Good Life Project - How Do You Craft Transcendent Collaborations?

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Daniel Lerner and Gabra Zackman. This is session 3 in their three-week residency.Dan Lerner is a leading expert on e...lite performance, excellence and the realization of unique potential, working with musicians, athletes, and numerous Fortune 500 companies and executives. He's on the faculty at both New York University (where he teaches the always waitlisted “The Science of Happiness”) and the University of Pennsylvania, where he works with the graduate program in Applied Positive Psychology. He is currently writing a book about the process and mindset that leads to healthy, uniquely individual excellence.Gabra Zackman is an actress, writer and voice over artist, frequent traveler and lover of adventure. She works regularly in theater, has a parallel and sustaining career in audiobook narration, having recorded over 300 audiobooks to date, and has had great success with her first writing contract,the humorous, romantic, spy-centered BOD SQUAD series. Her life philosophy is 'Say yes...and rock what you got'.Our three topics in this episode:How do you find those near-mystical collaborations?The surprising origins of mentors, what's in it for the mentor?Why you need to hold on to your most precious relationships loosely.It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! And let us know if you like this format, over on social media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, people. It's Jonathan Fields of Good Life Project, back with our third and final installment with our guests in residence. Not that it's the final installment of Good Life Project. It's just our guests in residence, their third week with us for this roundtable. We have Gabra Zachman, romance author, voice artist, who also reads a lot of romance audio books, actor and human being extraordinaire. You can find more about her at gabrizachman.com and Daniel Lerner, amazing human being
Starting point is 00:00:34 positive psychology expert. I didn't say you in our first two. NYU professor, teacher of what I believe is the largest undergraduate class at NYU. Is that accurate to say? The largest.
Starting point is 00:00:48 Non-mandatory. Exactly. Exactly. That's the one. Yeah. Got it. With something like 400,000 people in the class. 400 million people in the class.
Starting point is 00:00:59 Also a leading expert in human performance, human potential and expertise. So if you want to be phenomenal at whatever it is that you're doing, he's the dude to talk to. You can find him at daniellearner.com. So we're wrapping our residency this week, guys. And why don't we start out with Gabra Zachman. Great. Well, I thought this would be a cool way to wrap up this residency. So I recently had the opportunity to go to Colorado to shoot a short film.
Starting point is 00:01:34 This is called, I'm going to plug it. This is called Mrs. Drake is the name of the film with Noggin Sauce Pictures based in Colorado. And it was a project that was initially commissioned by my friend Rachel Fowler and I. Kyle Warren, who's an amazing writer, has written this short, and he wrote it for Rachel and I to do. Amazing, amazing, beautiful short film.
Starting point is 00:02:01 And Rachel met this producer, John Dyack, and they've run with it, right? So they ran with it, they put this thing together. A good friend of Rachel's is Caitlin Fitzgerald, who you might know from the series Masters of Sex. And she is the director. And she brought on board an amazing DP. And we shot this film in four days, and it was just sort of through the roof. So I'm thinking about that, right? And I'm thinking about the energy of the three of us sitting here around this table. And we've done this once before.
Starting point is 00:02:34 And we came together, and we, you know, came together to have a cool conversation. And it felt like something about it went through the roof. I love this expression, right? So my question is, ultimately, what we're all seeking, I think, are those collaborations that change our lives, that inspire us, that open our consciousness, that open our minds. And I am such a frequent collaborator in all sorts of media, and I know you both are as well, I'm often taken by surprise in the best of ways when something exceeds my expectations, when a certain chemical combination of people and project comes together
Starting point is 00:03:17 in a way that's really, really life-altering. And my strange question to the two of you is, how do you make that happen in your lives how do you make the magic thing happen that happens when people come together in a combination of business and fellowship and where something that you're working on gets pushed to the next level and you know what i mean by that where it's not just sure we're getting together and we're telling a story but actually we're working on a higher level where we're suddenly actually telling something that we think maybe is universal, or I think it's what we all seek. And I wonder, do you think there's a way to make that happen? It feels like it's always surprising,
Starting point is 00:03:56 especially in the world of the creative arts. You know, I'm in a show right now that has a similar thing where it's just a wonderful combination of energies and sort of through the roof. How do you make that happen? Does does it just happen by chance do you think or do you have influence over it well step one invite gabra zachman to hang out in the recording studio for a couple of hours but do you know me like that's that's a great example that was just by chance but i felt immediately that first time we all spoke to each other that there was something that was like, there would just be an energy, you know, and trust me, more times than not, I'm not right. But there was something about it where I just, like, no, son, golly. But there was something where I was like, I just think this would be fun. And in a way, you know, so I'm trying to create, you know, good tape for radio. Right. But at the same time, I'm looking for every opportunity I can to populate my days with great conversations with people who I just love.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Right. Where, so this is like, okay, so I'm hanging out with Dan and Gabba this afternoon. There just happened to be mics in the room. And, but for that fact, the three of us would not have carved out time in our day to make this happen, even though we really have fun doing it. So why not create an excuse and call it work to do it? But in terms of like, what are the ingredients of that? Yeah, like what are the ingredients of great collaboration, of the thing we all are seeking all the time?
Starting point is 00:05:42 I'm sure there's research that's been done on this. My guess is Dan actually probably has a lot more on this than I do because I don't honestly know. For me it's just a gut sensibility of maybe this will work. Dan, you've spent a lot more time in this world than me.
Starting point is 00:05:58 What's coming to mind for you? I wish I could pull all of the research to my head. I can give you a personal example and I can talk a little bit about some of the research I know, certainly. I think it is a great question. Collaboration is too rare and yet very highly sought after. And it's a challenge that way. Often those people who are most celebrated in our culture are individuals.
Starting point is 00:06:21 But when we think about Wilbur and Orville, that's flight. When we think about Ben and Jerry, that's ice cream. And so without the two of them together, we wouldn't have, we wouldn't be flying with ice cream in our hands, in our mouth. So kind of what happened there? I'm really fortunate in that I have a wonderful colleague who I teach with. And I can't tell you how many times colleagues have said, why don't you teach class at the same time? I've never heard of that before. And it's so much more fun for us to teach together. And I think it's much – it's advantageous for the students too.
Starting point is 00:07:03 He's an adolescent psychiatrist. My focus is on positive psychology. So we're able to bring – we're able to complement each other's strengths. And I think part of it is strengths to say, as Peter Drucker had written about a constellation of strengths. How do you bring together people who have different strengths to the same cause? Part of that is going to be having your eyes open, not only to see other strengths, but to appreciate them, which can often be a challenge. You know, a lot of a lot of what people look for is people who are like them, because they get them, they get each other,
Starting point is 00:07:35 and that's going to be wonderful. But what the great teams often have are an appreciation for difference. So being able to look at someone and say, Oh, my gosh, you're so good at that. I never realized that was something important, can be essential. I think often a shared sense of meaning or purpose is really important. So why did you want to make this short film? For you to share that with somebody else, sometimes it's unspoken. Often in organizations, there is a statement of purpose. Usually it's ignored. But when it's acted on, it can create an extraordinary organization.
Starting point is 00:08:10 And then it comes to a certain extent to values. I think that's part of it too, to say you can be amazing at what you do, but if your value, if our value is not aligned, it's going to be challenging to really collaborate, to really trust, to really play all out in that partnership. So I certainly think there are elements we can look for, but we have to be teed up and ready to open our minds to the idea that there is great value in them. And it's not just a solo pursuit at the cost of all others. One of the sources I'd point people to is Adam Grant's Give and Take, a wonderful book by a remarkable, very, very accomplished and very, very young professor at Wharton who talks about the import of people who give to others when it comes to being successful, not necessarily with expectation of return, not necessarily without expectation of return either, but the ability to really share,
Starting point is 00:09:15 to not go too far into it, but I'll let you certainly watch his TED Talk or read his book. But there are huge advantages to being giving to others, not a doormat, but being giving to others. And often that also creates such goodwill that you want to work with that person more. You trust that person more. And you do get a shared sense of meaning. I think that's really key. One other thing I'd say that I might have launched off with just I think to keep in mind is that relationships are the number one characteristic of people who – positive relationships – who have well-being in their lives. And so when we're able to have relationships in our work,
Starting point is 00:09:51 it brings us – it allows us to be more engaged, allows us to come with more positive emotions, more focus, often more energy. And that can be a wonderful thing, too. So I think just looking for relationships in a world where we don't look often enough can be a huge advantage. Some of those relationships are going to be breakfast once a month. I try to do as often as possible. We just sit there and we literally chew the fat and we hang out and that's it. And whether or not it ends up becoming a wonderful roundtable with the three of us or it ends ends up becoming working in some capacity, or it ends up becoming just a wonderful friendship. Not like you're searching for something, but you're dancing with different people.
Starting point is 00:10:32 You know, you're going to meet a lot of people. We're all going to meet a lot of people in our lives. Some of them we're going to date. Some of them we are going to marry, maybe. Some of them we're just going to be friends with. And I shouldn't say just, but we're going to be friends with, and all relationships are meant to be different. But if we start off with the idea of there's something that we're sharing, we're really enjoying each other's company, maybe we can also work together because we have other things in common.
Starting point is 00:10:51 That seems like a very, very natural, often very natural thing as well. And I love that. I wonder if it's also important not to try and over-engineer it. Yeah. Right. I know. Because then you layer an expectation on top of it. That's right.
Starting point is 00:11:06 That says, well, I got this hit that this is going to be really good, so let me, and I want it to be really good because I want that in my life, so let me try and make it as good as humanly possible and try and control all the environment and this and that and sprinkle seeds and sage the apartment. And then doing so, you raise the expectations of the magic happening to a point where there's no conceivable way that even if it does happen it would meet the fantasy that you create in your head so the only inevitable outcome is to be let
Starting point is 00:11:36 down and then instead of just reveling in a moment that would have been quite nice you end up leaving like feeling like well that didn't work the way I thought it was going to work, and considering it a failure rather than just, like, a nice moment. So, yeah, I wonder if sometimes we try to over-engineer it and create a shift in expectations that becomes self-defeating. I love what you said about values also. I think it's so... Values are thrown around so much in the corporate world
Starting point is 00:12:03 as, like, really critical, and like you said, mission, vision, stuff like that. And it's funny, because what thrown around so much in the corporate world as like really critical. And like you said, mission, vision, stuff like that. And it's funny because what popped up as you were talking about this is, you know, every year we run a, you know, Camp GLP at the end of August. Advertisement, August 25th. And, you know, every year it started out the first year we had 250 people. Last year we had 350. This year we'll probably have between 400 and 500 people. And we're always a little bit freaked out because we want to make sure.
Starting point is 00:12:25 The first year, something astonishing happened. There was a magic that just blanketed this thing that was transformative. You know, people came from around the world, planes, trains, and automobiles, didn't know each other. A lot of raging introverts came alone, and all of a sudden, something transcendent happened for three and a half days so year two we're like how do we recreate this boom but like let's try and really get granular so we really tried to cultivate the same container and lo and behold something really similar but different happened and now we're moving to year number three we want to do the same thing as we're growing and we're trying to control growth to make sure that we can you know control the container and but the more i think about it the more i wonder whether it's really not about size
Starting point is 00:13:10 it's not about us capping it at a particular size it's really about us being really explicit about our lens on the world you know we have good life project has a creed a public creed you know like front and center on the website that says, this is what we believe. And if you raise your hand and say, hell yes, I want to be with people who believe that too, you're in. And if you look at it and you're like, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen on the planet,
Starting point is 00:13:36 you're out. And it's equally good either way. But if you're in, then the likelihood in my mind of you now getting on a plane, train, or automobile, driving 90 minutes outside of New York and showing up for three and a half days of communal living and activities and learning and fun with a whole bunch of people you've never met before, the likelihood of that being on some level magical elevates dramatically.
Starting point is 00:13:58 So that's a lot of what we focus on. We're trying to create that. But I am really increasingly aware of the danger of trying to over-engineer it. Yeah, it's so well said. You know, we always say in the world of stagecraft films, you know, those kinds of collaborations, the ones where everything kind of elevates to that other level, you remember them. It's just not every day. It's just not. And there's always something good about everything I do, but some of the ones, you know, they're just something else.
Starting point is 00:14:31 They stay with you. It's that thing. It is. It's the thing. It's something that's unquantifiable, which is why I wanted to talk about it because I love talking about things that are unquantifiable. There's that intention. There's a book called The Immortal Evening,
Starting point is 00:14:40 which I read as part of research for the last book, actually, which talks about a dinner between Keats. And there were like these six or eight people. And it was one of these evenings where nobody ever wanted it to end. Yeah, yeah. And we've all had that evening. That's right. And we never forget it.
Starting point is 00:14:57 And we never forget it. And we very often search for it again for years. Well, and you're right. And that's actually, you bring up the right point, which is that the engineering of it or the searching for it or anything that's not living in the present of whatever it is
Starting point is 00:15:12 completely jeopardizes the possibility of magic. That's the point of it. Mr. Lerner, we're going to roll over to you. What do you got? What's on your mind? It's interesting.
Starting point is 00:15:22 It's related to Gavra's question. I have a backup question if you need it. i've been thinking a lot about mentorship recently uh and what it is that makes a great mentor i think about in a lot of different contexts when we do either of you know the the origin of the term mentor no no so neither had i uh until i looked into this uh so the origin of the term mentor? No. So neither had I. I looked into this. So the origin of the term mentor is, mentor was a character in the Odyssey. He was an old man who was left,
Starting point is 00:15:53 who was left in the home, in the house, to look over the son and wife, right? As the Odyssey happened. But he was old and feeble and he didn't have much sway or influence when the suitors came to camp out in the house and pursue the wife. And what happened was that the goddess Athena, goddess of strength and wisdom and arts, oh, and cultivation of olives, which I think is awesome. She came possessed. She came disguised as him and persuaded Telemachus to stand up to the suitors.
Starting point is 00:16:30 I thought, this is awesome. His name was Mentor, but the origin is because you get your body taken over by a goddess, which is pretty cool. Then I started thinking about modern mentors and what does it look like? And so we think about – we tend to celebrate mentorship. We really celebrate the mentee. So I thought about popular mentors and mentees. And I thought, who are some of the most popular mentees that come to mind? Rocky had Mick.
Starting point is 00:16:59 Elliot Ness, Kevin Costner, had John Malone, Sean Connery. Luke Skywalker had Ben Kenobi. I was like, and these three guys, heavyweight champion of the world. The other one defeats the mob in Chicago and beats Al Capone. And the final – and the other one defeats the dark side, at least for the time being. And amazing things. And then they had these mentors, all of whom died horrible, violent deaths. You either die by Mr. T or you die die by Tommy Gunn, or you die by Darth
Starting point is 00:17:26 Vader's lightsaber. What a horrible way to go. So mentorship is not exactly, you know, the mentee gets it, the mentor gets it in a really bad way. And when we look at mentorship, it's really quite a wonderful thing. And it's actually kind of a bi-directional relationship, which we don't celebrate as much. And we think about, when I think about folks like Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey, for example, Zuckerberg and Jobs, both parties really benefit. So, what I was, it's a long way of leading up to asking, when you think about mentors in your lives, what have mentors in your lives brought to you? And what have you seen them benefit? How have you seen them benefit as a result of that relationship? Wow.
Starting point is 00:18:13 Now, I tell you why I love this question. I love this question because when anyone asks me if I have a mentor, I say Jonathan Fields. Do you know that? Completely quiet. Wow. I've now turned? Completely quiet. Wow. I've now turned the color of the table. Which is blue, which is very strange. So, of course, we're going to say all sorts of incredible and amazing things.
Starting point is 00:18:36 But as you were talking, I was thinking about the fact that you were like, the mentor always dies a violent death. So, Jonathan, I don't want you to be intimidated. I need to get to work on my final book, apparently. Lightsaber in your bag? Oh, my goodness. You know, that's what I always say. I always say Jonathan Fields is my mentor. And what do I mean by that? You know, I go back to some of those early yoga classes that I took with you, Jonathan. And I think of some of the wisdom that you shared from the Bhagavad Gita. I remember a particular class that you taught when you said, it changed
Starting point is 00:19:11 my life actually, when you said you reworded a passage or put a passage into your own words to the extent of which it said very simply, are you living the path that you're supposed to be living? If you are living in a different path, even if you are living it well, and it's not your path, what path do you think you would choose if you had the unconditional support of your family and friends? You know, really life changing. I remember that. And I know that I have, I think that from you, I think I think much more expansively about what my career is in the larger sense or how to build the exact life and career I want. I have gotten a lot of permission for that from you, I think.
Starting point is 00:20:04 As to what you get from me, I don't know. I think that was the second part of the question. I don't know what you get from me. I mean, I don't know. I think that you've really enabled me to be a lot more brave. And so maybe in some way in the brave ways in which i've lived my life and continue to open to new paths of my life maybe that's just reflected back at you and and given you more allowance to live some of these cool paths you live well number one thank you when you ask what you know what i get back from that um and maybe what i think a lot of mentors get it's the Yiddish word naches
Starting point is 00:20:46 and it's a hard word to describe I was just about to say now you have to define that and no one can define Yiddish the closest I've seen is actually it's one of the four measurables in Buddhism which translates roughly to appreciative joy which is the joy you get
Starting point is 00:21:04 when somebody that you care about so unconditionally succeeds that you feel it as your own. You both bask in that success. And my sense is that when I see whether it's official, like formal mentorship or just friendship that we've had over the years or just whatever it may be. That a big part of what mentors get is that. It's that extension of lived through joy and success. And it's that feeling where when you care about somebody that has nothing to do with you being given value in exchange for what you're offering. You want them to go into life and do well and be well. And you see it happen.
Starting point is 00:21:49 There's just a feeling that you get that's good. You know, you call it naches. And it's something, as a parent, the easiest way to describe it is a parent watching your child flourish. You know, and you're just like, you feel good. And I think my sense is that's a lot of what mentorship is about. I think secondarily,
Starting point is 00:22:11 it's probably there's a bit of beginner's mind happening. At least my approach is always, I struggle with the word mentor, I struggle with the word teacher, I struggle with the word especially guru. And I've never particularly seen myself in any of these three roles especially guru to me it's like no no no no i don't know if anybody actually really should or ever assume that
Starting point is 00:22:31 title but the idea of no matter how far you are down your path you know if you can be in relationship with somebody else and through their experience even if you they perceive you as being substantially further along if you can through their experience just open if they perceive you as being substantially further along, if you can, through their experience, just open yourself up to the possibility that every human being has something that they can teach you. And through your interaction with them, you can somehow learn and evolve and become a better human being.
Starting point is 00:22:59 I think mentorship just sort of helps organize that opportunity. But the deeper thing is to constantly keep that beginner's mind. It's part of the way you move into the world. I wish I could say I always had that. Sometimes I'm just like nasty Upper West Side New Yorker who judges everybody. But I really try and revert to that as often as I can. And I think a mentorship relationship often just gives you another interesting dynamic to explore moving into the world with that mindset to a certain extent. That's what I got.
Starting point is 00:23:32 Thank you. Thank you. That was a cool question. That is a cool question. Cool. And Dan has very good questions. You guys are so smartical particles. I think Dan wins at the questions. No. No, it's only wins at the questions. No.
Starting point is 00:23:46 No, it's only because of the company I keep. I feel like that's the moment where we all should do a shot, right? Should be like, skull! Set him up. All right, set him up. That's right. That's for the end of week three. The final minute of week three residency. That's right.
Starting point is 00:24:03 We're done, man. Close it out with a tumbler of whiskey. Your wisdom tank is empty. Let's just all shots. Three residency. That's right. We're done, man. Close it out with a tumbler whiskey. The wisdom tank is empty. Let's just go there. Well, now we're to you, right? Are you wrapping us up? I think I am wrapping us up here. Bring it home.
Starting point is 00:24:17 Yeah. And I think it kind of actually works with both topics, which is the idea of those moments of collaborative grace, for lack of a better word. No, that's perfect. And the idea of you're kind of building on with mentorship and who benefits and how does the mentor, which is rarely explored as much as like the mentee who thrives and makes a big difference in the world. And it's the idea of holding on to those moments and those relationships loosely. And my sense is that we have, there's so much uncertainty in the world these days. There's so much shifting around underneath all of our feet.
Starting point is 00:24:56 You know, turn on the news, listen to anything, and all of a sudden you feel very ungrounded. That I personally, I think I found myself grasping for like holding tighter and tighter to whatever it is that I have that gives me that sense of like, things are going to be okay. I know where the next dollar is coming from. You're like, I know my relationships are okay. I know like all those things that I might be able to like, you know, like where I'm like, okay, I can actually, I can wrap my hands around it it so I'm going to hold as tightly as humanly possible. And my sense is that it's not just me. There's an energy in the air these days
Starting point is 00:25:32 that seems to be making a lot of people want to hold on tighter and tighter and tighter. And I know intellectually, I know philosophically, I know from studies that the teaching has always been to hold loosely. You know, that when you hold tight, you smother. When you hold loose, you know, it may get away from you. But at the same time, it also may grow in a way that would never grow when you don't have those constraints. And I'm wondering if this is something that is just, you know, I'm in a position where there's a lot of shifting ground underneath my feet these days. So I guess part of my question is, am I projecting this into the world? Or I'm curious whether you
Starting point is 00:26:15 guys are feeling that and struggle with this, or not even struggle with it, but just dance with this notion of how tightly do I hold on to the things that I can hold on to? Or is it just me? That's what I put out to you as a wrap up question. Nice, easy one. It's great. It's a great wrap up. Softball question. It's a great wrap up question. I will just say briefly that I've been very fascinated with astrology lately, because we had a couple of eclipses recently that were huge sources of energy. If you look deeper into the meanings, and I love the, there's some real deep stuff with astrology that I love that a lot of the signifiers of this,
Starting point is 00:26:52 they were bookended eclipses, a solar one, and a lunar one. And both of them sort of forecast a lot of energy movement, a lot of emotion, and also a lot of letting go of the old and welcoming in the new, which is very much what you're talking about. Oh, 2016 has been a year of a lot of that. Oh, right? And I think we all are feeling that, and maybe part of it is astrological, part of it's political, part of it's current events, part of it's who knows what.
Starting point is 00:27:22 But that very idea of it is so very hard for us to let go. But you can only welcome in the new when you let go of some of the old. You know, so I think that part of the loose holding on to things that give you grounding are that they'll stay there if they're supposed to stay there and they'll go away if they're supposed to go away and there's real sadness in that some some beautiful things friendships jobs relationships you know some of those things actually need to wash away so that the new stuff can come in nevertheless it's no less unsettling i think i think we all want solid ground under our feet i think we're in a world that's lacking it. So those are just a couple of my two cents. I'd really rather hear Dan talk.
Starting point is 00:28:08 So I'm going to turn this over to Dan. Me too. He's so smart. He's so smart. Oh my Lord, you guys. Dan's the smart one. Not that you're not smart guy, right? You didn't mean to imply that.
Starting point is 00:28:16 I want to be the cute one. I told you that. You're the cute one and you sound better than either of us on the radio. It's amazing. That's a good one. You got that.
Starting point is 00:28:32 Sorry. one and you sound better than either of us in the radio it's amazing it's amazing yeah you got both you know sorry that's a terrific question it's it it goes back to last week's question where you're saying you might want some more time to think about this yes yes right uh i apologize for the depth of my questions that's really good um you know my initial thought is just that if we're holding on to something too tight it's because we're a feared uh of something of losing it and we're a fear that it doesn't want to that doesn't belong in our lives or that it doesn't want to if it's a thing or that we don't deserve it or that we or if it's a, that it doesn't want to be there necessarily. And clearly, depending on what the nature of, let's talk about people for a moment, human beings, of your relationship is with that person, if you're holding on too tight to someone, you risk, well, you risk smothering them, as you said, and also you risk holding on to them for the wrong reasons.
Starting point is 00:29:26 I think about different relationships in my life. As I referenced last week with my boy, there's a wonderful balance, and I think all parents know this, of how much do you hold on and how much do you let go? And it's a fascinating one because the nature of it for both parties involved is the dynamics are extraordinary. I'm going to hold on really, really, really hard. But if I hold on too much, he won't learn. He won't grow and he won't fall down. He won't make mistakes, so on and so forth. If I don't hold on tightly enough, he can really – it can be some serious issues. So when I think about that relationship, it's this dance.
Starting point is 00:30:11 It's learning. I'm learning every day about it, and there's constant change. There will be change until the day that I die in terms of how that relationship plays out. And when it comes to the work that we do, the material things that we have, so on and so forth, it's related to a certain extent. Clearly, it's not bidirectional. There's one direction. But ask the question of why am I holding on too tight? What does it mean to me that I need to be holding on to this?
Starting point is 00:30:35 And what are the opportunities I'm potentially losing by being myopic about those things that I have to grab onto. So I wonder if taking a step back to say, what is most important in my life? Not from a thing or person perspective, but what is the thing that allows me to have well-being and also for me to cultivate it in others? What are some themes that run consistently? And by understanding that, we might be able to make decisions based on, or at least by
Starting point is 00:31:08 understanding that, we can understand how we hold, how hard we hold, how much we let go of everything else in our lives. So to establish that base of what drives well-being for my life and others can help us make those decisions. That was beautiful. That's a good way to wrap our residency, I think. I wish he could have dropped the mic then, too. Oh, that would have been a good mic drop.
Starting point is 00:31:31 That was a good mic drop. Boom. Replicate on swing. I will take it home with me, though. Awesome. I want to thank both of you for being my guests in residence for these three weeks. It's been fantastic, as always. My guests have been Gabra Zachman.
Starting point is 00:31:47 You can find her at gabrazachman.com and Daniel Lerner. You can find him at daniellerner.com. You guys are awesome human beings. This is really good. Really wonderful. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
Starting point is 00:32:04 Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out.
Starting point is 00:32:21 You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone if you have an iPhone. You just click on the reviews right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the subscribe button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or riffs. And for those of you, our awesome community who are on other platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message would just be so appreciated. Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.

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