Good Life Project - Jadah Sellner and Jeffrey Davis: On Legacy, Life and Laughter

Episode Date: June 30, 2016

This time on The Good Life Project, I am joined by Jadah Sellner and Jeffrey Davis for a roundtable-style discussion of a few of the burning issues and questions that have been on our minds...and maybe yours, too. This discussion was incredibly fun and full of so much information, I couldn't wait to share it with all of you. Jadah is the cofounder of Simple Green Smoothies and JadahSellner.com. She has developed her groundbreaking life strategy, Love Over Metrics, with the help of her dream-tribe that supports her vision for the future of the world. Jadah’s passion is to help everyone to start and grow their own tribe in order to inspire action that will change the world. Jeffrey Davis is a poet, author, teacher, brand-strategist, founder of Tracking Wonder and author of Coat Thief and The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices As Muse for Authentic Writing. We dive into a wide swath of topics today, from the legacy that we want to leave our families and the world to the amount of control the government should have on the hours we work to grit, the infamous “aha” moment and so much more.Mentioned in This Episode:Connect with Jadah: Jadah SellnerConnect with Jeffrey Davis: Tracking WonderCoat Thief by Jeffrey DavisThe Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing by Jeffrey DavisBig Ass FansBJ NovakWorld Domination SummitTreehouseSeth GodinAnders EricssonEdward C BanfieldGrit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela DuckworthDaniel GilbertTim Cook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So I've got a bit of a fun episode for you today. You may have noticed we've been making some shifts in the format, and we will kind of continue to experiment. A couple months back, we sent out a listener survey, a questionnaire. We got a tremendous amount of amazing feedback about what's working, what's not working, what you like, what you don't like. We learned that three times a week was way too much for the average bear and that the longer the full length conversations are the things that the vast majority of people really wanted and if anything, wanted more of. So you may have noticed that we've actually pulled

back to twice a week now and we'll continue to listen, continue to experiment. So keep letting us know what's working. And we had in the pipeline, this final round table. So we did a little bit differently. And this one is actually with two dear friends, Jada Selner, founder of Simple Green Smoothies and JadaSelner.com, and also Jeffrey Davis, founder of Tracking Wonder. And they're two awesome human beings who have been individual guests in the past. We did not record this in our studio because the building was under construction that day. So we ended up in my living room with three completely different microphones handheld. And so what you're going to hear is a fun, really wide ranging conversation that actually goes on for the better part of two hours. And you

will also notice that the sound is a little bit different than our normal studio sound. Because like I said, we're actually, we're sitting in my living room on different couches and moving around and shuffling and holding different microphones and trying to get comfortable. So if you notice, it's not entirely the normal broadcast, I hope quality, that's what's going on. So I just want to give you a little context there. So you understand the hustle and bustle that's happening behind it. It is an awesome, super fun conversation. I think you may learn a lot more about all of us in this conversation than you've known before too. Really excited to share this. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. Hello, 40 people. You guys can't see what's going on right here, but our studio is currently, they're attacking the outside of the building and reconstructifying it.

So I'm hanging out in my living room on a very fluffy couch and across from me are two awesome human beings. Also on a really fluffy couch,ada selner of simple green smoothies and jada selner.com and all sorts of really neat things to come maybe we'll find out a little bit about that we'll see and jeffrey davis poet laureate guy who lives life not just from the head up anymore, founder of Tracking Wonder, and a new book also, The Code Thief. Go check it out. What are we doing today?

Well, this is a little thing called The Roundtable, but we keep experimenting with formats. So as you guys know, we have done long forms, we have done short forms, but fundamentally we're going to be hanging out and each of us is going to be throwing out a couple of topics and we're going to go around the table and we're going to jam on those topics until they're unjammed or completely and utterly jammed that we just can't find our way out. Either way is good. We're totally good. Whatever actually happens, that's totally fine. So why don't we start out with you, Jada? What's on your mind today? Ladies first. Well, something that I've been thinking a lot about, I'm turning 33 this month and I feel like a common conversation that comes up a lot is about adulting. So I'm feeling more adult-like as a mother and a wife and a founder geeking out on entrepreneurship

and community building. And something that I've been pondering about is what does it mean to leave a legacy? And I think that there are kind of two parts. There's the one of like, how do we show up in the world emotionally? How do the people closest to us really experience us in life and describe us when we're not around? And then I think there's a second part, which is the creative output of our body of work that we put in the world. And I have two quotes. I'll share one right now that I think helps set the frame for that by Benjamin Franklin, which is, if you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

And so I want to know what does it mean to leave a legacy? Let's start with the big ones. I'm going to get a Jeff. I'm going to keep it first. Okay. I'm glad you asked the question because as much as I hear the conversation, I have not engaged the conversation. So I'm a little older, but I have a six-year-old and a two-year-old, so I started a little later. That's where I kind of start with the question of legacy. What am I leaving behind? So I feel like my two girls are daily

mortality reminders that I'm just, every time I really absorb them and take them in, it's a cue to, okay, how am I living in this moment and what's going to last, hopefully without too much damage. So that's kind of where I start in answering the question about legacy. I definitely feel there's probably something there in terms of the creative output. If I am aware of my mortality, which I seem to be ongoing and have been for a long time, I think that it's always like, okay, what am I doing? What am I creating? And how is it going to ripple once I'm gone?

But you know the thing, maybe why I haven't engaged the conversation yet is we have no control over that. You know, when you look at writers and artists and what happens to them once they die, I just feel there's, I have no control over how people will remember me. I don't think. I don't know. But my, I guess my intention is to be aware that I am going to die. And how does that influence my creating in the moment? And so just give it my all right now. I don't know if that's a cop out, but. Total cop. He's like, my brain hurts. I don't want to have to go there. That was a cop out. you know so my deeper fascination with this is actually like why we even care

yeah like why do we actually care about leaving something behind and actually some people couldn't care less i'm like i'm dust. Honestly, when I'm not here anymore, I'm not here anymore. And there's nothing left behind. So whatever. And so I'm kind of fascinated because I do care about legacy, but I'm curious what my motives are. And I actually have done a bunch of research into this. I did a bunch of research into it for the last book, although it didn't make it into the book. Some really interesting theories about why we care about legacy. And one is around our quest for immortality, which is a completely egoic quest. It's actually called terror management theory. We're trying to manage the terror of us no longer existing on the planet by trying to

create something to leave behind in a quest to in some way become immortal. So when you think about it, it's a wholly self-serving motive for a legacy. But on the same time, there's also a largely service or self, other serving motive for it. So if you're a parent, which the three of us are parents, I want to in some way leave the world better. I would love to know that something that I was working on, I spent my world, my life working on in some way made my daughter's life easier. So I don't, maybe it's not so much about the world. Yeah. You know, that's too big for me to even think about. To know that somebody who I love with

every fiber of my being in some way can go on and her experience of the world after I'm no longer here will be made better by the fact that I was here. That matters to me, but I don't know how I would define it still. I don't know what that legacy for me is. How are you taking steps today in your work or in your day-to-day life? Beyond freaking out? Yeah. To really leave that for your daughter, to remember you when you're gone. Is it an active pursuit that you're doing? Yeah. It's semi-active at this point. So part of it, I think, is active in that, similar to Jeffrey, and I know similar to you, because you share a similar philosophy.

My commitment is to be present in my daughter's life as much as I can while she'll have me. Because I know there will come a time where she moves and largely has her own daily existence. So the extent that I can be there and transmit whatever it might be that's transmittable that might have any value to her while I have that opportunity, I kind of feel like that may be the single biggest thing that I can do,

you know, rather than creating something outside of just that conversation and knowledge that she is profoundly loved and held, you know, without any expectation. Then again, I'm like, oh, I need to write this badass book with all these things that I want to, there are all these things I want to say. Like, I want to write my version of, you know, like, Elia Gibran's The Prophet for her. I want to write, you know, my Alchemist for her. I want to do all these other things. And I hope I will. But when I really pull it back, I don't think any of that stuff matters nearly as much as just what happens every day.

I'm curious around that just for Jeffrey and Jonathan and myself that we all have books right out in the world and so is it that we already have this outward expression of legacy already kind of existing that we're kind of like that's not we're not kind of actively chasing or being driven right because it kind of feels like, we might have already filled that. That's interesting. You know, like Jonathan was talking about the theories of immortality too, and that had never appealed to me early on, this slight drive to be immortal. And maybe that's just my lack of ambition.

Or remembered even, you know, like if you change the language. Definitely want to be remembered. And I think that. In fact, as I was listening to jonathan he just reminded me something i've been trying to keep up since last so now 2014 that hillary doesn't even know about until she listens to this maybe is i started actually keeping a notebook written to dahlia of different letters, sometimes in the evening, just to reflect back who she is and maybe some observations and so forth. I don't keep it up as regularly as I would like to. But as I was listening to Jonathan, I thought, oh, there is that drive still to be remembered by her.

And then the other one went as she gets older. But as far as the creative input, yeah, maybe because we already have works out there. Yeah, there's not that drive in me to be remembered by that. But then with the business, like I'm still, I'm kind of of two minds with business. Like on one hand, I'm really impressed with Carrie Smith down in Kentucky who has big-ass fans and big-ass fan solutions. He's a great guy. And his whole business philosophy and his So People Center is to have a 100-year company. So he's making decisions now to have a company 100 years from now when most of them pan out, you know, fizzle pretty quickly. So I love that philosophy.

I don't have that. And I know another CEO in Britain who carries around a poem of, I think it's Keats' Ozymandias, which is about the big emperor who's completely forgotten now. He keeps that poem to remind him that everything he's building is just like, it's so temporary. So I'm of split minds there between both of those yeah i mean jada i also know that you do harbor secret desires to like change the world they're so secret i mean yeah they're not so so not a parent because i know like you you we're all parents we all have families we all love them dearly we all wantly. But I know you because we've had conversations. I haven't had this conversation with you ever, so I don't know. But we both harbor these secret things where we're like, man, wouldn't it be cool to build something

really big that affected millions of people? And you're doing that right now. And I know you've got a lot of plans to do it in other ways. Yeah. It a crazy desire of like things that I write in my vision statement is I want to impact millions. I want to make millions. I want to like, I do think in that way of the ripple effect of when you touch many lives of how everyone is lit up and expanded. And I think that my desire around legacy is that it inspires another person to change more lives. So it's like, if I can change a million lives, then I'm really changing

tens and hundreds of millions of lives. It's just a ripple effect. And I think that is what lights me up and what drives me and moves me is when I'm operating in that space, I'm also being a model for my daughter to have that desire of ripple effect, inspiration and change. And I recently posted a video of my daughter playing the piano and she's just freestyling and singing, making up lyrics as she goes. And what was really powerful, and I let her know this is a couple weeks later, a friend of mine said, my five-year-old daughter watched your daughter's video and she started playing on the piano and just making things up. And so, just the power of you just showing up as your authentic self and being fully expressed actually inspires other people to

be fully expressed too. And so I really think that's where I get the goosebumps and things like that. So you actually just summarized the last chapter of my book that's coming out later this year, which also happens to feature Jeffrey. Oh, I can't remember that story. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because one of my big dances is how do you have expansive impact, but how do you scale impact without complexity? This is my constant dance. And the idea of ripple instead of a wave is where that's it. If you can create something that makes the biggest difference in your immediate universe and it inspires that next person, the next person, the next person. So there are people who really like you want to create the wave and you want to ride it and you want like, that's not me because that creating something of that like immediate sort of like first wave magnitude requires a massive amount of effort and complexity. There's just no way around it. And I don't want that in my life. So the idea of the ripple, I think I love that you brought that up because it's such a powerful analogy for me also. Yeah. That's right. Right on tune. For me, there's a difference between

impact now and leaving a legacy. And I've noticed as my business has grown, I am so driven by exponential impact and by my making a difference in whatever ways in this person's life who then turns around and makes a difference in her past life and so forth. And there is that drive even with the poetry collection. Like, I want it out there just because I want to give the light. Like, there's no greater compliment than somebody saying, wow, that just like, you know, some sort of response, right? Please. I'm just laughing because like the average author, like I hesitate to tell anybody I'm an author. Yeah, yeah. Because the next question that always comes out of somebody's mouth is, have I read it?

I think you've read it. Yeah, I've read it. Exactly. And you're always like, I don't know, man, maybe. You probably have, you just forgot about it. It wasn't movable. Yeah, so, but it really, really resonated with that. Just being lit up by impact.

So are you a wave person? You feel like. I think I'm the ripple. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I love what you said about almost like make it happen in your day-to-day life that it doesn't have to be so big, but that will just create the exponential impact. Mr. Jeffrey.

It's on your mind. All right. What's on my mind? So I'm super curious about creative personalities and contradictions and personalities and, or perceived contradictions. So a couple of questions in the maybe a little context, it's like what pairs of seeming opposing personality traits come out in you and how do you work with work with those do you judge one as bad and one is good and just a little context what has really fueled this curiosity is the hungarian psychologist who coined flow for us, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, followed up with a study on creativity. And he says he can't conclude much about what personality traits

make somebody exceptionally creative. But what he can conclude is that people who are exceptionally creative seem to have paradoxes in their personality that they've reconciled, that they're okay with. And they have certain extremities that all of us have, but the rest of us sometimes will judge one extreme as bad and one as good and we'll kind of repress one. So for instance, highly introverted, highly extroverted, highly disciplined, highly playful and goof offy highly um smart and highly naive highly like physically energetic and highly lazy you know so with that like what kind of oppositions do you see working through your

personality and and have you judged one as bad and one as good in the past or now? We're on the couch, so I mean. It's like the therapy couch. We'll create a therapy couch. There is a, and I know you know that, and you guys probably both know this also, there's, and by the way, that was just water being poured out of our door. The way that we're mic'd up today is a little bit as you guys may have guessed we're not using our normal mics because like i said we're not in our normal studio today so we're kind of like rolling a little bit uh my guy for today with our mics so you're picking up a lot more room noise

i'm sure you've heard the sirens and that was not jeffrey p that was just pouring water it's all good we're on the level like there's steak corn well there's not much steak corn That was just pouring water into a glass. It's all good. We're on the level. Like there's steak corn. Well, there's not much steak corn between us. But anyway, creativity and aberrant personalities. There's a very high correlation there with both all sorts of sort of fringe personalities

and psychoses too. You know, there's a much higher correlation from the stuff that I've seen. And it kind of makes you wonder what's going on there too. You know, there's a much higher correlation from the stuff that I've seen. And it kind of makes you wonder what's going on there too. You know, is it that people are, the very thing that tortures so many people also wires their brain in a way that allows them to access the ability to see and to weave and to pattern identify and to synthesize in a way that others just don't see. I'm actually kind of curious about that. I'm not saying that I actually have severe psychosis and that's one of the sides.

But most of the, what I would call most creative people I know, and I really hate to say stuff like that because I truly believe that we're all creative. We just sort of define it different ways and we have our own palettes upon which we paint. But the people who I know who are most fully engaged with that creative source, let's say it that way, are also probably the most different, eclectic. Just from a personality standpoint, they're the least mainstream. They're the least likely to walk into a party and follow the rules. And so, and I know that's probably my MO also. I've lived a mainstream life. I've lived, you know, like the suit and tie life and big firms.

And it wasn't just the clothing that chafed my soul. You know, it was the existence. Because I like to, I like to defy a lot of just the norms. And maybe a willingness to step into that place socially also in some way signifies a willingness to step into a level of unknown in the creative process that also unlocks more stuff. I don't really know. John, I'm punting this. So no, I'm not going to let you punt yet.

Yeah. Where's that water bottle? So would you say like maybe the oppositions that have worked through you are very rebellious, iconoclastic, but also respect for traditions and conventions? Does that work through you? So what's interesting to me is I have this like crazy sort of moral side. Like I wasn't very much a rule follower as a kid in terms of like, I had a very clear sense of right and wrong. And at the same time, I had a very clear sense that if the rules that were prescribed for me

to follow didn't actually align with what my internal sense of right and wrong was. I didn't particularly care about the rules. So rules and what I just feel is intuitively right or wrong, I'm more drawn to what I feel intuitively is right or wrong, and I'm less concerned about the rules. But as you've worked through your different endeavors- You're not going to let me get just- Yeah, I know. I know. Man. You like really dive in like you go into a new field

and you like get into okay how does this operate how does this work I deconstruct everything you deconstruct everything and you're like okay let me see how it works but if it doesn't jive with me yeah I mean and that's why this is probably one of the reasons why

I've never been particularly comfortable with sort of like traditional faith, with the exception of Buddhism, Eastern philosophy, which essentially says, we kind of think that this works, but test it. And if you find something better, awesome. Let's like show it to us and like, we'll rock it out, which is where it's more of a framework for living. Then like, these are the things that are right and it has been written and you shall follow it. So what was the question? Well, no, I think you're answering it. Yeah. I mean, with the rules and you've certainly absorbed the rules growing up, I can probably imagine that's how it played out to you in a law firm and you're like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to get along here, but then- Yeah. There's very little I take at face value. I'm constantly trying to okay i'm gonna figure out how to get along here but then yeah there's very little i take at face value i'm constantly trying to deconstruct everything and when i was teaching yoga when i owned a yoga center in new york city and you know and when it was just two of us and

we were teaching all the classes i was the one who was like okay i want to understand why the sequence of poses works why does it make you feel this way what's it doing to your subtle energy to your you know like your modern anatomy and physiology? And the other person who was teaching at the time was like, dude, does it really matter? It works. And that's never been okay for me, which is not always a good thing. I think that's a beautiful observation just around, I think about your copywriting, right? You know the foundation, you know the rules, and then you can break them. And I feel for me, like I consider myself a rebel or a rule breaker, but I also, I understand all of the rules. I understand

how everything works. And I see that in my daughter too, or she's a total upholder right now, but I don't think that's going to be forever. It's like, get the foundation first and then like run free and figure out all the ways to like break it and tweak it and, and almost like break the code, right? Like when you can customize a website or things like that, that you are breaking that. I'd say for me, um, and kind of the contradiction in personalities, I have this conversation that goes in my head that I am not doing enough, that maybe I am not enough. So for me, in my creativity, I actually become very manic in research and consumption and the things that keep me up late at night. But it's very, it's like the muse hits me when it hits me. I don't know when it's going to come, but in those moments, so much productivity, so much output is put out. And then I think

what I'm trying to reconcile with now is that then I'll have moments, weeks, seasons, days of feeling very lazy. Like, oh, I didn't do anything this week or today was just a bust. I was just Netflixing, you know, like, but if you look at the body of work that I've created up to this time in my life, I've actually done a lot, but I tend to tell myself that I'm not an executor. I'm not a doer. I'm a dreamer. And it's just not true. I've created some pretty cool things in my lifetime, but the story that I'm telling myself is I'm not, I don't put, I don't create output, but it's just manic sprints of creativity, of productivity that come. And then there's a lot of bouts of, oh, I didn't do anything today. And I feel really bad. So Dr. Fields wants to know which parent you're making wrong by telling yourself you're not a dreamer.

You know, actually, both of my parents were big on do what you love. So it's actually the world that has made me feel wrong. Was the question not thinking I'm a dreamer? Yeah. Because I know I'm a dreamer. That's not in doubt. Or thinking that being a dreamer is. And Cause I know I'm a dreamer. That's not in doubt. Or thinking that being a dreamer is an implementer. I think it's the world. Like my, um, even to this day, like I'm like, I stand up for dreamers and,

and, but it's actually really scary because especially a lot of men and curious, you guys is actually definition around what a dreamer is. But a lot of people are like, Oh, I don't, I don't identify with dreamer because they think it's like not doing dreamer is. But a lot of people are like, I don't identify with dreamer because they think it's like not doing. Dreamer means you don't do, but I'm a dreamer and I do. And so I kind of like want to flip that vocabulary around that space because we can have our head in the clouds and get inspiration and dream of all possibility. And then we can bring ourselves back down to be really grounded and create some cool stuff. I'm right there with you. And I have identified

early on 20 or so as a dreamer. That was just an identity that I had. And imagination was king or queen, whatever. And I just really wanted to hold on to that. So I really resonate with your mission that I have all, I have so many dualities as I'm sure we all do. And certainly that's, that was one of them. And growing up, I was such a dreamer. You know, I can remember my sister when I was 18, 19 in college and she, she, older sister, she had a nickname for me, which was awe, which was because I'd 18, 19 in college. And she, the older sister, she had a nickname for me, which was Ah, which was because I'd go, Ah. And it also stood for Airhead.

But I remember in my early 20s that I kind of, I need to shift that. You know, I'm going to finish academic work and so forth and get stuff done. Like I really had to get disciplined. And part of my tension is still like making sure the disciplinarian doesn't override the poet, so to speak. And how do you work that out? So I've increasingly become more at home with both in me, you know, just finding the right times to just let go. I'm trying, but there's still this grownup saying, you feel great when you get stuff done. Let's get stuff done. I really feel great lounging in the hammock for three hours.

So can you tell us more? Cause I, the question for you around that duality. So can you break that down a little bit? Sure. For me? Yeah. I would say I have so many,

but the one that seems to be working itself out is people perceive me as very organized. And I am, but I also think I'm very disorganized. I think I'm only organized because I have other people also helping me. And I'm very disorganized because I, as much as I would like to be the songbird who only wakes up in the morning and plays one song, I'm like the mockingbird, a liar bird. Like I'm just taking in all these other projects. So I think that there's something in me that almost works against being overly organized. And I'm coming to accept both of those. But people see me as being very organized. And I'm coming to accept that it does. But people see me as being very organized, and I am.

It's almost like I have to keep my finger in the dam to make sure I don't fly off, float away. So then are you working on several projects all the time, but no one knows about the behind-the-scenes ones? I would say so. I mean, do my team members know about them? They're tortured by them. They are. They're like, oh, They're tortured by them. They are. They're like, oh, he's finally letting people know. Yeah. Who is it?

I think it was Charlie, a friend of all of ours, Charlie Gilkey. He was telling me that somehow he has like a channel with his team, which is essentially like a slapping Charlie's hand channel. Yes. Like, no. Not another. Every person on the team, like you have permission to say no. So yeah, we went through, in fact, we had a team meeting recently for some priorities coming up and we went through and used this method of prioritizing. I was like, oh, I forgot to even

put that on the document. We're like 12 projects, you know, narrowed it down. So I always feel like I'm working against those dualities, but I'm increasingly okay with it. Are you increasingly okay with your laziness? Because I mean, could you see like, what if you didn't have that? So I guess that's the question, like, what if you didn't allow for that? Yeah. I need the rest. Like I need the kind of incubation period, but I am not giving myself permission to do it with ease it's kind of like it's guilty rest because it means i'm being unproductive or i'm not executing enough or fast and i think that isn't that the biggest myth also is that you know you're getting stuff done when you're actually doing stuff yeah and you know i think that is this is so not true for me. I know the biggest – I'm working

like mad now on a bunch of projects. I'm filling a lot of my time because there's just a huge amount of execution and my team can do a whole bunch of stuff, but there's just a whole bunch that just has to come out of my head too. And what I'm realizing is I realized I stopped moving. I stopped going for walks. I stopped doing – I'm like, number one, I'm like, moron. I'm realizing is I realized, you know, like I stopped moving. I stopped going for walks. I stopped doing it. And I'm like, number one, I'm like, moron. I'm the guy who writes about how important this stuff is. Like, come on, snap out of it. And then I'm like, okay, so I need to get back into this.

And sure enough, I start going out and start taking more of my calls. Like as walking calls outside and my meetings that way. And I start just going out and walking and spending and just creating those deliberate pauses again. And then all the stuff that I'm toiling with right now and trying to figure out, you know, is it just everything magical that solves a problem or delivers a delight or sets me up for the next big thing comes when I pause, not when I lean in, you know, And it reminds me that when I forget to do that, because I think I'm so busy in execution implementation mode that I just have to get stuff done, I'm destroying my ability to actually get my best stuff out and then implement around

that. So I'm always going to be executing on my third best idea. Yeah. So do you struggle with speaking up to your team or whoever that you're kind of reporting to, right? To like get these projects done to say, pause, I need a deliberate pause. Like, do you feel like you have? No, I'm pretty good with them actually. In fact, they'll sometimes they'll pull me back because they know, you know, at this point, especially like one of my, my central team members, my wife, you know, at this point, especially like one of my, my central team members, my wife, you know, we were together building a business. So she knows me well enough to kind of be like, go for a walk, man. For multiple reasons.

Cranky pants. But also, you know, I think we all share that view that our best work comes when we're all working in our best way. And like for one of my prime roles in the business is ideation. And that can happen when I'm filling every free second. Yeah. I heard an interview with BJ Novak talking about his kind of creative writing process. And I really love this because I'm the dreamer, the ideator and separating meetings. So one is just about ideas and there's no,

there's no execution. There's no deadlines. There's no cross this off. Don't just get all of the ideas out. And then the second meeting then is the planning. But sometimes I think we try to blend them into one meeting and it kind of can diminish the dreaming, the ideating, and kind of squash it before it's even fully gotten out and expressed. I don't know. How do you guys? I mean, that's like the convergent and divergent thinking. Or for writers, it's writing first and then editing second, not editing while you write.

Do you do that? I don't. I edit while I write. Yeah, I do. I completely do. But I think that is just developmental. After you've gotten accustomed to your own process, the writing process is not linear. It's recursive. You're going back. It's a step away and so forth.

So it's not linear or even circular and like this step and this step at all you know walt disney supposedly had would take his animators into three rooms they had a problem with like snow white and the seven dwarves they'd all go into like room number one and like do what you're saying like okay let's throw out all the possible ways to work with this problem with this film we We take this part out, we rework this character and so forth. And one person's recording all the ideas, so no one's attached to the ideas. And then they would physically go to room number two and then like break down, okay, let's filter through, you know, which ones are the best possible executable ideas.

And they go into room number three, like who's going to do it and so forth. So we did recently have a meeting with another team member where I said, let's just throw out some ideas. Let me throw some ideas out, but don't shoot them down yet. It's almost like this defense, which I also say to my wife, like, would you just read this and throw me a bone? Like, don't pull out the pen because she will. I'm like, just throw me a bone.

Tell me I'm a good boy and keep going. Okay, so I got to ask you something about that, and actually both a bone. Don't pull out the pen because she will. Just throw me a bone. Tell me I'm a good boy and keep going. Okay, so I got to ask you something about that, and actually both of you. For the people whose opinions you really trust to validate or comment on the mad, swirling ideas that you have in your head, do you throw them out? Do you serve them up on a plate for judgment

when you have them so you can get like early input? Or do you deliberately wait until you think like you've already had like five rounds of the conversation in your head and you can defend them enough so that you won't get absolutely crushed when you share them with those other people whose opinions you really want? I know when I was working on my talk for World Domination Summit, I definitely needed a little bit of polishing idea, put together a little bit more before I felt good enough to share it with other people. So there is a bit of, let me package this so it like makes sense before you just see like raw. But I know there were conversations before, like physically seeing words written or things like that. So it's more, I think when the ideas are raw, I'm looking for feedback verbally of just like, just like

having conversations. And then I'm going to go like put something polished together and then, then I'll share the Google doc. Yeah. I think that's the process I kind of do for me it completely depends on on the project and who's who is the person so for a while with my agent Linda if you're listening to this I I would like save up because I'm like okay no way she's going to say she's going to shoot it down say I bolster the argument you you know, for the project, which was kind of self-defeating in a way. And so I would wait. And then she would like, because she was an editor at Random House

for several years, really keen, keen editor. So now it's more collaborative, like, hey, I'm just going to come in early with this idea. And can we work on it together? And so we've got that relationship. And that's more productive, I find, if I can bring in the right person at the right time. But on the other hand, I know there are other times when I'm highly, quote, sensitive to the writing. And somehow I just need, like Hillary Hillary to throw me a bone and you know it's just like tell me what's

good because I just need to hear from somebody besides the voices in my head tell me what you think but before you open your mouth let me say what I really mean is please stroke my ego yeah I'm feeling I'm feeling fragile right now and I just come right out and say it and actually you know people are authors program I like teach them ask for encouragement. If that's what you need, ask for feedback. If that's what you need, ask for suggestions, if that's what you need, because it'm sure pretty much everybody else listening, feels like there is one domain in which they create where they know better, where they have better taste, where they like, you know, Jada, maybe it was the design and layout of your last book. You know, like Jeffrey, it's like really understanding poetic voice and rhythm and tone. For me, like, I feel like there's a certain visual thing that I'm wrapped around to. And I don't want to actually send stuff out into the world because I don't want to, I kind of feel like I, you know, like there's a, there's a taste bar and I don't want to – I kind of feel like there's a taste bar and I don't want anybody else's input. And I'm also – so it's kind of like am I just protecting my ego at that point because I feel so strongly that I kind of like – that I have a strong sense for this one particular domain and I don't want to get attached by it?

Do you guys do that? Do you struggle with that at all? Well, I'm curious. I mean there's a part of like not letting go of a certain piece, right? And is that part kind of attached to not necessarily ego, but like how you identify or like show up in the world? It's like I create pretty things. Yeah. And this is like what Ira Glass said, right?

He's like, you know, in the early days of creating anything, creating anything, look, we all have to work fiercely hard for years to get to any sort of level where we're half decent at anything. And one of the things that really differentiates the people that actually survive and thrive and flourish in any particular field over a really long time is that in the beginning we all have this sense of like of taste like we know what it should look like we know what it should sound like we know what it should feel or smell or taste like but we don't have the the craft yet to bring it there by our own will by our own hands by our own skills by our own pen whatever it is we just we don't have it yet and it's going to take thousands of hours for us to get it. But the difference is that somehow that we know it, you know, like I would, when I was playing guitar as a kid, I would hear the solos that I wanted to play in my head, but there's like, there's not a chance that I could ever translate that to actual coming out my hands, but I could hear it in my head, even if it was really roughly formed. And like, that's a

domain over which you feel a sense of, I don't, I think I'm right. You know, there's no, it's not a defensible thing and it's not a rational thing. It's just like, and a lot of people have profoundly different tastes and that's okay. But because this particular area and because I feel like this is my taste and this domain and I feel really good and really strong about it, I'm just not going to back off of it. And I don't particularly want other people's input. Do you think that that puts up a little bit of a roadblock to be the tester and experimenter of new things. Because what I'm struggling with is Simple Green Smoothies is this well-established, very beautiful brand. It looks great online. And as I'm testing and I have, so the taste is there, but I want to test

and experiment something new publicly that people can see. And it's like, well, I know Jada as creating things that look like this, but maybe I'm in a very raw incubating phase and I'm not willing to put kind of like the first iteration of something out in the world because then that doesn't really reflect what people know me for. So that's where I'm struggling of like not getting out, not shipping fast enough as like Seth Godin would say. I definitely have feelings of that, but I'm struggling of like not getting out, not shipping fast enough, as like Seth Godin would say. I definitely have feelings of that, but I'm curious what Jeffrey thinks about that. So how would you reiterate like the tension there? How would I, the tension? Yeah, you want to get stuff out.

Yeah. But so an example, I created an opt-in for something that I'm working on, but it took me three weeks because I needed it to look a very certain way where it could have taken someone two hours. Yeah, the experimental versus the perfection thing, right? Like how raw is that prototype going to be when it goes public? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, in terms of my own trajectory, I've definitely advanced more on the experimental raw stage versus the perfectionist stage. For poetics, like poetry, this collection of manuscript if they would and tell me, am I embarrassing myself? And what works, what doesn't? And they each had three similar but three different points of view.

And I can remember when one of them were having lunch or dinner and he's going through it and I could feel like my body, he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's completely missing it. And it was an instant signal to me. I was like, shut up, open up, listen and see what's there because this is what you asked for. And maybe you don't know it all. And so I really put myself, I try to put myself in those situations. Yeah. I mean, it's like at what point does taste become just straight up arrogance yes exactly and like because there's definitely there's you're gonna cross that line at some point and then you almost need somebody to like smack you back which i want now you're just being an idiot this is not about taste which is really what i want and with design like i get irritated if I know more than a designer about design. I get irritated if I know more about marketing than a marketing person. I'm like, come on, school me. And so I do solicit that. Maybe the one area that I just thought of is educational design. I seem to think I know a lot about educational design,

like what works in a program. And it may be hard in the developmental stage for me to hear other people's input, but for every one of our programs, I've asked for critique, like module by module critique, and have rearranged and revised every program every year. That's probably the one area that I just thought about where I'm maybe a little territorial. That's funny.

For me, you'd probably think it's writing, but it's actually not. I pretty much just serve up my writing on a platter for at least my editorial writing, my book writing, because I know that there's so much that I can learn from amazing editors and writers. For me, there's a visual aesthetic that I just, I'm so specific about. It's why I've done my own design work for a couple of decades now and worked with many amazingly talented designers who just had a different sensibility than me you know and so we're constantly trying to and i but it's also become a huge problem because i'm a bottleneck in the company because you know so at a certain point i have to step aside and open myself to

another ethos that is you know like great but might not be exactly mine in the name of allowing things to flow a little bit more grace but it's not easy that's so tricky you know the going back to cheek sent behind he like lists 10 oppositions and actually what we're talking about is one of the oppositions that creative people are highly passionate about their work but also can be highly objective about their work And that's kind of the tension we're talking about. It's like, well, how objective can you be about the work you're most passionate about? Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

I mean, I think if somebody went up to the greatest musicians who've ever lived and be like, why don't you do it this way? Yeah. And an amateur is like, If somebody went up to James Earl Jones and the voiceover booth is like, can went to like james wall jones and like the voiceover booth like can you try it with a little more balance in your voice i mean like maybe he's like if he's be like yeah sure like that sounds awesome but it's an interesting question you're like if there is one thing in your life where you just feel like that's

the thing that you got really dialed in you're in that one domain, how open are you really going to be to other people? And if you're not, again, where's the line between taste and arrogance? Because at some point, it's going to be hurting you because you will meet people who are billion times better than you at that thing that you think is your best thing. And if you come from a place of arrogance and be like, nah, I'm good, you just lost this astonishing opportunity to grow. It's like growth mindset, right? It is. You're not in growth mindset if you're not willing to take in the feedback

and learn and grow. But what you're saying is, hey, I know better than you. Yeah, exactly. And maybe the – I'm just talking this out like maybe whether we're looking at a poem or visual aesthetics or a certain project it's that willingness to expand the ownership maybe and like say okay it's not just mine if i really want to put it out into the world maybe i do need to open up and listen but listen to me listen to the right person or people whom i respect and think

also if you want you can even remove it from just like inner circle feedback but also from like if you want fans or if you know like if you if you want to play your music to an actual audience or i think about we had like a private Facebook group for our cleanse community and people had feedback and I'm like, wait, I know how to bring a community together. And this is how I think that it should be or how it should be run. But if people are sharing feedback, I think you should kind of like listen and not that you have to execute on that, but take it in without the block yeah and it's also i think part of it is how much of what you're doing how much of that domain where

you think you've got this extraordinary level of taste is also in service of and do you need to meet the needs of other people because you're also relying on it as a way to earn your living in the world. It gets complicated fast. You're not my avatar, so your feedback doesn't count. You don't know what you're talking about. We do get that. We all get the peanut gallery sort of slams. We're like, okay, thanks. But yeah.

So here's what's on my mind. So I was reading this thing about France. And there's a law that's being, I guess, maybe it's passed partially, but it hasn't actually been turned into law. But basically, there's a proposal that would literally turn into law in the country that employers cannot email or text you after regular working hours in the evening and on the weekends. And at first, I'm kind of like, oh, that's really interesting and also very French. Because, you know, it's like a real respect for there is a defined boundary between when we need to go home and just be with our family and enjoy our lives. And there's this thing, and that's very sacred. And the flip side is, okay, so I agree with the theory of it. And I think we're woefully overworked and we don't take nearly as much time off as we need.

And at the same time, should government be regulating that into existence? Should we be being told, should there be a rule that stops like our employers from being able to tell, to actually reach out to us? Or does that actually like, boy, it certainly, yeah, like my, my, my first reaction was like, oh, that's so cool. My second reaction is that's so not cool. Yeah. If I got, it's great when the government's telling it to other people, as soon as they're telling it to me, I'm like, wait a minute. Because we've worked through this, at least with my closest team member. And, you know, as a rule, once EOD, once the end of day message comes, that person's off. Once it's Friday, that person's off.

But I think I would, yeah, this is tough. I would be personally like affronted. Like, how dare the government come and tell me how to do that? I'm going to put it for right now. Yeah, punting, punting. You know, I have the rebel in me, but I had this first reaction of you of like, this is so cool. And it's still in that space. Do I think the government should have a say in that? I'm not attached or like,

I'm not defensive about it because I do think that we've gotten into this space of not honoring healthy boundaries in the work environment. And I think as humans, how passionate we are, how passionate the people that work with us to help bring our visions out into the world, we get so invested. And then we don't give ourselves permission to truly unplug and replenish and rejuvenate and reconnect with like what really matters, which is your family, your loved ones being out in nature. I think how, of course, we don't want the government regulating on how we should spend our time and our energy, but something radical, some type of shift does need to happen with how connected, how plugged in we are to online, to having our offices in this tiny little rectangle, that it's becoming a biological addiction that we are not able to stop. So, does someone need to cuff me to get me to unplug or get

the team to unplug? I don't think it needs to be a law, but I do think something radical needs to happen in how our culture is evolving with technology. I think the flip side, and just kind of listening to that, is my support historically of labor laws, whether it's factory, right? And when did we go to the 40-hour work week, children's labor laws, and so forth. So I'm in support of all those. And so as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking, okay, this is a matter of the Department of Labor looking at the welfare of the country. And email is brand new, and Department of Labor has to catch up.

So I'm just pushing myself a little bit further to supporting, at least entertaining that. I think of a company like Treehouse, which is an online educational company, and the CEO hires only for 32 hours a week. I can insist on everything we're talking about and that you're only going to work 32 hours a week and we want to know what else you're doing on the weekends and on your day off and so forth so should the government impose that i'm i'm open to the conversation actually much more so than when you first mentioned it and what's interesting too is in a weird way there's this thing of so like you said jada you know the intermittent reinforcement of email and texting and all of our different apps, which push notifications to us, basically has created a very real addiction where we're constantly looking for the next hit.

And so in a weird way, is this the government not only protecting employees from employers, but is this the government protecting us from ourselves and our own addiction? And then on that level, should they be playing that role? You know, basically stepping in and saying, you're no longer in control of your voluntary actions. So we're going to create like across the board legislation that says you can't do this. So that was one of my other reactions. The other reaction was this, is that I look at our team and we've got people in New York, we've got someone in Chicago, we've got agencies that are on retainer in different parts of the country and the world. We've got one full-time employee

who's nomadic. So to look at my team and say, there is no nine to five. Right. And we know that, you know, one person, they, they just love to do their work between, you know, like six and six at night and two in the morning, another person may be in Europe or, you know, Australia or somewhere else and working on planes, trains and automobiles. So from a practical standpoint, that type of rule also just really assumes a very traditional work structure. And I think increasingly we're seeing that that structure is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And also it wars with the idea of giving employees freedom to work where they

want to work, when they want to work, when they want to work, and the way that they work best. Because, again, it doesn't account for that. And if you're saying, well, because then, okay, what are you going to have from a practical standpoint? An employer with 1,000 employees, you're going to have to set separate triggers for 1,000 different people for when it's okay to contact or not contact.

So it's complicated. It's very complicated. And I'm just open to the conversation like google conducted a study even on its own employees to see which of them tend to be compartmentalists which of them can compartmentalize work and now i'm going home or going to be with my friends and which are not i forget what the counter term is and to allow them to set up and and to provide try to figure out how do we provide them a workforce and conditions and a flow to allow for for both certainly some in favor of that so where does the government yeah where does the government come in? They can't even truly enforce. Exactly.

Unless they're like hovering in your email, which is we don't want. So, yeah. But where does a government agency have recourse to make recommendations? Can the Department of Labor make recommendations? Are there extremities? When you hire somebody, do you have it in your contract that this is the way we'll agree that we'll communicate and then we'll come up for renegotiation six months from now yeah i don't know it's it seems like one of those things like trying to regulate the internet that

that seems impossible and on the other hand it is worth considering when I look at, for example, Amazon and supposedly the work conditions and, you know, really championing the 80-hour work week. I'm like, hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe somebody needs to have a conversation. But then also, you know, there's then if you want to go there, then you go into the whole conversation about free will. Yeah. You know, what if somebody actually – they're at a point in their life where they're like, you know what?

This is my time. I'm fresh out of school. I want to work my butt off. And I want to – like I'm willing to actually put in all this time because this matters to me. I want to learn as much about this company as humanly possible. And I'm willing to put in 60 or 70 hours a week right now to show that I'm like, you know, that I'm like a hard worker because I want to devour knowledge while I can. I want to gain access to mentors and to, and I just, I want to pursue mastery because I love this thing.

You know, so then you're telling that person who actually, essentially you're like controverting their free will because they want to do this. And from the outside looking in, you may say, well, that's not healthy though. Right. That's me. Yeah. But then it's like, again, it gets down to the idea of free will. Then who gets to say what's healthy and what's not healthy and then even if it isn't healthy you know does it does the government or the employer get to make the decision that you get cut off or just philosophically to push back just a little

bit a 23 year old individual free will is influenced a lot by culture yeah and so what we think is free will is just the messaging we're getting from the authorities and the authorities we respect and our peers that we respect. I think this is what we're supposed to do. If the hours were restricted, I think it would level the playing field of mastery a little bit, right? That I just had a conversation with a friend that just graduated from Yale and he's working 60, 80 hours a week. And all the things that you said, access to mentors, learn everything about this company so I can build my own in three years. But he doesn't like intellectually,

emotionally, physically, he doesn't really want to put in that many hours to do it. It's just culturally he has to if he wants to stay ahead of the game in mastery. And I just wonder if leveling the playing field of like how much you vest into it, if like everyone was at the same space, that maybe we would all achieve that, but just like within the same container. Right, but then the risk is that but then do we have basically institutionalized complacency and mediocrity yeah you know and i'm also thinking of the creative fields and the sciences outside of the workforce yeah right and the government saying i'm sorry artist but you can only work nine to five.

And those night hours. Or, you know, the, you know, the funded laboratory who's where they have, you know, like 40 scientists who are working to cure cancer. Get the cure, the vaccine. Well, I'm sorry, but the law says we know that you're madly passionate about this and you would all willingly work 60, 78 hours a week because you're actually willing to – not only are you like drawn by the question, but you see that the work that you're doing is going to make a massive impact on humanity. But we're sorry. We're going to have to tell you that you have to leave at 38 hours and humanity can wait. It's just not so simple. It's really complicated. I totally agree it's not so simple.

And there's just a part of me that wants that person that's looking for the cure for cancer to be rested. Exactly. So she doesn't contract cancer from all the stress. And also the the idea like i recently sat the opportunity to sit down with andrews erickson who's the guy who did all the research behind greatness and the supposed 10 000 hour rule which we know is very much not a rule you know and what so many people missed in that research and what he reiterated in that conversation

was that the best of the best in the world like the absolute best in any pretty much any domain they they work in a very specific way he calls it deliberate or now he actually calls it purposeful practice but the most he's ever seen anybody who's the best of best in the world put in at that type of work that type of practice on any given day is five hours. So, you know, you may be working 12, 15 hours, but you're working at, you know, you're probably a lot better off taking the time and then, you know, like working a lot less, but working at twice the functionality. Yeah.

It goes back to the dreamer doer. I think it was Joshua Bell, bell primo violinist probably lives up the road for me reporters alleged that he would practice when he was a teenager like 10 hours a day there's no way i practiced for about four hours and then i snuck out the back and went to the arcade down the road where i spent most of my time playing video games. So, yeah, it's an interesting question. Like I said, I think this is one of those where we jammed it up. I think you may be right. Yeah, you know, like I said, my first reaction was that's really cool.

I like the idea of, you know, literally creating a superstructure that requires people to honor their lives in space and the pause and stuff like that. So I like the fundamental concept, the basic concept that we should be stepping into the space more in our lives. Yeah, but when you start to ask questions, it just gets a lot more complicated about how that structure is incorporated into our lives than who gets to choose and decide what that looks like? And what happens five years from now when the technology is completely different for communication too? What's the future of email? Yeah.

Indeed. So I've been rolling for about an hour and five minutes now. Jada's checking her phone. I'm just being ready for the next question you're like jada what's the next you're not checking your messages i'm sensing a nine hour recording session going on maybe we'll go around once more and see where uh where it takes us you guys have a little more time are we good yeah okay. Okay, here we go. Jada. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about long-term view. So I wanted to read this to you.

So there's this Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University. After more than 50 years of research concluded that long-time perspective is the most accurate single predictor of upward social and economic mobility in America. Long-time perspective turns out to be more important than family background, education, race, intelligent connections, or virtually any other single factor in determining your success in life and at work. Your attitude toward time, your time horizon has an enormous impact on your behavior and your choices. So people who take a long view of their lives and careers always seem to make much better decisions about their time and activities. So I'd love to kind of know your perspective on that long-term view. I think this young energy, we seem to think that

we only have like the one career or it's like, it's this or nothing else, you know, like go all in and just curious if kind of your viewpoint on that long-time perspective. And if a more personal question around is, is the career that you're in, the body of work that you're creating right now, is this it or is there more? It's every now and then I like raising eyebrows and warring with each other. You, you. No, you. No, you. So that last part is the stumbling block for me you know because i do feel like i have a long-term perspective but not on the particular vehicle that i'm creating but the

qualities of contribution and life that are important to me and that my decisions are more on any given day am i doing work that is deeply aligned with those qualities and if so still wanting and like planning and wanting to build cool things but being less attached to what that actually has to look like as long as it embodies the qualities of life that I hold dear. What's interesting is Angela Duckworth has a book out now about grit. And she's sort of the original grit researcher. And she's kind of setting the record straight on some stuff and some interesting interpretations of her original work. And the fundamental idea behind grit is she did all this research on what are the things that make people really succeed

and this thing grit. And people have tried to describe it as perseverance and stick-to-itiveness and all this stuff. But there's an underlying assumption which is that you have enough clarity about the thing that you're being gritty about that you'll stick to it. Which means that the thing that you're being gritty about, that you'll stick to it. Which means that the thing that fuels grit is that you have a really clear picture of why you're working so hard so that

when you get knocked back and get knocked on your ass multiple times, which we all will, you see so clearly that thing, that place that you want to go. And it's so important to you, so meaningful to you that you're willing to keep going back and back and back and back and back. And one of my questions has been around that is if your vision of a good life is not having that precision of clarity around the actual, like the thing, but more the qualities of your existence that you want to be there on any given day, how does that interact with your ability to cultivate the grit needed to work towards it?

I don't know that. I'm hoping to have a conversation with her about that because I don't know the answer. But I'm curious what you guys think about that. I really appreciated that context. I find this question fascinating. And one of my contradictions I saw early on in my 20s was I'm very driven by whatever it is I'm doing without a sense of a career. So I remember one of my colleagues saying, like, what is your career trajectory?

I was like, oh, career. I'm just driven, you know, to, like, do whatever I can do the best I can. But I found, now that you're raising the question, that I've been most long-term oriented when I have a sense of unrest, trying to be present but not completely content specifically with what Jonathan has identified, which is, where's the quality of my days, the quality of my life? Where am I paying attention to what on any given day? And so early on, you know, 20s onward, often looking literally toward horizons and being the dreamer, right?

Going back to that and imagining, dreaming. Like the Lakota have this saying that stuck with me when I was 22 or 23, which is imagine your life richly. So it's like, let me imagine that life and like really keep trying to live it. As I'm at this stage, more and more, I'm without being content because everything's ephemeral. More and more, there are moments where I'm like, this is what I was imagining 30 years ago, but I didn't know it. It's like this moment, the quality of my days, the space in my days, the way I feel through my day like oh this is it and so

then my my personal long-term vision gets shorter because i'm like oh i know this isn't it it to go to your question is what you're doing now in your body of work going to be it right now it feels like it right but i'm completely open to that shifting in the coarser moments where i question what do i want to continue doing this part versus that part yeah so i i view for what it's worth too like i've always viewed or for a long time viewed the present as being pregnant that it's not just this one line here and now. It's like it curves in one direction to bring the past forward, and it curves in the other direction with that vision toward the horizon that's driving. And that's what being present is for me,

that you are still being compelled toward some future vision while you're here. I'm very driven by that, but i don't have the 100 year plan but i i find that study fascinating about because i've thought about that with other people and some of my clients who don't seem to have they come to me because i do have that what did you call long-term yeah long-term perspective i do have that and i have it for others and i can do it for myself when i need to and i'm also like i generally have an internal clock right i can generally tell you what time it is and others yeah don't have that sense of orientation for what that's worth what were the metrics do you know like what were they measuring

long-term like long-term perspective made you, was it happier, more fulfilled with life, more successful? Yeah. Maybe more successful. Definitely more successful. You know, I think it's just the attachment of like whatever you're getting into, this is it that a lot of people think.

And I think where I became really curious about it is, you know, I've been doing simple green smoothies for a couple of years and I'm like, oh, I don't want to be just known as the green smoothie girl. Like there's more beyond, but then I also get afraid of like the next iteration of what I'm creating and building and, and that rebel in me that doesn't want to be put in a box. Like, what if this next, is this next thing the thing? And then I put too much vested energy into like figuring it all out. But what if there's a next thing after that? But what if there's not?

That's the like short term perspective that thinks like maybe this is, this next thing better be really good because there might not be more. So I'm just looking at that there, there will be iterations of how I create in the world. And I really resonate with what you're saying, Jonathan, it's the quality. That's all I'm looking for is the quality of how am I feeling in whatever it is I'm pursuing over the long game. Yeah. I mean, to me, the long-term commitment is to an ethos. You know, look at Steve Jobs, right? Yeah. You know, he, if he basically said, you know, like, our goal is just to put a computer on every desktop,

like, and that's the long, that's it. And he got, he was locked into that. Right? Then so much of what Apple has created in our lives just wouldn't exist. You know, one, I think he was, what he was known for was a maniacal ethos, a maniacal commitment to a very particular ethos. He was fanatical about precision, about details, about design, and about serving a particular purpose. And how that unfolded in terms of the direction a company took,

the direction a brand or a product took, I think as long as it embodied that ethos, it was good. So in my sense, long-term commitment to a well-defined ethos is probably really important. I think I do have, at least I'm getting better at figuring out what that ethos is for me. But I couldn't tell you five years from now how that's going to manifest and

i'm and on days i struggle with that because i would like to know i'm like can i can we just write this down and i'm gonna like i'm gonna i'm gonna get my grid on and i'm just like i'm gonna go nail this sucker like five years i'm at point a i see point b great time i'm committed to making it happen. But then I know myself and I know that two years into that, if the ethos that I'm fiercely committed to starts to point me in a different direction, then that grit, which would keep me going from point A to point B, when the point C, which is emerging because I'm holding myself open to serendipity, would vanish and that sea could have been a thousand times more profoundly impactful than the original thing which is why i think there's also

there's a downside to doggy commitment to a highly defined outcome and which is also i think there's my my feelings there's a dark side to grid as well because of that yeah okay yeah and there's something about jobs too that you made me think of which is there was somebody who we toss around the word vision and he i think literally cultivated a vision like he could see the personal computer and then beyond that because i'm looking at, I also know that he really favored the poetry of William Blake. He was like a massive visionary as well. And so this was a guy who really did see the larger-than-me vision

of what could happen. And he was committed to that larger vision. But not all of us have practiced that. And it's hard to practice. Like I used to take retreats on a regular basis just for the sake of like getting the next vision. Yeah. Like last year I was just vision stumped.

God. Where is the vision? I think it's hard for us to practice. Yeah. Continuing that sort of long term. Yeah. I really, I like that you bring that up of, you know, you create this vision and you kind of arrive, right? And how do you make that next level vision? And is that even necessary? Right. Or is there a practice of being more present in the moment and not always chasing some type of outcome?

And we need to be in forward movement, and we are always in that. But I'm curious about that, of do we need to keep making those next level visions when you've arrived and you're actually pretty content and like this feels like my ideal this feels like the quality of life

is that okay? yeah that whole contentment piece I find really fascinating I was a resident in a Zen monastery several years ago and I remember we do this one onon-one i get to the teacher in this little isolated room and i ask him how do you know if you're ever really content because right now i feel kind of content that was then and he chuckled he's like oh my god you know like we do these retreats with people from the city for the weekend or like just be content it's like if you think you're content like accept that like

it's okay it's okay to be content because there's something in me that's always like second guessing like one it's ephemeral yeah but two like oh really am I missing something? Maybe I need to be worried about something. So I love that piece because where I think many of us as creative people can be is we get bored and we're like, okay, let me go on to the next thing. Whereas I think I've pushed against that with myself and with others. Like, let's stay here for a little bit and see if we can keep making it better rather than chasing something else just because this isn't quite yet working. Any thoughts around that? Are you going to be with Queen's?

I guess I shouldn't ask that. I was like, give me an answer, guys. We'll be watching the ripples. Yeah, I don't know to me it's still um i would love to get to a place where things are so clearly defined but at the same time there's a voice inside of me that says stay open you know it's like that line from the outsider stay wild pony boy stay open yeah um you know work towards like get really clear on what matters to you really clear on what you're good at get really clear on what sparks you and then like bring that into everything you're doing as much as you possibly can

and if there's something that you know becomes really clear around that that where you're like if i could create that i would get to leverage all of these things that light me up to make it happen and it's gonna take five years awesome and just like go all in and at the same time be open yeah you know stay open to the fact that you may be totally wrong about what the manifestation of what matters to you looks like when you go down the road it's like daniel gilbert's like all of his research said we are horrendous at what he calls effective forecasting which is we think we know how we're going to feel when we get somewhere and we are actually much better taking the advice of a complete stranger who's there already because

they'll actually be much more accurate about how we'll feel in our own personal lives than how we like intuit we think we'll feel we're horrible absolutely horrendous i think which is why you know like the answer is when when most people get there in five years they hit exactly what they wanted and you're like you know well how much is enough they'll be like just a little bit more. Right. Never enough. You're just, yeah, you're never right. Anyway, why don't we roll on to your second topic, Mr. Jeffrey Davis.

All right. So do we want to talk about business leaders taking on controversial stances or talk about hope? Any problems? I'm open. I'm a business leader taking on the stance of hope, which would be pretty controversial at this particular point in our history. Well, all right, I'll go with the controversy.

So I have been wondering lately and watching certain CEOs and business leaders take stances on controversial social issues, whether it's racism in this country, police brutality, gay rights, same-sex marriage, gun control. And I'm curious for conversation. First question is a should question, which we all flinch at. Should business leaders publicly espouse their stances on controversial issues? And another really separate question is, is doing so good or bad for business? And if I need to give some examples, I can, but maybe, maybe I don't know.

I feel business is an art. Like it can be an expression of who you, who you are. And I think you can use that vehicle. If that's a part of your values and what matters to you and using your position in the world to say what you really feel and think and have your team and your company align with that message, with your core values of who you are. I don't think that there, and there's never right or wrong, but I personally don't think that there is anything

wrong using the platform that you have in the world to make a difference to things that matter to you. I think that it is okay. And with anything that we do, people are going to be standing with us or they're going to stand against us. I think there's a lot of othering happening in the world that I wish there wasn't. I wish that we could just, this is how I feel. This is what I think there's a lot of othering happening in the world that I wish there wasn't. I wish that we could just, this is how I feel. This is what I think. This is my message without creating division. But obviously, that does happen when we're talking about more political stances or controversial topics.

But I believe you can use that company. And the second question is, I do think that it can be good if you're wanting people to align with your core values or what your company's core values are, if that's all in alignment, then it can be good because you'll track the people that believe and stand for that. And those that don't, they don't. That's kind of where I'm at right now. Hmm. I think I feel pretty similar, actually. You know, it's not like you've sworn an oath because you're not a civil servant. If you start a private organization or private corporation, we'd like to think that you would act like in the good of not just your own personal self-interest, but in the good of your employees and those you serve directly as clients and customers, and also of society and culture. You know, there's the whole idea of a company playing a role as a, like having a citizen set purpose, right?

So if you espouse the fact that a company has like a social obligation to actually act in a certain way in the world, and that's pretty debatable. There are a lot of people who are like, no, if you actually look at, you know, the bylaws of your average corporation, there's nothing in there about an organization being formed for the purpose of being a good citizen. Fundamentally, it's about – it's essentially you have investors who are willing to take a risk and then it's all about maximizing shareholder value. But then the argument is, well, but by being a good citizen, which gets to your second question, is that actually hurting sort of like the private goals or is it actually furthering it? And I think it's really unique. I don't have a particular – I think we tend to have knee-jerk reactions when the head of a public-private company takes a position and exerts influence and takes a position that's contrary to what we personally believe.

And then we're like, that's so wrong. You shouldn't be able to use that kind of corporate power to do that. But then again, if that same person took a position that was totally supporting something you believe deeply, like go for it. Yes. You know, this is so awesome that somebody is taking money out of their own pocket and risking their own organization to support this cause. So I wonder if there is a little bit of, you know, bias going on in a huge way. And the other thing is, this is not new. All it's new is that, you know, there is an industry called lobbying. And for generations and generations and generations, the wealthiest people and the richest companies in the world have basically paid to create huge influence. The only difference is it's been through back channels.

So now what we see is heads of companies, Mark Benioff of Salesforce, has been a very public advocate of a lot of things that you're talking about. And so now a lot of the heads of organizations have much more direct access and they're willing to actually just go out and be very public, like have their own personal brands in addition to their organizations. So I think I don't actually see there being a whole lot of different going on here. I just see that it's just it's on the surface a lot more than it used to be. Yeah, that's the difference I see. Well, actually, I see two parts that may be different. One, it's more transparent for the reasons you just laid out.

And two, like Tim Cook writing a Washington Post op-ed last year, two days after Indiana's religious freedom reform act came out. Like you could, I think what was different is lobbying, obviously you're influencing for the bottom line. You could maybe be a little cynical and say, well, he was just trying to get apple in the newspaper again and say forth but you know he has that deep conviction like he'll take the risk he's even said to shareholders we're going to be doing some things that may not be great for the bottom line so maybe the difference is a few ceos are taking stances that may or may not be good for the bottom line and that i guess that's what i'm curious about too howard schultz what a couple of years are taking stances that may or may not be good for the bottom line. And I guess that's what I'm curious about too.

Howard Schultz, a couple of years ago, concerned about racism, right? You go in for your latte, you get a little document about some questions about your friends and race. And maybe the person selling you the coffee is going to raise a conversation with you about race. This was his attempt to start the conversation so you know again like just what jonathan's saying like if those values align with you you're like oh well that's cool at least the person's trying but if you go into some place and you're not real big on the freedom to carry guns publicly and your favorite coffee shop owner is and lets people

like gather with their guns on the table and you're like hmm i'm not sure i really like that or appreciate that coming with my coffee or you see some other signage right or a petition that doesn't align with you even though you love that place doing business i guess i'm i'm wondering about it too from your consumer's point of view as we're answering this question. We're all business owners and leaders. So, yeah, I'm continuing to wonder about that from a consumer's point of view and also if you've ever taken.

I don't think I've taken openly public controversial stances, but I've been wondering about it. And I guess I'm wondering why I haven't. Jonathan. That's fine. I was actually just going to ask, you know, personally, whether any of us, because I know there are definitely things around the city going on the news, and it's a big social sort of like question. And I'll have a very strong feeling about it. But I'm concerned because, in part because my business is built around community. And to a certain extent, well, Simple Use Smooth is absolutely.

And to a certain extent, yours is, Jeffrey, as well. Of course. That there is a certain ethos in the community. And I may not believe exactly in line with that. So I'm always concerned at alienating people in our community. And if part of the reason that we exist is to provide a place where people feel safe and that they can be accepted of doing anything that would in some way violate that sense of safety or trust or align values, I don't think it would. And I think people in our community probably pretty much get where I would stand on all the major issues. And maybe that's also part of the reason why I

haven't really felt the need to just put myself out there. Because I think my social stance is fairly probably easily definable. In part also because of the guests that I've had on the video series and then on the podcast now. I think there's nothing that's really off base for me as a guest. If somebody comes in and wants to talk about their same-sex spouse, I don't particularly care. If somebody comes in and talks about a way that they're earning a living, which some people may not agree with. I don't particularly care. I'm interested in the human story and respecting just the basic idea of human value. So my sense is actually, and I'm kind of thinking it through,

is that I'm guessing that the way that I choose my guests and we have conversations probably telegraphs a lot of my beliefs anyway. I think what you're saying about the, when you're building inclusive communities, being a community builder in my personal life and even in our company and building a community, I'm like Charlie Brown. Like you don't talk about the great pumpkin, you don't talk about politics and religion.

Like that's just how I take it. Like I have my beliefs like within, but I personally don't use any of my platforms to advocate for something. So I have not as in a business. And I actually, I think I'm very careful with that too, of not ever making anyone feel alienated. I'm all about like harmony and peace and not othering. So I personally don't take a stand publicly for anything. It's like non-judgment free zone. Yeah. And as a community builder too, I am and always for a number of years have been interested in inclusiveness, meaning the person whose views don't seem to fit in with the majority of others has a voice. And this has come up, I think,

sometimes even on some of our online communities. I will be sensitive to the person who's like, maybe expressing a view that isn't common. And I will encourage that voice and encourage others to hear that voice. That seems to be a drive of mine. So kind of talking this out with you guys, if I were to take a stance on a controversial issue, it would be to raise the conversation. I do approach controversial topics in my poetry because that's a different artful way and it's a non-dogmatic way it's like

that it's just my vehicle for trying to find some subjective space or artful space in that controversial topic but it would be instead of me writing an op-ed it would be more like trying to raise a conversation and really trying to include different points of view with that. And I would be interested in more business leaders doing that, more CEOs doing that as well. Maybe Howard Schultz is a tip. At least he was trying, and I do agree. Like, okay, at least he was trying, but I wouldn't want a barista engaging me in questions about racism anyway, even if we agreed, any more than I've gone to a certain well-known yoga studio here in the city where the teachers

preach about a certain diet that I used to subscribe to too, but I didn't want to hear it. I mean, literally like preached. So I'm just more interested in the critical conversation and leaders being able to lead that critical conversation. So did you stop being a consumer at that yoga studio? Yes. So then it does affect, right? It did in that case, yeah. Now, there was a paper that came out at the Harvard Business School

a couple of months ago on this topic, too, looking specifically at Tim Cook and the Indiana law. And so they conducted two field experiments. The first one was, can we actually change people's views of the Indiana law? So they had like three different groups and setups. Like the first one was, read this law. Do you support it or not? A certain percentage did. Okay. Now they present it to the second group and they frame it as a number of people feel that this

law is discriminatory toward gays. So a lower number actually supported the law after that framing. Third frame was Tim Cook recently wrote an op-ed about its potential for discriminating against gays. That had the same level as the second frame in terms of influencing their views of the law. Like the conclusion was more people actually said that they would support Apple products and buy Apple products once they understood that op-ed and the context than not. Particularly those though who already aligned with that value set. The people who didn't seem to care one way or the other. So it may be good for business for those people who are already aligned. But see, in this yoga studio at this time i was aligned i had the diet had for 20 something years but i didn't want to be preached about it from somebody 20 years my junior

it's funny i've had that same thing in yoga as a teacher it's like kind of funny wearing the hat too like i was always really careful not to get that preachy. I think the example of Tim Cook and Apple is really interesting on one level because I think Tim, his position would have been read by Apple customers is kind of aligned with the brand. Whereas Mark Benioff from Salesforce, who's been like super activist, I wonder, and that I don't necessarily know if that brand is, you know, because it didn't arise out of like counterculture and sort of nonconformist and the way that Apple did. I wonder if, if that

HBR paper was done on Salesforce or if that's in the works, if it would have the same thing. These two professors are continuing this research. that would be very interesting exactly how does the view kind of what you're talking about jada about core values and the founder's core values and how does that influence in culture and does a controversial does a stance on controversy arise out of those core values in the community? What happens when it doesn't? Yeah, that's interesting. All right, so why don't we come around to our final topic.

Jeffrey, I know you're going to really hate this topic. I've been fascinated with awe for years. Oh, God, not awe. And diving increasingly into the research around it. And it's interesting. I was actually going to write about it in the last book, but I didn't feel I had enough of a grip on it yet. And I don't think we actually have enough of a grip on it from a science basis, although the research is increasing, which is really interesting.

And there's increasing research on what awe does to us, which is all good on every level. It slows and expands time. It reduces inflammation in the body. It changes our physiology. It de-stresses, all this awesome stuff. And yet, when I tried to look in the literature to say, well, what is awe? The answer is a little bit like Supreme Court's definition of pornography,

which is, we'll just know it when we see it. And it's interesting because when, so this goes back to like the beginning of our conversation, which I have a lot of trouble just like letting something rest and knowing that it works. I want to deconstruct it and figure out how can I reconstruct it and bring more of it into life. So I'm like like my question that's floating out of my head now is are there any sort of reproducible regular like easily identifiable elements of this experience of awe beyond just what it does to us like can we deconstruct it so that we can figure out how to engineer it into our lives on an increasing level? So I'm interested in it because Jada, you seem to live in like a state of relative grace for a lot of the time that I've known you. And I know you've struggled. I know

there've been a lot of challenges, but you have this ability to just kind of look at the world and see light. And so I'm curious from that standpoint. And Jeffrey, I'm also curious because you have a company called Tracking Wonder. And I'm curious in your mind, what is the intersection between wonder and awe? Yeah. Well, I think it comes to what Jeffrey was going to talk about of hope. Hope is planted in me that there's always possibility that I'm a

problem solver. I can see that I can get myself out of a situation. But when I hear the word awe, like how do we reconstruct that or experience it more? I really think about awe as the childlike wonder and also even older. So my daughter is always noticing things, noticing little things. Her brain is not filled with all of the to-dos and the next steps and got to get to from point A to point B. So I really think it's that act of just noticing. And then for Mother's Day, I was with my grandmother. She's 92 years old and pushing her around in her wheelchair around our local neighborhood. And every, like every three minutes, she'd be like, oh, flowers. Like, oh, the little things and the beauty and the colors. And so it's like seeing life in 3D and full color and vibrancy. And it's this practice of not noticing the to-do list and all the other things because my daughter does not have a to-do list and my 92-year-old grandmother does not have a

to-do list and my 92 year old grandmother does not have a to-do list she is just to be sitting exploring and noticing the awe moments that come and i don't know i was just really intrigued and inspired of just noticing how much my grandma notices when she got to walk around the neighborhood or explore our neighborhood, that's so beautiful too. I'm just thinking of all the generations and just contemplating for a moment one's own lifespan just in that continuum, right, from child to grandmother just right there in that moment. It was really gorgeous to try to absorb. I'm thinking of two moments, maybe I've only had two,

where I really felt I would define awe. And one is being out in West Texas where I used to go at least twice a year to get away from Dallas where I used to teach and drive like 11 hours and hunker down in a cabin and go up to the Davis Mountains. And I'm up on the Davis Mountains one afternoon for several hours overlooking this little valley, and the clouds come over.

And for the first time, I guess it's one of those first experiences, I could see the shadows of the clouds coming down. I was that high up. And then the rain came down. And, like, I'm at the level of the clouds and can watch the rain. And I was just utterly taken in in that moment of awe. Maybe another time that I'm thinking about it was being in the Himalayas at a pretty peak and just astonished by the beauty and the grandeur.

But a more recent time was just going down this road where often my little girl and I walk, but I was just walking down this road with these two open meadows. And I'm walking down, I'm contemplating, I'm looking down at the ground. And then I turn around to go home and I look up and again there's like this sort of whale clouds and then this opening where it's just this gorgeous blue and the sun behind the clouds with that little white streak right between the dark and just the cusp of the cloud and all i'm saying to myself is holy shit like that is the all response i think for me.

And maybe I've had it at different sunsets too. It's just this feeling like, holy shit. I was telling Jonathan I saw the Northern Lights last night for the first time. They were over the Hudson Valley. And it didn't quite have, you know, the lighting wasn't quite the awe effect, even though I wanted it. It was kind of kind of like oh that looks like a really cool vapor trail that goes across the whole sky and it was curious but it wasn't awe inducing so what elements i've studied the work of dacre keltner out at berkeley and jonathan height

here in new york and they were two who paired off in an early study of awe too, is awe often has to do with scale. There's something that helps you see the relative smallness of yourself, maybe in the cosmos or in proportion to what you're experiencing, whether it's the Grand Canyon or the elements and so forth so and if we run with that then like the second element is it usually disorients your sense of who you are even just for a moment or your existence for just a moment and i i spoke with jonathan hyde about like what is the difference between wonder and awe and he thought i was parsing words but for me wonder is what you described it's the extraordinary and the ordinary

right you know and just potentially being right here and just appreciating this moment among us there's something happening in this conversation that i would say you know it gives me goosebumps to really absorb it and And that would be wonder. But I'm not just blown away right now by the grandeur and like reconsidering my view in the cosmos at this moment. So if we run with that, if that's kind of the distinction loosely between awe and wonder, both of them open us, how do you reproduce that? And this was Haidt's and and why he stopped tracking off he's like you know we're putting students underneath tyrannosaurus rex trying to measure their response

to awe like he couldn't reproduce it but i think we can actively become aware of those moments, actively put ourselves in situations where we recognize our smallness, our relative smallness. And even watching the Olympics, I have to say, maybe that's not odd, but it gives me that holy shit effect when i watch a gymnast or an ice skater like that physical i'm like wow that is astonishing what about when you were a kid how you said your nickname was ah like so what was that was the ah ah like ah like I just got it. But I was definitely floating around, more in wonder at that time. I was really just more of a wonder kid, like just dreaming along.

But I don't know that I experienced awe as a boy. I don't know that I saw angels in the trees or not at least that I remember. But it makes me really curious. Like Jonah Berger's work also shows that awe is one of the most potentially contagious emotions because it elicits something. Wonder is among the most discreet emotional experiences we have, which is what makes it so confounding to psychologists. It's hard to measure.

It's so subtle. It was always like it's larger-than-life cousin, right? That if they, too, walked into the room, wonder would be hanging them back, taking it in, and awe would come in, and we'd all know it. We'd all know it we'd all feel it do you feel like uh is also has to be unexpected because like how you were saying with the northern lights you're kind of you had some expectancy yeah yeah i think so but even if it turned out to be like my six-year-old and i were looking in the guide the astronomy guide last night it was like

well if it looks like that i'll still be guide last night, it was like, well, if it looks like that, I'll still be at awe. Like if it was like all different colors and floating around like angels in the sky, I still would have been at awe. But yes, there typically is an unexpected quality to both wonder and awe, which is why people are like, well, how can you track wonder? But I think we can. I think we can be open to the unexpected. I haven't given up on tracking awe.

Tracking awe, go for it. I agree. I think it's a much rarer experience, and we can describe what it does to you. It creates this sense of vastness and disorientation, and there's something so much bigger. At the same time, it seems like almost anyone who I've asked if they've ever experienced moments of awe,

it's been one of the huge consistent triggers is nature, is natural phenomenon. I remember we were leading a retreat last year in Costa Rica and I'm an early riser and we were like up on the side of a mountain in San Jose. So we're, you know, ringing a valley and on all sides, there's an early in the morning, there's rainforest and there's a ring of volcanoes that go all the way around the valley. And when you wake up first thing in the morning, because we're at a little bit of altitude and because there's a blanket of heavy cloud that just sits across the top of all the mountains, including the volcanoes, and I woke up early one morning, the sun just started to peak up above the clouds.

And it turned the sky this stunning hashtag no filter color. And then I'm looking at this across this beautiful valley, like with the blanket of clouds and this like crazy gradient of orange and purple, that there's a little double peak coming up through the clouds. And there are these two little plumes of smoke as there's this like little minor volcanic blow off coming up through all of this thing. And I'm just like, holy, like you said, holy shit! And I just sat there with my jaw unhinged, you know, like

time sits still. And for me, those moments pretty much always come in some form of immersion in nature. And I've done the research also and I have not been able to find anybody who kind of deconstruct and says, well, we know these to be like at least part of the repeatable ingredients of the experience of awe, but I'm not giving up on that. I think there's

research to be done because what it does to you is research now and it's mind blowing. It's about the most transformative experience you can have and if there's a way to just figure out how to bring that into your life more i'm going to be looking at that well yeah and the way so they do show people videos right of these sort of natural phenomena and they yeah they do describe like describe time seems stretched out, and they're more generous, at least according to these studies. If you do feel like you have more time and your sense of place in the cosmos, you will be more generous.

So, yeah, go for it. I'll have an academic paper on it shortly. Let's go, right? It's the only thing I'm not down by academia. I'm imagining like camp awe and I'm just like okay let's like like all my juices are flowing right now because I'm like trying to imagine like how to reconstruct it. It's like wall to wall awe I think. Like 500 campers heads exploded. See I wanted to take tracking wonder I wanted to take people on tracking wonder excursions in the city several years ago.

I never did it. But see, it would be much easier to track wonder in the city than to track awe. That's a big one. Go for it. Yeah. So let's come full circle. Any final thoughts, words, offerings, Jenna? I think in this moment I'm experiencing a sense of contentment of I'm right where I should be

and I think anyone that is listening is experiencing some type of wonder curiosity and that's my favorite place to be yeah I want to follow up on that just like encourage everybody who's listening to this like go out and have a conversation it's so fulfilling to be here and just to have an open conversation nobody's taking stances even about taking stances and yeah just go out with somebody and have an open conversation about the questions that burn in you. Cause yeah,

I feel great. Good life. That's pretty good. And I'm going to wrap with, don't wait for it to be perfect. We're hanging out in my living room right now because the studio that we built, there are guys on the building right now who are out there and they are

banging away. And, and, and, but, you know, I had these two awesome human beings coming over to record. And so we like brought out the sort of small portable mics were sitting on a couch. You hear sirens in the background, you hear people walking in and out, but the conversation continues. And, you know, I think we all spend so much time waiting for the stars to align. And we're like, oh, you know, almost getting back to what we were talking about earlier. Like if I have a certain ethos in the world, like, you know, well, we always produce professionally and we use broadcast quality mics and engineering and stuff like that. And like, you know what, 99% of the time we do.

And then sometimes stuff like that. And like, you know what, 99% of the time we do. And then sometimes stuff goes sideways. And if I had said, well, guys, let's just, no, it's not quite right. Let's reschedule and wait till the studio's available again. You know, like, then this beautiful conversation never would have happened. And if you're listening to this and you've gotten some value from it, and I certainly hope you have, then, you know, like you've participated in it. And I know from me just sitting here with you two, dear friends, it's amazing to be able to set aside the time and just have that too. So I think my final thought is just don't wait for the stars to align. The perfect moment is the moment that you choose to just make it happen and

whatever unfolds is going to be good. So those are my final thoughts here. Signing off. Thank you, guys. Thanks. Thank you. 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. 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 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 are awesome community who are on other platforms,

any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message, which is be so appreciated until next time. This is Jonathan Fields signing off for good life project. Life Project.