Good Life Project - 5 Life-Changing Relationship Habits | Jonathan Fields

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

So what if I told you that the things that will make the biggest difference in your life, your health, your mindset, career, relationships and more are rarely the big, sweeping gestures or actions, but rather the tiny things that you do on a repeated basis every day, every week, every month, that generate a compounded impact on your life and the lives of those around you? It's these little repeated actions, these rituals, these habits that change the game and that are truly the source fuel of a life well lived. Today we dive into what specific, tiny things can you do on a regular repeated basis that will have an exponential, even life-changing impact on your relationships over time.Mentioned in this episode, our conversations with:Brad Feld: Acclaimed Venture Capitalist On Life Well-LivedNedra Glover Tawwab | Better Boundaries, Better LifeDr. Marisa G. Franco | How to Make Adult Friends (and Why They Matter)Kat Vellos ⎮ Cultivating Better FriendshipsEllen Hendriksen, Ph.D. | Taming Social AnxietySubmit a voice memo of your 5 Good Life Habits.If you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the first episode in this series, 5 Life-Changing Habits.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes.Scribd: The world's largest digital library. Enjoy millions of eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, sheet music, and documents. Get inspired by Keith Boykin with Quitting today with a FREE 60-day trial at try.scribd.com/GLP.IKEA: Find affordable furniture and home goods at IKEA! Discover furnishings and inspiration to create a better life at home. And now sign up for IKEA Family for free and save 5% in-store on eligible purchases. Every visit. Every day! Explore even more new benefits at IKEA-USA.com/Family. Offer valid starting 9/1/2022. Limited to qualifying purchases, exclusions apply. Not valid on services. Discount applied in-store only, before tax, shipping, and handling. Cannot be combined with coupons. Visit IKEA-USA.com/Family for more details. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When people are really clear about how to be in relationship with us, it avoids so much friction. It avoids so much angst. It allows people to show up and treat each other with love and respect and dignity far more regularly, far more frequently to give and to get what they need in a relationship. So what if I told you that the things that will make the biggest difference in your life, your health, your mindset, career, relationships, and more are rarely the big sweeping gestures or actions, but rather the tiny things that you do on a repeated basis every day, every week,

every month that generate a compounded impact on your life and the lives of those around you. It's these little repeated actions, these rituals, these habits that change the game and that are truly the source fuel of a life well-lived. But they're not often viewed as being all that sexy because they're tiny. I mean, how much difference could they really make? And the answer is all the difference in the world. So I have spent a lot of time exploring not just the art and science of rituals and habits

and why they work, but actually focusing on the activities themselves. What specific things can we do that make the biggest difference when it comes to relationships, career, health, wellbeing, and all those things we care about? What tiny things can you do on a regular repeated basis that will have an exponential, even life-changing impact over time? And I began to share some of these in a recent podcast that we called Five Life-Changing Habits. And well, the response to that one episode was pretty incredible. It took us all by surprise. That one episode, which was really just a primer, sort of dipping your toe in the pond of life-changing habits, has been downloaded and listened to

and shared more than any other in recent memory. And our amazing community, that would be you, also made it really clear you wanted more. So we decided to go deeper with a short series of episodes, each focusing on five life-changing habits that apply to one specific domain of life. And today, we're kicking things off with five life-changing relationship habits, little things that repeated over time can make a transformational difference in your relationships. So that's where we're headed in this special episode, five life-changing relationship habits. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X 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 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone Xs are later required. Charge 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. Okay. So we are diving into the five life-changing relationship habits. And remember, I just want to sort of plant this seed with you before we dive into the five actual behaviors that you may hear any one of these and think to yourself, well, okay, I could see how,

you know, might make a bit of a difference, but come on, life-changing, really? And the answer is almost nothing is life-changing when you do it once in a small scale. But you take that tiny thing and you multiply that times every day, times every week, times every month, times every year, times every decade. And what you see is an effect that just keeps building and building and building and building and building until all of a sudden, one day you wake up and you realize, you know what? I've just been doing these tiny things every day. It wasn't even that heavy of a lift, but somehow things have changed.

My life has truly changed. And that is the beauty of these tiny life-changing habits, is that the effort that goes into them very often is not all that big, but repeated over time, made your default behavior, your habit, they can make a huge difference. So I just wanted to plant that seed to bring us back to that notion. Because as you hear some of these, you're all like, well, yeah, sure. I could see how that'd be kind of cool and maybe make a difference in the moment, but life changing? And the answer is yes. When you say yes to it again and again and again, when you make it

your default response or behavior or action over time, that is when everything changes at scale. So let's dive in with our first life-changing behavior. And it's kind of a fun one for me because as I share these ideas with you, I am recording in my home studio in Boulder, Colorado. And nearly a decade ago now, I came out here and this is when the podcast, which started out by the way, as a purely video show, we were filming on location, three cameras with a crew. And we dropped into Boulder, Colorado, where we had set up a couple of days of these deep dive conversations with people who I had known from different walks of life. People like Brad Feld, who is a venture capitalist and a deep thinker and a writer and a feeler. And Brad led to a really fascinating conversation.

And we went in different places that I didn't necessarily see coming. And as we sort of took a deep dive into the way that he makes his choices and the way that he lives his life, he shared one particular thing that he does. And it has become this commitment that he's made, his default behavior. This is a habit. It happens to be a habit that happens on a monthly basis that they call life dinners. And here's how it kind of came to me. And that'll describe what it is and how you might explore integrating this into your own relationships. So Rad was in his, I guess it would have been mid forties when we first met. And he was married. He was astonishingly busy.

He was the type of guy where if he said yes to everyone who wanted a bit of his time, he literally would never come home and he would never stop working and he would never sleep, but he valued his life. He valued his health. And even more importantly, he deeply valued his relationship with his wife. And that was in part, at least because he had been married before and that relationship did not work out. And part of it probably had to do with the fact that he was just so completely immersed in his business and often absent on a level that would really be nourishing for a relationship. And Brad shared with me that when he really committed to being married to his wife, Amy, now, he

started seeing himself drift into some of those similar patterns of just working nonstop. And he loves his work. This is not where somebody is telling him you have to do this thing. He lives and breathes and he loves it. So it's a matter of him setting intelligent boundaries to pull him out of this work, this thing that he really enjoys doing. And of course, he had the help of his wife who sat and said, listen, we need to actually have a conversation about how we're going to be in relationship because certain things are okay

and certain things are not okay. And they kind of sat down and figured out these different practices that they could do with each other. Now, one of them that I'll share with you, which I think is super fun, and this is another habit, is what they call two minutes in the morning. And that is every morning, Brad would wake up and he'd be on the computer and say, I don't have time to chat and connect. And Amy would say, do you have two minutes? And they decided, well, of course, it's kind of absurd to say you don't have a few minutes in the morning to just sit, have a little bit of coffee and have a short conversation with the person who you hold closest and dearest to you in your life every morning. So they decided

to create this practice I call two minutes in the morning where they literally just sit and for two minutes, touch base and that tees up the day. And that became this daily habit that has been going on for years and years and years. Now that's one thing that we could talk about. It's a fairly simple one. But then Brad shared something with me that I thought was also really powerful and it was a bit of a larger commitment

and it also was less often. This was a monthly habit that they developed together. What they realized was short sure, the two minutes in the morning was great, and they would nearly talk throughout the day when they were around each other, but they wanted a way to touch base, to go deeper, to acknowledge their relationship and to talk about them, their life, their relationship, their aspirations, their dreams, their challenges, their struggles, everything, and go deeper and have a safe container, create a context that would recur on a monthly basis to ensure that they would do this.

And what they did was they created what they called life dinners. So every month, here's how it works. They would commit to a date in advance and they would commit to a place and they would go out to dinner. They would show up. Part of this was they would exchange gifts during dinner. And now sometimes these are really big gifts, like momentous gifts. Sometimes they were just little thoughtful things that said, Hey, I was thinking of you. And then they would basically have this long, luxurious dinner and they would just talk about life. They would catch up with each other because so often, you're touching base, but you're not really sharing the deeper ideas and thoughts and experiences. And this was a moment that they would carve out and they would say, how are you doing?

What's going on in your mind? How are? Like, what's going on in your mind? How are you feeling? What's going on in your life? What's been going well for you? What are you really struggling with now? And they would share each of these things. And then they would say, and how are we doing? You know, like, how am I, like your partner, how are you experiencing this relationship?

You know, are we doing well? Are we drifting a little bit? Are we not communicating great? Are we communicating fantastically? Or is anything feeling like it's being held back or stifled? They would create the container and step into it from a place of generosity and openness and trust safety, and vulnerability, and just let the evening unfold. Now, sometimes this would lead to a lot of laughter. Sometimes this would lead to tears. Sometimes this would lead to just frank, open, important conversations about topics or issues that mattered. And sometimes it wasn't all that emotional. Sometimes it was just a really lovely evening and just like a nice conversation that unfolded. And that all was fine because the idea wasn't to surface every single thing that had to be serviced and deal with it and deconstruct it.

The idea was for both of them to make a commitment on a recurring basis, on a habitual basis, to come together, create the container, step into it, and then share whatever felt like it needed to be shared in that moment so they could walk away feeling more deeply connected. Even if the issues weren't resolved in that moment, at least they were brought to the conversation. They were surfaced in the relationships. And this can be incredibly powerful. Now, what's kind of funny about this also is Brad is also a pretty realistic guy. And he's got kind of a technical, mechanical background. And he realized, he said, you know, I think we also need to be realistic about this monthly commitment because over the course of any given 12 months, any given year, it's a pretty

safe bet that one of us or both of us are going to have something come up. Maybe it's an emergency. Maybe it's just something that's scheduled that happens to fall on the date that we agreed would be our monthly date. And that other thing is really, really important and not super changeable. And it needs to actually replace the life dinner for that one moment. So they literally built in a tolerance for cancellation and rescheduling. So what was really cool about that is they even acknowledged before setting up this monthly habit together that real life happens, that they are in

a relationship in real life. And they sat there and they said, well, what would be realistic? And what feels like it's still enough of a commitment so that it's valuable and we feel like we're still in this together. So they decided, and they literally agreed to this in advance. I thought that was a really cool way to honor the fact that these things happen in the context of a real world. And with grownups who have big, complicated, really busy, high demand lives, it's often a great idea to build these things in from the beginning instead of having them just pop up later and then having one person feel slighted because the other person isn't honoring the initial agreement, which said we have to be perfect all the time in our commitment to this, which honestly is just completely unrealistic and would probably in and of itself lead to a conflict.

Why do these things matter? Why does something like a life dinner really matter? Well, it shows a commitment to being with each other on a regular basis. I value you. I want you in my life. It reminds each person that this relationship genuinely matters to you, that it's centered, it's central, and you want to commit and make it happen. It's an opportunity to reflect on how the relationship, on how life, on how anything else is going. When was the last time that you've literally carved out hours, non-distracted hours, cell phones down at a place where you could just relax into the time together with nobody else to talk about yourselves, your life, your life as individuals, your life together, and really just be there with each other. Pretty safe bet for a lot of people. It's been a long

time. It also creates time to clear the air, to talk about hard things, to come to resolutions, or at least set the groundwork for resolutions and for continuing conversations towards that end. And it creates time to savor your time together. We rarely ever do that anymore. I work with my wife. I live with my wife. I play with my wife. I work with my wife. I live with my wife.

I play with my wife. I travel with my wife. We love each other and we're around each other all the time. And we struggle together. We have wins together. We go through things together. And I was thinking not too long ago, when we do something, especially when we do it together, and it feels amazing, and we accomplish something that really matters to us, it was a deeply personal win.

How often do I individually, does she individually, do we collectively just really take the time out to savor it together? And the answer was not enough. And these can be a monthly moment to just come back to a place of not just openness and vulnerability, but also to drop into a place of savoring as well. And that savoring experience is so important, not just to your relationships, but to life, because challenge is going to come your way and suffering is going to come your way. It's just a part of the human experience. So giving opportunity to savor individually and

collectively is also really powerful. It reminds you that even in the face of things that you didn't want to happen, there are moments and experiences that you can celebrate, even if they're just a heartbeat long. And the gifts that I talked about, well, they're just simple tokens that say, I was thinking about you. It's not about the size. It's not even about what it is. It's not about the fact that they're reciprocated. It's simply something that says, even before we sat down, you've been on my mind. I took the time to think about what I might be able to do in the smallest of ways to delight you. So that is the first of these life-changing relationship habits.

This special segment is presented by IKEA and Acast Creative. So the last few years have made us all think more about what home means and how we want our homes to make us feel safe and cozy and alive, connected and at ease. And we also want our homes and everything about them to be reflections of who we are. We want them to reflect our sense of taste and style, whether playful, colorful, or abundant, or minimalist and earthy, and also our values from simplicity to family or sustainability. And after living in New York City for 30 years, in September of 2020, our family decided to go on a bit of an adventure, heading west to see what was actually on the other side of the Hudson River. Now, two years later, having tried on 18 different short-term homes, mostly around Colorado, we've settled into Boulder, Colorado.

It was such a great experience after living in homes designed and furnished by other people for a year and a half. When we finally settled into our own place and had a chance to truly make it feel like home, we were so excited. We didn't realize how important it was that the place we spent most of our time in was really a reflection of who we are and what we care about. And as that is especially true because Stephanie and I work together too, and we want to do it from home. So when we're pretty much here working, living and inviting friends over to hang out inside and out a lot. And there's fascinating research around how much our living space affects everything from mood to health to productivity.

The house that we fell in love with was feet away from the best trails in the front range of the Rocky Mountains. We were all in, but then came the big question. How do you turn a house into a home? Especially having grown and changed and reconnected with really a deeper sense of meaning. What mattered along the way? We wanted great pieces, affordable prices, and also items that reflected our love of family and sustainable design. And I know we're not alone here. This era of travel and reimagining has inspired so many to reexamine the way they live and buy and present themselves. And it's led to a new, more sustainable approach to design. I was actually curious how these last few years have changed the way some friends think about what they buy for their homes and why. So I asked them.

Oh, I like a good comfy rug. Just feels good under your feet. Elegant, streamlined. You know I love a good comfy rug. Just feels good under your feet. Elegant, streamlined. You know I love a good bookshelf. Especially when the shelves are deep enough that you can start stacking two rows of books that your guests won't even know what's in the second layer. But then if you're a book hoarder like me, they can just stack up to the ceiling and you can just hide as many books as your heart desires.

My home design ethos really revolves around art. Whether books, records, art magazines, figurines. All of this kind of creates a rotating tapestry in my space. But it's also functional because I'm a dad. So most things are multipurpose. And I really think it's about what works in your life. For me, the ability to rotate things in and out and create a bit of a freshness in my space is pretty central to what makes me feel good. My design ethos is functional, colorful,

warm. So when you walk into the room, it makes you smile every single time. I feel that way about my bedroom. We had certain signature pieces back in New York that we loved and had purchased several of over the years. But in Boulder now, we were looking for a different vibe and elements that would fit our new home and also feel like us. What's cool about IKEA is that you can shop for not just every part of the home, but so many different styles and see easily how they align with your values. And with us all looking more closely at how we spend these days, we're loving the IKEA Family Club. It's a free rewards program with always-on discounts where members get access to special product offers, in-store perks like free coffee and tea.

Plus, now all IKEA family members save an extra 5% in-store on eligible purchases every time you visit. It's nice to feel like you can live the way you want to live and not have to sacrifice. With new benefits for Ikea family members, you can create a home you love and save. Thank you for listening to this segment brought to you in partnership with Ikea and Acast Creative. Sign up for Ikea Family for free and save 5% in-store on eligible purchases. Every visit, every day. Offer valid on eligible purchases starting 9-1-2022. Limited to qualifying purchases. Exclusions apply. Not valid on services. Discount applied in-store only before tax, shipping, and handling. Cannot be combined with coupons. Visit ikea-usa.com slash family for more details. Now back to the show.

So what about the second one? Now, the second one is something that I've just started to do recently. I've been invited by various people in my life to do it. And I have been on the receiving end of this from a small handful of people. And every time I am the recipient of what is generated by this beautiful relationship habit, I feel so seen, so nourished, so nurtured, so delighted that I thought, you know, it's time for me to start to do this myself. So what is this thing? It's pretty simple, but astonishingly powerful. The second of the five life-changing relationship habits is sending weekly written letters. So what is this? Let me walk you through.

Instead of just saying sending a letter, let me walk you through in detail. I'll guide you through the instructions here. Bring a person to mind that has played some meaningful role in your life. They could be present in your life now. It could be something you see on a fairly regular basis. It could have been in the past, right? So just somebody who has been meaningful in your life now. Think about that person and bring a funny or poignant or inspiring or challenging moment or experience that happened with you both participating in it to mind, right? One that left an imprint and made you feel that in some way, shape, or form, even if

you've never talked about it, that you shared something together. Laughter, sadness, awakening, peace, joy, commiseration, which by the way, is one of the most bonding experiences that we have as human beings, oddly enough. Now it's time to share that in a letter, take the time and share how you were thinking of them, how this memory came to you, and how much you appreciate that experience, that moment, the way they were in it, how you experienced and appreciate them, and the impact that that and they made on you, even in the smallest of ways. This doesn't have to be a big grand thing.

It could literally be this really goofy five-minute thing that happened between you that you just keep chuckling about. And you really appreciate it because it showed how you were connected with somebody in a way that maybe is unusual in your life and you just value and treasure so much. This thing that you're going to write doesn't have to be formal. It doesn't have to be official. It doesn't have to be grammatically correct. It's just a couple of words, a couple of sentences, maybe a paragraph or two if you feel compelled that share what's in your heart and in your mind. And it can be astonishingly powerful. So what might this look like? Well, I thought that I would share a short example for you of a letter that I literally just wrote to my mom. I'm about to drop in the mail tomorrow morning to her. So this is kind of personal and kind of vulnerable for me. I don't normally share a lot about family and my own personal relationships,

but I thought it might be just kind of a fun example to share how it can be just a short touching thing about a moment or an experience and it doesn't have to be that long. So here's what I wrote. Dear mom, hope you're having a beautiful week. I was just reminiscing a little and remembering how you used to have your pottery studio in the basement when I was a kid and walking down there and seeing you just totally lost in your element, in the act of creation, covered in clay, with that electric wheel whirr, a little seals and cloth playing in the background, it's something that has stayed with me my whole life. I didn't realize it then, but in just witnessing your devotion to the creative impulse, you gave me permission to do the same. And since you know we're both makers, that has been a real gift to see that it's not always easy, but it matters and it's possible. And knowing this, it's made a world of difference in my life. And it's so cool to see you continue

to bring that part to everything that you do to this day. Thanks for being an amazing mom, for showing me the importance of honoring the impulse to create, and oh, also for loving me unconditionally, even when I was a bit of an ass. Sorry about those late teen years. Love you tons. So relatively short and sweet, that wasn't a big essay. It wasn't formal. It was just a quick thought about a reflection that I wanted to share. Now, here's another part of this invitation and this thing that we will turn into, if you accept the invitation, a weekly habit. If you want to do more than that, awesome. But I think starting out weekly can be

pretty incredible. Hand write the letter. Do not type and print it. Well, why? Now, of course, if you have accessibility issues, which would make handwriting a challenge, of course, whatever mode that you need to do and to use and whatever technology or whatever assisted support that you need, use it. You are not excluded from this exercise. Whatever it is that you need, however you need to adapt this to own it, to make it yours, then adapt it. And it's the same thing with everything that I'm going to offer in this entire conversation. If you do have the ability to handwrite it in whatever form is available to you, it can make a difference. It makes a difference for you because it's a different, more visceral connection to the act. And we also know that handwriting something

triggers different parts of your brain when you're creating it. You have a different association to it. And for them, for the recipient of this letter,iving a personal letter, it is so rare these days. I mean, getting a handwritten one is even rarer. It says something about the level of thought and care that you put into the act that 12 point Times New Roman or Arial Font just can't. It adds an element of personal investment. And because of that, and the fact that getting a letter, an unsolicited letter that is not junk mail, that actually comes in an envelope that is addressed to you, that is thoughtful and personal, that alone is delightful and unexpected. Seeing that somebody actually took the time to handwrite it, it elevates the level of delight and meaning and impact to an entirely different

place. Again, if that is available to you, then say yes to it. And if you need to adapt that invitation in whatever way feels available to you, then go ahead, please do that as well. Another thought, a little proviso here. Do not expect a letter back. This is not about reciprocity. It's about a simple act that makes someone you care about feel known and seen and appreciated. You are not looking for a response, whether it's a letter back or a phone call or text or DM that says, thank you, thank you, thank you. That was incredible. That changed everything. And here's what I want to share with you. We're not doing it because we want to create a sense of obligation or reciprocity for somebody to do that same act back to us or thank us on a level that feels equivalent to the act that we have just taken.

We're simply doing it because we want to do something that helps somebody else that we care about, that we are in relationship with feel good in a surprising, fun, and unexpected way. And as a side benefit, even if they never mention it again, you benefit in your own way because you know that you have been the genesis of this. And there also happens to be a fascinating phenomenon that's sort of colloquially known as the giver's glow. It's been researched, written about, studied in peer-reviewed, published research, and included in a number of books also.

And that is this experience where we know that when you give without expectation to others, whether it's somebody you know deeply or a complete stranger, even your affect, your mood, your state of mind improves in a really powerful way and often stays improved, not just for minutes, but sometimes for days at a time. You get what is known as the giver's glow, which is a pretty cool thing to walk away with. And you get to deepen your relationship. You get to do something that really makes a difference. Now, imagine doing this once could make a beautiful shift in one relationship.

But can you imagine if you turn this into a weekly habit, can you even imagine if you did this with 52 people over the course of the next 12 months, how that might impact them, might impact the nature and the depth and the quality of your relationship, your conversations with those people. And by the way, if you don't have access to, quote, enough people to do this every week, just start rotating folks. Put them on a 12-week rotation. Every three months, send another thing or send another thought or send another story. Or here's a fun new thing, make some new friends. Think about people who are, quote, weak ties, you're not that close with, but maybe sending a personal letter

would really make a difference in moving the friendship to a different level. It can be a really powerful mechanism to help advance relationships from super surface level to something that is a little richer and a little closer over time. And we'll have a little bit more conversation in our fifth habit about how you might also

do that. And that moves us to our third life-changing relationship habit. And this came from a conversation that I had. Actually, I knew about this long before the conversation because I have been a student of Tara Brock, who is a therapist, psychologist, an insight meditation teacher, and just a really wise and funny and real human being. And I've been following her work for years and years and years and years. And I heard a teaching that she gave about this particular set of behaviors, a technique that she shorthanded as RAIN. And when I finally had an opportunity to sit down with her actually on this podcast,

not too long ago, and walk through that technique and ask questions about it, it just landed so much more deeply. So I wanted to share this one particular process that she offers, because I think it can be a super powerful relationship deepening mechanism, but you may not really understand how that's true until we get to the end. And I'll give it a little bit of context for you when we get there. So Tara shared this process. And as I said, she shorthands it as RAIN, the initials R-A-I-N. And it is a process that is designed to help you get really present with whatever your current emotion and experience, your feeling is to see past the surface, to better understand what's going on and to generate the habit, the recurring habit of self-compassion and kindness.

So let's walk through what those four letters stand for in the acronym RAIN. Well, the R is a shorthand for recognize. And when she's using this, she's talking about recognizing what's going on. What is your current experience? It's about acknowledging whatever you are currently feeling or thinking, enduring, or navigating. It's about being honest about the moment rather than denying it or wishing it away, even if you'd rather it not be your current experience. So for example, if I'm anxious or a bit sad or frustrated, or maybe I feel rejected or angry or hurt or wounded, right? And I'm coming, I'm living in that place of hurt. I'm living in that place of anxiety. I'm living in that place of just being uneasy or sad, right?

Of course, now I'm probably thinking my first thing is, well, I don't want to feel this way. Let me just deny it or let me just reject it. Let me get out of this state, right? And that may be healthy as part of a bigger context, but this state also has wisdom for you. It has insight. And oftentimes we just deny it, right? We want to tell ourselves we don't really feel this because when we're feeling it, we kind of, there is this societal overlay that so often happens with feelings that comes along and introduces the experience of shame. I quote, shouldn't be feeling this. I'm quote, better than this. I quote, should be able to just let it go and roll off my back.

Let go of all of that. Just let go of it. So the R is recognize your current experience. Recognize your current experience, just noticing and acknowledging it in the moment. So first own it, own the truth of it. Now the A in RAIN are A. A stands for allow. Allow the experience to be there just as it is. Now, this is hard, but also really powerful. It's about permitting whatever feelings and emotions you're kind of immersed in to be there, letting yourself actually feel them rather than pushing them down or pushing them away or stifling them or denying they exist. Letting yourself actually feel them without feeling like you need to either fix it,

fix yourself, fix the moment or solve it away or deny its existence. Allow yourself to feel it. One of the only truths that I've come to know about state of mind, whether it comes from academic literature or spiritual practice or therapy or whatever it may be, is the only way through a feeling is to feel it. The more you push it away, the more you deny it, the more you reject it, the more you're inviting it to come back. And we tend to do it. And look, I'm raising my hand because I've spent a lot of time doing all these things, and I'm sure I will again in the future. So the invitation with the A is to allow it, to allow yourself to feel it. That doesn't mean if you're in a dangerous or harmful context or situation or circumstance

that you allow that to continue to happen, extract yourself from immediately. But if you're feeling something, if you're feeling an emotion in whatever relationship you're in, whatever experience you're in, allow yourself to feel it rather than deny its existence or wish it away or wish it that you felt otherwise. And that brings us to the I in RAIN, which is shorthand for investigate, or I sometimes like to think of it as inquire. Investigate or inquire with interest and care. This is about inquiring into the feeling. It's about exploring, well, what wisdom or truth or revelation or information might be conveyed to me through this experience, even if the feelings that I'm in aren't pleasant, even if it's not what I want to be feeling, what is it telling me? Is there anything that I can derive from it?

And questions that Tara offers while investigating, they include questions like, what most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? What am I believing? What does this vulnerable place want from me? What does it most need? And again, circling back to really focusing in, emotions often are felt in our bodies. We don't think emotions, we feel emotions. And even though it may affect us psychologically, often we feel them touch down and manifest in our physical body. So pay attention to where are you feeling it in your body as well? How is it showing up in your body? This is wisdom. It's inside, it's information. And that brings us to the N in RAIN, which is shorthand for nurture. And this is where it all turns into

self-compassion. This is where the recognition and the allowance and the inquiry all turn the experience into fuel, source fuel for the experience of self-compassion. It's about turning that universal impulse for empathy and altruism, for compassion back toward yourself. Those first three steps, they help reconnect you with the truth of your experience, which may in the moment be suffering. Even on the smallest scale, they let you see you are worthy of love, of compassion, of being seen and supported. And that starts with you offering that same kindness, that same love, that same self-compassion to yourself instead of waiting for others to show up and deciding that it's time for them to give it to you. Now, this oddly can actually be harder for us than it

is to extend that same love and compassion and kindness and generosity to others, even to strangers. Somehow there's this circuitry that so many of us have that say, this is not for me. This is for others. And oddly and almost counterintuitively, folks who are deeply compelled with a nurturing impulse often have the greatest struggle in harnessing and turning that nurturing impulse towards themselves and saying, I'm going through something. Let me take care of myself as well. Because they feel that they're here to do that for others and taking some of that for

themselves is not allowing it to go to others. And I would invite you to let go of that. Because if you cannot access that, if you cannot give that to yourself, you will end up so empty that you won't have the capacity to then turn around and give it to others. So it's about nurturing yourself, being kind and generous to yourself, taking care. Let your body feel and sense what you most need. Again, we want to root ourselves back in the physical body and listen to what it is telling us, and then take a specific action to give it a little bit of love. And that could be a

simple note of reassurance or affirmation. Tara talks about that often. Or an act of self-care, a conversation with a supportive friend or family member or a therapist, if that is what feels most appropriate for the moment that you're in. It could be a walk in nature. That tends to be my go-to. When I'm going through something, moving through nature for me is so often a deep source of nurturing. What is it that your unease is calling for at this moment? And Tara adds, many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek or by envisioning being bathed in or embraced by warm, radiant light. If it feels difficult to offer yourself love, bring to mind a loving being, a spiritual figure, family member, friend or pet, and imagine that being's love and wisdom flowing into you.

I love this visualization. And interestingly, by complete coincidence, when I'm in this place, I often place one hand on my heart just intuitively on the other hand of my belly. It creates some sort of self-calming circuit. I can't explain it. It just does, at least for me. And I just breathe into them and it takes me to a much more calm and rejuvenating place. So when we move through a process like this, like the RAIN process, and develop the habit to integrate it into our experience, whenever we're feeling challenging emotions, we become over time less likely to react and more likely to give ourselves permission to feel, not deny, not judge, but just feel, to be in the moment that we're in without judgment,

to better understand what is happening, and to hold ourselves with kindness and self-compassion. Now, you may be asking yourself, this is all about relationships, right? And I feel like you're just talking about me. Why is this a life-changing relationship habit and not just a personal one? And the answer is because your ability, our ability to be in relation in a healthy, open, vulnerable way will always be a function of our ability to be in relation with our own feelings and emotions in a healthy way. It is really hard to relate to others in a healthy way if we have not cultivated the habits and the capacity that allow us to relate to and understand and embrace and love ourselves in a healthy way. If you're disconnected or judgmental

of yourself, if you don't let yourself feel and do everything possible to ignore or deny your current reality or wish it away, it's a safe bet. You will show up that way with others too. It becomes a barrier. Deep, trusting, open, safe, meaningful, deep, and powerful relationships. So building better, more present, open, kind, honest relationships with others, it starts with doing the same for us and developing the habit of when you notice that you're feeling in a way that feels uneasy or stressed or anxious or sad or hurt or wounded, right? If you can keep coming back to this notion of rather than my old default behaviors, which often were defensive and rejection and self-shaming and all this other unhealthy,

dysfunctional stuff, which very often just deepens the level of suffering. Try this beautiful process developed by Tara. Invite it in and see if over time, this can slowly become your default process. It becomes the habit of how you respond to you noticing yourself when you're in this place. And for many of us, we drop into this place on a fairly regular basis with all sorts of different interactions, relationships, and experiences. So we will have plenty of opportunities to practice and develop this into a repeated habit. And over time, maybe that becomes a path to getting to know and forgive and be with and

love ourselves on a deeper level, and then turn around and offer that same thing to others who are in relationship. And that brings us to our fourth life-changing relationship habit. And this is a word that you may have heard once or twice over the last few years, especially as so many of us have spent so much time in small confined places with a whole bunch of other people. This is all about boundaries. Boundaries. Yes, boundaries can actually be a habit.

And I'll talk about how in just a moment. So what are boundaries in the first place? Well, in my mind, they are clearly expressed preferences about what type of behavior is okay with us when we are in any sort of interaction or relationship with other beings. And what are the areas that we would set up boundaries? And it would be important to set up boundaries in the context of relationships. Nedra Glover-Tawwab is written fantastically about boundaries and has also gratefully been a guest previously on this show. She talks about these six different areas of life where we want to think about boundaries. One is emotional when it comes to our feelings, thinking of boundaries like how we interact

with people and share and expect people to respond to our feelings, our emotional experiences. One is physical, you know, like setting boundaries around what is or isn't okay or what we expect in terms of physical interaction. Sexual is part of this also, depending on the nature of your relationship. Intellectual boundaries around how we prefer people to respond to our thoughts and intellectual offerings. Material, and this is about stuff. We all have preferences about how we want people to treat our stuff and time with respect to how people respect our time, right?

And so these are six areas that a lot of us really don't ever think about a ton. And when we actually develop a preference, a boundary about how we want people to treat us in these six different contexts, it's really important to state them clearly in different contexts and with each person. Why is that? Because they may actually be different depending on the context and the nature of the relationship or the person. For example, your physical boundary with a colleague at work is likely to be very different

than it is with an old friend or a family member or a romantic partner. Never expect people to read your mind. So it's really important for us to actually think about these six different areas and get clear and express our boundaries, our expectations and preferences about how people will interact with us in these six different domains with clear language with other people. And when we do this, we want to do it in a way where we're making it about what we need, right? Rather than saying, you should do this, or you have to do this, we frame it in terms of, this is what I need to feel safe, to feel comfortable. So if you think about it, some language to explore, some variation of when it comes to, let's talk about physical contact,

for example. You might say something like, when it comes to physical contact, I'm okay with X, but not okay with Y, with this other behavior. Y makes me feel comfortable, but X makes me feel uncomfortable or disrespected. Be very clear about this. And the thing is, when we're clear about it up front, that can both help you feel more at ease and let you feel the safety needed to then relax a little bit and deepen into relationship because you've been clear and direct. And it can also avoid conflict that is caused by somebody violating an uncommunicated or a miscommunicated boundary. We always have to understand people will respond when we share a boundary in different ways. As Nedra shares, the most common responses are pushback. Somebody saying, no, I won't respect

that. Limit testing. Somebody saying, well, you told me this is, but let me test it and see if it's really valid. Completely ignoring it and just blowing through it. Rationalizing and saying, well, I've highlighted a boundary, but here's the reason why. And I think it's a good reason. Questioning you about it. Who are you to have that boundary? Literally questioning your need for a boundary. Defensiveness, almost feeling like they're being attacked by you actually saying, this is what I need. Ghosting you, literally walking away. And that's the end of it. Silent treatment, which is sort of like ghosting you without ghosting you. And then ultimately acceptance, which is what we are going for.

And this is where boundaries also move from becoming something that you do once to something that becomes a powerful relationship building habit. Truth is, most people never actually get clear on their own personal boundaries in any of those domains that we talked about above. And even if they do, we rarely ever clearly communicate them. And if we do, often we do it once or we do it in a way where people feel that they're being attacked and they may or may not be. Again, our language that we want to use is more about this is what I need rather than their behavior. So oftentimes we're not super clear about it because we haven't really taken the time to figure out what are my boundaries in these different areas? What am I actually comfortable with? And also because they change given the context and the person. So it's not a decision that we just make once and we're done, right? This is the type of

thing that becomes an ongoing thing. It's rarely enough, especially given the many unsatisfactory responses that we can expect before we get to acceptance to just state a boundary once. We want to do the work to understand how do we feel? Has that boundary changed over time? Does it make sense to adapt it? And is there a generic boundary that we said, this is how we expect to be treated? But actually, it's context and person dependent. And we need to communicate the appropriate variation, the relevant variation of that boundary to that person.

Boundaries need to be communicated. And then on a regular basis, often many times revisited, adapted, and sometimes reinforced, both in the context of existing relationships, as well in the context of forming new relationships. So boundary setting, boundary reinforcing, boundary adapting, and revisiting is rarely, if ever, a one-time set and forget behavior. It is, in fact, something that over time becomes a behavior that we become skilled at, that we gain clarity around, that we gain comfort and ease sharing, and over time, confidence and strength, revisiting and enforcing. It is a repeated behavior that people, for better or worse, will regularly invite you to revisit with them. state of saying, okay, are boundaries at play here? Have I gotten personally clear what my boundaries are in whatever domain is relevant? Have I communicated them clearly? Have they

changed in a meaningful way from something that I communicated before for any number of reasons? And have we had an acceptance or have we had a conversation or a series of experiences that would allow us to get to a place of acceptance? So whenever we're navigating new, existing, old, evolving relationships, boundaries will always keep getting centered over and over and over. And what we want to do is get into the habit of understanding how to set, communicate, adapt, and enforce these different boundaries. And when this becomes our default state, when we're sort of constantly sort of saying,

okay, revisit, revisit, revisit, we start to get really skilled at it. And the nature of our relationships start to improve in a super powerful way because when people are really clear about how to be in relationship with us, it avoids so much friction. It avoids so much angst. It allows people to show up and treat each other with love and respect and dignity far more regularly, far more frequently to give and to get what they need in a relationship. And that is why I believe the art of working with boundaries is not just this one-time behavior,

a default mode that can become a powerful relationship building and reinforcing habit. And that brings us to the fifth and final life-changing relationship habit. And this final relationship habit, it's about forming new relationships, especially as adults. I've been kind of fascinated at how relationships get formed, especially friendships. We don't talk about friendship a lot. And I certainly have had the amazing experience of being able to talk to researchers, psychologists, psychiatrists, scientists, UX designers about adult friendships and how do we do them right? How do we make them happen? And it's a really fascinating area for me. So when you're a kid making friends,

you're like, it's a lot easier. even if it wasn't super easy for you. It tends to be much easier when you're younger. But as a grownup, things get weird and they get a little bit and maybe even a lot a bit harder. All those things that helped us and that kind of served as crutches and safe containers and automatic mechanisms for us to be in a room, in an experience, in an activity, in a science laboratory, in whatever it may be with others that they tend to fall away. We get busy. We're working. We tend to be more disconnected to those at work these days, by the way. And given the remote nature of work a lot, very often we

may actually never be in the same place with them. We may be thousands of miles away from them, which makes it a lot harder, right? Which means we're not being given all of these contexts in the same way. If we want to keep making new friends that we eventually really love being with, we are largely responsible for making it happen. And honestly, that can be kind of terrifying for a lot of people, especially if you're on the quieter or more introverted or highly sensitive side. And by the way, I'm raising my hand and saying, that kind of is me. So I have navigated this question a lot throughout my entire adult life. And I've reflected actually over the years and realized that a lot of times I ended up

creating the container and the context and the construct and the mechanism, the invitation to bring people into community who I wanted to be friends with because I didn't necessarily find it in the way that I wanted to step into it. And a fascinating new book called Platonic by psychologist Marissa Franco, she writes all about this process, right? She asked the question, well, how do we make new platonic friendships, right? We're not talking about romantic friendships, right? She asked the question, well, how do we make new platonic friendships, right? We're not talking about romantic friendships, but just like good friends, relationships as grownups. And there are a lot of things to consider, but I'm going to focus on one

particular thing, which I would consider a key new relationship habit. And it's kind of about what I would shorthand as the opening move. It's about saying yes to initiating a conversation and turning the act of initiating new conversations and potentially new relationships into your default mode behavior or your regular habitual response when you're in new social situations, even if you're freaked out a little bit, which honestly, I often am just on a personal level. So most grownups are pretty uncomfortable doing this. And as Marissa describes, it's often for all the wrong reasons. Something happens in our brain where we think we're a lot worse at conversation than we actually are. And the data shows that most people actually assume that making friends as adults is all about

luck, which it's not. And this may be the most destructive part of it. Most people assume that others won't like and accept you, kind of assume that we're not all that likable. And that's why we freak out a little bit when we think about us being the ones who are initiating some sort of new conversation or the opening move in what might become a beautiful new friendship. It turns out these things, they're all largely in our heads. They are not true. But the chatter that consumes us is so overwhelming, so convincing, so persuasive that it literally stops us from initiating conversations with new people. And when we do, if we muster up the courage to do it, very often we start telling ourselves where we're fumbling and messing up and they don't like us. So we get awkward and it becomes

a bit of this self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is a lot of what Marissa talks about. And it's not just her. We've talked to fellows on the show about it. We've talked to so many different folks about understanding our emotions in a social context. Ellen Hendricks said about social anxiety. These things surface over and over and over and over. So if you're feeling all these things, if you're a little freaked out by this, you are not alone. You're actually in the majority.

So let's talk about what would it be like to create a new habit of being the initiator in new social situations? What would it feel like to walk up to someone and introduce yourself and ask maybe a simple question about them? And what would that actually feel like if it became your default behavior in new social situations, your conversational habit? I know, I know. It sounds kind of terrifying, but through a bit of real world exposure therapy and also just realizing that people are often way more interested and kinder than you thought, it

can become an amazing experience. It's the kind of thing where you say yes to it, you're anxious or nervous in the beginning, and the more you repeat it, the more it becomes your default mode, the more it becomes your habit. You are the initiator. The more skilled you get, the more confident you get. And then you start to be able to show up in a different way. And that becomes the opposite kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of you actually being the one who's initiating and being accepted and liked. So before you begin, maybe a few tips on how to step into this. So if possible, one great experience is to find or create the context that brings people

together with shared interests or values. This can help increase the likelihood of already having many things in common to explore. Some fun examples of this, for five years, now some of you know, we ran this kind of magical experience called Camp GLP, Camp Good Life Project, where we would swoop in and for four days at the end of every summer, we would take over this 160 acre kids sleepaway camp. And we would invite people from all over the world, planes, trains, automobiles, literally people came from the opposite side of the planet to come and live and play and learn and savor and celebrate communally, living in kids' bunks, often 10, 12 to a bunk. And it was this astonishing place, about 430, 440, 450 people coming,

literally traveling just to be together. Many times people would come solo and they would show up. And we had a lot of folks who were also quieter, more sensitive, more introverted people. And we understood this from the beginning. So we were always creating contexts and mechanisms that would serve as prompts for people to get to know each other, to invite each other into conversation, to not feel awkward for more than a hot minute because we were all in it together. And it turned into this magical thing because people would walk away. And very often the average age at camp, I believe, was probably mid forties. And it ranged from 18 or 19 at the young age to in the eighties.

We would have times, years where we had three generations of family come. And then we would have people that just showed up from the other side of the world, not knowing anybody or what was going to happen. It was our job to create the safe container and invite them into relationship. So finding experiences like that can be incredibly powerful because if you show up and you understand who is going to be there, what is the shared ethos? What is the nature of the activities? We had classes and activities and arts and crafts and learning experiences. And you can look at all of those and say, all of these resonate with me. And if the other people going to the same or participating, if these are the types of things and values and activities that resonate with them,

safe bet, I'm going to find a lot of people who I'll have a lot in common with. And saying yes to experiences like that can be a really first step in that's much more easeful. Now, this was an annual experience, but things like this exist all over on a much more regular basis. Local clubs, leagues, shared activities that meet monthly, weekly sometimes, crafting experiences, knitting circles, arts and crafts, painting, studio space, classes or courses in your local community center, athletics, clubs, leagues, teams, board games, genre-specific book clubs. There are so many different ways to be able to find activities where you can step into it and say, I've already done the work to find a container that someone else has created where people like me are raising their hands and saying, I want to go there and participate in this particular activity where we all have

an interest in doing it. And that can be a great way to start to experiment with showing up and being the initiator because you already know you share a lot in common with these folks. And if you don't see that somewhere else, here's a little seed planting. Maybe experiment with doing it yourself, right? So as Marissa Franca says, assume people will like you also. I think that's the other really big mindset shift that we need to make here. Start from a place where you assume you'll be welcomed rather than feeling like you're

starting from a place of not being liked and we'll have to quote, earn it. And honestly, if you find yourself in that kind of conversation in a prove that you're worthy of my time conversation in that, you know that I'm not going to like you until you give me a reason to like you type of conversation, run. Those are not the people you want to be in relationship with. You don't have to see the world 100% like they do. You don't have to be completely homogenous in all your views and your values and beliefs and point of view. In fact, often it's much more rewarding and nourishing to be in community and friendship with people who are very different from you in a lot of ways, but you want to have a handful of fundamental things.

And at the base of it, you want to be able to show up and feel like you don't have to earn their deeming you worthy of their friendship, that you don't actually have to do something dramatic to be liked, that you can just show up for who you are as you are. Assume that you will be welcomed. That is the type of person and relationship you want to be in. Psychologist Ellen Hendrickson also has a fantastic other idea, especially if you get a bit socially anxious in new situations and you still really are thinking about what I'm offering here and saying, but wouldn't it be cool if I got into that role where I could have that habit of being the social initiator? And she says,

one of the things that you can do is to find a role that gives you a sense of purpose in a gathering and also a reason to start conversations. So for example, and this by the way has been me for much of my adult life, especially when I show up somewhere and I'm not the one who's created the container or the context or the experience, which has been a lot. So for example, the way that I have often handled that, let's say if I'm at a party or a dinner gathering or a cocktail party or drinks at somebody's house or apartment, I have often been the kitchen helper. Now, very often nobody asked me to do it, but pretty much whoever's hosting always needs a little bit of help making things happen.

So I have kind of deputized myself to just automatically step into that role, especially sort of like earlier in life when I would often show up solo at places, at gatherings, at friends' houses. I just self-appoint myself and start helping with the food or serving or cleaning up. And we do that together often. And often the cool thing is I basically give myself a job, but within that job, that role, it often gives you something to do that is purposeful. It takes your mind away from just focusing on, ooh, like everybody else seems to know

each other. Everyone else seems to be really good friends. Everyone else seems to all have gone to the same school together or worked at the same place together. I'm the outlier, the oddball. It actually gives you something else to think about and to focus on. And that becomes grounding, more calming. And it also very often gives you a reason to walk up to people and see how they're doing and start a conversation. It gives you a context to initiate,

and that can be a really amazing and forgiving thing. Now, one last word here, and it's about opening lines. If you're going to say yes and start to run these experiments to be the initiator of a potential new friendship in a social context, opening lines, good thing, bad thing, scary thing, awesome thing, here's my thoughts. It's often a way to embrace conversation initiation and maybe know that I feel a little bit more comfortable because I know the first thing I'm going to say, I know the first question I'm going to ask. And I've seen them work beautifully. And I have also seen these memorized sort of like opening prompts completely go off the rails. And I would be lying if I said that I wasn't sometimes the

person who tried them out and it didn't go so well, right? So in large part, because anything memorized or staged, it's likely to make you come off as less authentic, less open, less real. And that's kind of the kiss of death for starting new conversations that might lead to genuine relationships. Authenticity is so key. So a better approach and something that you might think about is just pay attention. Just be present. Notice something about the other person or people that you might ask in an easy going, genuinely curious way that's appropriate to the setting, to the activity, to the moment, to them, to who they are, to anything you might know about how they arrived there or leverage the context as a way in. Hey, how'd you even hear about this amazing event? Or

how long have you been doing patchwork? Or what got you into it? Reference something that is a potential shared interest or that you sense would let someone share something about themselves that make them feel good, that allow them to shine. It's a powerful, powerful way to do it. And it allows you to show up. And instead of waiting for your opportunity to offer a canned line, which very often is going to come off as slightly out of context and very inauthentic, pay attention, notice, leverage the context, and then just join or initiate the conversation based on what comes up in the moment. So zooming back out, making friends as grownups is a whole different ball of wax than when we

were kids. And that's okay. There are plenty of straightforward workarounds, but for many, the biggest game changer, it's when you say yes to the habit of social initiation, of starting the conversation, and then just invest in a few skills that'll make you feel way more comfy along the way. And note too, I'm right there with you, stumbling, learning, and growing as a full-size, highly sensitive introvert who has become surprisingly more at ease starting conversations without entirely freaking out, at least most of the time. So that is the wrap of our five life-changing relationship habits today. And remember, the magic here, it happens when we shift these from being occasional actions or behaviors to becoming repeated default reactions or behaviors,

just the way you step into relationship-focused situations. So explore these ideas, play with them, try one or more oversize, then keep doing them for days, for weeks, for months, if you have the inspiration and the positive feedback for years so that through repetition, these seemingly simple actions get repeated over and over and over. And the impact on us, on our relationships, it begins to compound. It deepens and it grows in a way that really can become truly life-changing in the context of the relationships in our lives. And because relationships, especially friendship, that sense of community, belonging, and friendship is so important to our well-being, to our ability to live a good life. These things can be critical in you showing up no matter where you are, new situations, old situations, and thinking about

deepening into them, deepening into old long-term relationships and starting and building and then deepening into new ones in a way that will truly make your life a better place to inhabit. Hope you found that valuable. As always, excited to share, excited to think about these, excited to offer my own experiences and the deep wisdom and insight of so many people that I have been able to be in conversation with over the years on this podcast and researchers and contributors to this body of work and beyond. And I am excited to continue to go deeper into this series

with future episodes that will focus in different good life domains. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor, and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with

more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X 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 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. 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.