Good Life Project - Life, Legacy and the Final Episode of GLP TV???

Episode Date: September 21, 2014

Big surprise and a huge announcement about the future of the project.First, the surprise. Today's guest is ME!You guys have been asking for two and a half years. So, I finally invited a good friend to turn the mic on me and explore this incredible journey of both life and GLP TV. We go deep into a number of topics I've never spoken about and share amazing moments, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes of the project.Now, what about the major announcement?You may notice in the image above, I'm wearing headphones and speaking into a radio-style microphone. Hmmmm, we've never done that before. What gives?Well, the big announcement is that the video part of the project is going on hiatus. We'll still air episodes on youtube as audio-only, but the next phase of the project is all about audio. This is actually a giant win for you. It's going to allow us to have conversations with a wider range of people, more often and with a level of depth and intimacy that'd hard to create when you've got a full crew and cameras rolling.I explain this evolution and what's driving it a lot more in the final 20 minutes of this week's episode. And if you're thinking about producing a podcast or web-series, be sure to tune in to that part of the conversation.And, if you want to keep jamming with me every week, I STRONGLY recommend that you head on over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast today. We've got an extraordinarily moving episode coming up next week that you absolutely won't want to miss.With gratitude,Jonathan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Good Life Project, where we take you behind the scenes for in-depth, candid conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, makers, and world shakers. Here's your host, Jonathan Fields. Hi everybody, this is Jonathan Fields with another episode of Good Life Project. This is a very special episode. You may notice I'm kind of wearing something a little bit different, and we'll explain why that is a little bit later in this conversation. This episode also has a very special guest, an unusual guest.

Today, our guest is me. How am I going to do myself? Well, it turns out I'm not going to. I'm hanging out today with my very good buddy, Christopher Carter. Good to be hanging out with you. Amazing to be here. And I asked him to actually come over and turn the tables on me. We've had a ton of requests over the last two and a half years of doing this to do that for somebody to come in and interview me. And I was kind of waited and hesitated. And there is a very special reason that we're doing this today that, uh, that we'll, we'll get into. So, so everyone should stay tuned and listen,

um, and watch, uh, as this whole thing unfolds. So I am now going to do a very uncomfortable thing and turn it over to you. Amazing. The Apple watch series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. So which one of us gets to say Austin would be hanging out with you today? You can do that if you want. All right, because I truly mean it.

As a huge fan of the show since the very beginning, it's really a trip to be interviewing you here today. So before we get into the journey of Good Life Project itself, we'll start a little bit back before that. But just as I prepare to do this, what have you learned from interviewing hundreds of amazingly inspiring people over the last two years? What did you learn about interviewing? Wow, that's a big question. It's interesting because this started out as a passion project largely for me.

And the fact that it's grown into what it has is kind of humbling. It's surprising. It's interesting because this started out as a passion project largely for me. And the fact that it's grown into what it has is kind of, it's humbling, it's surprising, it's amazing, it's a blessing. And I, along the way, I started out just kind of wanting to be able to sit down with really cool people who knew a lot and pick their brains. Like I was looking for teachers. And so I had this genuine sense of curiosity with the people who I was inviting in from the very beginning. So I never viewed any of these as interviews. It was always to me a conversation.

It was like, hey, listen, I bumped into somebody at a dinner party. They do something that I'm kind of fascinated by. I learn more, you know, like they're living a life that I'm, you know, like I want to know about how are they doing this. So let's have a conversation rather than let me just grill you

with a series of questions. And I think one of the magic about the experience has been that it's really a series of conversations. So if I'm jamming with Brene Brown and we both totally geek out on one particular topic,

I'm not sitting here interviewing her and waiting for her to finish so I can ask the next question. We know, totally geek out on one particular topic. I'm not sitting here interviewing her and waiting for like her to finish so I can ask the next question. We're just geeking out on something. So I'm going to share my ideas. She's going to share her ideas. And, um, it was kind of funny actually, is that for the most part, people have tended to respond really well to that. And every once in a while we'll get a comment about the show saying, I wish the interviewer would just shut up already. Wow. Nice. And let the guests talk, which is kind of funny because I also think that I try and be super deferential and respectful to everybody who has been a guest and really just allow them to say everything that's

on their mind and create the space for them to let that happen. So I think for me, like one of the big things is really realizing to go into it as a conversation and not an interview. Yeah. And probably the single biggest thing happens before this conversation ever happens, which is have a genuine interest in the person that you're sitting next to. Oh, sure. Because if you don't, then you're just sitting here like waiting for it to be done. But if you do, then it's organic. And so two and a half years, nothing's ever scripted.

Right. You know, and we've had times where we've gone close to two hours we've had to split it into two episodes just because we're jamming like we start going down rabbit holes and it's fascinating the stories come out are amazing so you know number one really find people you're genuinely interested in learning about and um treat it more as conversation. But then once actually I start to realize how much I was liking this, then I start to actually say, well, I want to get better at this. I want to actually treat this as a craft. So I start thinking to myself, well, who are the exemplars?

Who are the people out there doing things? Yeah. And who are those people for you? Yeah. You know, and it crosses a lot of different things. You know, if you look on TV, probably people like Charlie Rose, who's a tremendous interviewer. Barbara Walters is a tremendous interviewer.

Different styles, but just listening to the questions that they ask. Who's the guy from inside the actress studio? Not Will Ferrell, the real guy. And then what's really interesting is on podcasting is exploding now. We launched the podcast version of this a year ago. And there are some really astonishing people on just pure audio who I actually really aspire to learn from. People like Krista Tippett who produces a show called On Being.

On the public radio side of things, there's Terry Gross, great interviewer, and locals in New York, WNYC is our local public radio station. So people like Leonard Lopate or Brian Schaefer and guys like that. But it's really just, I'm learning more and more probably from the radio side and the podcasting side these days because when you don't have video as part of the process and it's just audio, the quality of your questions really have to be a lot better. Yeah.

You know, because there's nothing else to distract from just what's being said. Well, I think the common thread with all those people you mentioned is that the listener or the viewer feels like they're along for the ride. And that's the comment that we get all the time. People are always like, I feel like I'm just kind of sitting in the room with you guys and you're just having fun and riffing and going to town on a topic. Yes. I don't know how many episodes I've sat through with my wife nearby and she said, are you done hanging out with your friends now? Yes. So that's great. It helps me, uh, uh, get situated for this. Cause I have so many questions to get through with you and gosh, where to begin, but why don't we, why don't we start by going back to when you started good life project? I know you

have a really interesting backstory that, that obviously prepared you to start the project itself. But what was the real curiosity that you're trying to satisfy behind examining, you know, this broad, giant, deep topic of how to live a good life? Yeah. And yeah, it is very personal because I'm somewhat of a seeker out there. I'm constantly trying to figure out what are the ingredients? How do I live my time on the earth in a really powerful way? And honestly, probably that exploration started to get a lot deeper after 9-11. I was a longtime New Yorker. I grew up just outside of New York. I've been in the city since 89. So this is my home. And 9-11 was a really powerful, traumatic, transformative time for anyone who lived in New York City.

It was deeply painful and jarring for everyone outside of the city, but it was different inside the city. Not to diminish in any way the experience of anyone who wasn't in here. It's just it was different. You lived in a place that was functionally and literally a morgue and a funeral you know like there was an island that was you know that's what it was and uh and it made you it just really connected me at least especially because there are people that i know who passed um and it connected me with the um the, the importance of, uh, of impermanence and owning the fact that what we have here, like nobody planned to go to the towers that morning and

not come home. You know, it wasn't, it just, but it happened, you know, and that's an extreme example, but still stuff like that happens on a smaller scale every day. Um, and so I really just started looking at like whatever time i've got i don't know how long that is how do i make the best of it how do i wake up in the morning and then like spend the day in a way where when i close my eyes when i go to bed at night um i feel whole i feel like i'm good yeah like you know like willing, this won't be the last time I close my eyes at night, but if I did, I would have done what I'm here to do

with who I'm here to do it with. And I don't know if I'm there yet. I don't hold myself out as some massive role model, but it started this quest I wanted to learn. I got really curious. And simultaneously, I was opening a business that was steeped in eastern philosophy so that that kind of traveled me down that road also where the exploration of impermanence is just a regular thing right you know it's not as like taboo as it is in western

cultures don't think about death don't think about this stuff no it's just like, well, it's, yeah. I mean, you know, people meditate on death and impermanence all the time because, and you know, we've got that fame now famous line from Steve Jobs and his Stanford commencement speech where he said, you know, like death is life's, you know, like greatest invention because it reminds you constantly, you know, that you're here live with purpose. It should create urgency with people. Yeah. Go do good things. So that's been brewing for a while now. But a couple of years ago, I got even more curious about it. And actually, the whole thing kind of started because I had released an annual report, which turned into just a look back. It was the end of 2011, right?

Yeah. Right. So we actually came out with the annual report in January of 2012, and it looked back on 2011. And it started out as a blog post and then turned into a 40-page annual report. And in it, I started to think about, well, how do I actually build things? How do I build my career? How do I build businesses and companies that I build? What's my approach? What's the set of ethics or values?

And these 10 things that i ended up calling my 10 commandments of business kind of channeled through me and i threw them out into the world and the response kind of blew my mind and and i teased at the end of that this thing called good life project i had no idea what it was really going to be i was like it'll be a vehicle for me to do something cool so at the time it was just maybe a domain name yeah pretty much and a logo but i think that logo has not been changed like so this is this this is december and then you launched the project really in february yeah so so what was interesting is um and most people don't realize this is uh you know the the venture itself from business

venture side they're actually it's education media and community and um most people are aware of the media this is what we're doing right here, but the education side of the brand, which is also where we generate revenue and fund the media because it costs money to produce at this level, that actually started about three months before the media, and part of it was because I was able to leverage my existing brand

to actually create a training experience to bring people into it, which you were a participant in. I know, it's an amazing program. And it was also with a deliberate intention of I looked at the media and I wanted to create something really extraordinary. I wanted to go find these amazing people around the world and sit down with them and have conversations and share it.

But I wanted to do it at a level of production that was really extraordinary. I didn't want to just drop split-screen online. Skype with the earbuds in. Yeah, so I wanted to raise the bar. And I kind of decided after the response to the annual report, which was really well-designed and really well-received, that I was like, you know, I'm not here to do ordinary. So anything I do from that moment forward really had to be at a different level.

So I was like, all right, well, it's going to cost me serious money to produce at this level. So I started that side of the brand first to generate the revenue to then turn around and then be able to pay to produce the media at the level that I felt that way. And, you know, I wanted to represent the brand I was building. Yeah. So, so take a couple of steps back from there, you know, as I, as I kind of try to create the continuity between your major projects, so there was Career Renegade around 2007, 2008, right? No, 2009, actually. 2009?

Yeah, January 2009. All right, so then Uncertainty, 2011, and then Good Life Project, really the beginning of 2012, took shape and got built. It's kind of a jagged line between those things. And as I, as I try to find the continuity piece, I know you and I talk all the time offline about pattern recognition and that's kind of your killer app, right? And we'll get into that in a minute too. But as I started to piece those things together and I look at your own journey, I look at career renegade is teaching people how to overcome the major hurdle of escaping, you know, the scripted

life, the scripted career. And then Uncertainty is how to navigate the inevitable uncertainty that comes from all that. And then Good Life Project is kind of this beautiful arrival point of helping people figure out how to find and maintain this idea of the good life. And so I guess my major question is, as you look back on that kind of journey, like where were you in 2012 when this was starting as far as, you know, did you know that this was going to become the center point of your work over the next few years? Not at all. I really, this was a project, you and i'm i'm a lifetime entrepreneur with a short stint in the law um as an admiration um so i've always had you know like various projects

moving along and i was moving to the online world i was writing books i was speaking and uh i had a couple different projects that were kind of rolling and and and have some have rolled out you know since then also and, and I continue to have other projects. But this really took a role of eminency or preeminence in sort of my landscape of things that I was doing in response to people. Well, on the one hand, there seemed to be this huge need for,

how do I say it, science-backed, sort of like a more science-backed, less metaphysical approach to developing the person, self-knowledge, self-inquiry, self-mastery, and how to apply that to the process of building something, whether it's a career, you being an entrepreneur within an organization or building your own venture or cause. And I saw a lot of great stuff out there, but nothing that I really resonated with.

So as I have always done, I see gaps. I see patterns and gaps. I said, okay, if it's not there, then let me create it and see if people want it. And people did. And so I created more and people wanted more. And it just started to take more and more and more. And I started to realize, huh, you know, you started out as an experiment. It's a project.

Yep. You know, and the project, you gather data. And the data either validates or invalidates your assumptions in the beginning. And what's interesting is I really didn't make any assumptions in the beginning. This was just like, if it works, cool. Just a blank canvas. Yeah. You know, I'm going to keep on exploring and having conversations,

but maybe it's not a major project or a real venture, a viable venture, but it was. That's what's interesting to work closely with you on a lot of the Good Life Project material now, is that there's a certain, you maintain almost a maddening level of fluidity as the data gets gathered. As my team tells me. Yeah, as it takes you. Lock it down, man, lock it down. People are like, what's the launch going to look like next week? Well, we'll find out what the weather looks like.

But I always say about you that the world kind of benefits and is impacted by your very clear OCD around certain topics. You know, so it's like career renegade, escaping the career, you know, uncertainty, and then how to live a good life. It's really you leave no stone unturned, but there's this really interesting balance with you between the science part and the art. And that's what I wanted to talk about is that it's finding that balancing point because you are obsessed about gathering data and frameworks and, you know, continuity and what are the patterns, but then there's this other really beautiful aesthetic to it where it is an open canvas and it kind of paints itself and you, you just hold space. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's been a really common theme, and I am very much that oddball. You know, I'm a lefty, but I'm also fairly ambidextrous. You know, I was a self-taught painter as a kid.

You know, I painted album covers back when album covers were really awesome on the backs of jean jackets to make my walking around money in high school. What was your favorite album cover you painted on one of your jean jackets? Molly Hatchet, Flirt with Disaster Hatchet. I was hoping you'd say Molly Hatchet and you did. That's crazy solid. Yeah, crazy art. And then and the other was like actually like a little album cover sitting up there in the corner Boston's sort of like a spaceship album. Lotta Grateful Dead and then the one that I wore was actually the the um I did this in oils which I don't recommend on a uh jacket you can wear around was um when U2 came out with War and

it was just a black and white photo of a young boy his face and there was just something really sort of um powerful about that so I did this like photo realistic painting of uh that image on the people would stop me all the time trying to figure out like did i somehow put a photo on there i was at paint and it was um yeah there was just something about that i would i would steal away for like days and days and days in the corner of the basement just painting so i think you mentioned that uncertainty because when i started reading that book i got sucked into the free first chapter and the storytelling you know know, like the. Which is the other side of my brain.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the certainty anchors and the crux moves and all that really cool imagery. And then, but as that's going on, you're like, who the hell is the guy? Who's the guy writing it? You know? But then you start, you pivot into art and music and DJing and all these like seemingly disparate talents and skills. That by the end of the book, you're realizing you clearly leverage on a almost daily basis.

Yeah. And what's increasingly interesting to me and, and, um, is that, uh, I've kept the real artist in me sort of like in second place for a number of years now. And, um, I'm making very deliberate shifts now and everything that I do to actually elevate that to the extent where I'm now in the process of moving my position within Good Life Project, the venture, more from chief executive officer to CCO to chief creative officer, where I get to do a lot more art

and a lot more design and language. I look at crafting language as a real art form. So for me, and I think I really got this. I probably got it earlier than I think because in college I would always take classes that required papers instead of tests because I could always do really well on this. Yeah, I've kind of become really obsessed with the art form, the craft of language, of words, of writing. So when I write something, you know, I look at it and I really, it matters, the cadence, the rhythm, the tone, the timing, the, and I think I actually really got lit up in this as a first year law student when one of our professors took an opinion that was written by Justice Benjamin Cardozo and broke it down and showed how these little turns of phrases

and nuance were so powerful in creating visual imagery and changing the way the story was being told. I was like, huh. And then I would start to read people like Hemingway, the old man in the sea, where there was just this fierce commitment to brevity and efficiency in language. And his classic six-word story where, who knows if this legend was true or not,

but the fable goes that he was sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, and a challenge was issued to him to create a full story with all the emotions and everything, a beginning, a middle, and an end in six words. And he won the bet. And the story was, I may get it slightly wrong. Um, the six words were, um, for sale, baby shoes, never worn. Powerful. That's a full story right there. Um, so I, I've become kind of obsessed with the craft, the art side of language. And then I'm also visually obsessed, which you know, because I'm maniacal about visual design and display.

So when I write a blog post, I'm looking at the way that the sentences arc down the right side of the margin, and I'll adjust things to make the... Which is probably pretty maddening sometimes. It can be, especially in the online world when everything's fluid and dynamic and everything's now responsive. So it makes it a little bit harder to design,

which has been an interesting challenge for me too. But increasingly, yeah, I have always danced with this really maybe unusual balance between an artist and somebody who just loves transcendent experiences and awe and a quant, you know, who like I'll geek out on data at the same time. But when I really think about it, you know, the bigger pull for me is the side of the artist. So the art guides the science versus the other way around.

Yeah, I think in the end, I'll always default to art. In fact, I have left countless amounts of money on the table in the name of preserving art. I'll only take that to a certain level. Yeah, it's something that's a guiding ethic for me. Sure. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you.

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It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later require. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been

compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. So let's talk about what you started learning from interviewing all these people.

Because as somebody who's also obsessed with pattern recognition, I look down the headlines you write to get people to watch the videos and to pique their curiosity and stuff. And almost every little headline is its own little hero's journey. And I know that you're a huge fan of the work of Joseph Campbell, Nancy Duarte, Hero's Journey. So the one clear pattern that emerged for me, just kind of revisiting all the episodes over the past couple weeks,

has been that all those people pretty much have laid out their hero's journey to some degree. Yeah, and I've become increasingly focused on using that as an overlay for the conversations, actually. Yeah. And it wasn't deliberate in the beginning, but I noticed that actually the conversations that where people responded the most powerfully were the ones where the journey unfolded in a pretty similar, you know, following that sort of like hero's journey arc.

What's interesting is that I had always chosen people who had come full circle on the hero's journey arc. What's interesting is that, um, I, I had always chosen people who were, had come full circle on the hero's journey and then had a conversation after they returned with the elixir and they were in a position to now share. Kind of to be a mentor for all of your listeners. And what's interesting is, um, we haven't released them yet, but they'll be out pretty soon. I've actually started to move away from that a bit because my thought was in the beginning, why would I want to have conversations with people who are in the thick, in the weeds? Because the whole goal is for me to learn and for other people listening and watching to learn. And if they're in the middle of it with all of us, where's the learning?

And my thinking has really changed on that actually. Um, and there is a huge, uh, benefit in sharing people, really human stories of people who are, who are in it. Um, and part of the benefit is to see that they're, they're starting to see the light. They're starting the journey home. They're finding peace of the elixir they're not there yet but that then the people there's so many more people out in life every day who are in that part of the journey than who have figured things out and have come home that simply sharing stories of people who are doing okay in that space

lets everybody else know you're not alone. Yeah. And there's so much power in that. It's because it's kind of like, does the, does the listener more resonate and respond with the harder part of their hero's journey or the part of returning with the elixir? Cause a lot of times people roll their eyes and say, Oh, not another guru on marketing or not another person who's found out how to make a million dollars on their blog or something. But so my question in there was, is the, in your experience doing all these interviews, is the hero's journey a naturally occurring phenomenon or is it a convenient packaging

for a lot of these experts? Yeah, I think it's a pretty naturally occurring phenomenon. You know, the mythology, the reason our brains crave that arc in every story, every movie, every book that we read is because it's, I think like Joseph Campbell, it's kind of wired into us. And it's our own journeys. Very often we don't take them ourselves. But we kind of want to. And that's what we, we're always aspiring to that role um so and and i think the thing that people are really drawn to are the people who go out and do it um because so many of

us don't and i think i think a lot of true teachers want to take the example of if i can do this so can you here's where i started just so you know we're all humans here and um just this morning my aunt reminded me who's very into um shamans and healers and stories and all that stuff, she reminded me of the Native American belief about we start off as like the little field mouse scurrying, scurrying, and then we become the wise bear, or the bear, the slightly more dealing with things bear, and then it moves over. And then you end at the white buffalo, which is kind of the enlightenment stage.

So this is a naturally occurring thing across all different types of philosophies and teachings. I just think it's interesting that the wide arc, the diverse mix of people you've found to prove this out. Yeah, and that was very deliberate. I mean, I didn't want this to be a show about small entrepreneurs and business people. They're certainly part of the mix. But are illustrators so are you know like artists so

are social psychologists so are legendary designers musicians you know like uh i mean we we've arced from you know like guys like uh dan arieli who's you know like an award-winning uh behavioral economist to tommy belllor, who wrote the song, She's Out of My Life, from Michael Jackson. And he sang it on the episode. It almost had me crying. And it's very intentional, because I kind of want to show that across every slice of humanity,

that there's possibility. And what became apparent to me also just earlier this year was that, so I want to say it was either the end of last year or the beginning of this year, I got an email from somebody, and he was a broadcast editor. And he was like, hey, listen, I'd love to help you out if you ever need anything. And I'm like, no, no, we're good, we're good, we're covered. And a couple months later, he emails me again. He's like, hey, listen, at'd love to help you out if you ever need anything. I'm like, no, no, we're good. We're good. We're covered. And a couple months later, he emails me again. He's like, hey, listen, at the end of your conversation with Milton Glaser, Glaser asks

you, like, how do people answer that question? You know, like, what's your definition of a good life? And you said you were always surprised that there wasn't a ton of duplication in the answers. So he said, so I went and I looked at all the past episodes and edited them into a mashup and here it is and presented me this format video, which was gorgeous and almost had me and my wife in tears, like watching this. And, um, and the reason I was so emotional was because it was the first time where I actually looked back and I was like, Oh, holy crap, this, this is bigger than I ever really realized it was from the inside looking out. This is a body of work, which will matter to somebody. And maybe bigger than that, it's a body of proof.

It's a body of evidence that what so many people assume to be impossible, beyond their means, good for other people who are not them, actually is within their reach. And that was part of what I was doing was I wanted to broaden a swath of humanity so that anybody could look at this body of work and pick out a chunk of people who they saw themselves in. Right. And that was, I mean, once I started to realize that, I was like, huh, I had no idea that's really what this was about.

Yeah, and that's a beautiful piece that's on the front of the site right now, right? Yeah, we'll probably take it down fairly soon, but yeah. Yeah, so I know when you have the learning curriculum part of Good Life Project, you've created frameworks to help guide people into or through the process of creating their own good life. Um, some stuff that admittedly worked miracles on me and my journey. What, um, just cover quickly the three buckets that you identified as a result of doing all these interviews. Yeah. So it was really, again, that pattern recognition thing, like looking back over a hundred plus episodes, you know, like what are the, what are the commonalities? What are the big patterns? And can I sort of lump things into categories?

And they start to sort of turn into these three major buckets that need to be, I'll call it perpetually filled for anyone to really rise. And those buckets are vitality, connection, and contribution. What I mean by that is vitality, your ability to feel physically well, emotionally well, mindset well, like well-slept, pain-free, disease-free, and be vital and alive. You know, connection is connection with self, source, nature, others, friends, family. And contribution is really, you know, what is the work that you bring to when you invest your energy, when you wake up in the morning and you spend the better part of the day what are you contributing to the world and how and how does that matter to the world and how does it matter to you

and um yeah when you when you start to really look at that and say okay i need to constantly be filling all three of these buckets because the most full bucket will always be limited by the height of the least full bucket. It changes the way you do things. It also gives you more permission to go and if you're banging your head against the wall at work and you're flatlined in your career, very often the answer is not trying to fill that bucket any higher. It's the fact that your vitality and connection buckets aren't empty. You need to actually pull back and double down on the self-care side of things, which is so counterintuitive to most people. Right. But when you do that, the contribution bucket just unlocks and starts filling itself again.

So it's not trying to fix the broken job or career. It's trying to fix yourself and your connections with other people, and the career will fix itself. And sort of the precursor to that is a fairly intensive process of self-inquiry. Because you can't figure out what you want and how to invest your energies and all these different things unless you actually spend a little bit of time getting to know yourself. And nobody does that. Nobody teaches that beyond sort of a variety of woo-woo type experiences, which if that worked for you, that's awesome. That's just not my bent. Although increasingly as I get older, I'm more and more open to things I can't explain with any type of science. But, you know, so it's really this process of deliberate self-inquiry that's

the heartbeat of everything else. And nobody does that. Right. No, you're absolutely right. We don't learn that in school. Nobody cares to ask. You know, we have moments of tripping over self-knowledge, but acquiring quick, ruthless self-knowledge, it's pretty hardcore process of having gone through it with you. You know, uh, we wonder why people are in the thrash or in tears for a good, you know, few weeks somewhere in the program. Um, but that, that process results in, you know, so we signed up for the program thinking we want entrepreneurial greatness or whatever that looks like or fix that contribution bucket for me. But what we ultimately get out of it in so many cases is this, what you refer to as alignment. And alignment was another common thread that I saw in all the guests.

You know, alignment with there's no toggle between who they are and what they do. Their work speaks for itself because their work is them and vice versa. Sometimes, um, on a level that's painful. I mean, yeah, yeah. Because sometimes, yeah, sometimes you can really align it in a way where the world stands up and says, we're going to pay you for that. Go live a great life. And here's a ton of money. Yeah. Um, other times it takes a lot more time there's an interesting thing about this notion of alignment which is that um there's no doubt like when you align your your actions with your essence you become a bit of a beacon and people you people become drawn to you um people

who would help you build whatever you want to build people who would buy what you're selling people who would evangelize on your behalf but there's another missing piece you know because a lot of people would be like oh yeah just like you know get totally aligned and be authentic and boom like the world will rally to you well that's step one but here's where i think a lot of folks go wrong including me i banged my head against this wall and i probably will again um alignment will bring people into your orbit it'll turn you into a beacon and and you radiate it creates a gravitational force but for you to then turn that into an aligned living you need to be creating something that people value enough to pay you a sustainable living and very often what that means is that you need to invest yourself to build a level of craft that people are willing to pay for at that level.

That process may take another 10 years. And we're like so instant on these days that nobody wants to own that. So it's just like I did the work, man. I did the self-inquiry. I'm aligned. People are coming to me. So it segues into mastery. Like when do you achieve some mastery?

Yeah, but it's like somebody's buying stuff and I can't live this way. And it's because that's only half the process. You know, you've also, yeah, the craft. Now you've got to devote yourself to align to craft, to align mastery, to creating on a level that's not only aligned, but is perceived as creating so much value

that people are now willing to exchange value for that on a level that's not only aligned, but it's perceived as creating so much value that people are now willing to exchange value for that on a level that lets you live comfortably. And that takes time and nobody wants to wait. Right. Not nobody. I don't want to use extremes, but most people. Yeah. I was going to jump ahead and ask, you know, where is money in that contribution wedge of the, of the model? Because really none of your guests, all of your guests have radiated success in any of their endeavors. Milton Glaser, Susan Piver, Shambhala Buddha's teacher, on and on and on, Tommy Baylor, so many of the great ones.

But money is just not really a primary driver or topic, but it has to be part of the equation because they have families and... And it's not a... And many of them have suffered mightily along the way too um but but but they wouldn't say that you know they would tell you that they're doing work that they're here to do yeah um and because of that they're giving themselves the runway to get as good as they need to get so that um people they can actually create output that's valuable enough for people

to pay for to live the way they want to live it makes the um was it conti said um man can endure um nearly anyhow if he has an adequate why yeah um it's kind of that yeah yeah simon sink was a guest i was there for that interview too. And just here, he's really big with the start with why, but then he gets into serve those who are serving others. And largely, I look at this Body of Work for Good Life project, and I think that that's what it's become, is that it inspires and provides tools to a community of people like me,

Cynthia Morris, like other people that have been in the program that are out there trying to create the good life for their clients, you know, and helping them remove those restrictions of, because money is a necessary part to live well and give well, as you say. And I never deny that. I mean, I live in New York City. I have to support a family. Exactly.

But it also can be a restriction in that it doesn't create, it creates that hustle versus allowing the space to develop mastery. Which is why I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of years talking people out of quitting their day jobs, or if they've already quit it, talking them into staying in their day jobs. Right. Because we get this math and we're like, Oh my God, I I've've got like I kind of know I get it. Now I've done like I know myself enough to actually really get what I want to be doing. So and I can't spend another day not doing that. I need to just bang out of here now. Right.

The challenge with that is that when you're operating, when you're a little bit further into life, you have responsibilities, bills to pay, maybe people looking to you to provide a sense of security you know you you do that and you have a limited financial runway right you're like i got enough money for six months so then the quest becomes i need to get good enough at this in six months to be able to replace the living i just left behind wow good luck that's freaking evil right so maybe you can. Maybe it's the type of thing where you can. Maybe you're going to launch an online venture. Maybe you're actually doing something where you can do that. I mean, there's certainly things that I've done

where we've gone from zero to substantial amounts of revenue in a very short period of time. But the year is building up to that master. Right, exactly. I mean, it took me like 10 years to learn how to do that before we actually launched that. But the problem is when you do that, so you quit, and now you're like, now as you, in the early part of that six months, you're like,

okay, I'm going to rock out and just do all this great stuff. And then you get three months in, and you start to realize this is probably going to take a little bit longer. And then you get four months in, and every decision you start to make is based on will this put money in my bank account before my six months runs out rather than probably the much more reasonable this is a decent chance it's going to take me two to five years to get to that place um so let me actually figure out how to create the space using your words to get there so there are plenty of people that i said look go back like get a day gig again if you've left it get one

that's sort of like fairly straightforward that's okay you know that gives you enough creative bandwidth or one that allows you to gather data too right exactly um you know use it as a test you know to just build what you want to build on someone else's dime yeah and uh and then give yourself the space to actually create run the experiments to validate and invalidate the assumptions that you need. And at the same time, build your level of craft so that it's at a it's at a level where people will compensate you at a level that will replace the income that you're leaving behind. And that may take time. It also takes, I think what's implied in there that you've talked to so many guests, Satkyang Mipham, Susan Piver, certainly is compassion, self-compassion. You create the space to give yourself compassion, which leads to self-care,

which is another huge part of your work. Talk about the impact of rituals and habit and self-care on these stunning bodies of work that all your guests have created. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. There's a book that came out called Daily Rituals, which is amazing. If anybody hasn't read it, they should read it. And they analyze the daily patterns of some of the most accomplished creators from scientists

to artists to writers. Beethoven's in there. Everyone, right? And what really surprised me was a huge percentage of those people worked a fairly short number of hours per day and they spent a lot of time walking, moving their bodies,

communing with friends and family, going out in nature. These guys had so much more connection and vitality built in and practices built into their everyday lives than most people do now by a huge, huge, huge factor. And they created stunning bodies of work, working way less than your average person works now. Because it was focused, inspired, it was correct.

Right, and because they were out there living in the world and taking such good care of themselves that they had so much, such a deeper wealth to draw on. I mean, I just saw a study that came out recently that looked at sleep, showing that if you sleep less than an average of six hours a night, it's a functional equivalent of testing 0.10 on an alcohol test,

meaning which is legally intoxicated you know cognitive function creativity like productivity everything plummets relationships yet you know sleep is you know naturally dysfunctional and almost everybody in a major city in new york if not you know most people in in the united states now so but we walk away from that and uh yeah it's really interesting to sort of look at the creative lives of the most prolific, the acclaimed people from three, four generations ago, and how they actually structure their days is radically different than we do. Yeah, it's interesting because when we work with people in the program, you ask, you know,

when they're unsatisfied with a particular result they're getting in their business, usually you would expect the teacher or the subject matter expert to say, okay, what tactical things are you doing? What's working? What's not? But usually the questions in good life projects start back at what self-care are you doing or not doing? You know, are you meditating?

Are you running? Are you creating any space around yourself to do what you're here to do? Yeah. I mean, cause there is like business is you, you know, people are like, oh, business isn't personal. No, hell hell no business is personal you know you are the the single you are the entry level product for anything that you sell right you gotta own that and i think of you know people like um jada selner uh simple green, somebody who just radiates their product. Yeah, you're in a room with her.

You're like, look, I don't know what she's doing or what she's selling. Yeah. But just I want it. Yeah. I want it because she glows. Kicks the vibe. Yeah. Yeah.

That's, yeah, it's fascinating. It's because certainly in the early days of business, it's about survival and just making it through the quarter. But later on, it's about thriving and how can you do that when you're not taking care of yourself? Yeah, it's mission critical. So it's something that you have to exalt, which is utterly counterintuitive for your average person. Well, and I think there's plenty of examples right now of large companies like Zappos is certainly one company I work for called Centro. They take phenomenal care of the employees.

So thinking that the employees are more likely to take phenomenal care of the customer who takes phenomenal care of the corporation. So it's an upward spiral. But most companies aren't capable of seeing that or investing in that, which is crazy. Yeah. I mean, what's interesting is the world of positive psychology is actually now generating enough research for organizations to take notice. You know, like Barbara Fredrickson's work on positivity shows how positive state of mind is not just good for the organization because it creates what she calls a broaden and build effect, which allows you to literally see more than you would see if you weren't in that state, solve problems better and faster. So the cool thing is that research is now actually starting to shine a lot of light on the importance of state of mind and how that impacts creativity, problem solving, cognitive function, and then mood, morale,

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Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So in your small team organization for Good Life Project, where as you started, it was largely you and your wife working on it. It's like a true passion project. You've looped in other experts to support some certain things. As you were gathering your own data on what works for you to be prolific and creative. I mean, you've cranked out a ton of content in two years. I mean, on top of the books, on top of the launches, on top of the talk shop giving, I mean, there's knocking out an interview a week,

three camera shoot is no joke with editing and all that stuff. So what giving, I mean, there's knocking out an interview a week, three camera shoot is no joke with editing and all that stuff. So what was, what's, what are some of the habits that you've kind of relied on through that period? Yeah. I mean, for me, my mindfulness practice is the anchor for everything. So I wake up first thing in the morning, I roll out of bed and I just sit for about a half an hour now every morning. And it's a very simple breath-oriented practice. It's not difficult instructions at all, but that sets the tone for the whole day. And increasingly, I'm also following that by going, I'm in Manhattan where I'm two blocks from Central Park and two blocks from the Hudson River. So I'll go out and I'll either walk in the

park or walk along the water because nature is a big reset for me. And then he combined it with movement. So I start my day with mindset, meditation, um, you know, movement and nature and sunlight. And that's, that's already like a pretty good day. And very often I wake up early as I know you do. So I'll be home from that at like, you know, seven 30 in the morning, eight o'clock. It's already a win. Like the day's a win. Exactly. You know, and then I'll hang out with the, with my wife and daughter my wife and daughter you know get her off to school or camp depending on the time

of year and then you know but what i'm really trying to do now is structure the days so that um especially because i'm working on a book right now is that you know nine to about one o'clock every day is just book time completely uninterrupted you know like i'm not taking email i'm not on facebook i'm not doing all this different stuff. I'm just, it's there. And it's funny because sometimes stuff will post on those things. And people will be like, dude, get back to work. Yeah, right. Because they know my commitment.

Right. And sometimes it's automated. So it's not actually me. And then the afternoon, I'll take lunch very often with my wife. And we'll talk about both personal stuff and business stuff. She's the chief experience officer for, for the venture. And the afternoon is more for sort of like just miscellaneous business stuff, interviews, travel, things like that.

And then late afternoon kind of varies a lot more. But what I found is that early morning for me is sort of like my most, I'm best at sort of highly focused creative work. And then also very late in the evening, but it doesn't work for me. Just in terms of my role as wanting to be present as a father and a husband. So I make shifts to accommodate that

because that's the heartbeat for me. Well, there's a lot of listeners to your work that are obsessed with productivity. Like, how do I get more done? How do I fit it all in? And what you just described to me is that you make the heavy investment early in the day to take impeccable care of yourself to the best that you can based on the circumstances. But then the rest of the day kind of flows from there. And somehow the massive amounts of work get done.

It's counterintuitive. Well, because most people, I mean, are addicted to meeting makers. Yeah. and somehow the massive amounts of work get done. It's counterintuitive. Well, because most people, I mean, are addicted to... Meeting makers and... Yeah. Yeah, it's craziness. And also, you fold in digital technology and connectivity, and we are literally... I mean, there's a dopamine hit every time you put your phone in your hand.

There's actually a dopamine hit every time you look at your phone now because your brain realizes that as a potential supplier of information where you don't know what the information is going to give and your brain, you literally become addicted. You know, there, there is a strong chemical and psychological addiction to connectivity. Um, it's like when people wake up in the morning and it's, it's usually their alarm clock is an app, right? And then they grab their phone. They're like, what did I miss? It's like the first thing they do. And then they're chasing the day. They're more likely to jump into the matrix versus getting out for a walk.

Then you wake up and from the moment you open your eyes, it's reactive. Yeah. I'm sorry. That's a freaking awful way to live your life. Right. You know, it's like to open your eyes, like to start reacting. You're surrendering. To other people's demands for you or other technologies, addictive pulls on you and yield to that until you close your eyes when you go to bed at night.

Right. You know, and then like if somebody asks you, what did you do today? And you're like, I was busy as hell, man. Like, yeah, but what did you do today? Right. Meaningful. And you're like, uh, I was busy as hell. Yeah. Dr. Sarah Godfrey, I was busy as hell. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Godfrey, one of your most recent guests, she had a lot of great insights. But one of the quotes, I forgot who she got it from. She said that your inbox or your email inbox is a convenient filing system for other people's agendas. And that one was just one of those. Because, you know, how often do we want to satisfy people, jump into that? Then by the end of the day, you're exhausted, but all you did was live somebody else's script. I mean, it's... Yeah, it's pain.

I mean, that is pain personified. So I want to talk to you about some of the guests a little bit because I had to narrow down some of my questions. But a couple of the interviews that really stand out for me is, is being pinnacle, um, Milton Glaser, Eve Branson recently listened to that one yesterday on a plane, two very accomplished later in life, brilliant people who've done amazing things, but they didn't seem easy to interview at all. They seemed, uh, uh, especially Milton. Yeah. So talk to me about what it was like to interview him. Well, it was probably in part because I was a little bit, I'm usually very at ease in conversations and I thought you seemed as chill as you normally do,

but I thought that he was just kind of, he was like, Oh really? What do you, what do you think? He was kind of kept putting it back to you. Exactly. He kept challenging me with almost everything that I said. And, you know, so it's interesting because on the one hand, like I'm wearing this one hat. I'm like, but I have to appear like I've got my stuff together and it's my show. And I'm like, you know, I'm supposed to be a smart guy. And then I'm like, wait, I'm sitting across the table from Milton freaking Glazer. How can I not just shut up and learn from him?

Yeah, just like get it. Yeah, if he's asking me a question, there's a reason he's asking me the question. Either like my question is ill-formed or he wants to explore this topic in a way that I hadn't thought about it. So just shut up and listen to the question and think about what he's saying.

You know, so it was, it was really challenging because he did challenge me on a lot of what I asked him. And, um, and he inquired, you know, and he's an eternal, like, like so many, he's an eternal student. He wants to learn, you know, and he is, yeah. And so he really challenged me, but it was also incredible. I mean, that, I think I've told you this, you know, of everybody that when I've walked out of the conversation and we rap for the day and I'm sort of digesting later that evening. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, if there's one person whose life and whose like path I could step into and be like that it's probably him wow you know because just he knew what he was doing he knew what he wanted to do from the time he was five years old um that didn't know he meant he knew he wanted to be a you know an iconic graphic designer he just knew that he needed to create he was an artist you know and he would find he defied

defied his parents yeah he was yeah and there was a lot of support for him in different ways but also he's a really smart guy so he could have done anything um but he and he built this astonishing career where he constantly was just maniacally pursuing learning and challenging himself and honoring the artist in himself as the lead he He always led with that side. So he like, he built any number of business, iconic designer.

He, you know, he designed the most ripped off logo in the history of low guys. And then, you know, the I heart and why logo, um, which also he,

he was never paid for. Um, he designed that for the city of New York and, um, you know, he's designed zillions of. And, you know, he's designed zillions of other things, iconic posters, famous Dylan poster and so many other things. But he's also designed interiors of supermarkets, you know, like bottles he's designed. And then he

really affected the culture. Oh, in a massive way. And he founded New York Magazine. Oh, that, that little thing. That little thing. Right. right so he's you know he's somebody who just said you know this is an interesting thing for me to to focus on it doesn't matter if i haven't done it in fact he's one of the things that really blew me away is he he really fiercely resists um the notion of having a style um you know because and the reason is because he says you know if then people come to you because they want like something like a glazer style thing right to be done but he doesn't want to spend his

whole life repeating things within this really narrow style that's not he's here to learn and to grow and explore and he constantly wants to push the envelope of his own experience well i think that's it says a lot about him still working. At what age is he now? He's 85 or 86. Still really prolific, but that's the longer arc of a career, saying I refuse to be categorized into one particular style. I'm committing to the craft over the long term. That's really amazing.

That meant that certain clients would not work with him, or certain clients would just have to trust, look, I'm going to come up with something which is really good. It may be in the old style, but it also may be something radically different that nobody's ever seen. You came to me for a reason. It's not because I have a style. It's because I see the world in a way that nobody else sees it. And I integrate things and create output in a way that nobody else does.

So you're hiring me very much like the way that people went to Ray and Charles Eames. You're hiring the individual in the process, not necessarily the style and the product. Yeah, and how many colleagues has he had in different generations that are out spreading the knowledge? The impact that he's had. He's also been teaching for 40 years at Cooper Union. So it's just tremendously impactful. So I had a feeling that was my hunch. That was my hypothesis that Milton was probably the top of the pyramid for you.

Yeah, which is funny because he's also the one who challenged me more than anybody else. Yeah. But just looking at what he's created and the way he's lived his life and built his body of work, this just resonates so powerfully. I think it might have been his delivery and his tone, too, because he is so— Professorial. Yeah, yeah, and accomplished, because he is so, um, professorial. Yeah. Yeah. And accomplished, you know, and holds the seat of authority. But, um, but then you have like a Susan Piver who has that same wonder. Like I love when Susan's in her interview, that one

really stands out for me just in terms of the whole, like the serendipity of her life and her amazing journey. But when things come out of her mouth, whether she's on Oprah's couch or your couch or whatever, she's just genuinely surprised. Like, wow, that was really cool. You know, I live that. And I think that Milton had that same thing, but he just articulated it differently. And what's funny is they're both very steeped in Eastern philosophy. Milton spent a lot of time in ashrams when he was younger. Oh, right. Right. I forgot that part. So if there's one guest out of all of them that maybe went in with either some assumptions or maybe didn't, um, you know, fully appreciate their body of work or

didn't, you know, know enough about it that maybe influenced you over the course of the interview where you're just like, wow, not expecting to be so influenced by that person. Can you think of any of those? Interesting question. I mean, it's clearly you learned something from everybody. Yeah. I mean, I think what's funny, cause the, some of the very earliest ones that we did, and it's funny cause I look back at those now and like, oh, it was a total hack. And I still think I'm a total hack, but at least I'm a hack plus one in terms of my, my quality to generate good conversations. But there were some, some guests who I really didn't know all that well. Guys like Dan Ariely or Charles Duhigg and who, and Dan was interesting because a lot of people know Dan as a, you know, brilliant thinker, behavioral economist,

psychologist, professor at Duke, award winning, massive New York Times bestselling author. But what a lot of people don't know is his backstory, which is that when he was 17 or 18 years old in Israel, he was mixing oil for a graduation ceremony. It exploded on him, and it burned 70 or 80% of his body. He spent the next three years living in a burn ward. And his curiosity about placebos and morphine drips while being treated in the burn ward was almost kind of what

led to his curiosity about people and behavior. And, um, so visually we sat there for an hour and, you know, like he's, he's probably around my age actually. Um, but his body is covered with 80% scars. It was really interesting because I wanted to have a conversation with it, but I wasn't sure how does he feel about talking about it. What are the parameters? What's appropriate? What's not? Those are the things where it's sort of like there's this what's socially acceptable, not where it was interesting for me another time was um i was having a conversation with um totally awesome person named uh katherine preston

who uh who stutters centers right she was a very early episode i remember that the upside of stuttering and she's lovely and smart and accomplished and i don't know maybe halfway through the conversation i was really struggling as the person who was the interviewer or trying to lead the conversation because I knew that I could tell where she wanted to go. I knew the words that she wanted to say, but I didn't know whether it was appropriate for me to finish her sentences for her or whether that would just have been taken as an absolute, like that is just a horrendous thing to do to somebody who has a stutter. So I started getting in my head and I'm like, stop listening to her because I'm trying to figure out what do I do here? And then I was like, you know what? If I'm having this question in my head, I guarantee you thousands of people who are

watching and listening having the exact same question. So I just said to her, I was like, hey, listen i i need to just sort of zoom the lens out here for a second and ask you like this is what's going on my head right now as we're talking this is your life you've lived this your whole life so this is i'm sure i'm not the first person who's raised this with you how do i respond like what's appropriate what's acceptable right. So there are really interesting moments like that where you have to kind of step out and say, okay, let's just all be human. And that's a big risk in the format of traditional TV, which is like sound bites and tightly edited, polished,

everyone looks great, sounds great, that sort of stuff, to really create that space around people to really fully express and give them the time to do it. I mean, I think that that was a huge differentiator for your format. Yeah, I think so. And also the fact that what was interesting to me, and this was a big surprise with a lot of conversations, has been that the number of people who have been guests who have come back and thanked me for allowing them to just have a conversation. And it's interesting because we've gotten a number of guests.

We're in New York City. So one of the benefits is we can get a fair number of big name people. They all pass through here eventually. They pass through here. So it would not be unusual for somebody to be on a major network TV show in the morning and then a new show in late morning and then swing by us, you know, right after that. So they're coming off a series of shows where it's three to five minutes

soundbite segments, which, which is fine. Like that's the way TV operates. And the publicist hands them bulleted. Right. Exactly. So, and I've been on that side of the interview many times. Like I've been on TV where somebody is interviewing me reading from a teleprompter and they're just waiting for me to shut up so they can get to the next thing on teleprompter.

And I get that that's the format, so I don't have any beef with that. But then that same guest would come here, and like, okay, what's the deal? What do we do? And I'm like, we just talk, man. We're just going to have a really cool, laid-back, casual, unscripted conversation. Like we're two human beings who genuinely are interested. They're like, oh. And then when it would actually happen afterwards, they would be like, wow, that was really unusual.

Thank you. And then I've had a number of people who've come back and said that they use their episode. They point anyone who wants to understand who they are and what their company is really about and what they're about. What a testament to our, the conversation they had on, on good life project was really cool. Um, and these are the things I never planned for or expected. They probably tell them, grab a cup of tea.

Cause I go for 47 minutes with Jonathan Fields and we go deep. Yeah, that's cool. But it's true that humanity comes through, but it doesn't come through in those three to five minutes. It's more entertainment. It's packaged, but it gets deeper. So what are some of the episodes that, however you define success or whatever your metrics might be in terms of either views or shares or people feedback like what are some of the ones that were kind of surprise successes for you or so what's funny is that the most viewed episode on youtube right now by pretty decent margin is uh josh kaufman who wrote a book um on accelerated learning and uh and it's a fairly short episode for as far as interviews go because we were filming in Boulder, Colorado. We filmed like five or six people in one day that day. And he was running late and we had to stay on schedule. So it was absolutely insane.

It's sort of like we had like 20 minutes or something to do it. And we put it up and he kind of like blew through it. And that exploded. That's got, I don't know, like 350,000 views on that episode. Oh my gosh. Something like that. I would have guessed like Brene Brown or Marie Forleo. Brene is number two on that episode. Oh my gosh. Something like that. I would have guessed like Brene Brown, Marie Forleo. Brene is number two behind that episode.

Brene was an exceptional conversation. I had met Brene the year before. Didn't you both actually weep at some point in that episode? It was pretty emotional. It was. And we're also both, Brene and I, we just kind of aligned really quickly. We just,

we like each other. And it was, you know, we connected about a year before. We were both speaking at a similar event. And then we had lunch together. And we just, of aligned really quickly. We just, we like each other. And, and it was, you know, we connected about a year before we were both speaking at a similar event. And then we had lunch together and we just, you know, we just really connected. So both rush fans,

we are. So we have that to bond over, but, um, she's so real and she's so smart. She's so funny. She laughs right up into the, to the point that she gets you crying or like,

or anybody crying. That's how she speaks. That's how she delivers. It's so authentic. And the thing that moved her where she kind of had to stop and collect herself towards the very end was when they asked her,

was it mean to live a good life to you? And she started to kind of look up and off and started to well up. And she was like, it's the little things, man. It's those small moments that we steamroll over in the name of seeking those big moments.

And she started talking about picking up my kid at soccer. It's this. And she started thinking about her kids. And that was the moment where she started to well up. And then when I see her do that, I'm like, keep talking because I can't talk right now. Everybody across the interwebs at the same time. But it's, I mean, the beautiful, it's real, you know, and that's, um, that's the power of it.

I think in the end, when you look at the legacy of the project so far, and I know it's going to continually evolve, we'll talk about that in a second, but, um, that has to be like one of the primary metrics is how real was this? No. And I think, um, yeah, it's definitely a primary metric, um, is how, how real it is, but also, um, how I, I've done a lot of things. Um, I've created a lot of media and a lot of experiences and a number of businesses. And, um, I have never gotten the volume of emails, tweets, private messages

in response to what we're doing with this, doing anything else in my life. And people writing big, personal things about how one particular conversation matters or the whole project. What I found out also is that people who are new to the tribe tend to binge watch or listen to a massive amount of episodes. They'll listen to one, they're just like, okay, let me download the last 50 and just boom. They'll spend two weeks just doing nothing else.

And then there's something that will sometimes crack open in them just because of the... It's like Phil Spector's wall of sound, you know, the, it's like, it's like, you know, Phil Spector's wall of sound. It's like the wall of humanity. You're like, at some point you can't just hold steady in the face of that. You've got to surrender to a certain level of vulnerability and openness. That's great. So I have to ask about the elephant in the room, but what's with these boom mics and headphones this seems so this is definitely a different format than how you normally did when you said i was going to interview i was thinking like plush yoga studio comfy couches some

refreshments different vibe what's going on so um so i i thought it was appropriate to uh to film this in a way where visually it becomes a segue into the future of the Media for Good Life project. And so we've been filming the video show for over two years now, two and a half years. An amazing experience, incredible conversations. And about a year, a little over a year ago, we launched the podcast,

The Version GLP Radio. Which out of the gate did great. Yeah, gangbusters. And a couple things started to happen from that. One is that that started growing really rapidly and people responding to audio. And then we started to learn actually that a lot of people who watch the video actually don't watch the video because it's longer format. So they listen to it in the background. And then I started to do something, which was we haven't released any of them. Maybe we released one or two,

but I've started to record audio-only episodes. And so we're at my dining room table right now. So the beautiful thing is that when we shoot video, because it's high production value, we have to film four or five episodes a day. Because that's what we have to do to cover our costs. We'll consider that and then post-production and all this other stuff.

And that was great because it let us do something extraordinary. But at the same time, there's an interesting dynamic that would happen when you shoot that way, which is that you have the conversation with the guest and there's a whole bunch of stuff that's being said, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that's not being said. And there, there are two reasons for that.

One is because there are cameras there and people are sensitive to sort of like the whole visual aspect of what's going on. And two is because there are things that people just don't want to say on the record. But they want to have the conversation. They really want to talk to you more. Because they're passionate about what you guys are talking about. So what would happen is then in the early days where we weren't stacking quite as intensely, we'd do like two in a day, we'd wrap.

And then like I'd talk to the person for another 45 minutes, an hour, and that amazing conversation would unfold, right? Because the cameras were off and the record button was off. It's like wow, this is so cool and I enjoyed it and that's where I started to develop relationships with the people that I was interviewing too. And then as we really ramped up production, we lost that and a lot of times the next person was waiting in the wings

and so we would rap, the other person would want to go deeper. I would want to go deeper. But we couldn't. It was kind of like next. And that's what we have to do to actually sustain the show on that level. And I'm not in any way angry or upset or jaded about it. It's amazing. The ability to do what we're doing is just awesome.

But I was starting to miss something. And it was that next level of conversation. Simultaneously, I started to just have conversations where it was pure audio and I noticed something. I noticed that when you remove the cameras, A, we don't have to stack up people and do it that way. I can have those conversations after, but there's something else that happened, which is that when it's just me and you and two, you know, like radio style microphones and a set of headphones where, you know, we can both hear each other in our ears, the conversation gets really intimate, really fast. And all those things that very often people

would hold back, they start to flow into the conversation much more organically. They don't get bottled up. When you're talking to a friend in the comfort of your own home, one-to-one versus this uptightness of one-to-many. Yeah. And it's like, you know, come on over. We'll grab a cup of coffee and we'll hang out in my living room and we'll chat. So I became really fascinated with the intersection of the growth of the audio side of the media, the way that we're producing, and the way that we could storytell on a very different level and become much more intimate and have much really, really powerful conversations by really focusing on building out a higher quality patio, podcast experience. And so I kind of made the decision not too long ago that I also feel like I've kind of done

what I came here to do with video. That, you know, I wanted to tell amazing stories, I wanted to create a body of work, and I wanted to show that anybody with a will could produce a really powerful body of work at a very high level of production. I feel like we've done that. How many episodes total?

There's over 110. I don't even know. It's probably around 120, something like that, by the time we actually aired this. And we've got now, closing in on 20 audio-only episodes that we've now recorded but haven't been aired yet. And we've been saving those because my goal now was to move into the second stage,

the second wave of the project on the media side. So we started out by really trying to do some powerful things with video. And what I've learned is that we can do even more powerful things with audio, which was counterintuitive to me at first and in fact it took somebody who was a former award-winning public radio producer to to really help me get this because I told her early on she's like well

you know you know what do you what are your designs on audio and I said well reach she's like I said what am I missing? She's like intimacy. She's like radio is a much more intimate medium than video. She said, but you won't get that intimacy by doing what you're doing, which is stripping the audio from the video. Right. And just airing it. You have to lead with audio. She said, you have to create for radio and you have to produce for radio. And that's where we're about to move.

So the reason we're hanging out here, we've got cans on and broadcast microphones and recording, is that the web show side of the project on the media is about to go on hiatus. And we're going to really move 100% of the energy into producing radio podcast side and telling stories on a much more powerful, more intimate, more story-driven level.

And again, try and do what we did in audio with video would raise the production value so that we get really high quality, really exceptionally produced experiences with this. So this conversation, visually, the reason I'm being interviewed and the reason we're sitting here with what's normally sort of my home radio recording studio is because this is the inflection point where we wrap the first phase, which is the web series, but the conversations continue on an even more powerful more intimate more story driven and deeper way as we move and turn all of the the media production energy to producing for audio

in a way that i'm so excited to do and i think a lot of people are going to really enjoy wow so we've covered you're writing a book right now. You're moving heavily into audio production, kind of like a new, at a new level. And the current plan is to continue the immersion trainings and the education side of the Good Life Project. If you had to prioritize those in terms of which ones light you up, I mean, mean is it do you refuse to choose or do you no it's actually pretty clear to me um the uh radio well there's there's one thing you haven't mentioned which actually really lights me up which is um i'm also i'm an artist so what maybe branding and right so some people don't know but some people actually do know is i i get emailed all the time asking who does all of our design and our branding and our webs and all this stuff. Can I hire the designer? I'm like, not really because it's me.

And I love doing that. So a chunk of my energy is going to actually go back into actually embracing that and rather than kind of pushing it to the side and spending a lot more time building and designing and crafting language and crafting and producing media that's sort of next level stuff. And at the same time, you know, continuing to work with you and our amazing team to build really powerful educational experiences. And we're certainly going to expand that offering in 2015 too.

If I had the budget to hire you to paint the back of my jean jacket, what would it run? Just like ballpark. For me. Right, I haven't painted in so long that you wouldn't actually want me to do anything.

It's kind of funny because I'm thinking Journey Escape, like the escape pod. Yeah, that's pretty good too. I mean, as we're hanging out here, I've recommitted to just embracing the maker side

in everything that I do. We made this table. This table, I put up a long blog post about it. It's literally a trial to concrete table that I made with my hands. I think what people beat their heads against the wall with over you is, again, where does he find the time to create this whole thing? Because even moving in New York City is its own major project.

But you did that in the middle of multiple launches, preparing for all the WDS stuff. it was a little bit of madness this production schedule that's relentless and you're i call you and you're building a table i'm like what yeah it's amazing yeah i mean and it's but it's it's making sure that i stay connected with that maker side the artist side that's what allows everything else to happen and i know that when i'm seizing up on like, you know, the other work side, whether it's curriculum design or branding, whatever it may be, or, you know, launch development, it's because I haven't, I've stopped living and I've stopped making and I'm just, I'm just working. I'm living in the contribution bucket full time and I'm not even living in the parts

of the contribution bucket that light me up. So I have to do stuff like this to be able to do my best work across everything I do. And it's, um, and it's another theme that came up all over the interviews. Jerry Kalana talked about the integrated life, Mitch Joel with the work-life blend that you're figuring out a way to probably connect with your family, build something of value for your home that clearly benefits your business too. I mean, that's like an integration point, right? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, also as, you know, we're both dads, it's, I want to set an example and show that, you know, you can do stuff like this and you should do stuff like this.

And work really hard to figure out what lights you up. And once you do, find a way to integrate it into what you do. As well as the people who you're around, find those people. Bring them into your orbit no matter what it takes and find ways to build something together. Well, it's certainly been a total honor to hang with you and just learn and appreciate all that you've built. It's truly an impressive body of work.

The name of the project is Good Life Project. When I offer up the term to you, what comes to mind? What does it mean to you to live a good life? The big question thrown back at me for years and years of exploration. Got to know. You know, for me, I have this whole framework that I've developed, but I can streamline it. And for a lot of years, I was this whole framework that I've developed, but I can streamline it. And for a lot of years, I was pretty goal-oriented.

And there's this whole storyline that says you've got to know exactly where you're going or else you don't know what to do, and you're never going to get there if you don't know where there is. And increasingly, I think you should have some sense of where you're going, what the qualities of that place are, but you should be really open to serendipity. And increasingly also, because I think about legacy a lot. I'm in my late 40s and I think about what's this all about? And increasingly, I think less about legacy as what is the thing i'm going to leave behind and more about how how am i living every day like how can i construct a day every day in

a way where if i live that day today and then the next day and the next day and the next day all the big picture stuff is going to do exactly what it needs to do. You know, so if I wake up in the morning and I engage in activities that light me up with people who light me up in the name of people deeply connected to serving, that's a good day. And if I do that today and then tomorrow and then the next day and the next month and the next year that's a good life

well it seems to be what you're doing you know I think about all those creators in that book Rituals you know and it's pretty much how they stacked it

you know yeah so wow where do we go from here? Well, I guess inviting everybody to number one, just a massive amount of gratitude. You know, thank you for sitting in today in the role of the interviewer. Um, it's really my honor. Um, and, uh, and, and just gratitude to everybody who's been part of this massive, I mean, we have viewers and listeners in over 150 countries right now. I mean, it's been tremendous.

And the amazing thing is that while the video is moving into hiatus, what we're about to do with audio and the level of storytelling and production guests we'll be bringing in, it's just going to keep getting better and better. So really just inviting everybody to continue on with us. You know, if you're, if you're watching this, then come on over to iTunes and check it out, you know, subscribe or SoundCloud, whatever it is that you prefer to listen to your audio. Um, if you're still watching, you'd still just prefer to be on YouTube. We'll probably continue actually posting just the audio with like a thumbnail on YouTube, at least for a while.

And really just looking forward to, you know, the name of this is Good Life Project. And the word project is deliberate. And, you know, Seth Godin is a friend of mine. And he launched something called Domino Project a couple years back around publishing. And it was there for a year and then it wrapped after a year and people were like, what happened? He was like, it's a project.

It's in the name. Which means that you're running experiments and you're evolving. And the beauty of this is that now we get to move into the next stage of the project and we get to run some new experiments and we get to serve on a different level. And I'm just super excited to be able to do that.

It's great. So this has been a candid conversation with Jonathan Fields, creator of Good Life Project. My name is Christopher Carter, and thanks for joining us. Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

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