt my shoulders drop. I felt my chin lift. And I laughed because it's so stupid to high five yourself. I mean, just like the scene itself is dumb. And so I laugh at how

corny it was, but then my mood changed and I thought, all right, this does suck, but you know what? Here we go. And this is where this shit starts to get deep. So I wake up, same problem, same overwhelm. Nothing's changed about that. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I get out of bed. I make the bed. I start walking to the bathroom and that's when I noticed it. You know how when you're about to go to a cafe and you're going to see a friend that you really like, I'm about to walk into a cafe and see Jonathan Fields. I love this guy. How do you feel, Jonathan, when you're about to see somebody you like? You feel great. Yeah, you're excited. You're like looking forward to it. I felt that way about the idea that I was about to see myself.

I'm going to be 53 this year. I had never, ever looked forward to seeing the human being, Mel Robbins, in the mirror. I've looked forward to seeing what an outfit might look like or a new color eyeshadow. I have never anticipated with enthusiasm seeing myself. And as I stood there in the mirror that second morning, that's when something shifted because I actually noticed the human being I was looking at. And I started to think, who does she need me to be today? What game do we want to play together today? It was this weird experience where I was literally for the first time feeling like I wasn't alone. I was there with myself. It's hard to describe. It's this moment of objectivity, of presence, of depth, of intimacy with yourself. And then as I thought about the game I was going to play and how I was going to show up for myself, I raised my hand and high five myself. Now let's get into

the science because this stuff is crazy. Here's the good news. The good news is your nervous system, your heart, your mind, it is already programmed to have this work because of a lifetime of experience. So yes, it's going to feel weird. It's going to feel weird based on neuroscience. You know, you're learning a new behavior. If I were to start writing with my left hand, I'm a right-hander, it would feel weird. It's new. You are breaking an old habit of staring at yourself and going, ugh, or ignoring yourself. You know, I've been shocked by how many people,

Jonathan, can't even look at themselves in the mirror. That's the habit. So it's gonna feel weird to be with yourself because this is new. That's number one, expect that. But number two, as you raise your hand and you go to high five yourself, something weird's gonna happen. You can't think a negative thought about yourself. You can't think a negative thought about your day because your mind isn't programmed to think anything negative when you're high-fiving somebody.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. I love how genuinely human and welcoming and honest Mel is. And next up, we have got acclaimed actor, producer, and aspirational entertainment mogul in the making, Justin Baldoni. So you may know him from his breakout role of Raphael Solano on the hit show Jane the

Virgin. But underneath what seemed to be an extraordinary mainstream success, there was a bit of a personal reckoning and deep devotion to his Baha'i faith that have led him to step back and really reimagine his career, his life, and the way he chose to step out of Hollywood entertainment and the machine and assumptions it often brings to create his own engine of change in the form of Wayfarer Studios, which is this independent financial and production engine that is pioneering purpose-focused, multi-platform film and television productions that elevate and speak to the human spirit. And I was curious what was behind that. Here's Justin. One of the building blocks of the Baha'i faith, if you will, the foundations of it, is this idea of the independent investigation of truth. Meaning that you don't just become

something because your mother or father believe it. You don't just take somebody's word for it. You have to independently investigate that truth for yourself. And there's a term that's used in the Baha'i faith called seeking, right? God talks about the seeker and what it means to be a seeker, a seeker of truth, a seeker of faith, a seeker of God, a seeker of justice. And my mom was a seeker. It's the only way I can describe it. She grew up Jewish. She told me from the time she was born, and she started noticing her friends were different than her because they would celebrate different holidays. And she would ask her parents, mom, why don't we have a Christmas tree? Or who is this Jesus person?

And, you know, my, my grandparents would inevitably say something along the lines of, oh, he was just a very nice man. Jesus was a very nice man. And my mom always told me that that just didn't do it for her. She's like, but how can he just be a very nice man if everybody follows him and believes in him? He has to be more than just a very nice man. So she was a seeker. She never really just took what her parents said and said, okay, that's the gospel. And as she got older, she started investigating truth for herself and fell in love with Jesus and Christians and then wanted to know who Muhammad was, right? And then she kind of followed the path, if you will. And that led her in the 70s to the Baha'i faith and becoming a Baha'i.

And my dad was born Catholic, met my mom. And my dad was kind of Catholic by tradition. We're an Italian family on that side. And, you know, so you'd party and, you know, during the week and then on Sundays, you'd go say your, you know, Hail Marys and be forgiven and confession, if you will. It was like one of those types of families. That said, my grandmother and my aunt always, always had a rosary in their pockets. My nana, Grace, passed away. And she was deeply spiritual. And my aunt always prays.

But my dad was just kind of like, you know, kind of a Sunday Catholic, if you will. And when he met my mom, fell madly in love with her. And he tells me the story, noticed on their first date that she wasn't drinking. And he was just downing shot after shot. And they tell me the story on their first date that she wasn't drinking and he was just downing shot after shot and he and they tell me the story on their first date he looked at her and he said you don't drink do you like you know it took him a while to realize like he'd already downed two or three shots and she hadn't had any and she goes no i don't i'm baha'i we actually don't drink and he looked at her and he goes huh you know i've been meaning to quit. And he stopped

drinking and eventually became a Baha'i. And I was raised in the Baha'i faith. And then at 15, I became a Baha'i. And really what that means is that I had to decide for myself if that was what was right for me. A lot of my friends were Christian and Jewish, Muslim and nothing. And that's kind of when I really decided, but I'll be honest, it really wasn't until my mid twenties where I think the seed was really implanted in my heart. And every day I have to kind of make that conscious choice to go in. It's not just like this thing where you are something and then you're saved. Nothing against that, by the way. I just think that there is a element of work and, as Abdu'l-Bahá says, conscious knowledge and then the practice of good deeds is how we define faith. So you need both. You need that conscious

knowledge. Okay, I am this, I believe this. And then you need the practice of it. And it's not until those two things marry, like a sperm and an egg, that this third entity, which is faith, is born. I think we have to do away with is this painting of the perfect picture. This curated feed of our lives that penetrate every area of our existence. Right? Because we're always looking so happy and put together. You have so many experts on your show and authors. And I believe honestly that some of the experts are the most messed up.

Unless they're doing their own work, reading their own books, reading other people's books, going to therapy, they can get lost in their own Kool-Aid. And so for me, it's like, yeah, faith is amazing. It's the central theme of my life. But my journey with faith isn't always easy because it's more important for me to speak to those folks out there who maybe have a harder time with faith. Maybe they haven't figured out how to plant that seed in their heart, who look around and see all of these people practicing this faith who appear to be perfect, who appear to have all of it together, who pray at all the right times, who know what to say and when to say it, who always have an answer for things. to walk into a space with very spiritual people and immediately feel like you're not enough to be there. When in reality, the purpose of faith, the real purpose of religion, as Jesus said, is to allow the meek to inherit the earth. It's for the most screwed up people. It's for all of

us who are imperfect and messed up. That's what faith is. And guess who those people are? It's every person on this damn planet. It's not the enlightened few who get it. It's all of us. We're all deeply screwed up and traumatized. Every single one of us, whether we want to admit it or not. And I kind of believe there's two different groups of people in the world. There are people that want to heal and there are people who don't know they need to. And you could probably have subgroups around that. Maybe people that know they need to and then are afraid to and all of that. But I really think it comes down to just recognizing the messiness and the imperfections in all of us. And that's what radical honesty means to me. It's saying like, yeah, you might

see me as this. I might have a platform. I might look a certain way. But I have a whole battle going on inside of me that you don't see. And I don't want you to feel less than just because I'm coming off as perfect. So you know what? Let me go ahead and remove the veil. Let me remove the armor. Let me show you that I am just like you. I don't, I'm afraid of dying. I don't know what's going to happen when I get to where I'm going to

get to. I hope I've lived a good life, but there's been plenty of moments in my life that are not pure. I might be doing all of this work, but guess what? I'm doing a lot of other work that you don't see because I'm scared or I have insecurities or I have trauma. We're all the same. And when we can remove ourselves from this pedestal, when we can stop this curated feed of this perpetual broadcasting of perfection of our lives, then I think we can meet each other where it matters, which is in our humanity. I completely agree with that. It's interesting.

I think the last couple of years have brought so many more people to that table. There's a moment that we're witnessing right now where we're being asked to go in while at the same time being pressured to exist out. And I think that's creating a lot of, um, it's creating a lot of pain and disunity. And you're seeing, I think the people that are grasping on, like you said, to that idea of perfection, I think are the people that are grasping on, like you said, to that idea of perfection, I think, are is I think the more we hurt, the more we want to make other people hurt, hurt people, hurt people, as you know. And we want to tear people down that don't agree with us. And I think what we need to do right now is the opposite. I think we need to bring those people in. We need to love harder.

We don't have to like everybody, but I do believe we have to love everybody. Yeah, on board with that. When I think about my death, my funeral, my deathbed, what I'm thinking about in those final moments, I'm not going to be thinking about the parties I went to, the people that I met, the jobs that I did, the movies that I made. I'm going to be thinking about the impact that I had, not on the world, but on my family and the people closest to me. And I'm going to be thinking about whether or not I am satisfied with my work-life balance. Did I give enough? Did I spend enough time? Was I present enough? Or were the projects that I chose to do that took me away from my family? Were they meaningful? Not financially, not monetarily. Were they

meaningful to me? Did I feel like I was true to myself? Was I serving my purpose? And at the end of my life, that's all I'll be able to answer to, not anything else. And so it makes sense to me that of course, the thing that truly came from my heart that everybody said, eh, good luck, that'll never happen, is the thing that actually helped me become the most successful because it was true to me. So I don't care anymore about what anybody else thinks in the business. Of course I care to a certain extent what people think of the quality of my work. But I'm not making choices based on what other people think is popular or cool or valued. And I'm not shying away from talking about things like faith and love and vulnerability and honesty and trust or masculinity as an example. And the polarizing topic that that is. Because at the end of the day,

I have to answer to myself. I have to be able to stand before God and say, and if God says to me, what did you do with your time? I have to be able to look up or out or wherever or in or whatever the heck that is and answer honestly. Yeah. So I love how grounded and comfortable Justin is in his own deeply held values and beliefs. And next up, we have a conversation with a legendary Buddhist teacher and Insight Meditation Center founder, Tara Brock. Without knowing it, she's actually been one of my teachers from afar for many, many years. And her wise and funny real-world take on life and presence and compassion and truth have made a real

difference in my own life and how I frame and experience everything from joy to suffering. Tyra has also developed a really powerful practice that she shorthands with the acronym RAIN, R-A-I-N, which is transformational in its ability to let us acknowledge often hard truths and, while also creating the freedom to move into our lives with more grace and ease, regardless of whether the circumstances ever change. Here's Tara. There were two main currents that had me end up in an ashram. And one of them was that when I was at Clark, I got very, very involved with social activism and, you know, left-wing activism, you know, a lot of organizing, tenants' rights organizing and so on. And I also started

practicing yoga and the contrast between sometimes being at rallies or at meetings and the kind of hate and anger and, you anger and waving a fist. And then I'd be in yoga class and the sense of peacefulness. I remember one time going for a walk after yoga class and it was spring. And at one point I just stopped. It was in the evening and I could smell the wafting of the fruit tree blossoms and just the evening sky and feeling of it all and realized that my mind and my body were in the same place at the same time. And there was a sense of

peace and happiness. And I felt like, oh my gosh, this is what our world really needs. And it became clear to me that if we wanted to change, transform the world for more justice, more compassion, we needed to be coming from this. So that was a major current. I was actually already scheduled to go. I was going to transfer to Cornell and then go to law school. And I shifted gears. I made a dramatic turn. Instead of going to law school, I joined an ashram. So that was a big one for me. And the other piece to share that brought me to an ashram was that during college, like so many, I was really facing myself and facing my insecurities. And I remember with one friend, I was on a camping trip and she said something like,

you know, I'm finally learning to be my own best friend. And I realized with this horror that I was just the furthest thing. You know, I was like, I was so filled. I mean, I hated my body, you know, being overweight, eating too much, letting down my family, not being a good daughter, being a bad friend, you know, just insecurity on every level, always falling short, which I came to call the trance of unworthiness. So that, you know, then again, with the yoga and the meditation, I sensed a pathway to love myself back into healing. So both of those currents were there,

Jonathan, both the sense of what's going to change the world, well, I need within this body-mind to come home some to some inner peace and also to love the life that's here, not to be in a sense of self-aversion and blame, you know, with this voice of an inner critic non-stop. So the tools that I got from being in the ashram were both learning to meditate and be able to come back to the present moment and find some peace and ease in the present moment. And also, and this I kind of had to find my way into, bringing increasing amount of kindness to the places in me that were hurting. And that's what started drawing me more and more to psychology. So I, you know, really wanted to weave together the tools of Western psychology, which have a lot of good tools, with the practices of meditation

that teach us to not only to quiet our mind, but to truly unconditionally embrace the moment, including the life that's inside us. So those were the two currents that got me into the ashram and then deepened in Buddhist practice because Buddhism, so right at its core, talks about how with any moment of wanting life different, I want myself different, I want you to be different, any moment of either blame or resistance or grasping, we can't really be fully here, fully alive, and in love with life. And so there's a really deep teaching about how to recognize the ways that we keep ourselves small with the self-stories that are just non-stop, and to open back into a very compassionate and very awake and very inclusive presence. So Buddhism really deepened the kind of tools that I got for both of those streams.

There's this interesting sort of a breakdown that I've heard you offer, the flags of trance. Yeah, yeah. In a way, we know the flags, you know, once we start becoming familiar. Like, for instance, anytime we really speed up a lot, we're usually racing to the next thing and are racing away from something, or when we realize we've been obsessively thinking, you know, we pull away from the living reality and go into our minds. So obsessive thinking is a flag of trance. And then judgment's a big one. I think judgment's the most pervasive that causes suffering where we judge ourselves or judge others. And it's a way to try to control things

or feel better about ourselves. But we're living in a very small and often conflictual world. So those are some of the big ones that I see. And really, I think of meditation and mindfulness as ways of recognizing and waking up out of trance. And one of the most personally alive examples for me, I often break down mindfulness meditation, mindfulness and compassion meditation into an acronym. It's the RAIN acronym, which is recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. Because in those moments, we come back to a larger presence, we wake up out of trance. And my mother moved down here where I live in Virginia when she was about 82. And during that time, my biggest challenge was that I was super busy. And so my trance state was feeling guilty that I was letting her down

and anxious that I wasn't getting stuff done. And that would be very contracting. So at one point, I remember working on a talk on loving kindness and my mother walked into my office to give me an article from the New Yorker and I barely looked away from my screen. And so she just very graciously put it down and started retreating. But when I turned to look at her, I had this just pain, Jonathan. It was like, I don't know how many years I'll have with her. And so that's when I decided, oh, this trance, I'm going to regret this. And I practiced RAIN then. And so I recognized, okay, feeling anxious about getting things done. I allowed the feeling to be there because with mindfulness, you really need to let what's here be here. I almost will say,

this belongs. It's a wave in the ocean, you know. And then when I investigated, I could feel an investigation, by the way, is really somatic. It's not a mental kind of conceptual thing. It's can you investigate and really get intimate with it in your body, you know, so I could feel the clutch in my body and I could sense the belief swirling that if I didn't get things done, I'd fail and be rejected by the world, you know, that kind of a sequence. So I investigated and felt the clutch. And then the nurturing was really, you know, I often put my hand on my heart with nurturing, with the anavrine, because there's a lot of science now that shows that that actually begins to soften our hearts. And I just sent a message, you know, that I love her and the teachings will flow through me. I didn't have to be so anxious about preparing. And I just sent care inwardly.

And I could feel this opening from trance where the world and what I was got bigger. I was not this anxious, frenzied person that felt guilty but was just speeding along. I was resting again in a just much more tender, open-hearted space. And I did that a lot. I practiced that RAIN practice a lot when my mother was around. And I started finding that I could really relax and just be with her rather than planning when I was going to get back to work. And we'd have our big salads together for dinner and I wouldn't be anxiously trying to figure out how much I get done after dinner or take her to a doctor's appointment and just be with her. And we'd go on our long

walks in the river without, it could be slow and long and okay. And she died about, no, three years later. And of course, you know, deep, deep grief because I adored my mom and we were really close, but really not regret because I felt like, you know, a lot of people tell me that RAIN saves their life and I felt like RAIN had saved my life moments with my mom because it spared me being on automatic in reaction and going, you know, through my days with her in trance. So I'm just sharing that with you because it feels to me like so relevant to our lives that we notice where we get small and just bring these practices of presence to that to free ourselves. So Tara's energy and ideas, they make me feel like

everything is going to be okay, even when objectively maybe it's not looking that way on the surface. And next up, we have Ocean Vuong, who along with his mom found themselves fleeing Saigon, Vietnam, traveling across the globe, and then being dropped into a world that was simultaneously a source of renewal and safety, while also delivering a daily dose of isolation and othering. And Ocean's deep curiosity and sense of observation led to a love of language that grabbed hold and never let go, leading him into the world of writing. And his critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky, dazzled the literary world. And Ocean's gorgeous, deeply stirring first novel, On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous, speaks to his experience finding his way and his voice while also learning to see and embrace his mother and the world around

him that was often anything but friendly. Here's Ocean. I think war displaces and I think PTSD is a displacement. You know, it's basically the experience of trauma taking over the present. And so I always say that to remember is a very costly thing for anyone, whether it's a national memory or a personal one, because you literally risk the present. You forsake the present in order to go back. And so the cost of remembering is your very life. And so the women who raised me who suffer from PTSD, they had no choice. Their memory often hijacked their present.

And so it was a flickering. Living with them and being nurtured by them was, you know, this almost hyper flickering time capsule. It was like traveling through time through TV channels. And, you know, so there's that internal disorientation, but also Hartford, America was so different. And it's not only America, but cities. My family came from rice farmers. And if it wasn't for the war, we would still be rice farmers. We've been farming that land for centuries. And so it was a lot to learn, but it was also very freeing because they did not have any framework to pressure me to be a careerist in any

way, to be a doctor or a business person or, you know, the stereotypical Asian American plight of young people. They were just like, it was all a blank slate. It's like, do whatever you can, you know, work at McDonald's, it's a job. And so I had on one hand, the disorientation created this absolute freedom to explore whatever I wanted. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's, it's so fascinating because, you know, I think people very often they make different choices and there are different motivations for leaving one country and making a life in another country. And sometimes it's a blend of running from and running to, you know, wanting something and at the same time wanting to leave something. And in the case of, you know, of your family and so many others, you know, at least in the immediate choice, it was a running from.

It was a effectively we need to stay alive. And then, you know, so I think very often in circumstances like that, it's less about sort of this intentional choice of how do we pick among the different places where it would give us the best opportunity. It was just like, no, how do we stay alive right now? And then you land in another place and then all the other things start to unfold. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why I insist on the word refugee and not even former refugee, right? Because I think our understanding of the word refugee is colored by the newsreel where, you know, a woman or a parent running and dragging their children in the midst of this, you instant. It's always about the instant.

And the scream of the refugee captured in the photograph is almost like Edward Munch's scream. It's like this frozen moment. But in fact, it's prolonged. One is a refugee forever. And I think that is really vital in understanding history that's often outside of that frame of that photograph. Because we did have to ask, well, why? What is the epicenter of the refugee? And I always insist that my American citizenship did not begin when I arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, the Laurel, New England world of Wallace Stevens and Mark Twain. But it began with American foreign policy when the first bombs fell in Vietnam, a country no larger than California. My American citizenship began there. Yeah. I mean, my curiosity with that runs many levels, but on the surface of it is, is there a moment, do you wonder,

where, or is there a generation where the transition becomes made from refugee to resident, you know, or do you feel like it is a perpetual, it's almost like it's in the DNA, and that is just the way it endures? Well, it's important to expand refugee too, right? I think my quick answer would be, there's no end to it, and there expand refugee too, right? I think my quick answer would be there's no end to it and there shouldn't be, right? Because we often ask of an American identity, well, when are you fully American? It is when do you move beyond the epicenter? moving beyond epicentral is how we get into the trouble that we get into in this country. We want to forget that this nation is founded on genocide and literally enslaving people for labor, for free labor. And so I think for me, I'm more interested in, well, how else are we refugees even beyond the crisis? I turn to the Jewish diaspora and the Holocaust. So many studies and researchers coming from that, they were the researchers that came out of the Holocaust, but the first to really have the foundation epigenetic trauma in talking about when are we okay? And is it okay to not be

okay, even if the epicenter is no longer within reach, no longer within felt memory? You know, we understand this through the conversation of reparations in Black communities, right? So that we see that these epicenters, in some sense, never lose their grip on us, regardless of who we are. It just takes over like vines of the country. And so I'm more interested in redefining and expanding what a refugee is so that we don't have this sort of, okay, now that we're done with it, who are we? I think who we are depends on what we've reckoned with, with our history. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. It feels like a good place for us

to come full circle in our conversation as well. So sitting here in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Oh, a life full of examination that you can harness what you examine Oh, a life full of examination. That you can harness what you examine and enact it in satisfying and fulfilling ways with the people you love. It's very important.

I think the question I often ask is how do I make something? How do I make a book? How do I make a poem? How do I make a poem? And I answer by looking better at the world. But I'm also interested in examining a life thoroughly and looking at a world carefully towards no final object. That's just as important, too, because to make a book is very rare. Some folks don't have the privilege. Either they don't have time, they don't have the capacity, they're not healthy enough. So I'm more interested, I think the more challenging, the more herculean and righteous endeavor, admirable one, is to be so curious and open and

wonderstruck at the world and do nothing with it other than allow yourself to grow and to communicate with those you love better. No final product, no book, no commodified thing, but just to simply expand as a person. I think that is even more noble and perhaps what most people would end up doing, rather than writing a book or making something. Thank you. Thank you.

It's a pleasure. So I don't know about you, but I'm imagining you agree if you're still listening here. I love being able to learn from the experiences and stories and insights of people who have lived very different lives than me, which also brings us to our final excerpt from a conversation I had this year with another dear friend, Rev. Angel Kyoto Williams. So Rev. Angel, as most call her, has been bridging the worlds of liberation, love, and justice her entire life. Her critically acclaimed book, Being Black, Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace, it was hailed as an act of love by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and a classic by Buddhist pioneer Jack Kornfield, and her book, Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. It's been inviting communities to have these grounded, real, hard conversations necessary to become more awake and aware of what hinders liberation of self and society. Known for her willingness to really sit with and speak uncomfortable truths with love, Rev. Angel

notes, love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters. And right now, we are in a moment where we need change on every level, personal, interpersonal, cultural, and societal. Rev Angel was my guest on the show a number of years ago, and that led to a friendship that has been really a true gift in my life. And I wanted to invite her back to both explore her personal experience and evolution of thought around identity over the last few years, and also learn from her deeply wise and insightful, and for many, surprising lens on what it takes to step into this moment, equipped for the quest for collective liberation. Here's Revangel.

We've talked and you've been friends and you've had this evolution of thought and evolution of self in a lot of really interesting ways. And I noticed over the last year or so, you started dropping the identifiers or changing them that came after your name. And then most recently, it seems like the iteration is just sensei. And I'm really curious about the understory there, like what's been going on. Mm-hmm. You know, in Buddhism, there is a story. It's well known. And the story is basically that the Buddha, actually, there are two stories.

One is there's two monks and monks are not supposed to touch women. And so two monks encounter a woman and there's a, you know, dirty, like, you know, sea of yuckiness. And so one monk just walks up to the woman and picks her up and carries her over this, you know, gunk and everything. And they get on the other side and the second monk is looking just dumbstruck. And it's like, what did you do? I cannot believe you did that. And he said, what, what is the problem? He said, he said, you picked, he said, you picked that woman up. And he said, yeah, but I picked her, put her down and you're still carrying her. So that's one story.

And then the second story is this, it's a notion actually of the Buddha's teachings as like a boat. And you use the boat to cross over to the shore. But when you get over to the shore, you leave the boat behind. You don't carry the boat around on your back. And so that you cross over the shore of all of discontent and pain and suffering into a place that's more free and more liberated. And then you leave the boat behind. And so I feel like the identifiers are kind of the boat. And I'm not interested in becoming a boat maker. I don't want to be a ship builder. I don't want to institution build own liberation and for the liberation of the people and planet and the things that they care about, you know, and the boat gets in the way. But how so? Like, did you feel it getting in the way for you personally?

Yes. You know, we're, as a society, we, you know, especially with this idea of experts, like we really want to pigeonhole people. We really want to say, this is what you do. And now I know what podcast you should be invited to. I know what speaking you should do. I know what places you should go. And I think a liberated life doesn't inhabit those specifics and those binaries and those containers. And so for me, it's intentional.

It's not conscious. It's not like I'm actively going, well, I don't want any identifiers. And it's just like, yeah, that doesn't fit. That's not it. That's not it. And so it ends up being this, I just put the things down, right? Like I put the woman down and I just, I'm like, great. I carried that. And that was useful. You know, for a while I thought the whole, but the whole idea of like being a Renaissance person,

you know, and that was, you know, or a polymath and just, and I thought like, and you, you just get, and she's like, oh, we've like done all of these things. So what do I do now? I just tell people I'm a polymath. And it just feels so like lackluster and not the truth. And so I just want to show up and be rather than being pigeonholed. And it has its downsides, of course, which is exactly that people don't know how to place you. Or they're placing you in advance, which I think is fine.

They just entered the doorway of whatever it is that they are thinking, you know, they're like, Oh, she's the activist, right? Like she's the activist. She's the one that talks about spirituality and racial justice. And some people are like, but no, she's the Dharma teacher. And that's the lens that they come in or they're like, no, no. I was at this like conference on, on, but no, she's the Dharma teacher. And that's the lens that they come in or they're like, no, no. I was at this like conference on, on, you know, ecology. And she was talking about the planet and making all of these, you know, relationships to like how we treat the planet,

you know? And so I just like, great, walk in whatever door that you want. I'm on the other side, but I'm none of those doors. You get to be the whole of who you are. You get to bring all of these things in and you don't have to eschew this part of yourself or leave it at the door in order to belong to this community, this space, this practice, this institution, this so on, and that we're all enriched for that. We're all more enriched. And, you know, I have this whole theory about, as many people do, you know, about the divisions and like what really underlies the divisions. And for me, a major part of that is this allowing of our complexity and that the more that I can signal to people that,

that this complexity, that my not getting boxed into the, you know, like black Yoda, like, like I'm, I'm like the black queer Yoda, like Zen and like, no, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna riff on things and I'm going to use the cadences that come from Black church. Even though I don't situate myself in Black church, I'm still influenced by that cadence and that rhythm and that repetition and the way that I bring words to things and that I don't have to sit quietly, sto, in the Zen cool way. And I do that too. And that all of them are of the same, this, of this one piece. And I love that you say it because I say it all the time. The balance of that is that I belong to, you know,

no thing and everything, right? That the entry is into everything and it allows me to move freely amongst things, which, you know, hysterically in a very backwards way is also a very Zen concept. So I've heard you talk in different areas and different domains to different audiences. And one of the things I've always marveled at is that you are so intentional with language and you have this capacity to be stunningly frank and honest and direct and yet at the same time, expansive and inclusive. You can be in a room full of hundreds of white people and have and facilitate a conversation, a retreat, a day that is very direct and very honest and loaded with hard truths. The way that you, it's not just the language, it's your presence.

It's your physical, emotional, spiritual presence in a space combined with the way that you're so intentional about language that somehow creates this moment where hard truths seem to land. They seem to bypass defenses that I've seen so often go up. And I wonder if you've, I've been in rooms where I felt that, where you're sharing. And I wonder if you, while you're sharing, feel that same thing.

Well, you know, I feel the people, right? I am embracing, you know, individual people that I am so certain are as trapped in something that is not our essential nature. from that and I hold them in that space of like like I I want this for you and this is your own work right and and so this like um for me it feels like I'm embracing and and I hold the intention to embrace I think I benefit from and this is you, has all kind of complex layers to it, of course, that I also, I don't want to think from them. I want something for them. And that shift in a power dynamic is really critical. It's a combination of allowing myself to unfold and mature and create enough of a mixed up kind of economic viability that doesn't rely on anything. I'm very intentional about, you know, I don't hold like a job. I haven't held a job, you know, since I was 22.

I walked out of an office. I work for Essence magazine and I walked in. I was like, I will never work for someone again. And so I organized myself to not be, which has that quality of loneliness, right? Like an aloneness, to not be dependent on any soul, institution, or individual for my livelihood, which has its precariousness, of course, as well, and lack of security in ways. And so all of this then develops more practice. It's like, okay, I have to shift my notion of what security is. It's like this movement of things together. So I have to rethink what security is if I want to be free to say what I need to say and to create the space that I need to create and to step into

a conversation with people in which I don't want something from them. And that allows me to be able to speak frankly and clearly and directly and also to hold them, you know, really from love. And I say that and people might say like, oh, it's like, I don't mean like, because there's plenty of like, don't particularly like you, but love, right? That real expansive universal sense of you are caught, we are caught, and I get it. And I get that this is challenging. And I can't imagine how painful it is. But I can sit with you here while you walk through it.

And I think because many of us inhabit a society of ends, right? Like we get to the end of it. That that's one of the things that challenge people. Because it's like we want to get spiritual, right? Like we get to the end of it, that that's one of the things that challenge people, because it's like, we want to get spiritual, right? And now that we're spiritual, we think we can just ride the little spiritual horse into the sunset. It's like, check that box. Yeah. Check that box. And so, and then our stuff creeps up on us, you know, and some, you know, some white dude says something, you know, cranky and, youy and am I going to keep riding that same spiritual horse or have I tripped on myself and gotten in the way and got my back up, right? And now I'm ready to

draw my sword. And that sword is not a liberatory sword. It's like you hurt me, you wounded me, and I want to hurt you back sword. And if you don't know the difference of what you're wielding, because spiritual power is a power, it is a power. And with great power comes great responsibility. And for me, the responsibility is to be really, really attentive to what it is I'm wielding and for what purpose, towards what end. And there's only ever one end for me. Which is? Liberation.

That feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. I asked you this question a long time ago, but I'm going to ask it to you again because apparently I've heard people change. Once in a while. As we sit together in this cross-country container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? For me, to live a good life really means to be able to return to myself with grace, with ease, with consistency, and allow for the whole of who I am to unfold. Thank you. Thank you. And that brings this year-end big-hearted thought provoking and inspirational look back to a close.

I want to share it has been such a gift to be able to share so many incredible human beings and stories, insights and ideas with you for nearly 10 years now. Yep, that's right. Next year is the 10th year anniversary of Good Life Project, and we will be creating and doing some very cool things to celebrate with you throughout the year, starting with a powerful five-part series in January that begins the year with an invitation to step into a place of clarity and agency and inspiration and connection. We'll be talking about how to accomplish big things, important things, how to reimagine your work, your health, your relationships, your mindset, and life. So be sure to follow or subscribe to Good Life Project on your favorite podcast app. So you get notified every time a new part of this really powerful January Jumpstart series drops, and you don't miss an episode. And for now, as we bring 2021 to a close,

I really just want to thank you so much, not just for your attention and support, but for your kindness, your intention, your openness to different ideas and experiences and people, and your continued devotion to learning and growing and coming more fully alive. Because right now, we all need that more than ever. Sending so much love and wishes for a peaceful, healthy, and love-filled year to come. We'll see you in 2022. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.