Good Life Project - Light Watkins | Knowing Where to Look

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

Growing up in Alabama in a family of six, Light Watkins never imagined he’d find himself in his mid-forties, some 15 years into a career as a meditation teacher having led workshops and trained thousands around the world, giving up nearly all his worldly possessions to live out of a backpack and be nomadic for the last three years. Based out of Mexico City for the moment, this last year and a half created the space to reflect on his life of teaching, travel, connection and impact. And, stories and insights began to emerge that needed to be written down and shared. Ones about being a young Black kid growing up in the south, living in New York, saying yes to a gig in advertising that would become his one and only traditional job, walking into a meditation workshop with hesitance and walking out knowing it’d be his life’s work, immersing himself in study in India, starting a sober social-movement called The Shine, and reflecting on meaning, friendship, love, serendipity, surrender, and, of course, meditation and, more broadly, the role of stillness and reflection in our lives. He’s distilled these stories and awakenings into a beautiful new book, Knowing Where to Look (https://amzn.to/3wrsBC9). We dive into all of it in today’s inspiring conversation.You can find Light at:Website : https://www.lightwatkins.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/lightwatkins/At The End of the Tunnel : https://pod.link/1515614913If you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Tara Brach about a life of awareness and awakening from trance : https://tinyurl.com/GLPTaraCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book Sparked | My New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So growing up in Alabama in a family of six, Light Watkins never imagined he'd find himself in his mid-40s some 15 years into a career as a meditation teacher, having led workshops and trained thousands around the world, giving up nearly all of his worldly possessions to live out of a backpack and be nomadic for the last three years. Basing out of Mexico City for the moment, this last year and a half, it created the space to really reflect on his life of teaching, travel, connection, serendipity, and impact. And the stories and insights that began to emerge needed to be written down and shared. Stories about being a young black kid growing up in the South, living in New York, saying yes to a gig advertising that would become his one and

only traditional job, walking into a meditation workshop with a lot of hesitance, walking out, sensing it would be his life's work, immersing himself in India, starting a sober social movement called The Shine, and reflecting on meaning, friendship, love, serendipity, surrender, and of course, meditation, and more broadly, the role of stillness and reflection in our lives. He has distilled these stories and awakenings into a beautiful new book, Knowing Where to Look, and we dive into all of it in today's inspiring conversation. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is A Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Apple Watch Series X 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 are later required. Charge time and actual results black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Man, what a year to, did you have the idea to start at the end of the tunnel before this last year? Yeah, you know how it is. I've been dragging my feet for probably a year and a half. So it was actually perfect. The pandemic was perfect for me starting my podcast

and finishing my book and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I mean, actually, I mean, talk about timing there. Like to literally start a podcast called At the End of the Tunnel, when we're sort of like the entire world is entering this new tunnel that is utterly dark and we have no idea what's next. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was doing this show called The Shine entering this new tunnel that is utterly dark and we have no idea what's next. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I was doing this show called The Shine for five years, which is kind of the same concept. I've always just been fascinated by the backstory of people who do things for social good, people who start movements and stuff. And because, you know, it's not something that I feel like is really supported in our society. I mean, it's something that's seen as a side project, but not really a main thing. And so people who dedicate their lives to doing it is really fascinating to me. And I'm also really a big fan of Guy Raz's How I Built This. And hearing those, the backstory of the entrepreneur building their

company. And I thought, let's combine those two and talk about the backstory so that other people can see that, yeah, it's no matter who you are, people just are out there doing the most they can with what they have. And it's uncanny when you hear story after story after story of the same thing where people don't know how it's going to turn out, but they take a leap of faith anyway, and nobody supports them in the beginning. And then, you know, it all comes, uh, it all comes around at the end and turns into this beautiful thing. So I love sharing those stories. I love that too. And one of the things I think is really curious and kind of fascinating about the stories

that you end up telling too, and the guests you have is that, you know, these are people where some people might listen, zoom the lens out and kind of think to themselves, okay, if you're going to go through this, like you could do the same thing, but in the context of tech or traditional startups or some other business where the potential quote payoff, you know, if you actually are going to survive so much challenge, so much diversity, so much struggle is in theory so much greater. And yet these, they're making these intentional choices to say, yes. And this is about something that is so much beyond my ability to exit.

Yeah, it's like a calling. And once you get caught up in the grips of a calling, you have to take action on it. I guess you don't have to, but life tends to be very challenging for people who don't, who reject their calling. So I want as many people as possible to be inspired to embrace their own calling. And, you know all the kind of money-making things that everyone is being tempted to do and it's funny because we keep running that experiment because at the other end of that you don't feel happier usually you know like there's some satisfaction from achieving a goal but then it's like what David Brooks talks about in the New York Times with his book. I think it's called The Second Mountain or something. So you get up to the top of the mountain and all you do is you see that there are other mountains that you want to achieve.

And this one was nice for five minutes, but now it's time to go to another one. And so the question really comes back to where's fulfillment. And the hypothesis that i'm operating under is that fulfillment is inside when you follow your calling when you when you do that then you you become more fulfilled than you would from it doesn't have to be either or either i'm going to make money or follow my calling a lot of times that leads to paid speaking gigs books and all of that you know so yeah it's like which it's more the you know, of, of the more deeply meaning driven, um, pursuit. It's interesting. You brought up that, that books, the second mountain I, and you and I see the world. So similarly, we've talked about this in the past. I learned that sort of like similar concept rock climbing decades ago.

We were on this climb in South Platte, Colorado. This is 30 years ago called, it's funny that I remember this because I don't remember a lot. It was called topographic oceans. And it was a series of domes that you kept climbing, but you didn't realize that there was a new one to climb until you sort of like rounded the top of the one you're on. You're like, oh, like really? Like seriously? Like I'm not there yet. And I agree with you. I think when the ultimate goal is money, status, power, prestige. Yeah. It's just, there is false peak after false peak after false peak. Yeah. And, um, you know, it's, I think with life experience, you may get there,

but I think there are ways to get there a lot faster if you are surrounded by the right kinds of people or have access to the right kinds of reminders, maybe through books or podcasts like this or stories. And so that was kind of one of the inspirations of this book, Knowing Where to Look, which is all about, it's basically 108 different ways of saying fulfillment is inside. Yeah, no, I love that. You know, it's funny. I think last time we were in conversation on the podcast actually was probably right around, I'm trying to remember,

I think it was right around the time where you basically said, I'm gonna pull the pin on my current life, turn everything upside down and completely, literally almost give everything away. It was almost like you were sort of making that like the classic yogi's decision of becoming an ascetic. Well, I don't... That's a lot intense way of describing. I'm definitely not an ascetic, but I don't own a lot of things.

I'm living out of a backpack. And you're right. It was right when my last book was published, which was in 2018. And I went nomadic in May of 2018 at 45 years old. So I'm going on my third year of this, this month. And so all that means is I'm still doing almost everything I was doing before, except I've added the podcast to the mix. And obviously with the pandemic, I'm not traveling as much, so I'm kind of stationary in this Airbnb down here in Mexico City instead of hopping from LA to New York to London to Atlanta and all these other places where I was doing these meditation trainings, but I'm still just living out of a

capsule wardrobe from my... The thing that has changed is i used to have a carry-on bag and a backpack but now i've merged it all into a backpack i became a what they call a one bagger and um because i felt like i had to downsize i had too much stuff and the carry-on and the and the backpack was too much so you was too much. Just the backpack. Yeah. Got it. Meanwhile, all of my life's possessions fit into those bags. And I gave away or sold everything else. The plan was not to have any storage because I know storage rooms are a trap if you're trying to minimize. And so I wanted to force myself. And this is where the aesthetic part comes in, I wanted to force myself very uncomfortably to let go of what served me very well for many, many years and decades and kind of

open myself to what would come from just not owning anything of sentimental value. So I literally, nothing that I have really is of sentimental value. And three years in, when I go back through my possessions, because a lot of things have been replaced over those years, I only have one thing, maybe two things that have made the whole, the cut. One is a pashmina that I purchased in India several years ago, maybe five or six years ago, which is a really beautiful, it's my meditation sort of scarf. And while it, you know, it's seen a lot of action meditation wise, I'm not overly sentimental about it. Like for instance, if I were to lose it for some reason, I wouldn't lose any sleep. I'd just get another one,

you know? But it's nice that I still have that one. Because with pashminas, which are made of goat hair, I believe, you don't really wash them. You like hand wash them. So it's the way you care for them is very meticulous. So I have those and I have some sandals that I had at the very beginning, some Earthrunner sandals, not because of any special reason. It's just they're so, they don't take up very much space and you need some sort of sandal situation at some point. So I just keep the, I've kept those, but everything else has pretty much been changed out or upgraded or gotten rid of over those three years. Yeah.

I mean, were you surprised? I know this is not your first sojourn into nomadism. You've done it a couple of times, sort of like at these turning points in your life. But this time, you're 45 when you do this. Were you at all surprised by how quickly you got comfortable living? Well, yeah, that's the big difference is being the age I am because, you know, guys my age aren't usually doing things like this. They're usually, I have friends who are grandparents.

I have friends who are grown children, you know, who've been out of college, who've met or married. And so usually they're looking to move more into, you know, the last stages of their career before retirement and all of these things, or, you know, they become the matriarch or patriarch of their families. Meanwhile, I'm over here living out of a backpack in Mexico City, not quite sure what's going to happen after next month. So on paper, yeah, it sounds a little bit, maybe even irresponsible. I have gotten better about saving money and investing money over the last couple of years, but that was never really my focus. It's just that I was able to fortunately do well financially over the last few years. And I don't spend a lot of money. I don't buy anything. I don't have a car.

So I'm not looking to, I don't have a car note or insurance or anything like that. I don't have a card note or, you know, insurance or anything like that. I don't buy a lot of clothes because if I buy anything, it's got to fit into the bag. And people always give me like little trinkets and things saying, oh, it's just a little small thing. And I have to remind them, I literally have no extra space in my bag for anything. I mean, you can imagine after all these years, people give you little things and I have my own little things. And if you just imagine fitting your whole life, like literally everything, you're a podcaster.

Okay, so all your podcast equipment, you like to work out. Okay, so all of your workout gear, you like to meditate. Okay, my meditation puja kit is one-sixth of my bag, right? That's probably my biggest extravagance. I've got little bowls and incense and little powders and stuff that I use when I'm teaching people meditation. So that takes up a significant part of the bag. But then everything else has to fit around that. And I've got my microphone and all the things. So

there's no room. There's no room at all for anything else. And I like that because it gives me a freedom of choicelessness. When I'm out with a friend and they're shopping, I have no desire to buy anything because there's nowhere to put it. So, you know, I can, what it does really is it makes you more present to whatever you're experiencing. That's what I found. And that's what I enjoy about the lifestyle is that, yeah, you gave away sentimental things, but there are more sentimental things happening all around you all the time if you're present enough to it. Whereas before, I'd be out in Portugal or somewhere, and I'd be thinking, oh, I gotta move my car next week. I gotta get somebody to come and water my plants.

And you're basically spending a lot of time and headspace maintaining the storage room with the bed inside of it, which is our apartments and houses. Yeah, I love that phrase that you just used, the freedom of choicelessness. I think at first it feels so counterintuitive. And then when you just sit with it for a heartbeat, you're like, oh no, that sounds pretty awesome. When you think about our general approach to life, we so often work so hard and we work to accumulate so much because we feel like accumulation is a proxy for security and freedom.

Well, if we get enough, we'll feel secure enough that we'll feel free, like quote, financially free, free in our lives, free in our choices. But in fact, we're doing all of that when you really think about it, just to give ourselves the scaffolding and the structure and the layers and layers and layers of stuff to simply feel the way that you already feel when you wake up every day living out of a backpack in an Airbnb. Yeah. And look, it's not for everybody. I admit, I don't have kids.

I'm not married. So if I was in that situation, I probably would not be doing what I'm doing. And at the same time, just to be completely transparent, that was one of the reasons why I did what I was doing because I wanted to have kids and be in a long-term partnership. And I was kind of rooting in Santa Monica. I had my two-bedroom apartment and my stability, my stable job, books, and doing all the things to look successful. And I still wasn't attracting that into my life for whatever

reason. And so I figured, well, maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on that. And this is really something that I feel called to try. So let me be more of myself and follow this internal urge to do this thing. Maybe this is the last chance I'll have to do it in my life. I don't know. But it's not a forever thing is my point. It's just something that occurred to me. And like I talk about in my writing, whenever we have that feeling and it comes from the heart and it feels scary and exciting at the same time, that's the sort of voice of inspiration. And instead of doing the X job on it and taking it apart and coming up with a list of a thousand reasons why it's not going to work.

I need to walk my talk and just go with it. So it was partially that of just following this internal messaging to take that leap. And even when it wasn't necessarily convenient to do so, but it just felt like the right thing to do at the time, even though I wanted to have a family, right? That's not the thing you do. It doesn't send the message to a potential mate that, yeah, this guy is, you know, he's ready for a long-term commitment and you're living out of a backpack on the road constantly and all of that. But, you know, again, that's what I've been talking about all these years. So I have to walk my own talk. So part of it was just that experimentation, but I love it. I really love it. Yeah. And I know you also, you actually write about in your new book that even though your friends have known you for, you know, some of

them for a long time, not everyone was like, oh yeah, I get what, what you're doing. Like go for it. Like I completely support you this doing. Go for it. I completely support you. And I think it's not uncommon. A lot of times when we make these unconventional, unconforming decisions to live differently, not necessarily for life, but at least run this fairly big experiment, the people around us question our sanity to a certain extent. And not necessarily because they're looking to take you down, but sometimes out of genuine concern. Yeah, 100%.

And I'd also like to remind people that that nomadic endeavor, it didn't happen overnight, right? Because it is extreme. I admit it. It's an extreme way to live in comparison to how our conventional society is organized. But if you start small by taking little leaps of faith. And one example I use from time to time is when you're in the elevator. We've all had this experience. You're in the elevator and maybe you're in there with two or three other people. And what do most people do in the elevator? They look up at the numbers or they look down at the floor, right? You rarely acknowledge or engage with other people in an elevator. And so while staring down at the floor, you may notice something

about the other person in the elevator with you. Maybe they have really nice shoes or, you know, the really nice purse or something. And you may think to yourself, gosh, that's so nice. I really love that choice that they made to, you know, wear what they're wearing or it's love the smell of their cologne or perfume or whatever. And then something kind of stops us from expressing that. And that something could be, oh, I don't want to sound weird or I don't want to scare them or I don't want to, you know, just start talking ourselves out of this for various social conditioned reasons, right? Maybe it's self-imposed racism, maybe it's self-imposed ageism or I don't want to come off creepy or whatever. Instead of just innocently saying, oh, those are really nice shoes, you know? No attachment to getting a response even.

Just, and that's what I mean by a small leap of faith. If something inside of you says to express something kind to someone else or to do something kind for someone else, and you talk yourself out of it, then you're reinforcing the social conditioning that it's weird and strange and all of that. But what if you made that your new norm and whenever you had the inclination, I mean, sure, it's not always going to land right, but that's why you need reps. Once you get enough repetition going, you won't really be concerned about it. And then your lack of concern will make it more genuine. And because it's more genuine, it will be received a lot more genuinely. So yeah, if you feel weird about it, it's probably going to sound a little weird and you're going to look a little weird, but that's how it starts. And then, you know, after doing that a thousand times, then the idea to do something bigger, like go nomadic will occur to you or your version of that. Your version of that could be quitting your job that you don't feel fulfilled in or leaving your relationship or relating to your partner

differently and having those conversations. And it won't seem weird to you anymore. It'll be weird to your friends. And you know that because when you announce what you're going to do, they're going to say, you're going too far now. I used to see that as a sign that maybe I should rethink what my plan was, but now I see it as a sign that I'm actually doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. If it doesn't elicit a response like that, you're going too far now. You've lost your mind. You're nuts. And as well-intentioned as it can be from your friends, you know you're not really living as close to your edge as you should be in order to keep the heart enlivened and to keep operating as close to your purpose as you can. And so I think everybody has that potential, but we just need more examples of people doing it. And why not me and you?

Why not people listening to this? Like we should all be doing it to some extent. Yeah, I love that. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X 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 8 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 required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

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Flight risk. You know, it's interesting also, like you said, you got to get your reps in sort of slowly lead up to decisions and actions like this. One of the reps for you, it feels like, is not just trying all these little things like micro moments and micro behaviors, but it's your practice. You know, like you, you're somebody who has a decades long practice in meditation. And I feel like oftentimes that doesn't get the credit in like the decision for you to say, I'm going to basically sell or give everything away the age of 45 and be nomadic

for a chunk of time. You know, like the sense of equanimity that you feel with that is a huge part of that decision. Like you make that decision on the back of a decades-long meditation practice that informs how you know yourself to be, how well you know yourself. And you're like an inner voice that says, I'm going to be, how well you know yourself. And you're like an inner voice that says, I'm going to be okay. Yes. And that's the other point that I like to make as well is that, you know, without my practice, I don't know if I would be able to do the things that I do as often as I do them. And so we can't discount the effects that sitting down and closing your eyes for 20, 30 minutes twice a day can have on your ability to say yes to those kinds of

hunches. Because what it does is it creates space, right? Because I'm like everybody else. I'm nervous. I feel uncertain. I don't know how things are going to turn out like everybody else. And I want to do the safe thing like everybody else. But there's something about the quality of that space that gets created through a daily consistent meditation practice. And I like to make that distinction because I think it's really important to be consistent in order to get those benefits of that spaciousness between the opportunity and the action. Because if you don't have that space, then the tendency is the knee-jerk reaction. Oh, that's crazy. I can't do that. I don't have time.

Because that's the voice that we've been listening to for so long, the voice of social conditioning, the voice of our fears, our amygdala, the fight-flight voice. That voice is really the loudest in our minds because we've given it so much priority over the years and we're taught to in a large way. You can look at Netflix as archival database of movies, or you can look at it as cautionary tales of why you shouldn't put yourself out there in those ways. And so we naturally think back to stories we've been told, movies we've seen about how these situations did not go well, but then someone else may bring up the point, well, actually it paid off. It just, there was a lot of drama in the middle. And then we use the excuse, well, that was just a movie. It's not real life. And So that spaciousness can break all that down, the spaciousness from the meditation practice, and give us a clearer perspective. Like instead of having to get to the top of the mountain, we can have that same perspective while and whether or not this is aligned with my ultimate

purpose for this moment. And if it's not, then we can change course a lot easier, even though we're halfway up the mountain, right? A lot of people may think, well, I'm halfway up the mountain, I may as well go all the way up. But if you've already intuited that this is not your mountain, what you've done there is you've gained mountain climbing skills, which is going to help you on your mountain. So continuing up the other mountain is not really going to be as useful for you. Obviously, you could still do it. And I think that's what a lot of people are experiencing now in relationships, in jobs that are soul-sucking, is they're continuing up the mountain that they've already identified

as this is not my mountain because they don't have the spaciousness to be able to turn around. And that takes confidence. It takes inner security because people are going to make fun of you. People are going to shame you. I can't believe you're giving up such a wonderful paycheck or there's nothing wrong with your partner. I can't believe. And at the end of the day, you can fool everybody, but you can't fool your body. Your body always knows, your body always tells you all day long, even at night when you're not sleeping, because your body won't let you sleep if you're not going up your mountain. So at some point you have to turn. And I talk about in the book how meditation, people think, especially men, think meditation makes you gullible, like it's some kind of sissy activity. I'm not doing that. Real men don't meditate. Or type A personalities, you know, I don't have time to meditate.

And what I say is meditation actually makes you bold. It's the opposite of meditation that makes you gullible. Stress makes you gullible. Stress makes you think that you can white knuckle your way into a fulfillment. Stress makes you think the reason you're not sleeping well at night is because you don't have the right mattress and all, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And meditation makes it really hard to put up with somebody else's BS. It makes it really challenging to be with a narcissist for any extended period of time, because you don't mind being on your own if you meditate. It makes it real challenging to stay in a dead-end job because you don't mind the uncertainty that comes with being in between employment. And so actually, if you have a

consistent, dedicated practice, you'll find yourself doing these kinds of things more often than not. And again, it's not everything's going to be peaches and cream and roses and perfection, but you are able to assess your situation for what it is. And you can consciously decide, okay, well, I don't mind having a little bit of drama in my life. So I'm going to keep going up this mountain because I know it's going to be really interesting. And I'll have some great stories to tell versus feeling like I have no choice but to keep going up the mountain. That's a very big difference in the quality of your experiences and the way that you can engage with them. also, you know, the, um, a decade into my practice and it's, it's changed me in ways that snuck up on me. You know, it's, it's the, the less reactivity, it's the being more intentional, but it's also like you said, it's the, it's the seeing more of what's in front of me, um,

understanding that there's risk, that there's uncertainty and maybe it's not quantifiable. And then somehow still feeling okay, stepping into that space. Even though I know I don't know how this is gonna end and I may be judged for doing it. And that effect is this, it's not this thing where you flip a switch and you're there. It's like, no, like over time, there's this slow, slow adaptation that tends to happen. And you don't really realize it. It sneaks up on you. And then you realize, oh, I'm actually,

I noticed myself being different in the world, in my relationships, in my relationships with possibility and with uncertainty in a really similar way to what you describe. You know, what's interesting to me also is that you've had meditation has been a central practice in your life for a long time. So is writing, you know, to the extent that for the last, I guess it's five years or so writing daily, like literally sending daily emails to your community of just whatever is on your mind, which actually becomes the genesis for this most recent book. But I'm curious about that practice for you to be able to say every single day, no matter how I feel, no matter how dog tired, frustrated, angry, upset I am, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write to my community and I'm not going to put my head on a pillow until I have checked that box. Yeah, man. I was definitely nervous

when I first had the idea to do it. And again, it was one of those things where I had the idea and I was dragging my feet for months, probably even a year. I'm a huge fan of Seth Godin, and I know you've interviewed Seth before. I was reading his – I still am reading his daily emails, and I always just kind of fantasized about what that would be like. And having been a teacher for as long – I've been a teacher for 15 years, actually longer, I know and appreciate systems and process. And I know how everything iterates with practice and repetition. And I knew that that would happen with this writing. But at the same time, there's a time cost to that, right? You have to put the time in. And having written one book already at that time, I was actually starting to write my

next book. And I was flirting with the idea of getting a ghostwriter because I wasn't very confident in my ability to write a full 60,000-word book on my own. But my agent, my book agent, talked me into writing the book for myself. And so it was kind of a way of going to writing school for myself, like going to writing gym is what better way than having to write every day? There's a hard deadline every 24 hours.

It would be public, which means that you will find out right away if the way you organize your thoughts is inspiring people or is offending people and all of that. So again, it was one of those things that was both exciting to me, thinking about all the possibilities, how I could grow and stretch and become a better writer and influence and inspire people and motivate people. And it was scary as hell because I could just envision myself waking up late and being on a different time zone and not having enough time and being sick and all those things. And so it checked all the boxes for that sort of leap of faith, heart-driven leap of faith that I talk a lot about now, that I knew it wasn't going to go away because in all the experiences

that I had before that with other leaps of faith, we talked about my whole name thing in our last podcast interview. And that was in the same category, something that was scary, but also kind of exciting. So I knew I had to take it seriously. And I just decided to start because once the book contract gets signed, you have to get busy with writing. I know that feeling. Yeah. And I just wanted to get in the gym as much as possible and build my writing strength. So I started and my biggest fear in the beginning, which was running out of stories to tell after a few weeks, it happened. After three or four weeks, I literally sat down and had nothing

to say. I felt like I said everything there was to say about anything that I was familiar with. But something really interesting happened. After staring at the computer screen for a couple of hours, late at night, it's probably past midnight at this point, this idea just comes through me. And I just started almost dictating it. And that became the next day's daily dose of inspiration email. And I started having that experience often. Every now and again, I'd have a conversation with someone and they would say something enlightening and I would make that the subject of the next email. But probably four out of seven times each week, I would just sit down with no idea of what was going to come

out and have this exchange with what Steven Pressfield and Elizabeth Gilbert called the muse. I would get these ideas coming through me and I just jot them down. And the book that I ended up writing out of those five years worth of thousands of emails is comprised of some of the messages that I knew I was going to write when I sat down at the machine. And most of them were muse-inspired messages that I had no idea or no prior knowledge about before I sat down at the machine, which was really interesting to me. And Maya Angelou said something. She said, look, if you're a creative, you're never going to run out of creativity because creativity generates creativity. And that was my experience to a T. So once I saw that happening, I was able to relax into it a lot more. And then the more I relaxed into it, the more that creativity flowed through me.

And so I'm still writing them and I'm still sending them out every day. And I'm still feeling like I have nothing to say almost more often than not. I feel like I've said everything there is to say, but the ideas keep coming. So as long as they keep coming, I'll keep dictating them. Yeah. I love that. It's funny you mentioned Seth, who's an old friend at this point. And I remember him writing at one point something like, the nice thing about knowing that you're going to write every single day is that you know, not everything you write is going to be good, but at the same time, you're writing so frequently that your chances of sort

of like writing something else that is really good comes up pretty quickly again. So it's sort of like, there's a sense of forgiveness, like, ah, you know, like that one was a six out of 10, but you know what, in the scheme of things over the next 30 days or 60 days or three months, you know, like they're going to be a whole bunch of nines there too. And that'll kind of, you know, so it all kind of, you know, like you forgive the fact that, okay, so not every single time that you sit down to think or write or to open the channels, like it has to be the absolute best that you have to offer. Like sometimes there's just, there's beauty in the fact that you're sitting down and sharing whatever it is that comes your way.

Yeah, man. And it's a delicate balance because I feel like I have to limit how much time I'm spending on these things. I never did it with the intention of writing a book. I mean, that certainly became, once you write a book, you start thinking in books, just like a film director has an experience and thinks, oh, this would be a great film. Or, you know, a playwright would say this would be an awesome play. So you can't help but think in terms of books. But that wasn't why I necessarily started. And I think my standard was so high that I would spend three or four hours sometimes on one email. And it's not sustainable. If you're trying to do other things, it's not sustainable. So

within the 24-hour deadline, I feel like it's helpful to give myself a writing window of time with a hard deadline. And the way I've kind of done that is I used to write at night before I go to sleep, but now I write actually in the morning. The email goes out at 6 o'clock a.m. Pacific time. So depending on what time zone I'm on, I sometimes have more time to write in the morning. Sometimes I have less time to write or more time to sleep or whatever, but I try to give myself like an hour and 15 minutes. That's kind of my magic number. And if it doesn't come within the hour and 15 minutes, then, you know, um, I'll just put out whatever, whatever did come, you know? And, and I, sometimes I'll, I'll still give myself maybe an, I'll just send it out a little bit late because I'm just like, I just need to edit it one more time. And that one more time

turns into five more times. But yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a, it's been a labor of love in every sense of that word, because I get as much out of the practice as probably my most enthusiastic readers get out of reading them. When I send them out, I send it to myself and I open up the email as if I'm one of the recipients and I read it and it's like, wow, this is hitting home for me. This is what I needed to hear today. Or I'll go back and read some prior ones and it's like I didn't even write them. So yeah, it's a fun process to engage in. And again, it informs so many other things that we say we want to do because everything

boils down to a process at the end of the day. And, uh, and I find that to also be a little bit liberating when you think about like learning Spanish, for instance, like I'm in Mexico city, I don't speak Spanish all that well, but I would love to be conversational in it. And so I'm sort of taking that same approach and dedicating a little bit of time each day to learning a new word or a new phrase, and then trying to incorporate it, et cetera, et cetera, not put so much pressure on myself, just show up. Yeah. You know, what's interesting though, is at the same time, like on the one hand, it's about not putting pressure on yourself, but at the same time, and actually you write, this is one of the, um, sort of like the offerings of vignettes in the book is you talk about this

experience that you had, you decided one day it made perfect sense to take a sort of like a, a drawing class, a live figure drawing class at NYU. And, and the opening day, the experience is professors like, okay, you have 10 seconds to draw this pose. Yeah. Yeah. It was a friend of mine, a friend of a friend was teaching this class. I was at a dinner party one night and, uh, and he was talking about it. And I have always been artistically inclined since I was a kid. I'm just one of those people, I can make realistic drawings without much practice. But I thought it'd be kind of interesting to put myself in that environment to be a little bit more studied in drawing. And I came to the first class and he, when there was a live figure, a live model,

we're going to draw this person in this position. And yeah, the first instruction was, you have 10 seconds to complete your drawing, which of course is not enough time to, you know, to do anything. And so after we did that, everyone's drawing looked like basic chicken scratch. And then the next instruction, he told the model to change positions and he gave us, I think a minute. And it was just, just that one difference in 10 seconds in a minute, it almost felt like you had so much more time. And so he kept going through these different iterations. And finally he got to, we had like 30 minutes and it was like, we had all the time in

the world. And I could have drawn the last supper in detail because of the kind of mind game that he played with the time. And I tell people, if you have a deadline, usually what tends to happen, because this is what we do as humans, is we use up all the time until the end, and then we end up rushing anyway. So why not just give yourself less time, the equivalent of those 10 seconds, and see how much you can do. And then the week or the few days that you that you actually have you'll be able to maximize those those hours to create something a lot better yeah i mean it's interesting because i think that's often the exact opposite process that we go through we start out by creating you know we okay so we're going to work on that one pose or that one live figure for a couple of weeks.

And then over time you get better and better and better and you go faster and faster. So it's fascinating to me to reverse the constraint there and say, okay, we're going to start out with an absurdly small amount of time to do this task I've just assigned you. And then we're going to assign you a slightly less absurd, but still completely irrational amount of time to do this, like a minute or whatever it was until finally. So it's almost like you train yourself to let go of expectation because you know, it's just not conceivable that you could do what's in your mind in that amount of time. And then when you have an amount of time that's probably a lot less than you would have thought you needed or wanted, but it's so much more than that absurdly irrational constraint,

it feels luxurious. And you've also learned to forgive yourself along the way because of the way that the process unfolded. Yeah. And that's all important. I think it's kind of like exercising your potential because we don't, unfortunately, our potential isn't really stretched unless something bad happens usually. Right.

But what if we front load the stretching exercise for our potential and make it an intentional practice? stretching exercise for our potential and make it an intentional practice. And then when good things and bad things happen, or we get these opportunities, we can really optimize them without even thinking twice about it. And as you were saying that, what came to mind was a conversation that I had with a friend of mine that actually turned into one of these daily dose emails years ago. He had taken one of these personal development weekend trainings. It was like Landmark or MITT or something like that. And one of their graduation assignments is they had to do some big project, some big social good project. The catch was they only had 24 hours

to execute and they couldn't use any of their own money. So his goal was to feed, I think, 100 people on the Venice boardwalk. He couldn't use any of his own money. He only had 24 hours. And he couldn't tell anybody who he was asking money for what he was, you know, the stipulations. He just had to make it all happen. He had to get people excited about what he wanted to do, have a plan, et cetera, et cetera. And so he started calling up his friends and saying, hey, I want to go feed people on the boardwalk tomorrow. I'm raising money. How much can you donate? Blah, blah, blah. He goes to CVS, the drugstore, and he's talking to the cashier saying, hey, I need to get some free waters or whatever. And the cashier ends up giving him $5 towards his

cause. The woman in line behind him ends up giving him $20 towards his cause. He takes the water. He goes to Del Taco or some taco place. He ends up getting 100 tacos made. He gets like a 50% discount after talking to the manager. And so the rest of the money from his friends paid for the balance. And he said by 12 o'clock noon the next day, he was out on the boardwalk handing out 100 meals to people who are hungry. But on the surface, on paper, if someone were to, you know, at a dinner party the night before, someone were to proposition you to, hey, can you feed 100 people with no money tomorrow? Everyone, 99% of people would probably be like, nah, that's not enough time. You know, you start working the excuses, the excuse cycles come, very important sounding excuses. But when you really exercise

your potential in that way, in an intentional way, you'd be surprised of how much you can get done. And I think you're right, the deadline is really one of the keys to that. Yeah, I mean, that makes so much sense to me. And yet we're always avoiding opportunities to make decisions and formulate plans and take action with those constraints. We literally, we look for opportunities that don't have that because we feel like it'll be a more forgiving experience for us. And we don't want to experience the unease, the discomfort that comes along with having to act that way. And I don't think either of us are suggesting that this is the way that you should do everything every day for your entire life. That could be

pretty brutal, but like sort of allowing space for regular opportunities like that, I think can be incredibly both hard and enriching. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, and that's why we go to the gym and we, you know, we lift weights and we put ourselves in boot camps and whatnot, because it's not the way we're going to be all the time. But we understand that by exceeding our comfortable, our comfort zone on a regular basis, then the confines of that zone get bigger and bigger and bigger, and it starts to bleed into the growth zone, which for most people, they find that incredibly uncomfortable. But if you go into it enough times, then you'll find comfort within the discomfort of growing, of strengthening, of building, of not knowing. And I think that's where you're going to do your

best work. And you're going to be the most authentic version of yourself because it requires some level of uncertainty to get up and say something to get up and stand up for other people or to say what everybody else is afraid to say but that's what leadership is about that's what being an influencer is truly about and if we want to if we aspire to things, we have to get comfortable with discomfort. Yeah. 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 going to 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 going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. You have sort of like interesting reflections on will strengthening, which is because when we commit to doing something like this,

I think sometimes also we can go into it and experience it as brutality, even willful brutality, or we can experience the identical thing very differently. You referenced Ram Dass and sort of like his framing of something being either a great weight or a dance. Yeah, I went to this CrossFit class in Venice, California. For those of you who've never been to a CrossFit class, usually you go there and they have the WOD, the workout of the day on the little eraser board. And, you know, it's a mix of different things. Could be snatches and burpees and running a mile and, you know, but all of them are going to be challenging. Some, a lot of them are timed as many as you can do in a certain amount of time, but the variety makes it doable, right? Because

you're not going to be doing one thing too long. Well, on this day, on the eraser board, it just said 100 burpees. And like everybody else, I'm not a huge fan of burpees, or at least I wasn't a huge fan of burpees. And, you know, I could do five here and, you know, seven there, but 100 burpees, that was like, it may as well have said a million burpees as far as I was concerned. And there were only maybe 10 of us in the class. And one woman was pregnant and there was like a couple of guys that were pretty fit.

And there was a couple of guys that looked like they were pretty out of shape, more out of shape than I thought I was. And the coach starts the clock and we start doing these burpees. And I hit my wall after probably 12 burpees and I still have 88 to go. And next thing I know, five minutes into it, the pregnant lady is finished and I still have like 50 or 40 burpees to go. And then cut to three minutes later, the out of shape guys are finished. And next thing you know, it's just me just struggling through these last 20, 25 burpees. And everybody's standing there just kind of looking at me.

And I'm in my head around it like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing. I can't believe how unconditioned I am to doing these burpees. The next class shows up. Now they're staring at me as well as the class that I'm in. And then the coach gets down and starts doing the last 10 burpees with me. And it's just, I could not wait for that moment to be over in my life. I just want this to be done with. I'm going to finish it. I know I'm going to finish it. I just want it to be done with so I can get on with the rest of my life. I'm never doing another burpee again as long as I live. And on my way home, I thought to myself, God, how disempowering my attitude was around all of that. And yeah, something really interesting

happened. The next morning I woke up and I just thought, I never want to let burpees have that kind of shameful power over me again. I don't want to feel that hesitation when I see burpees on the eraser board again. And I thought about the Ram Dass quote, you can do it like it's a great weight or you can do it like it's a part of the dance. And so I put on some music, some Fela Kuti music, and I just started putting myself through those 100 burpees again. And my willingness to move through it was a lot more, I don't know, the energy was just different. It shifted. And I actually saw the value in pushing myself that much as opposed to being pushed that

much. And just really the mental strength to be able to get through all of those was the real win for me that morning. So yeah, I started doing that. And then I did it again, I think the next day and it became a part of my normal exercise routine, at least once a week doing 100 burpees,

just because that's the thing that made me feel ashamed, if I'm being honest. You know, I think it also ties in in a really interesting way to really just your broader frame on embracing discomfort. You know, this is about reframing it, you know, like, yeah, it's almost saying you have a choice here to experience it as a great way to a beautiful dance.

And it's the frame you bring to it. I think a lot of times we don't feel that. It was interesting to see you take also another way into the notion of discomfort and turn it into more of an invitation with an approach to New Year's resolution. I guess, I don't know if you'd call it a resolution, but basically like you're turning a page in New Year. And again, you're sort of building on this similar idea

and you literally say, this year is going to be as difficult as last year. again, you're sort of building on this similar idea and you literally say, you know, like, this year is going to be as difficult as last year, which most people would look at the year ahead. And like the whole frame for them is, ah, this next year is going to be awesome. It's going to be so much better. So it was really interesting to sort of hear your lens and say like, no, I'm actually going to take the opposite lens. And I'm curious about that. Well, I would say it is going to be awesome because of all the things you're going to learn from it. And I equate the years to college courses, right?

When you go to or any educational experience where you're wanting to learn something and it's something that you're signing up for. And the point is to be challenged because that's the way you're going to ultimately integrate it and embody it and learn it inside and out. And if you don't learn it inside and out, then usually you have to repeat that lesson. And so with life, that period of time before the new year where we get all excited about all the possibilities, very few people include the challenge that comes with getting better at something. You know, if surfing is on your list of things, your resolutions, part of that is you're going to be drink taking in a lot of salt water. You may potentially break your nose. But you learn how to carry the board from doing all those things. So you'll never forget if something uncomfortable happens to you that year. Maybe it's a relationship issue where you get broken up with

or you get fired or something, but you learn, okay, I got fired because I was in this job that I didn't really like in the first place. And I was trying to make it work instead of listening to my heart. And so now I know what that experience is like. And if I don't, then I have to repeat it again and again and again until eventually you become aware of, okay, this is not my path, right? So all of those moments and experiences are helping to navigate us back to our self, back to our path, where again, we find the fulfillment within. And even then, it's not a path to comfort. It's a path to service, to doing what you're here to do, which is the most uncomfortable thing that one can do because usually you're not rewarded with

a lot of the conventional signs of accomplishment, right? Where you have walls of cheerleaders and bonuses and golden parachutes and all. None of that really comes with the service industry. And so once you, but once you find it, you find you get the internal reward, which no paycheck can ever compete with. If you have the internal reward, you become one of those people that we still talk about today. When we look at the icons of humanity throughout history, usually it's people who did something really terrible or somebody who was doing something very, very good for society. We're not talking about the railroad barons. There's no holidays for any of them.

There's no days of observance for business people. It's all humanitarians. It's all people who are living lives that prioritized the greater good. And you put yourself in that category of people when you are able to really listen to what's happening inside and not just listen to it, but take action on it. And a part of that is being open to the lessons that we are inevitably going to get. And it's ironic because that piece that you're referring to, I wrote that December 31st, 2019. So it was literally the year of the pandemic. But you definitely got that wish. Yeah.

But it's interesting is that, you know, the way it's framed this year is going to be difficult or as difficult as last year. It's like you're using the word difficult as a leading indicator or a proxy for growth you're like okay so all growth requires a certain amount of resistance of difficulty of struggle of challenge like i know a lot of times we'd love that not to be the reality but it pretty much always is and the more i hear you deconstruct it the the more I think, okay, so what you're writing really

isn't any different in terms of the ultimate desire than what most people would write. But instead of committing to or wishing for the pleasant part of the experience, you're acknowledging the difficulty that will be required to get to the pleasant part of the experience or the desired part of it as a way to almost tell yourself, I'm saying yes to all of it. Yeah. And it's the same attitude that I think we have when we walk into a gym. Nobody wants to lift these heavy, heavy ass weights, but there are a couple of really strange people. Sounds like not mean you though. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you, if anybody looks at their greatest accomplishment in life, usually it came on the heels of some great difficulty.

Otherwise it's not really appreciated as some accomplishment. And I remember seeing this, um, Ted talk with this woman with prosthetic legs who I think she got some sort of disease and had had to have her legs amputated when she was a child but she became this this motivational speaker and I think she was a model or something as well and she'd been traveling all over the world giving talks in hundreds of countries to thousands of people and impacting millions through her positive message. And at the end of her talk, and I wish I could remember her name, but I can't, but at the end of her talk, she said that a journalist once asked her if she could go back

and trade all of those experiences on the motivational speaking circuit and all of the impact that she's been able to have in the world in exchange for having her legs, would she do it? And she said she thought about it for a long time and she had to admit that no, she wouldn't. Like the fulfillment that comes with being able to help people was so precious, so valuable, and so great that it wouldn't even compare to having the thing that most of us cannot even imagine being subjected to, which is having both of your legs amputated and having to navigate the world

in that condition, right? And so that's the power of fulfillment. That is the power of fulfillment. When you are doing what makes your heart sing, what inspires other people, that there's nothing greater than that in my experience. And I think that as a society, and I think it's going in that direction, you know, right now you have people who are refusing to work jobs to celebrate the people who are making those kinds of choices instead of or in addition to are people who are out there without the spotlight, feeding people and doing the things that motivating people and doing the things that their heart is guiding them to do. And they're not getting a lot of recognition. And that's what makes it so powerful is that they're doing it anyway. I love that. Feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So I have asked you this question once before.

It was a number of years ago, but we evolve as human beings, so I'm always curious. In this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, man, means to listen to your heart and follow it. That's been my dominant message. It sounds easy, but it's definitely not for the faint at heart, ironically, because your heart is not going to point you in a direction that makes you more comfortable or that necessarily even makes you more money. It's oftentimes going to point you in a direction that you're not quite sure how it's going

to turn out and your friends are going to say that you've lost your mind. And so you're going to have to go against all of that. But once you step outside of it, then it's not scary anymore. Then it's just about, okay, how can I get to the next step and the next step and the next step? So that sort of threshold point that looks so scary initially, really it's just about getting beyond that break. And then it gets really fun and interesting and adventurous. And I think that's what good life truly is, is getting beyond that threshold. Thank you. Thank you, man. That was awesome. It's always great to chat with you. You always have the

best questions and the best quality of attention. And so I'm honored to be invited on as a guest on your podcast. Yeah, my pleasure. Before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Tara Brock about a life of awareness and awakening from trance. You'll find a link to Tara's episode in the show notes. Even if you don't listen now, be sure to click and download

so it's ready to play when you are on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you'll never miss an episode. And then share the Good Life Project love with friends because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. Apple Watch Series 10 The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest 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. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are 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.