Good Life Project - Life is a Contact Sport [6 mins]

Episode Date: April 23, 2015

How much of your life are you living in your head?If you're like most people, an awful lot. It's great to have a rich inner life, but when that noggin-talk stops you from engaging with the world around you, it's time to stand up and say, "I've got a problem!"This week's 6-minute Good Life Riff is a wake-up call.I'm known among my friends as a straight-shooter. In part, because I've seen far too many brilliant would-be entrepreneurs, artists, authors, world-changers, etc. keep themselves in analysis paralysis while their incredibly important ideas go to waste.So I'm calling out the over-thinker, the inner-debater and the cranium critic in each of us.Get out of your head, and into your life!Read the print version of this episode on Jonathan's blog at http://www.jonathanfields.com/life-is-a-contact-sport/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So today I'm sharing another short and sweet good life riff. This one is entitled, Life is a Contact Sport. Before we dive into it, today's good life riff is actually brought to you by Camp GLP. So what is that? It's an amazing opportunity to come and hang out with me and a pretty awesome lineup of gifted teachers and our soulful community of entrepreneurs and makers and world shakers as we literally take over a gorgeous summer camp for three and a half days at the end of August, just 90 minutes out of New York City.

If it sounds cool to you, you can check out a lot more information and be sure to check it out fairly quickly because our $200 early bird discount ends in just a few days on April 30th, 2015. So you can learn more at goodlifeproject.com slash camp, or just go ahead and click on the link in the show notes now or after this Good Life riff. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. So there's only so much you can learn about yourself by thinking, am I good enough? Are my ideas good enough? Am I ready to go public and speak and launch and write? Who's really listening to me? What if I fail? What if I succeed? What if my assumptions are massively wrong or right? You can literally spin these questions in your head ad nauseum, and frankly, most people do. But you know what's happening while you're lost in the process of arguing both sides

of every conversation ever had in your head? Life. Life is happening, but not yours. Your life is on hold, being kept from happening by the merciless cacophony of conversation that spirals and splinters through your brain, leaving you incapable of action, paralyzed. Among my close friends and colleagues and those I've been blessed to work with, I've gotten a bit of a reputation for being, how do I say this, kind but blunt. I try and be gentle, but I don't sugarcoat. And one of the

things I've ended up saying over and over and over is, get out of your head and into the world. A bit of introspection and contemplation and internally birthed wisdom is good, but all too often we try to find the answers in the world inside us that exist only through engaging with the world around us. We choose guessing over testing because we're terrified of failing or being wrong and then being judged. So here's the deal. You will be wrong. You will be judged. You will be awful as often as you are awesome. People will know when you mess up. Will that hurt? Well, it depends.

If your ego and your metric for success are tied to being right, then yes, it's going to suck. If your ego and your metric for success are tied to action and learning, then that suck factor becomes overpowered by the fact that in moving an idea forward, from that cerebral pit of despair known as your mind, and putting it into the world to generate information and data and knowledge, you've already won. And the data that comes from your test, whether it validates or

obliterates your assumptions, it lays the foundation for growth. Only when you get out of your head do you create the opportunity to know, not guess, if you're good enough, if it is good enough. If you are, how awesome. And if you're not, how wonderful that you now know and you can stop frittering away your life with merciless self-talk and do something about it. Simple fact. Life is a contact sport. It's about engaging with rather than hiding from the world. You can't avoid the contact without also avoiding the life. Does that mean you run recklessly into it?

Well, some people do. It's the running with scissors or running with the bowls approach. Too much machismo and risk for me and likely for you. I tend to take a more artisanal approach to engaging with my ideas and life. I start in my head, let the concepts gestate, but not for too long. Then I choose a palette or a channel or medium or outlet to begin to test elements of my ideas and my own personal capabilities. So for example, I test concepts for books and articles, for media and art, for future merchandise and shows on social media all the time. I do calls or impromptu meetings, gatherings or workshops or both, you know, to offer value, but also simultaneously to test snippets of ideas.

Stand-up comedians are legendary for this. They'll workshop an act for months or even years to get a single set nailed down. Seinfeld is actually famous for working a single line for years to refine it. And I have no doubt his joke graveyard exponentially outsizes his list of epic snort laughs. So we're like those comics. It doesn't matter how funny the line is in your head if the audience hates it. It's gotta go. All the

contemplation and introspection in the world will not tell you how it's going to land. There's only one way to get your answer. Get out of your head and into the world. So here's my invitation. You know that thing that you've been arguing both sides of in your head? Come on, you know. If you don't, I can virtually guarantee you're lying to yourself. Stop now. Ask yourself, what single action can I take today that will replace my assumptions with information? Then take that action. Engage. Contact. Live.