Good Life Project - MindBodyGreen Founder, Jason Wachob: What Really Matters

Episode Date: February 29, 2016

What if you could take an idea and turn it into a website with more than 12 million visitors a month and a powerful global community?That's exactly what today’s guest, Jason Wachob, did. He is the founder of Mind Body Green, one the web's top wellness websites, featuring thousands of articles, a growing catalog of courses, contributors that include many of the top voices in medicine, nutrition and movement, and a huge global community.This is the second time Jason has been a guest on Good Life Project. He first appeared on the web-series in October 2013. At that point, he shared his powerful story of leaving a career in finance to reclaim his health and found his company. MindBodyGreen was just starting to break out in a big way. Since then, it has exploded.The team has grown in size, they inhabit new offices and Jason's had the chance to dive deeper into not only what it takes to build a company, but also a culture that walks its own content talk, a community around wellness and a good, vibrant life. He shares his lens on that last question in his new book WELLTH: How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Resume.In this week's powerful conversation, we explore Jason's unique, culture-focused approach to building not just a company, but a community and a family. We dive into the dance between wanting to do big things and also wanting to be in control of your time, health, relationships and life. We explore the power of love and belief, and what its like to build a life with a partner he also works with. And we talk about his experience growing a venture that exposes him to the top thinkers and practitioners in health, nutrition and fitness and how that's informed his take on the elements of a life well-lived, especially in the context of being a creator, maker, entrepreneur and life-partner.Enjoy the conversation! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I think in the wellness community, you have so many entrepreneurs who are just so into it, and they push and push and push. And it's like, wait, everyone's getting better off of what I'm doing, but what happened to me? This week's guest is MindBodyGreen founder, Jason Wacom. And I had a chance to actually sit down with Jason. We actually filmed this in the summer of 2013, and his episode aired in October, I believe, of 2013. And this was back when our format was primarily a video series. We had this amazing conversation. He was at a point where he had built this media and health company, and it was just starting to tip. It was just starting to get tremendous traction. In the last two and a half years, the company has kind of exploded. The brand has grown

incredibly. Their reach and their impact has grown into this global behemoth. The website alone gets something like 15 million unique visitors a month. They have all sorts of powerful educational programs. And it was really fun to be able to sit down with him again and really just kind of trace the last two and a half years and see how the company grew and also how he has evolved and changed and how he's built community within his organization. He is also the author of a great new book called Wealth. And that's actually not spelled W-E-A-L-T-H. It's W-E-L-L-T-H. And it's really his lens on his guiding philosophy and building MindBodyGreen

and on living a good life. So I thought it was a really fun moment to revisit the conversation with him and dive into that philosophy a bit and share in some of his stories. So really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. You know, maybe it'd be kind of a fun jumping off point to just kind of like jump into the conversation that we were just having before. You know, you and'd be kind of a fun jumping off point to just kind of like jump into the conversation that we were just having before. You know, you and I come from sort of like different business backgrounds and then we're coming to it. And you walked into our HQ over here and saw a Grateful Dead sticker on the back of my computer and shared that you're sort of like a lifelong, you're like deadhead.

How many shows have you seen? 30 something. Right. And then we're talking about a friend who wrote a book about sort of like the business built around grateful dead and then you share the two books on your desk or peter teal zero to one and that one and i think it's kind of and then you just dropped this thing that i want to pick up on which is like you kind of had this feeling that you get like we're kind of moving there was this really aggressive move towards this sort of hyper aggressive hypergressive, hyper-growth, technologically involved.

But maybe the pendulum is swinging back more towards the Grateful Dead bottle. I think it's a balance. I think growth is still important, especially being a mission-driven company. It's great to have a mission, but it's more important to have a mission that lots of people can touch and feel. But what I love about the debt is mission-inspired, community-driven, and very smart businessmen. And just you talk about brands, power of brands, very authentic, very strong brand. I was saying how I wrote my college thesis, how I got into Columbia, although I think

the basketball helped there. And the fact that you're extraordinarily tall and extraordinarily talented. I think that helps. Well, you know, about this idea of, I talked about the Grateful Dead and the thesis and the things I admired, the idea that it transcended race and class, the idea of community and the idea of authenticity. Yeah, and I think we are really swinging back to that. My sense is that, and that's part of what you're trying to do with Mind, Body, and Green. It's part of what we're trying to do with Good Life Project is we both produce media. But bigger picture, we're both building community.

Sure. You know, around a very, like the words you use are mission driven. And I think we're yearning for that, you know? Yeah. There's been, like, this window of just sort of digital displacing human interaction. Mm-hmm. And I'm not a Luddite, neither are you. We both have technology, like, built into the core of what we're doing.

But, yeah, the idea of actually just building, you know, sort of a unifying community. Mm-hmm. It's so powerful. You know, and I go back in history, you know, every great movement in the U.S. is largely from the ground up. You know, civil rights, ground up, not top down. You know, the top can help, so to speak, but at the end of the day, it's the ground.

Everything is from the ground up. And I think, you know, social media leaves us so connected digitally, but it also leaves a void physically. And I think, you know, being able to experience something digitally is powerful, but it's more powerful to be able to touch and feel it, especially with another human. Yeah, I completely agree with you there. I think digital is a great way to start. And then I think often it's the initiating, like the inciting incident. And then when you meet that person face-to-face, it's like there's a level of rapport and comfort

that's kind of already been established. So you can go deeper faster. Yep, absolutely. But I think it's important to still meet that person face-to-face if you can. Yes. If you're in a part of the world where it's actually feasible. Yep, absolutely. So we're hanging out right now.

And you're one of the few guests that is is a returning guest i love it i'm honored thank you and uh and it was kind of fun too because the first time we hung out i was just looking back at the date was on like the end of two i think it was october 2013 yeah that was when we're still filming yeah yeah right because we actually filmed a couple months before that so it's the summer so about two and a half years ago and man what a two and a half years for you i know i was thinking about that too like where were we as a company where i was what's the world everything yeah can you just talk me through sort of this last two and a half year window a little bit because it's been astonishing evolution it's been fun. It's been insane and fun at the same time.

As a company, we've grown a lot. I think we were maybe three or four million uniques. Yeah, I think you were right around four million. By the way, just for those who may not have seen that first one, Jason runs this amazing company called MindBodyGreen, which is, how would you describe it? What's the short? I always say

we're a lifestyle media brand focused on helping you live your best life right and to me it falls best life equals three pillars mind body green and they're all connected and i can explain why got it and we'll go into that so when we were hanging out yeah you were pretty early in the journey and i guess in theory you could probably still argue that you are early and late, but yeah, exactly. We're still early. Right. And you know, but you were like at this, I remember there was, you were like at a window where it almost felt like when we were hanging out, like there was this thing coming out, you're like, we're, we're like just starting to hit it. So take me sort of like to, to, to there. And then like here from the business standpoint, that was a year of hyper growth that just happened for a lot of media companies.

This was the year 2013 to 14 when Upworthy became the fastest growing media company of all time. According to Fast Company, I think they went from 10 million uniques to 90 million. Right. In like three months. It was insane. A year in BuzzFeed. And so we went from essentially 2 million to 10 reached a high of 15 now we're at that same level and that's actually a great thing and that's a deeper conversation

and so this happened with six people and it happened when i still did all the social media happened really fast and it was a situation where you know growth just happened and it was a situation where, you know, growth just happened and it was great. And the wheels didn't fall off the wagon. And I've spent like the past year or two really setting process, structure, defining who we are as a brand, as a company. Where do we want to go? Who do we want to be? Whereas that year was largely like, holy shit, it's like you're riding a wave. It's happening.

Let's go. We're on it, you know. And now it's settling back and really putting things in place to set us up for the future. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. When you have a year like that, it's almost like the hockey stick moment that a lot of people talk about. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it crushes a lot of people.

It is. It's good and bad. And I think if the brand isn't tight, if the product isn't tight, it can be the worst thing that can possibly happen to you. But I think when you do have a brand, when you do have a product, and you do have also the right people on the bus, it's a great thing. But there's still a catching up process and setting infrastructure and fun stuff how much of it do you think also had to do with the fact that there was a sort of defining mission that this wasn't just a technology company it wasn't just a media company but there was like something bigger that those six people could latch on to and say like we're working for something bigger absolutely so i think it was two things one is you know facebook decided to be kind to publishers and that played a huge role in our growth and then the second part of this is you know wellness is sort of seeped into the culture of America and across the world. And we were early on that. And, you know, right time, right place, right headlines, right stories. And then, you know, touching on community, you know, community is something that is in our DNA. It started initially with me just reaching out to people, talking about meeting people individually. I did that and then just sort of steamrolled.

And then community became a thing. It was not planned, just happened. And that's why it's authentic. A lot of big companies will say, we want community, how do we do it? And I said, well, let's install it. Yeah, let's install it. Like, do they have it at Costco?

It's like, how much for a community? Yeah, and it's something that's important to us. It's one of costco uh it's like how much for a community yeah and and and it just it's something that's important to us it's one of our values and it just it's authentic so i mean but where do you how do you cultivate that especially in a hybrid growth environment where like what are the pillars of like trying to really make that happen in a way that's organic well aligned but at the same time doesn't lock down control because that's like the death knell for community. Sure. It's a balance. You know, I think it always starts with the CEO to some degree. And I think it's something I started and people, you know,

I lead by example there and it's one of our values. It's up on our wall at our office. So it's always encouraging our team, you know, what are we doing? You know, how are we defining community? What does that look like for you? Like community is not transactional. Community, you know, how can we support our community? What does that look like? It's something we talk about every day.

It's important. And I think it'll evolve. And it's just, you know, it's one thing, too, I think, when you're running a company is to, like, put something on the wall or put a mission statement or define your culture. But it's another thing. Like, what does that look like on a daily basis? Right. It's like, how do you actually live that? Yeah. And I think part of it's personnel and hiring the right people. And I think part of it, it's a lot of variables. And I think every company struggles with that.

Yeah, no doubt. So I'm going to corner you. How do you define community? It's a couple things. So I look at community in terms of the contributors who write for us or we produce content with who we celebrate and i think they're the community people who love the site read the site watch the site so people who i would define it as people who are in our the mind body green world and for us it's important to have that relationship not be just transactional. So what do you mean? Transactional as in, so like for a contributor, is it just simply you're writing a post and there's an exchange and that's it? Right.

To me, that's not a great relationship. A great relationship is, what are you working on? And it's hard to do. It is a challenge at scale, but it can be done. It's having a conversation. It's supporting them. It's, are you working on a book? Where does your brand want to be? How can we help you? It's a back and forth. It's inviting people to the office. It's not just a transactional relationship where you write, you get followers, you get email subscribers, you get visibility. It's a give and take. And I think that's important. And if you're

great, you know, we put you in a video course or a class and it. And I think that's important. And if you're great, you know, we put you in a video course or a class and it's revenue sharing and that's great. But, you know, it's talking to people, it's cultivating talent. It's more than just a transaction where you do this and I do that. And then we wipe our hands and call it a day. Yeah. And I love that because it's a long-term investment. Yep. And it elevates your burden. But-hmm. But at the same time, it elevates everybody's possibility.

Yeah. You know, so there's a, you know, the benefit is potentially exponential, even though it's going to take more investment and work for you. Sure.

To me, it's one of these things where it's just like the right thing to do. Yeah. Like, right deep down. And I think the right thing to do is often like good business for the most part.

It's just the right thing to do, you know, so. Which kind of circles back to like the Grateful Dead. Sure. Right? I mean, one of the things that you were sharing with me before we jumped on the mic was, you know, how you could show up at a concert and people were for like every walk of life. Yet they were unified around sort of like the love of the music. But also one of the things that you were talking about was, you know, there's a little bit of like a clicky effect of like the people who are early into the community. Sure.

For one particular purpose. Sure. And then like the newbies are coming in and kind of, where very often like the early people are like, well, they don't really get what this is really about. Absolutely, yeah. Have you experienced that at all in sort of like the way that you're building? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. have you experienced that at all in the way that you're building? oh absolutely I was one of those grateful debt snobs

and fish snobs in the early days but yeah absolutely I think you see that a lot in the wellness community now it's seeped into the mainstream in a lot of ways and it's one of these things where people often view others as you're not hardcore enough and it can quickly become a Portlandia episode.

And that's something we're careful about. And we're big now, too. We're not just a small, quote-unquote, blog. I really think we're a lifestyle media company. We offer other products besides content. So how do you maintain that? How do you maintain scale and being big, but at the same time being authentic and reaching a broader audience without quote unquote selling out? Yeah. And welcoming people in and saying, well, maybe like the people that we're calling sellouts, like what's the value that they're seeing that maybe actually we should be expanding our lens to see too, rather than just holding on to like, this is the orthodoxy and this is the way

that it has to be as it perpetuates through every ripple of the circle. But that's not easy to do, man. No, I think it's something we talk about a lot. And I think with content, we're actively doing this. And I think we're doing a good job is, you know, it's all levels. So, you know, we have the listicle where it's going to suck in a newbie, but then we're doing long form and that's attractive to someone who's been around the block for 10 years, or this is old for them, and we've got video courses and events where we can go deeper. So it doesn't matter what level you're at,

we can grow with you as you grow within wellness. Yeah. You brought up long form. Sure. It's interesting to me because we do long form content on this podcast, and when we were doing video back in the day, we were blasted for doing hour-long videos. People are like, this will never work. Nobody has the attention span.

Nobody wants long-form content. And I was always thinking to myself, but I do. And I can't imagine I'm the only person out there. And I'm like a zag person. And I'm seeing everybody go short short short short short and i'm like so i want to be the long person yep are you exploring that more and what what do you find in people's relationship to long form you need both yeah i think you need both i think if you're really engaged you want long form you want more yeah you know especially in personal

growth and health and wellness it's it's when you're in you're in you can't get enough you know i want to go deeper give me more you know sure that that listicle or that real short piece is great when i'm on my phone on the go but at night or whatever whatever the the appropriate time to digest the content is like you want to go deeper i want to go deeper and lots of people do and we find that actually with mind buddy green there's a direct correlation between length of time on page and length of article interesting so people want the long stuff it's got to be good yeah of course but there's an appetite for it yeah i mean it kind of reminds me back in the day when i was actually learning to copyright yeah and one of the classic questions was, and for those who don't know what copywriting is,

it's sort of like anything that you see written anywhere online or if you've got something in the mail where it's designed to interest you and then potentially sell you something, that's it. You're quite good at that. Thanks, man. And I knew some of the A-list copywriters, and some of them even took me under their wing. And these guys would create what were even back then called magalogs, where it was like literally a 60-page sort of like magazine piece, which was functionally a 60-page sales letter that you would get in the mail. They would literally mail these to millions of people.

And there was this ongoing conversation, which is like, how long is too long? Right. And the answer that effectively I got back from the best people in the world is is as long as you need to get the job done and not a word longer exactly and that could be really long exactly it's funny you know for our revitalize event which is a live stream event and we do right oh that was a tucson yeah tucson the past two years uh we do standalone talks that are you know the ted style where it's one person and you're up there. And we work with a speaker coach on that. And she communicated the same thing.

People would say, well, how long? And she would say, as long as it takes you to communicate one idea very strongly. If it takes eight minutes, great. But it shouldn't take longer than 22. If it takes longer than 22, you get a problem. Which is like every keynote speaker here just recall oh i've learned so much about that yeah it's yeah well it's funny too because i speak i think you do some speaking as well so and the typical keynote is generally 45 minutes to an hour long and but you wonder

so here's my question like is that a function is that sort of like the analog to a 250 page book where it's, it's more a function of the industry says for us to kind of like sell it for X and pay you X, it needs to be X minutes long or X pages long. And so you kind of make it so. Right. I think so. And I think the way to do it, which I'm sure you do, it's, it's gotta be our performance less than the script.

It's, you know, cue the laugh and i go here and that and it's it's a performance versus a presentation yeah i mean i mean it's interesting i've um it's i resisted that furiously for a really long time because i was just like i can't i can't but like they're performing is not it's it's inauthentic was the right the line in my head then a conversation with a friend of mine who's trained speakers and who's also a former like TV actor and who was phenomenal on stage. And he's like, no,

it is. He's like the best people in the world with rare exception or a hundred percent scripted and a hundred percent staged. He's like, you know, when you see somebody kind of like scratching their head and looking off to like to the top, you know,

with their eyes up to the right and then walking to this point in the stage and then saying something spontaneous, which just boom makes you weep. It's like every word and every moment and every step is scripted. And, but he said, the difference is that if you're, if you choose to go that route,

then you should literally practice that for months and months and months until it becomes the script becomes so much just automatic that it's so embodied that you can actually then really let go and kind of come back into yourself and loosen up or else it feels everything feels like just kind of like right i think it's almost like a metaphor for life like anything you have to work your ass off and get it down and then be open to possibility. And it's that combination of push and pull. I think most people are just used to one or the other where it's just a constant push, no room for the quote-unquote universe. And then the other people are just open to everything and they're not prepared. And it's like this balance, I think, that the self-help world struggles with. Yeah. So when you speak, what's your approach to that? It depends what the venue, you know, who the audience is. I always say speak to the audience. If I'm speaking in a trade event for advertisers,

that's going to be different than speaking to consumers. I think the biggest thing is know your audience. Literally, I was on a panel once for an Advertising Week panel, and the person next to me said she hated advertising. I'm like, know the audience. She hated advertising and we'd never do printout. And it's like, just pretend to know the audience. Like know the audience.

You don't have to love advertising, but there was probably a little more tactful way to say that. So I feel bad because everyone, you know, comes from a big brand, well-respected, really powerful brand. And I could see the look on the faces in the room, like, but know the audience, always know the audience. Yeah, no, that's a huge lesson. So let's, let's kind of like circle back a little bit. I'm curious also, and you have this kind of really cool new book out. I want to touch down on some of the ideas in there as well, but I want to come a little bit full circle on your sort of like last two and a half year journey. So we've seen like the company experienced tremendous growth. And one of the things you also just kind of dripped out is you shot up to 15, then back to 10,

now you've stabilized at 15. And like, that's a really good thing to sort of like have that boom, boom, boom. Yep. Why? So what Facebook giveth, Facebook can take it away. And so- Heard from so many people, I know. Yeah, and so, you know, my background, I was a trader, and, you know, I believe in everything works until it doesn't work. So, when we grew, when that growth spurt happened, Facebook represented 70% of our traffic.

Wow. Which was great, but back in my mind- Completely my mind, this is not going to last forever. And I don't want to be completely reliant on any one thing for anything in business. And so spent the last two years focused on diversifying traffic, what's quality traffic versus quantity. We also have an e-commerce component like what really drives that so i've spent the past two years diversifying you know and 15 was a little bit of an aberration like we essentially went to 12 we had one 15 but we've been in this

range and so we went from facebook representing 70 of our traffic to now it's down to 35. It's a lot healthier and we've stabilized. And now more of our traffic is email, better relationship. You control the relationship. People like its direct relationship. It's healthier. And so we're in a much better place rather than depending on one source of traffic.

So up we're these now, I think at like 16 or 17 million uniques. Oh, wow. They dropped back down. And so there's this direction we're going to, like, I don't believe in traffic for the sake of traffic. I believe in healthy traffic. I believe we're a lifestyle company.

We have a commerce component. Like for us to succeed, I don't want, sure, I love traffic, but we don't need to get to 50 million or 100 million uniques to really succeed we need a really strong group of people who believe in mind body green and follow us you know as we get into other more commerce and events and who are part of the tribe like i want a tribe not just traffic yeah it's a balance you know you need traffic you need scale we have that but like Like I want a tribe, not just. Traffic. Yeah. It's a balance.

You know, you need traffic, you need scale. We have that. But like if we're a 10 or 12 or 20, it doesn't really matter for, you know. Yeah. For a one, it matters. You know, you don't have scale problem, but once you have it, it's, you know, so. Yeah. It's also gotta be, you know, cause you've also scaled up your staff a lot from the

six people when we were hanging out what where are you at now about 30 right so that's you know 5x yeah on the size of your you know the people who weren't there and that sort of like hyper growth combined with like kind of like a whiplash you know like pinball effect it's got to be just brutally hard psychologically on the people who are in there every day. Yeah, a lot of people came on later. And it's been a process of defining the brand, defining the culture, finding the right people who work out in the culture. And we've had hits and misses with people.

Hiring's very hard. I think now we're quite good at it. But in the beginning, we weren't so good at it. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. What do you think was the turning point there? I think you start to see what types of people work and what don't work and qualities start to stick out

and certain things come to the forefront and then you just get better at interviewing you know what questions to ask you can go back on time when you've seen little red flags and you just needed to make the hire so you made it and then it bit you in the ass when you've seen little red flags and you just you needed to make the hire so you made it and then it bit you in the ass and having a lot tighter process and now i think we're quite

yeah it takes a while and i think every company struggles with that yeah no doubt you get it is there one like overriding thing that you look for in somebody that you're going to bring into your family well i think it's a couple one is is, I think, passion for health and wellness. I think passion can't be taught. I think it's super important. I think we'll never be as good as we could be if we're not passionate and not the top of our game. And I do think if you're passionate about health and wellness, we're the best media company to work for. So I think that's, I think people who work hard too, you know, I think work ethic is one of those things. It's hard to work for. So I think that's, I think people who work hard too, you know, I think work ethic is one of those things.

It's hard to really teach. You know, I always like hiring athletes, ex-athletes. Oh, no kidding. Well, the things you show up on time, little things. You tend to work hard. You tend to be competitive. Things that are instilled in me me but they're hard to teach later in life you know and i do think 80 there was a great article i read hard but hard harvard business

for you about hiring the other day about like a fast food chain in the south that's like growing super rapidly and has like very low turnover it's insane they hire for attitude first and then they can teach the skill train the aptitude yeah so like are you passionate do you work hard if you have a brain like we can we can work with you yeah i think that's such a powerful way to do it but like you said a lot of times in the beginning there's like one specific skill set that you just have to have today so sometimes you overlook that just to get that you know competency installed but over time it always comes back at you. Yeah.

And I think a lot of company, I think it's like, it's defining your culture, seeing patterns. And then once you have it and it's tight, like now I think we're getting phenomenal people. That's awesome. Great.

And I also think people are really interested in health and wellness right now. And like leaving other career, they want to work. There is this like, you know, movement of wealth, you know, it's like people want to work. There is this movement of wealth.

It's like people want to work for a company that they share values. No doubt. I think it's so important. Do I remember you working with your wife? Yeah, she works with us. Full time. Yeah, every day. Right.

And we live together too. It's like you and me both. It's so funny because we love being around each other all day. And, you know, sometimes we have to like, you know, remember, turn off the work conversation at home at night. Yep, same problem. You know, a number of people have asked us like, how do you, how does that, how is that even possible? And we're like, you know, it's not, it's not right for everybody. No, it's not. But we have the same values. We, you know it's not it's not right for everybody no it's not we have the same values we you know really complementary skill sets and we just genuinely love being around each other

so it works really well for us yeah we're in the same boat yeah but we have the same problem shutting it off yeah i mean that is the single biggest challenge last word comment we we use that line all the time okay last word comment i'm like i, last word comment? That's got to be like a Slack, like a hashtag on our Slack. Oh, God, yeah. Last word comment. Like just for the entire team, just like hashtag last word comment. Okay, we're all done for the day. Yeah, but that is, I mean, that is it.

I mean, we're sitting here in an office. We built our own studio, which is literally, you know, like an eight-minute walk from our home. And part of the reason we did it was to create a physically different space where we can kind of close the door on the office, walk back together and kind of use that to maybe just start to transition into a different state of mind, different conversation. So let's kind of segue into what you're working on now. You have a book out called Wealth Spelled. W-E-L-L-T-H.

Right. Why that spelling? You know, it just sort of happened. You know, this idea, I saw the word a little bit here and there, but this idea, you know, it's part of my personal journey where wealth is about health. And sort of a play on that word and really loved it and just decided to go for it. Yeah. And which is funny, too, because before you started Mind Body Green, you come out of a, you know, like a trading.

Yeah. Yeah. Background. So you were really like you're working with money every day on a large scale. So it's an interesting sort of like redefinition or reframe. I want to bounce through some of the ideas and they're some of the common ones that I'm going to kind of avoid actually. But one of the things that you talk about is work. You actually tell the story of your uncle. Can you share that? So in the book, I talk about my uncle. It's my only uncle.

My father was an only child. My mother just had one sibling. And so my uncle, this guy who worked his ass off for 40, I think he's 71 or 72 now, his whole life, just really the consummate worker, was a banker, was an entrepreneur for a while, had a deli in the fashion district in the 80s when New York wasn't so fun. Just worked and worked and worked, never really, always put family first, always spent on family, never really spent on himself,

not because he just, he's a really giving guy, finally gets to retirement, and then a couple weeks later, he finds out he's got stomach cancer. It's just like this what what the hell was i doing you know climbing the ladder and climbing you know for a few extra bucks which is great you know supporting the family but like to talk about devastating you work and work and work and then now i've got my retirement is chemo you know so and i think the paradigm that

so many of us live by is you you know, you work for retirement. That's when I'll live. And, you know, thankfully, you know, like, at least from what I know, and you probably actually wrote the book about it a year before. But the way the story is left is that, you know, he's good. Yeah, he's actually good. He's good. He's good. He's got like a little laugh, but like it's negligible. And he's good.

Yeah. He's good. But it's got to be a huge wake-up call you know when that happens to you and you're you know in your early 70s you know there's i'm sure you think things through also but for you to also well i guess you saw it where you had already had your own wake-up call i did i did for me it was 9-11. And I think also, too, I worked. I didn't come from money and always wanted money and pay off my school debt and just money. I was drawn to money. And then finally made money as a trader and my relationship was sort of falling apart. And all of a sudden, it was such a defining point. And on one hand, I finally have all this money. And on the other hand, I've got a relationship completely falling apart, and I'm miserable. So talk about contrast. To me, it was a big wake-up.

Money's not happiness here. And then things sort of went from there. Yeah. So at this point, why do you work? I love what I do. Yeah. So, I mean, at this point the, you know, the, the letters we get, the people we touch, like that's awesome. I love it. But the challenge I have now is, you know, I think I love what I do so much. I never, I work all the time. So on the flip side, like, I don't want to be the guy and I have to be careful about

this where I don't have, I work so much where I'm always thinking about what's the next vacation I could go to. Cause it's just a shorter version of that longer story where I'm working and working. How do you create a life where you're not always looking forward to the next vacation? Yeah. Even though vacations are still important. Yeah. I wonder also, and I wonder if it sounds like this might be something that spins in your head too,

but when you actually do something that you do enjoy so immersively, whether that can take you down a rabbit hole. Absolutely. The same way like an artist just becomes, just loves to paint. Yep. And you start to just ignore, you know, all the other parts of your life that are, you also like kind of forget. Sure. I really enjoy that.

Like, I love working out. I love my relationship. Sure. I love, so it's almost like you need people or triggers to pull you back out. Yeah, absolutely. I think my wife has cut that with me uh i think i've you know i i find time to meditate i find time my yoga practice has evolved i don't go to the studio like four or five days a week anymore now it's a home practice and it's two or

three days a week but it's something and i think you have to find time and it was it's actually like a little bit ironic i think in the wellness community you have so find time. And it's actually a little bit ironic. I think in the wellness community, you have so many entrepreneurs who are just so into it, and they push and push and push, and it's like, wait, everyone's getting better off of what I'm doing, but what happened to me? So that's something I don't ignore

and have almost gone down that path where I'm like, whoa, I need to prepare myself here. Yeah, same thing on my side. I've had to catch myself many, many, many times. Back in the day when Yachi ran a yoga studio. All this yoga is making me sick. Right, exactly. But this was a really big issue

because there was a window of time where I ran a yoga studio. We were training yoga teachers. And one of the first things that we saw happening on a pretty consistent basis, and it wasn't just like our teachers, it was just teachers all over the place, was that the busier you got as a teacher,

so many teachers started to walk away from their practice. Yep. And I think it was a combination of the fact that you get, you're just getting busier, a combination of the fact that I sometimes like would think that there was a psychology where if you had two private clients and taught three classes in a day, at the end of the day, you kind of felt like you had practiced. Because you'd been in the room through like three classes and like working with two privates. But in fact, you know, you had really emptied your system rather than filled it the way that your own personal practice was.

So we actually, when we were training teachers, we instituted what we called our MDRs, like your minimum daily requirements. Oh, that's great. And we told teachers, we're like, look, it doesn't matter what happens. When you get to the end of your day, like you cannot go to sleep, like do not rest your head on the pillow

unless you've done, you know, like this, this, and this. You know, 15 minute, really basic practice, a little bit of pranayama and a little bit of meditation. It's not optimal, bit of meditation it's not optimal but at least it's like a maintenance dose exactly you know and because we found that so many people the busier you got the more you started to leave your practice and it's just self-destructive yep yeah it's interesting that that uh you picked up on that as well i think everyone has that challenge yeah so the um one of the interesting things that you also explore with the idea of work, and this was in the context of Colleen, of your wife, was this idea of thinking three steps ahead.

Sure, yeah. Which I thought was kind of interesting because it's also, there's this really interesting tension between being present now, but also being intelligent about what's coming. Talk to me a little bit about this. Yeah, I think there are a lot of people out there who necessarily aren't that happy in their current career and want to make a change. They want to do it, and they can't do it quick enough, and they're ready to do a 180 really fast.

And I think that's very hard to do. A lot of people can't do that. I think especially later, as you get further into life. Especially as you get older, it gets harder and harder. When you're younger, you can do it. Yeah, a lot of responsibility. So it's this idea of thinking three moves ahead, and I use Colleen as an example further into life. It gets harder and harder when you're younger. You have a lot of responsibility. So it's this idea of thinking three moves ahead. And I use Colleen as an example in the book.

Colleen, also passionate about wellness. And her background, she went to Stanford and then worked in retail, worked at Old Navy and Banana Republic at Gap. And then wanted to get out of the fashion box, so to speak. Wanted to get more closer to me before we could actually hire her. And so she took a job at Walmart. And once she took the job at Walmart, it became,

oh, wait, Colleen's not in retail. Colleen works for Walmart, the biggest retailer in the world. She's not in this fashion world this this fashion world anymore so it got got her out of the fashion box then at walmart she took a job at amazon and then instead of being i work in retail oh i work for the biggest e-commerce player in the world and then that led her to she worked at organic avenue where organic avenue looked at her and said, oh, wait, we're looking to scale. We've got someone who's worked for the biggest e-commerce player in the world, the biggest retailer in the world.

So it allowed her to get to her passion. But it took, and then that led her to MyMoneyGreen, where she had, you know, experience in e-com and branding and wellness. And that just fit perfectly for me. And it's that notion of sometimes you have to take steps to position yourself. It's very hard to just do overnight. When you're younger, I think a little easier, but still difficult. Yeah.

And I think there's also this really interesting tension because we tend to, we're in a now culture. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, why can't I just make a massive leap to this? Sure. And why can't I just make a massive leap to this? Sure. You know, and why can't it just happen instantly? And I think there's a large expectation of, well, I can and I should be able to. And sometimes, so I think the idea of looking three steps ahead and kind of mapping it out and saying, well, you know, there may be a series of, you know, like smaller steps and moves.

Sure. You know, it's almost like, you know, it's chess versus checkers, right? It's kind of thinking, okay, like the greatest chess players, like they see the board, you know, like 10 moves out. Yeah. And sometimes you don't even have to see it. You just got to start moving. You know, it's like, I didn't become a successful entrepreneur. It took 10 years, you know, it's like, it's not something, you know, I think people read a lot about, you know, the Facebooks and the Twitters of the world or Uber. And, you know i think people read a lot about you know the facebooks and the twitters of the world or or uber and you know the reality is that's not that doesn't really happen that often yeah um that's why they call them unicorns exactly exactly um and and more and more i think we're

going to see a lot of the unicorns losing their horns so i i agree yeah uh but i i love the i'm actually glad you sort of like offered that reframe too, because there is a big difference between thinking three steps ahead and just taking the first step. Exactly. Which, you know, a lot of people will just get up into their heads and try and like map out what those steps are going to be. But very often it'll take three steps, but you won't actually know.

You know, you take the first one and that's what reveals the second one, which reveals the third one, which then reveals like the place you actually want to end up was there a moment where um both you and colleen knew that like you both wanted you she wanted to be at mind body green you want to be at my you would love to have had her there but it was like god we didn't want to make this happen but there's really like the spot is not there for what you do. Sure. Or just in general, you know, I think Colleen always wanted to be there except in the beginning it was,

it was me for almost three years, no salary. Right. Colleen had to work, you know, very, Colleen was very understanding and supportive. It was me full time,

all in, no salary. My co-founders, Tim and Carver were, kept their day job and we're working nights and weekends. So they're literally there. And Colleen would write guest posts.

She would help with that. She would do anything he could, I think secretly always wanted to be there. And then in 2013, it just, it worked out. She was leaving organic Avenue. We needed help with ad sales.

And it was, this isn't your background, but you're the best available close enough this isn't your background but you're close close enough and like i know you're going to be great you're like the best available player so to speak like let's go and she's been great and so yeah yeah that's awesome one of the other things that you talk about that i found interesting was belief this idea of sure believing and and that's it really resonates with me because one of the things that I've come to realize more and more what Good Life Project is about is inspiring possibility. I've really come to believe that one of the biggest failures and simultaneously the flip side is unlock keys for people going out there and actually building the lives that they want is believing it's possible.

Take me into why you felt this was important to explore. I think so many people don't believe. Yeah. You know, I think it's a simple, it's simple, but it's hard. And I think

it's very easy to believe when everything is great. I think it's very difficult. What's that great line? Something like, like faith is, is believing without seeing. Yeah.

And I think it's hard, but I think there's, you know, I think, I think it was like Steve Jobs or I've read this recently and I think it's so true. It's there's you know i think i think what is it like steve jobs or i've read this recently and i think it's so true it's like we're all just people i think for the some are smarter some aren't as smart but for the most part what separates people who are extremely happy or

successful in their definition i think part of it is you know i think it's i think it's belief and attitude and work you know it's this's this idea that if you can't believe, if you don't believe anything's going to happen, it's just not going to happen. We're in a world where I think anything is possible to some degree. But if you don't believe it's possible, then it's probably not going to be possible. Yeah, I mean, what was that, the big Steve Jobs novel,

what did they call it, his zone zone of it wasn't delusion but it was like oh yeah the yes i know what you're talking about the distortion reality yeah yeah right it's like you know he would sit there and say like like people like i can't do that i'm like i'm not capable i don't have that like it's or it's not possible it's three weeks right and he but he i think that was one of his geniuses is that he had the ability to convince people that the impossible was possible. And once they believed it, it kind of like wires your brain to start to just figure out ways to make it happen.

That wouldn't, well, your brain wouldn't have worked on that level. What was it? The four minute mile? Yeah, right. Roger Bannister. Yes. And then boom, boom. And the next thing you know, the four minute mile? Yeah, right. The Roger Bannister. Yes, and then boom, boom, and the next thing you know,

everyone's doing it. Yeah. And I think it is, it's something that's, that tends to be explored in a somewhat metaphysical level, but I think it's much more basic than that. I do.

You know? In fact, you kind of break it into sort of like three phases. Yeah. And I think it's like believe in seeing and doing. It's like this idea of, you know, believing you can do like believe in seeing and doing it's like this idea of you know believing you can do it and then seeing yourself doing it yeah uh and then also doing and i and i

like this idea of you know the small wins that you know you got to start off small small wins bring confidence you can focus on bigger things and then but like simple things like i in the book i talk about like this idea of like you know you want to eat healthier you want to maybe lose weight you know focus on like one meal a day or two you know you're gonna have a salad what does the salad look like like feel it taste it you know and move forward from there then you've knocked it out for this day and you feel good about that and you build off of that you know rome wasn't built in a day yeah i mean it's like i think it's also probably easier to believe, well,

I can eat a salad today. Yeah. Rather than I can eat a salad for life. Right. Exactly. Right. You know, it's kind of like,

I'm familiar with BJ Fogg's work. Yeah. Yeah. So his, his whole thing is like, he's like, you know, there's behavior.

I think he, he sort of splits behaviors into three different things. One is what he calls a dot, which is like, I'm going to do it one time. I'm going to eat a salad today. That's the easiest thing to motivate yourself to do. And then next is what he'd call a span, which is like, I'm going to eat a salad every day for 30 days. Still doable, but it gets a lot harder to keep the level of motivation

ability up for that. And then the final, I can't remember what the final one is, but it's basically, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life it's nearly impossible yep for somebody to commit to that but if they commit to the smaller things it just starts to roll over and become for life or become the span and then life and it builds confidence and confidence is everything in a lot of ways yeah and when you validate that it's actually possible through your own like you said like chunking it down your own little like literal iterations and experiments you're like oh wait a minute you know like your own experience is validating your belief and i think that's really powerful in life when you can draw back on things when you know when adversity sets in you can draw back to specific moments well you know this happened and this happened

and i was okay and i moved on and i did it and then having that in your bag so to speak to go back to is really powerful versus having nothing when you can't draw back on personal experience and you're just sort of feeling screwed. I agree. I think it's huge. Did any of that come out of your experience sort of as an athlete? I'm curious. Oh, yeah. It sounds like a lot of it must have, right?

Yeah, absolutely. like a lot of it must have right yeah absolutely i i think you know in retrospect i learned more about life from playing basketball than any anything i ever learned in columbia or in learning i think my great so my greatest life lessons came from playing basketball yeah i mean it's funny too because now um the one of the first i get like two of the first things that are cut from education now are physical education and art um and you know you look back and the ancient scholars on there that there's pretty much no such thing as a scholar there were scholar athletes like they understood the relationship between athletics and and scholarship and also just movement and exercise and how it

affects your mind and body you know that's also one of the things that you explore is the fact that you know the what's the there's this great line you have. It was like the body, the body doesn't wag the mind, the mind wags the body. Right. Um, which is counterintuitive for a lot of people, but I think the science is really there now. Yeah. It's catching up. You know, I think a lot of people would agree that stress is very real and stress affects you physically that stresses you know i always say too like you can't really eliminate stress you just have to learn to deal with it and i think stress is debilitating it manifests itself in different ways for different people i say in the book i think stress hits you where you're weak physically um and you know for lack of a

cliche you know stress is everything and i and to point, I think science is catching up in a big way. You talk to anyone who's probably not feeling well or experiencing a serious illness, you start talking to them. It's like Lissa Rankin, our friend in Mind Over Medicine. People start to open up their mouths and stress is pouring out. I think science is catching up in a big way there. Yeah. Stress hits you where you're physically weakest. Take me a little more into that. stress pouring out i think that's i think science is catching up in a big way there yeah stress hits you where you're physically weakest taking a little more into that so for me i personally have experienced that where you know i talk about in the book and my journey i came to this i had

excruciating back pain i had uh two extruded discs and i'm pressing on my sciatic nerve and my back was weak from an old basketball injury combined with flying and stress and uh the spiritual level i always thought it was very interesting because it was the root chakra and root chakra was it's around money worries around that time my money was was very very tight and not abundant so to speak and that was sort of a spiritual awakening where like whoa like all you know it's always a spiritual person but when it happens to you it sort of really sinks in so i think that you know became very clear and then uh you know i had a parasite a couple years later at any time i was stressed the stomach would flare the parent like i would get sign like it just it would it would came and then then i got over it and my

stomach's fine now and like but there was definitely patterns like when stress hit it would go back to the back when the back was weak when stress hit with the parasite i go back to the stomach i would notice it it's amazing how our body works that way yeah you know it's one of these things like oh yeah mind body one and when you start to experience it you're like holy holy shit no and it's a same on this side i mean i old injuries, and I know that when I'm really under stress, like I had a shoulder twice reconstructed. I'm like, why is my shoulder hurting? There's nothing that I did to my shoulder, but that's where it goes.

It's weird the way we're wired like that. One of the other things that you explained, which I thought was kind of interesting, is love. Yeah. Why? Where does this fit into your sort of paradigm? Well, you know, I always think love is interesting because you're either looking for love or you're in love. And I think a lot of people want to improve their love life, improve their relationship. And I also think there, you know, love is also not enough, too. I think love is also not enough too i think love is important but i think there are you know i

talk about this idea of soulmates and there are different types of soulmates and and um you know in the book i say that there's the the kind of soulmate that's that's i gary zukoff and see the soul talks about this idea of the soulmates who come and help pick you know get you from a to b they're there for very specific amounts of time and soulmates who come and help pick, you know, get you from A to B. They're there for very specific amounts of time. And soulmates is also like a very debatable thing. Like some people will say like, that's it, you know, that's the end note. So I think there's that type of soulmate. And I think there's also the forever soulmate, something that I think as a culture, you know, I think we yearn for that. I think personally, it it's what i believe and it's this idea

that there is someone out there for you and i talk about my own relationships that have worked and not worked and lessons i've learned there it's interesting that you sort of like identify there's like a transitional soulmate to get you from point a to point b but like they're that person for this moment or for this journey yeah and then there's sort of like the overarching i i need to sort of like explore that a little bit more in my mind it's um i haven't thought about it that way i was going to say that there's i was revisiting recently the longest running ever study on uh that's sort of like i can't remember the name of the harvard study on men where they sort of tracked these, like it's a 70-year, 70, 75-year long study where they tracked Harvard grads and then sort of like people from like the area at that time. And literally they were reporting in on a regular basis for now something like seven decades and looking at every aspect of their life to try and key in on like what were the things that, you know, allowed people to live good lives, to be happy.

Right, right. on like what were the things that you know allowed people to live good lives to be happy right right and like the big emergence one of the big big things is like across the board love yeah and it's uh sue johnson who's dr sue johnson who's actually in the book uh talks about this a lot you know she always says the science is there is we're mammals and we need we we depend on one another you know we need love we need relationships we are not meant to be flying solo she believes that wholeheartedly some people disagree but she makes a pretty powerful point yeah but i also think i'll add one thing i don't think you need someone i think there's a difference okay you don't need someone because i'm glad you said because there are people listening to this i'm not in that relationship now so i can't live i'm also saying that's what sue johnson says like i also believe wholeheartedly you have to be personally fulfilled you cannot depend on someone else for your

happiness and something else i'll talk about the book book. Like, you need to be fulfilled. You need to be happy. You cannot depend. Someone else will not bring you fulfillment. Someone else, a partner, can bring you more happiness and more joy. But you cannot look to someone else to help fulfill you. That is a recipe for disaster. It's a bonus.

So when Tom Cruise looks at Renee Zellweger and says, you complete me. Oh, yes, yes, Jerry Maguire. Right, Jerry Maguire. That's not entirely healthy. No, it's not. It's this idea of like, you know, exactly. You know, I think when you find the right partner, it's, you know, I say this in the book, it's one on one equals three, not one on one equals one and a half or two and i think you know as individuals i think you need to be in a place where you are happy and fulfilled yeah and someone else is a bonus yeah so like you know i agree and disagree with sue johnson there you know i think i think

once again if you're looking for someone to fulfill you you will be not happy yeah and i often wonder if you you will perpetually not find that person until you fulfill yourself and then it's almost like when you turn back to a place of really cultivating self-love and self-fulfillment and self-satisfaction, there's a radiance. There's like a frequency that emanates from you that is so much less needy and yearning that I feel like that goes out. And this is where I get a little bit woo. And like that person who truly is going to be like more of that. Absolutely.

And like attracts like, and then there's the part two of this equation where relationships are hard work. People change, they evolve and you're two human beings. And what there's the part two of this equation where relationships are hard work. People change. They evolve. No doubt. And you're two human beings. And what does that look like?

Relationships are work. No. Not like the movies all the time. No. But they're awesome, though. Yes, they are. And you can actually work with your spouse and rock it. Yes, we don't sit next to each other.

We have very different styles of working. It's funny, because my wife and I are the same way. We do different things. We work in very different ways, but it just kind of works. Let's go full circle here. I asked you this question two and a half years ago, but I'm going to ask it again.

We're going to do a rigorous comparison now, but the name of this is Good Life Project. Sitting here today, now, but the name of this is a good life project. So sitting here today, if I offer that term out to you, to live a good life, what comes up? To me, it's having a sense of purpose, meaning, significance. It's this idea of, you know, what I say in the book, you know, it's this idea of wealth. I think it's all the same thing. You know, it's a mental physical spiritual

emotional environmental well-being i think all these things are i think that's a good life you know i think this idea of wealth is is a good life i think we're in a place where it's it's it's more than just the individual it's it's our relationships it's our connection to the universe or spirit or whatever you believe in. It's connection to work. It's connection to your tribe. It's a connection to the environment, too. It's connection to, you know, we're in a place where everything is interconnected. And I think you can't have one without the other.

So I think a true good life is truly interconnected across all these things. That's where I think, you know, in some ways, Oprah and her message of living your best life has evolved, where I think it used to be a very, like, singular message largely around self-help. Self-help's great, but if you're not taking care of your body, if you're not taking care of the environment, if you're not taking care of these things that are all interconnected, you know, you're not going to have a quote unquote good life. And I think that's where things

have evolved. And that, you know, I think is the message of My Money Green. I think it's the message of wealth and it's how to create that life. You know, this is the book, you know, I say, I wish I would have had 20 years ago when I started to go on this journey. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it. Maybe you want to email it to a friend. Maybe you want to share it around social media, or even be awesome if you

head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out and it helps more people get in touch with the message. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. We'll be right back. 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 or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.