Good Life Project - She Created the Like Button, But Comics Were Her Salvation

Episode Date: February 27, 2017

You know that little button on Facebook you click to "like" something? Well, as one of the early employees at Facebook, today's guest, Leah Pearlman, came up with that idea.Actually, its original incarnation was the "awesome button," but what's more interesting is why she created it. And, what was going on in her life that led her to want it, both for herself and the millions of others flooding the platform.Turns out, Leah was leading a double life. Publicly, she was a fiercely smart, driven technologist as the hottest startup in Silicon Valley. But, privately, she battled near-debilitating perfectionism that led to a decade of bulimia. On any given day, she'd move between helping to build a revolutionary company, and purging in the women's room.Until, one day, tragic news about her father, and the way she caught herself dealing with it, led everything to fall apart. She was forced to bring her dark side into the light and find a way through. And, from that emerged something she never saw coming.Having been a devout "art-atheist" her whole life, drawing became her salvation. She began to share her simple illustrations and they touched a nerve. Thousands of people began to share them. That led her down an entirely different path in her career and life. Many of her Dharma Comics have now been published in a book entitled Drawn Together, as an offering to help others find wisdom, hope and transformation in simple moments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think sometimes it's there is so much to be grateful for and I experienced that and I've learned that has absolutely nothing to do with the level of pain they just can both be true and somebody who has had all the comforts in life can be suffering a great deal internally and somebody who has none of them can be incredibly joyful and grateful and they just have to put my attention on the fact that those are just two different, they're unrelated things. Today's guest, Leah Perlman, grew up in Denver, Colorado, one of my favorite places, actually, as a kid, incredibly motivated academically, and also put an incredible amount of pressure on herself

to excel and perform. That led her into a pretty dark place that she kept secret for the better part of a decade of her life. During that same decade, she ended up going to university and then being one of the early team members at Facebook, where she actually proposed what became the like button, which ties in in a really powerful way with the need to be liked on a very personal level. That led her to a moment of awakening a couple of years into that position that actually sent her out of the world of technology and deep into the world of exploring her inner self and into artistry, something she had thought for the vast majority of her life was just not worth anything. That journey also led to a new book called Dharma Comics that we're going

to dive into and where that whole thing evolved from. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be We'll be right back. The 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 will vary. So good to be hanging out with you. Thank you, likewise. Thanks. So you came in from Berkeley. Yeah.

Right? Yep. A long-time Berkeley person? I've been in the Bay Area for 10 years and Berkeley about three. Where'd you grow up? Denver, Colorado. Ah, one of my favorite places, like right in the city Area for 10 years and Berkeley about three. Where'd you grow up? Denver, Colorado. One of my favorite places, like right in the city? Yeah.

Nice. And what were you telling me about you as a kid? So as a kid, school was my big thing. I was really into it and really competitive. My dad was a math science person and I was a daddy's girl, so I was a math science person. You were groomed. Yeah. Yeah. Loved numbers, loved competing. From a very early age, I had committed myself to get into an Ivy League school.

That's interesting. Like how early? Like what I remember is I was at least five, maybe four. And I remember that because we moved into a new house in Denver and the locks said Yale. And I was five. I didn't realize every lock said Yale, but I saw that. And I was like, that's a sign. I'm supposed to go to Yale. And my parents- At five. At five, yeah. That's amazing.

Yeah. My parents and my mom, I think has even said she didn't even really know what the Ivies were. She doesn't know where I really picked up that idea. Yeah. Do you know where? I mean, cause it's unusual. I think it was just, you know, I, you know, I was young. I can't remember, but my guess is knowing myself now that I went to school and people said you should do well in school.

And I did well in school and everyone said like that great job, keep going. And so I kind of figured out, oh, this is the game that you play to have everyone like you. And this is the game I'm going to play. So it was like, oh, well, we tried to get into a good college. And then I hear what the good colleges are like, okay, then we're going to go there. So. Tell me about why it was important to get everyone to like you. You know, in some ways, I think I'm a bit of a, just like a performer. Like I just sort of like the feeling of being seen both on like a personal intimate level. And, you know, my grandfather, when he'd break out the video camera, when I was young, there's all these videos of me singing the song that I just learned in school in front of the camera. So I don't know, it may be in some ways just a little bit intrinsic to who I am.

It's just this wanting to be a star. So that was part of what was fueling you to – because, I mean, part of my curiosity with this also is that it's not uncommon, especially when you see kids who are so driven to achieve and achieve, achieve, also to layer onto themselves this judgment, like just a fanatical level of judgment and perfectionism. Was that part of your experience at all? So my experience was that that came later. So I think when I was young, it was kind of authentic, you know, passion and a bit of my makeup was to be competitive and driven and focused. I think what happened was at parts, you know, when I became a teenager, especially a teenage girl, when I started feeling insecure in some ways, I would cover that up by pushing harder at the places I was secure. So socially, if I started to feel awkward, which I did, and which many, many, many girls and boys do at that age. Yeah, I mean, that's the age. Some of us never outgrow it.

Right. So what I remember is as that got harder, as social interactions got harder, I was more insecure about how I looked, about what I weighed. Just those insecurities started, I doubled down and school became more important because now not only was it what I was into, but it was my place of feeling good enough about myself. And that's when it started. It feels like it took over at first I was doing it and then it became like I couldn't not do it. And that's when the perfectionistic tendencies started and the pushing and the judgment and the blame. And I started getting really pretty hard on myself at that time. Yeah. And which, you know, I guess to a certain extent is not all that unusual for kids at that age, but it sounds like, and you've shared how, and I don't know if this was what sort of led you, but you spent a long time dealing with eating disorder. Is that, so I went to inner city public schools.

And with my friends there, we kind of, you know, we rode skateboards. We drank, well, beer. I mean, pretty much at that age. You know, we would watch the Denver Broncos and eat nachos. And that was kind of that culture. And then I would go to this summer camp where everyone was really wealthy and thin and had expensive clothes. And I started being the kind of, you know, wanting to fit in and get the approval. I wasn't sure how to live in those two worlds. And so I ended up developing bulimia. This is what I remember is it was a way for me to kind of, you know, eat with all my

friends and act like everything was normal. But I also felt this intense need to diet and be thinner and be more attractive to fit in with, you know, this other group. So I kind of developed these two, it was like the public face and the private face. Yeah. Which is not that uncommon, I guess, you know, like the, how we deal with those emotions is just, uh, is a huge part of, uh, what we turn into to a certain extent. And it sounds like for you, it was, you know, this was the tool that allowed you to feel like you fit in two different worlds where it seems like it was really important for you to feel like you fit in with both. So you're kind of moving through school. Is anybody at this

point aware of what's actually really going on with you? You know, years later, my best friend at the time said she knew something was wrong, but certainly no one talked about it. My mom knew that – she just knew I was angry a lot. So when I was home, I was just always shut up in my bedroom. I was always studying, so it was kind of this weird thing where it was like, can't get in too much trouble. I was working so hard, but she would just constantly encourage me to slow down, take a break, and that would challenge what I thought I needed to do. So I just thought she didn't understand. She didn't get me. She didn't know how important this was, you know, and it was really hard on her in her attempts to try and slow me down. And so she didn't know what was happening with the food. No one did.

But it sounds like she did have a beat on the fact that you were driving yourself maniacally hard at a young age for some reason that maybe she didn't understand. So you go from there into college? Yes. Where'd you go? I went to Brown. What'd you study? Computer science.

Ah, all right. So you went to something like geeky, hard, math, numbers oriented. Yeah. I didn't really mean to. I was a numbers kid. I never planned on studying computer science. It was just a bit of a fluke where my intro computer science class, the teacher was also kind of this performer guy. And he had his whole staff of TAs do these giant acting routines that would act out what we were going to learn. And I was really taken aback by it. And it was so fun and funny. And there were all these women on the TA staff. I was just in the class because a friend was looking at it and I was just hanging out with him. But I was really kind of struck by how fun it was. So I took the first class and then they invited me to be on

the TA staff. And like I said, I had that a little bit of a performer streak. So the idea of, you know, being able to be creative with what I was learning. So I sort of, I stumbled into computer science. Yeah. What was going on in the background as you were sort of doing all this? Yeah. So, you know, it's something I, at the time I, the eating disorder was still raging basically. At the time I was in such denial of it. The way I experienced it was at meals, food was stressful. I would overeat. I would feel bad about that. So then I would go home and then I would way overeat because I would decide, well, this is the last time I'm ever going to throw up. So I better eat everything that I'm not allowed to eat starting tomorrow. And I would eat everything and then I would throw up. And then I would do that every day. It was this weird

delusion. Like every day I'd be like, this is the last time. This is the last time that went on for like over a decade. It's really crazy in retrospect that I would convince myself, no, really, this is the last time. Yeah. But you know what? I mean, what strikes me about that is that you're having this conversation in your head every single day for a decade. And, you know, I think sometimes some people look at people who are struggling with bulimia or any form of eating disorder or any other thing where the mind is involved and they wonder, well, are you not smart enough? Are you not strong enough? And you're clearly, you're really intelligent, very accomplished.

You know, every day, you know, you're saying the same thing. And then the next day you're saying the same thing again. Next day, it has nothing to do with all these other things. So when you see, when you're in this process, and at some point I have to imagine like the metal lens zooms out a little bit and you become aware of the fact that you're repeating this and the thing that you're seeking, that's giving you a sense of control, you don't, you no longer have control over. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in my case, it took a long time for the metal lens to zoom out. Part of what happens, at least in my experiences, some days I would go three or four days without

getting in the cycle. So that would give me this illusion. Oh, see, I have control. I'm getting better. Not knowing that was just part of the whole spin. When I graduated from Brown, I went to work at Microsoft for a couple of years. From there, I went to work at Microsoft for a couple of years. From there, I went to work at Facebook. And it was at a time when, you know, Facebook was kind of a startup.

It was a very small company at the time. And it was a time when all of the tech companies, and this is still probably true, although I don't, I haven't been in tech for a while now, but free food was part of the sex appeal. The first bubble. Yeah. Right. food was part of the sex appeal. The first bubble. Yeah. So for a person with an eating disorder, it got harder to maintain because one of the ways to live with an eating disorder is to stay away from food as much as possible, except when you can't. And then there's a whole battle that goes

on. But when I was in an office where there was food everywhere all the time, you know, I managed it for a long time. There weren't that many women. So the women's bathrooms were empty. So I could get away with having an eating disorder without people knowing. But after several years and stress and other things were picking up, just what you said, it was like, suddenly I'd be trying to get through a meeting and start thinking about food. And then I'd have to start eating after the meeting and, you know, lying about what was happening and coming out of the bathroom, looking like I'd been crying and trying to cover that up. It just was like gaining speed.

And after a while I was like, this is not going away. This is getting worse. And finally that's when I, the lack of control, like I'm, I'm starting to gain weight. Like it's getting so out of control. I need help. Like it's not even doing the thing that I, the one thing it's supposed to do. Yeah. Was there a moment that you remember switch flipping and saying, okay, now I have to do something now. And what was it that you did? So there was a moment and I laughed because it was a moment when the switch flipped and yet there

was still like a 10 year healing journey ahead. Oh, I think what happened in my case was I'd eaten, you know, that routine, I'd eaten a bunch of food. I usually went to throw it up and I couldn't throw it up. Like my body just wouldn't do it. And then I got really freaked out because it was like, I just eaten all this food. And like, I just felt like, like it wasn't working in all these ways. And I just remember walking, I was walking on Stanford's campus because Facebook's headquarters were right next to Stanford. And I just remember need help and telling them what had been going on for like, you know, 12 years or something. I think they were relieved because they knew something wasn't right, but they never could put their finger on what it was. So my mom, she's very kind of practical, like, what do we do? So she's like, OK, this is what's happening.

Who can we call? What do we need to do? Just kind of went into doing mode. And it was still another two years before, actually three years maybe before I found a therapist that I really liked, but at least someone knew I couldn't hide it as well anymore. Right. You know, people are watching you now and watching out for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, on the outside, you're working at Facebook, which goes, you know, like in a short period of time from tiny little startup. And you were, if I remember reading this correctly, you were on the team that actually created the like button for Facebook. It's sort

of like, it's an interesting claim to fame for somebody who spends so much energy wanting to be liked by so many people. Right? In retrospect, it's pretty hilarious and appropriate in a lot of ways. You know, that part of me that had this real need to be seen, you know, I wrote a lot. I shared a lot about my life on Facebook and I noticed that there was a way to capture more validation with the addition of this feature, which initially the idea was called the awesome button. And the idea was, you know, if somebody didn't have a clever comment to say, they might not say anything. So somebody might be reading my post or something I'd shared and not ever tell me

that they liked it. And they might tell me in the hall or something like that. And that was sort of devastating. It's like people are seeing what I'm sharing and they're not telling me that they like it. Like it's all this validation. The public validation. Yeah, exactly. So did Lightbutton literally come out of, to a certain extent, that personal desire

of yours? Yeah, there was a, we had an internal, it was called the idea board. So, you know, there were a number of things that contributed to it, but that was part of it. So on the idea board, you could post ideas and then teams would get together around ideas that we all liked and we would build it one night on a hackathon and something that the whole company liked would then get created into a real project. So I put the idea for the awesome button on the idea board. It basically was the idea that the awesome button on the idea board. It basically was the idea that functions pretty much the way it does now, except it said awesome.

Yeah. Which is funny because then it got pulled back to like, but now more recently, you've got all these new iterations, which is like, yay, love. Wow. Yeah. So it's almost like it's come back to the original intention. But interestingly, there's no negative. there's no thumbs down. Yeah. Well, this has been so, you know, something I've, I love thinking about, especially in my, in my inner work now, which is there is no such thing as thumbs down. And what I mean by that is whether we don't like it or we like it, if we put our attention on it, it actually grows in popularity. So what we realized pretty early on was if you really don't like something, better not say anything at all because then it will just

fall away. It won't show up in newsfeed. It won't populate anywhere. Whereas if you could not like it, it could gain in notoriety and sort of get more attention. So lack of attention is one of the best forms of truly not liking something. And then if you trigger that into your personal life. Yeah. And then that's such a helpful mindset because it's kind of like the people who ride bicycles, I hear them say this all the time. It's like, look at where you want to go. Don't look at the tree because then you'll run into the tree. So really putting your attention on what you like helps you move towards those things. If you put your attention on what you don't like,

you still move towards those things. Yeah. It's so funny. You brought up the bicycle exam. I was an avid mountain biker for years. And that's one of the first things you learn is they're going to be rocks and stumps and stuff all over the trail. And if you look at them, you are 100% going to hit them. And if you look past them, somehow like the GPS in your brain, your body doesn't figures out a way to navigate past them. Yeah. But the moment that's like, I'm looking at it, you're going down. Yeah.

Yeah. It's weird the way we work that way. Yeah. I had a teacher once who articulated it for me in a way that I really loved, which was, you know, she said, the world is. There's no concept of not in the world. So something that's not, it just isn't. There just is what there is. So when we try to introduce the concept of not, like don't hit the rock, don't doesn't really exist. So what our brain really hears is the rock, hit the rock.

Right. Yeah. Completely true. And so counterintuitive on so many levels. But then when you go to that next level, you're like, oh, yeah, that's where the brain. And what's interesting, that's why a lot of NLP works is because you'll see, you know, like somebody is trying to manipulate you. And I haven't gone deep into NLP, but just enough. And I know enough people in that world where, you know, they'll phrase the thing, don't do this. But what your brain actually sees is do this. And they'll know that that's

actually what's happening. And yeah, we are beasts the way that we are. So you're at Facebook, you're doing this incredible work, you're creating some stuff. Were you actually enjoying your time, like the work that you were doing? Is that something that you liked? I loved it. And that was a bit of the hard part. The confusing part was I loved what I was doing. I cared about the mission of the company, which was to create a more open and connected world. I love my coworkers. They were so smart.

We had so much fun. They were so smart to the point of it being kind of intimidating. I'd always been the smartest one until I got there. That was one of the smartest ones for any of my high school friends listening. But when I got there, it was like, everyone here is smarter than me, which was awesome. It just really inspired me. So it was confusing because I was also suffering a lot. And I, one of the biggest issues I look back now, barriers to getting help was I didn't think I deserved to be suffering because I couldn't find the reason. So it was like, you have this great life.

Stop complaining. That's basically the level of compassion I had for my situation, which is why I couldn't even ask for help. Like you can't tell someone that you have all of this going on and you're basically not grateful for any of it and suffering and silence. And I just couldn't admit, even to myself, I couldn't validate my pain. I'm curious whether you've experienced this also. That seems to be a really common experience for people who, whether they look at their own lives

or whether the outside world looks at them, they're like, man, there's so much good in your life. And we may feel that, oh my gosh, I have so much to be thankful for. But there's this one thing that's really causing suffering. And you don't validate it because you're like, who am I to complain? Yeah. And who are like, nobody's going to want to hear this. I mean, because they'll look at you, you know, your life is so good. But that's our inner voice. That's not the reality on the ground. Yep. It's a trick.

And I think sometimes it's, there is so much to be grateful for. And I experienced that. And I've learned that has absolutely nothing to do with the level of pain. They just can both be true. And somebody who has had all the comforts in life can be suffering a great deal internally. And somebody who has none of them can be incredibly joyful and grateful. And they just have to put my attention on the fact that those are just two different, they're unrelated things. Yeah. And also I think to validate the fact that you can be astonishingly quote successful,

you can be extremely wealthy, you can have all these blessings in your life and still be suffering mightily. And it's, you know, one doesn't necessarily buy you out of suffering from something else, which I think sometimes we struggle with. I struggle with. You have to legitimize what's bugging you or else you won't do anything about it. Mayday, mayday. We've been 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 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 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. And I also, you know, I had an experience recently. I was at a form of

a kind of meditation retreat, but it's more out loud that you share what you're noticing. And one of the things, the topics that came up there was race. And something that I hadn't thought about ever really directly, which was I went to these inner city schools, but I was in a magnet program. So I was in this class of kind of wealth, you know, I was middle class, but middle class white kids being bussed around. And basically we were being told, you know, like we're all equal race, like don't see color. That was kind of the message in school. But there were like all these obvious inequities in school.

We couldn't talk about them. Nobody was talking about them because we weren't supposed to talk about them. So it was just one of those interesting things where I've really been able to spend some time noticing as a kid, I was feeling some pain, social pain that wasn't, no one was talking. Like now there's at least things like Black Lives Matters and we're talking about it differently. But then I was told everything was equal, but it sure didn't look equal. And that was very confusing. And there's actually a lot of, I think I started developing a pretty severe, and this was true for a lot of my friends, insecurity about being white. It just felt really embarrassing to be white in these schools where we were like the

nerd kids who are not cool and sectioned off to this one corner of the school. And so it just helped me just being, you know, reflecting on that time. Remember, like, actually, the pain comes from somewhere, you know, and if our world is suffering or if our communities are suffering, we're suffering. And if we pretend that just because our life is comfortable or something and that means we shouldn't suffer, then we're not really connected with what's actually happening. Yeah, or with other people. some, you know, like that's the big unlock key for so much of what's going on now is as long as we see ourselves as separate from others, their suffering isn't our suffering, you know, their happiness isn't our happiness, you know, where if we can, we can somehow do the work to drop that illusion, because I do believe it's an illusion. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, you know, how can you

cause somebody else pain if you're in some way connected to them? Or how can you not see their pain if you're connected? And the opposite side as well. There's a Yiddish word, which I love, which is nachis, which translates roughly to the Buddhist equivalent of one of the four measurables. And it's appreciative joy. And it's like the joy that a parent or the joy that you feel when somebody that you love and are so connected with unconditionally succeeds that you feel it as if it's your own.

You know, it's like a parent and a child is the most obvious and easiest one to imagine. But can you imagine if somehow there was a process that allowed us to feel that about a complete stranger, a different world? Yeah. I mean, you see that even, I feel like YouTube does a great job of that. There's some times where there's just someone's experiencing something awesome and they take off virally. And I feel like it's from that place. I saw one recently, it was about people treating Alzheimer's with music. And you just watch these patients who don't know anyone and just sitting there and like almost comatose in their

experience. And then they listened to music that was popular in their youth and their memory comes back, their vitality comes back. And it's just like this video has just gone crazy. And I feel like it's just that it's on some level, it does trigger joy to see someone else's joy. Yeah. No, I agree. Maybe we just need more experiences that remind us of that. Right. Because it seems like we get so many messages externally these days that remind us of the opposite or parentheses of the opposite. I guess that's why you have some media and some people are focusing. I guess that's part of what we're trying to do is sort of focus on telling the other side of the story to a certain extent. So you're hanging out in Facebook. You have your coming to God moment.

Did this all go down when you were still there? Yes. Okay. And you start to, I guess, enter a process of healing and seeking. Yeah. What else is going on around you at the time? Yeah. So I think the moment that I told them I started something in process, I couldn't be in total denial anymore, but I sure told them and then closed back up. Didn't want to talk about it. Tried a few therapists, didn't like them. This isn't working. I got it. Don't worry about it. You know, with kind of my attitude, they tried to help me go to a recovery center, too expensive. You know, I don't want to just made excuses. And part of that

looking back was somewhere deep down. I knew that if I was going to recover, my life might change a lot. And I really liked a lot about what I was doing. So I wasn't ready to sacrifice what I thought was working for what wasn't. But then at the same time, my dad had been going back and he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer, which they'd found caught early, which is rare, just enough that they were able to treat it. And then it came back and then it went away. They treated it and then it came back as lymphoma and he was kind of going back and forth. And maybe it was the third time when they were like, it really, if it comes back, it's a problem. When I was at work and my mom called to tell me that the cancer had come back.

And, you know, like I'd said, I was a daddy's girl. We were super close. I loved my dad more than anyone on the whole planet. And my first response was, I don't have time. I'm too busy for this. And like somehow that was, you know, wake up call number two. I was like, wait, what? How could anything be more important?

Like the person that I thought that I was, this is like, that's the most important thing. My, my dad, my relationship with my dad, just him, he was the most important thing. But my email was occurring to me as more important in that moment. And that's when I was like, I don't know how I got here. Like, I really, suddenly I was like, it was kind of this feeling of like, I feeling like I'd been pulled along. You know what, you know, when you're swimming in the ocean and you suddenly like look back and you're like, where's my stuff? And you don't really realize that you've been pulled by the current. It was kind of like that. It was like, how did I, I'm in this fancy job.

Is that me? I'm in tech. When did I choose that? Do I care about computers like at all? Like I didn't seem to. It was just sort of like, I don't know when I stopped being me or when I took this path or I don't know who I am. I'm very confused. I was very confused. And that was early in the morning. So I went into work that day and I told my boss, my dad's sick and I need to take a sabbatical if you'll grant me that, which he did right away, which was a half-truth. That was all true, but what now was more true is I needed an excuse to leave because I wasn't giving myself the opportunity to take a break. So where do you go from there? Burning Man.

Of course. I took six months off. I spend a lot of time at home, but I also had this thesis of I need to experience some contrast. I don't care what it is, but it needs to be different than what I've been doing. And I had a friend who'd gone to Burning Man the year before, and it sounded like I would hate it on every level. I wasn't a person who had done any real drugs or liked to just hang out. I was like, I like to get stuff done. I like people just sitting around and hanging out.

What do you do? What do you talk about? So I went, and it completely blew my mind and my heart. What happened there? Well, a number of things, but the one that's coming to mind was before I went and it completely blew my mind and my heart. What happened there? Well, a number of things, but the one that's coming to mind was before I went, and it's so funny seeing my life now, I had such a cynical attitude of art. I was like, what is the point? Like, it's not productive.

It's like you create it and then you look at it and you feel something maybe. I just did not get art. I hated museums. I was just a snob about it for some way. And then I went to Burning Man and my entire understanding of art changed. I finally had experiences with piece of art that made me want to like change my life and live in different directions and sort of understand the power, the healing power of beauty, the inspirational power of beauty and turned everything on its head. It's like art is not some extra thing

that adorns the world. Art is, well, certain art or art that moves us is, teaches us the kind of world that we actually want to create. It's like the inspiration, not the after, you know, the afterthought. That's a big awakening. That's big. Yeah. It after, you know, the afterthought. That's a big awakening. That's big. Yeah. It challenged, I think until that point, I thought, you know, more is better, scale, leverage, impact, accomplishments, to-do lists, check boxes, like, and I thought that was the world. I didn't have any, you know, I remember a friend who was at Burning Man saying, we asked him a question and he was a designer for Facebook. And my friend and I asked him a question, which is, well, if you're not trying to maximize

your experience, what are you trying to do? And his answer was aesthetics. I just moved to create based on how I want things to look or feel, but there's nothing to maximize. It's just, I'm directed by aesthetics. And it took me years of replaying that in my head to understand what he might be talking about. It's funny that you remember that. Yeah.

So obviously, like, it's stuck with you for a reason. It was one of those moments where, you know, it's kind of they say, you know, a fish is the last to understand water because it's all you see. It was kind of one of those moments where I'm like, I just didn't even realize there was a different way to approach life than accomplishment. Yeah. I mean, how powerful is that? Just to sort of be shaken and to open to a whole different world.

I remember a couple of years back, I sat down with Milton Glaser, amazing iconic designer. And he shared how he knew from the time he was six years old that not that he was going to be a designer or create all these iconic posters and brands, but he knew that he was going to make beauty. Like that was his thing to just make beauty, which is really similar to what you're saying. It's like aesthetic. It's not, it's not, okay, here's a lockstep process of betterment and improvement towards mastery, which is fine, you know, like for some people and for some pursuits

or just for some seasons. But an opening to something to just a bigger awareness, especially for you to go from kind of quantitative numbers, science, systems, technology, too, and process. You know, like there's an iterative development process, too. No, there's something else. What do you do with that? Part of that, I made a longer trip out of it and went to Nepal and Bhutan. And I went to attend a silent Vipassana retreat, having absolutely no idea that it was a Buddhist thing. I was a really devout atheist, just like my sort of anti-art thing. Like if it didn't make sense, it didn't exist.

So I didn't know it was Buddhist and I just wanted to go because of the silence. The silence sounded like a nice contrast. I didn't even really get that it was meditation and I didn't get what the experience of meditating for 16 hours a day would be like. It's intense. Was it the full 10-day retreat also? Yeah. That going from not doing it to – It was like that. That's contrast for you.

Totally. Be careful what you wish for. Right. It's maybe two hours in the first night. Oh, my God. Yeah, I bet. What did what you wish for. Right. You know, maybe two hours in the first night, oh my God, what did I sign up for? But I needed some wake up calls. So that was another one. And you said, you know, your come to God moment. And I would say that was actually more my literal, literal come to God moment where going through that retreat was the first thing that just, I went from basically living in a world where what you see is what you get. The whole world existed on the surface to

being so connected with an idea of an inner order. And that has never, that's never left. So when you emerge from that and you're like, huh, there's a whole world just within me that I didn't even know existed. What then? and it was like eight hours with nothing to think about. And for some reason I got the idea, I was just going to think about and journal about infinity for as long as I could because anytime the concept of infinity had come up, it's like my brain couldn't handle it, so I'd just skip it. So I was like, no, we're really going to spend some time with infinity. And in that car ride, I was just like, what is infinity? What is it pointing at?

There's really no beginning, like really no end. And somehow through that process, I came out with this realization, like an embodied realization, oh, there's only the present moment. Like if there's no beginning and there's no end or they exist forever, there's literally only now, which is the kind of thing to forget and remember about 10 hundred million thousand times in one's life. But it was the beginning of me starting to optimize for now instead of for later. So what are the first steps of that look like? Yeah. I mean, the first steps are one, just knowing, like being where I am. Someone asked me recently in a conversation about like, what do you think is the meaning of life? And when I really check, life is me sitting here, talking to you, noticing the walls, you know, feeling the headset, feeling my fingers are intertwined with each other. Sometimes I think we can get lost in these concepts of what is life, but if I check,

if I look for life in this moment, I'm just experiencing what my body's doing. I'm experiencing your blinking and that's it. It's really that simple. That's life. And so one is just becoming much more connected with what's happening now. And then from this place, I might notice, oh, breath would be really nice right now. And that's optimizing for the best possible life is to take that one breath in this moment. So it's sort of like a fierce commitment to the moment. Maybe that's too aggressive, actually. Well, the only reason I hesitated was it is a commitment, but I would say sometimes I feel like we use that word like a commitment is something we choose. And I would say it more occurs to me now as it's just an exploration.

Just try it. Like when I try to optimize for the future and pay attention, it's usually a stressful experience. Especially if I try to optimize the past, which is already over, that's definitely stressful. Which so many of us try and do. do. If only I would have done this. But you can't actually do it. Right. So it's more of a commitment to ease. And when I pay attention, ease usually involves letting go of everything that's not right now. Yeah. It's so interesting because we are, it's funny because I've had variations in this conversation. And so I've thought about this in the context of my world also. I don't spend much time dwelling in the past. I kind of, you know, like I look at things, I'm like, what can I learn from it? You know, how can I make good if I've wronged somebody? And then how can I like just be here now and then move forward? But I do, I've realized

about myself, I'm very strongly future oriented. I'm constantly looking five steps down the road and trying to predict and provide for. I've realized that a lot of my work, I actually have fun doing that. It's not generally a huge source of anxiety for me, so I don't feel the need to cut it off. But at the same time, I also really need to hold myself open to serendipity and possibility. And that just like all sorts of other things that have nothing to do with what I'm thinking about or aren't in my purview may touch down and take me in a wildly different direction. And that that's okay. And not to be attached to having to actually define and map out a future

and making it happen in the way they see it. Yeah. It sounds like that's a lot of where you were, and then this big shift is letting go of that. Yeah, it helped me. There are different examples of it in my life, but one thing, I recently put together a book, and it's a collection of comics that I've been

drawing for seven years. But so often people will say, you know, when did you decide to write a book? And that's so not what happened. When did you decide to become an artist? And that's not what happened. It was literally the experience of, ah, I have something I want to draw and then drawing it and sharing it. And then, ah, something I want to draw and drawing it and sharing it.

And I was doing all sorts of other things at the same time. And suddenly, suddenly, six years later, I have this huge body of work, but there was no planning, never planned to make a book. Someone reached out and asked if I would. Even the creating of the book process was, you know, learning one thing at a time. So it's just given me some nice contrast to that story that my mind would have. I mean, you know, if you don't plan or you don't make things happen, they won't happen. My brain likes to tell me that. And it's nice to have something to be like, oh yeah, brain, check this out. Check this whole career path I've created without a single moment of planning. Right. Now it's amazing how that can sometimes happen.

I often wonder that when the more you, the actions that you take in the world are aligned with the essence of who you are, the less planning matters because what needs to happen is going to happen. 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 8 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. 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. But you just threw something out that we have to deconstruct. Okay. Computer technology, big life shift, thinking art was the stupidest thing on the planet, opening to art, and then becoming an artist. How did that start? Yeah. Well, the first thing I'll say is,

if you look at my stuff, they're stick figures. So first, I think the first step was to not even validate what I was creating as art. Sometimes I'll refer to myself as an illustrator because what I started out doing was I would have these ideas. I was suddenly learning about Buddhism. I was learning things while I was traveling, and I wanted to share it. But I also, having kind of been this devout atheist person, I wanted to share it in the most plain language, nothing complicated, just, you know. Something where anybody could get it and be like that resonates yeah exactly and and there was nothing like uh basically it was so i could even stomach it you know it was kind of like if it's in this fancy language it just it feels a little far away even

for me so yes it was just a little bit about i want to communicate this but i don't want to alienate anyone that's what it was i don't want to alienate anyone from a noble place. And also I don't like to be judged, so I don't want to alienate anyone because then we can all, you know, talk about it in a healthy way. So anyway, there was a lot of intention around communicating what I was learning in a very simple, general way. And, you know, it's one of those things life just was, you know, pushing me in this direction because there are so many ways I could describe the story of drawing my first comic. So many things that happened at the same time. I was keeping my first gratitude journal and I was taking pictures of what I was grateful for. I take a picture of the page and then post it on Facebook

and tag whoever I was grateful for. And I would get sort of bored writing like, today I'm grateful for the trees and the forest, blah, blah, blah. So I would just start coming up with ways just to entertain myself in my journal, like making a crossword puzzle out of the three things I was grateful for, just something to kind of stay interested. And one of those days was when my dad's cancer went back into remission. And I drew this little comic strip of cancer calling on the phone and him telling cancer the wrong number. It wasn't very funny. It was terribly drawn. But when I posted it, it sort of dawned on me. That's how I suddenly realized I hadn't really been talking about

what was going on with my dad much publicly. I'd never written about it. And so it actually allowed me to share something vulnerable in a really light way. So it felt like I wasn't asking for anyone's pity or, you know, it was just kind of like I'd sort of stumbled accidentally on a really cool medium for sharing somewhat serious or vulnerable or deep things for me. When you shared that first one, what was the response? Yeah, it was just, you know, lots of likes. Yeah. You're like, I created that.

Well, it's pretty, you know, one of my friends, she loves telling the story. Another feature I created at Facebook was Facebook Pages, co-created with an engineer. We both did the like button. We both did Pages. And it's just fun that I don't work in tech at all, but it's just like the very platforms that I helped build were the things that helped spread the comics so far and wide. It's fun to look at how the world works sometimes. Yeah, it's like full circle karma. So you start sharing this and did you notice right away that

you had stumbled on something? Not right away. What was interesting is, you know, coming back to having an eating disorder, which I still had at that time, I think I had started, maybe started therapy. A big part of having an eating disorder and have since learned most addictions is that there are parts of us that we're feeling insecure about and we can't share them. And that kind of contributes to the shame cycle. It's like, oh, I shouldn't share that. If I share it, people will like me less. So we hide more and more. So I do think, and also in the age of social media where it kind of felt like, and still feels like, oh, we all have to tell everyone all the great things we're doing, but not all the, you know, that's exhausting to pretend that we're happy all the time. Some people are, but most of us suffer, you know,

Buddhists say like 10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows. That's definitely my experience. So to feel like we need to have the balance be more in the favor of joy, that's an exhausting, you know, act. So I think I knew pretty quickly I'd stumbled onto something for me. Like, oh, it was like this little, it was like a pinprick in the balloon. It's like a release valve on having to pretend like everything's awesome all the time. So I started drawing these little comics, but the next one I remember it's called Follow Your Heart. And it's just this really simple one of this stick figure stalking a heart through all these different scenarios. And I didn't have to tell anyone about the content of what I was experiencing during that time, but I could share about it.

So it was a neat way to share without feeling overexposed, which I think is one of the issues. You don't want to tell everyone all your stuff on Facebook, but sometimes it can be nice to share, like I'm in a question about something. So yeah. And then pretty quick, I would say maybe by the third or fourth comic, people started sharing them. I once heard the photographer who does the humans of New York, him say, the moment you get your first fan, that's not your friend, you know, you're onto something. And I like thinking, I'm like, that's how it felt. It was like, who just liked my, I don't even know that person. Yeah. It's like, they're not doing it just because they know me. Yeah. They legitimately liked it. They're like, no way.

Yeah. So I do feel like that happened pretty early on. I was like, oh, I think I might be onto something. And then, yeah. So what happens that makes you say, okay, I'm not going back to my old world and this might actually be something that I could invest more of my energy in? Yeah. Well, the first thing is I took the sabbatical and then I did go back for a year. I think it's so funny. I was a product manager originally.

When I went back, I took a new job as the, I ended up leading internal communications. So keeping the whole company on the same page. I think that's so funny now because I spent so much time kind of in the meditation worlds that internal communications still feels like my job, but I went back and I think that was actually important because I'd shifted a lot, but it helped me see that I was moving in a direction that was no longer like I got to try work back on and see if I could make the new me fit with the old me. And they just, I tried for a while and still had the eating disorder, which now in retrospect, and actually still I consider it's a gift because it always tells me when I'm suffering, if I'm not paying attention, I'm recovered now, but it can still be the experience of like, oh, I want a second piece of cheesecake when I'm

not hungry. I'm like, okay, what else is happening? What else am I needing that that seems like it will solve the problem? So I find addictions are actually really useful in that way. They're huge alarm bells. If you need a large alarm bell, they work. So I reached a point where I was like, this is getting too painful. And my work is no longer feeling it's, you know, I was reading all of these religion books and meditation books and starting to go to retreats. And I was geeking out on all this stuff in my free time. So before I didn't know who I was or what I was interested. Now I knew what I was interested in and I had enough savings to leave and go full steam

in that direction. Yeah. When you think about, okay, I have enough savings. I'm good. I'm not freaked out. I'm going to leave Facebook and really leave the industry. And you think about, were you thinking I'm going to try and turn these illustrations into my living? Or were you just kind of thinking this is something that's lighting me up?

I love doing it. It's resonating with people. Maybe it becomes the thing that actually is my thing. Or maybe it's the thing that I do on the side and there's something else out there. At that time, I was actually rigid about not making it my thing. Because I sort of knew myself well enough to know that if it was my thing, I might start pushing it in a way that I didn't want to. I actually needed – the comics to me were like – they still occur to me this way as like my friends that helped me learn something or they're like compassionate, you know?

So I can look at my own comics and I can cry or I can laugh. I'm like, where did you come from? It's just like these friends that show up, you know, first in my brain and then on paper to tell me like this, whatever you're going through, it's actually okay. Even funny maybe. So I needed them. And so I just felt kind of, it's like, you know, I'm not a parent, but I just felt like I imagine a parent's protectiveness. Like I'm not going to exploit these for anything. I wouldn't even put Dharma Comics on the comics. I wouldn't write that, which I now had to spend about two months going back and adding it to all of my old comics because I just didn't know what they were passionate about to come together in community and explore. So that's actually was the vision that helped me leave feeling like I had something of purpose to go do. And that changed over time.

It did. You know, one of the best things I've learned in this whole process is like, you know, I think at the time I might've thought, oh, I need to find my purpose or I need to find what I'm passionate about and go do that. And that is a real good way to stay stuck. I've learned a way more productive path for me has been experimentation. So I really was craving this place, like coffee shops, everybody was doing their own work. And then, or you could like go to a yoga studio, you can learn yoga, but where do you go to just learn like who you are what your thing is like there was no place where i felt like i can be really in community in that question and experiment and explore and geek out on the stuff i wanted to geek out without staying too much in one tradition

and then i was in yoga class where the teacher you know said you know if you know, if you see something missing, it's your job to bring it. So I took that very literally. And I was like, well, this thing doesn't exist. Then I am going to create it. What I didn't realize was that running a co-working space was not my dharma. It was not my gift. It was not my passion. But it did get me moving.

Exactly. What I wanted was to go. So, yeah. But it got me moving. It was enough to shift me moving. Exactly. What I wanted was to go. So, yeah. But it got me moving. It was enough to shift my direction. Yeah. So what's your relationship with your illustrations, comics with now? Yeah.

Well, now I would say, so it's obviously shifted. I have this book coming out. I have a website. And I do consider it one of my, quote unquote, well, no, one of my occupations in the original sense of the word. I spend time doing it. It occupies me. And I hold it very lightly.

A lot of people ask me, what's next? And it literally lives in me. This feels very true. If I never draw another comic, that's really fine. I will draw them as long as they are alive in me, for me, to me. And the moment they're not, then I'll stop. And it's a bit of a scary thing because I have some identity wrapped up in it. And I really love when people ask me what I do, sometimes I'll say I draw comics and that feels really cool. But I have a real light experience where it never feels like I

planned it. So I didn't plan when they came into my life and I don't plan. I'm not in charge of when they leave. I never can make myself draw because I want to draw. It's literally like the comic has to come to me and then I draw it. And so I'll go sometimes three or four weeks with no inspiration. I'm like, oh no, it's over. So far, it hasn't ever left for good. But I also know these comics have brought me a lot of healing and the other people have told me they've brought them a lot of healing, my friends and peers and beyond. And from that place, I feel this desire just to help them go wherever they can go to be helpful. And one thing that's interesting, this book just came out three days ago and I've had the number of friends I've had text me pictures of their kids reading the book, which shouldn't be surprising, but it is to me because they were

never drawn for kids. It was like, hey, adults, everybody out there who's forgotten how to love themselves, here's a little message to help remind you. But my relationship, I would say literally today, as of like the last three days when I've just seen, that seems to be the number one way people are responding. Like, look it, I got your book and my kid took it from me and they're reading it. I'm really excited about that. And I don't know what that holds or what that means, but I've sort of learned enough to pay attention when trends happen like that, that I'm feeling a bit called in that direction. Yeah. Do you have any sense for what's next or is it not something that

you choose to focus energy on? I have a few life plans. I'm doing a little traveling soon. What's next for comics? I really don't put any attention on. Yeah. It's just whatever comes, comes. Yes. So let's come full circle. The name of this is Good Life project. So if I offer that phrase out to you to live a good life, what comes up? So I'd say the first thing I thought of was living an honest life. And guess what I mean by that is being really my experience of it is having to be, I will say having to be, or else I suffer, having to be honest with what I'm experiencing. So when I'm hurting, when I'm scared, when I'm lonely, when I'm sad, when I feel rejected, when I feel envious, when I feel mean,

when I feel judgmental, being honest with myself that that's what's happening before I rush to any, you know, trying to change that, fix it, do anything about it. My experience is I'm living a good life. And by good meaning, maybe the most amount of peace that I know is when I come into connection with what I'm experiencing and I'm good with it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If the stories and ideas in any way moved you, I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things. One, if it's touched you in some way, if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like you

would share with somebody else, that it would make a difference in somebody else's lives, take a moment and whatever app you're using, just share this episode with somebody who you think it'll make a difference for. Email it if that's the easiest thing, whatever is easiest for you. And then of course, if you're compelled, subscribe so that you can stay a part of this continuing experience. My greatest hope with this podcast is not just to produce moments and share stories and ideas that impact one person listening, but to let it create a conversation, to let it serve as a catalyst for the elevation of all of us together collectively, because that's how we rise. When stories and ideas become conversations

that lead to action, that's when real change happens. And I would love to invite you to participate on that level. Thank you so much, as always, for your intention, for your attention, for your heart. And I wish you only the best. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The 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.