Good Life Project - Facing Fear as a Gateway to Purpose and Possibility

Episode Date: April 16, 2015

"Will you step into purpose and connection and expression, or leave them for dead?"There's nothing quite like getting up on stage in front of a crowd to share something creative you made.It's terrifying for most (if not all) of us.But sometimes we feel compelled to do it because we know that facing THAT fear will open the door to purpose and potential.On today's GLP Riff episode, I share the story of one of our GLP Immersion members, Barry Solway, how he literally and figuratively faced his fear of being a writer on stage at Camp GLP last year. And how the incredible GLP community rallied around him to help turn his poem into a published illustrated children's book in a matter of weeks.This story is about more than facing fears however. It's about making the choice to either stay in your comfort zone, locked down by self-imposed stories, or to step outside of that and shine the light onto what you are capable of.Here's an excerpt from the blog post where I tell Barry's story:I love Barry’s story.Not just because he’s part of our GLP family. Not just because he’s bringing a wonderful story into the world and stepping into his craft as a writer.But because his journey has been a beautiful example of what can happen when you commit to a process of discovery and openness and vulnerability. When you allow all the assumptions about what you should be to fall away and step into what you are. When you’re willing to share your voice with the world, hold yourself out to be on the one hand, judged, but on the other, embraced and lifted.If you'd like to read this full story, it's written on Jonathan's blog at http://www.jonathanfields.com/courting-monster/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, Jonathan back with another Good Life Riff. These are shorter, more compressed spoken word thought pieces that are easy to consume and you can kind of bop around and just think on while you're probably walking from place to place or driving from place to place. This week's Good Life Riff is entitled Courting the Monster in Your Head. It's nearly midnight in a cool Saturday in September, and Barry Soloway rises from his seat and walks anxiously to the stage. Rising up the steps, he turns to face the visual embrace of 250 people from around the

world. Hours before, we were all strangers. Now we don't want to leave or have this night end. I wasn't planning on this, he offers, but it feels right. So please forgive my nervousness and the fact that I'm actually about to read this from my cell phone. He pulls the device from his pocket and a hush falls across the room, just waiting. I first met Barry about eight months prior among the mad flurry of applications for our 2014 Good Life Project immersion program. And Barry strikes me, I have to know more. Based out of Boulder with a background in software engineering, he's looking to launch his own consumer robotics company. And he wants help

and support and thinks the immersion sounds like a great place to find it. So I agree, and he commits, and we begin this exploration together with a curated, compassionate, and wise group of vocation adventurers. One thing about this crew, as always happens in the immersion, they have an expert capacity to hold up mirrors, and something isn't lining up quite right. A different aspiration is brewing just below the surface that Barry isn't quite giving life to yet. It's a deeper creative soul yearning to get out and become a fuller part of the story born not of devices or digits, but of words. Barry, you see, he's a writer and a gorgeous writer at that.

So when he takes the stage at Camp JLP some eight months later in September, he's not just stepping out before a packed house of artists and entrepreneurs and makers and world shakers from around the globe. He's stepping in a very public way into his life as a writer and praying to God will like what he has to offer. And what is that? Well, it's a poem, a beautiful rhyming story. and praying to God will like what he has to offer. And what is that? Well, it's a poem, a beautiful rhyming story. He's written for his then seven-year-old niece who at the time is having a bit of an issue with monsters.

So he begins moving and reading nervously across the stage and his head down, he's literally scrolling through the words on his screen with his thumb, reciting along the way. In pretty much any other setting, this scenario might not fly, but we're all with him. We're holding him,

reveling in the collective glow that comes from being there, not just to witness, but to co-create the moment an artist takes his place in the world. We're hanging on every word. And as Barry raps, 250 people rise to their feet to whoop and applaud and plead for

him to turn what he's just read into a book. One of those is a fellow member of the immersion in the Hatcha plan. Bringing together a team in a stunningly short window of time, they turn scrolling words on a smartphone into a beautiful illustrated book entitled Courtship of the Monster Under the Bed. That book is, by the way, now available to download on Amazon if you're interested in checking it out. So I love Barry's story, not just because he's part of our GLP family, not just because he's bringing a wonderful story to the world and stepping into his craft as a writer, but because his journey has been this exquisite example of what can happen when you commit to a process of discovery and openness and vulnerability,

when you allow all the assumptions about what you should be to fall away and you step into who and what you are, when you're willing to share your voice with the world, to hold yourself out, to be on the one hand judged, but on the other, embraced and lifted. And look, this is never an easy process. Whether Barry's love of writing will become his full-time occupation over time, I don't have an answer to that. But that's also not really the point. So what is then? It's that he stepped into a part of himself, that he's taken action to breathe life into the thing he can't not do. And in doing so, he's created a new avenue for the expression of purpose and of soul and of art and a way to connect with people, to touch them, to move them, to inspire joy and ease.

That he's created a vehicle for the expansion of empathy and love. So as we settle into this year, I guess the question I'd ask is this. Will you befriend the monster under your bed? Will you step into purpose and connection and expression, or leave them for dead? Will your essence remain for another year, hidden in a closet of dread? Or will you rise like Barry to let it out of your head? Thank you.