Good Life Project - There is no perfect moment beyond the one you create.

Episode Date: August 25, 2016

We are constantly surrounded by imperfect circumstances that we perceive as barriers to our ability to act at the highest level. So, what do we do? We wait for the stars to align. For a sign from God that “now is the time.” Never realizing, with rare exception, that sign is our own willingness to act. […]The post There is no perfect moment beyond the one you create. appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, Jonathan back with a Good Life Project riff for you. So as I'm sitting here recording this, let me paint a picture for you. I'm functionally sitting in what is a closet in my apartment in New York City. Surrounding me are stacked up boxes. I'm sitting at a desk, which is actually an adjustable desk. There's a little button that I can push to make the top go up or down. Right now, it's so far down that I can't actually sneak my knees underneath it, so I'm kind of crouched over. And I can't plug it in because there's so much stuff just built around me right now. I can't even find an electric outlet. I'm using one of

our studio microphones, but we're between studios right now. So I'm hiding out in this closet and we're moving, which is one of the reasons why we don't have a space. And we've got our Camp JLP that I'm prepping for as I record this. So there are boxes of supplies and materials and all sorts of stuff stacked around us. And our team is sort of showing up from around the country one by one. And as I sit here, my microphone is propped up on, it looks to be an empty shipping box so that it actually matches my head. And in the background, although you probably hopefully can't hear it on the mic, I hear the sound of the city and a shower going on as people wake up around me. Yet here I am recording a podcast.

And actually, the podcast is about exactly this. We so often tell ourselves, well, not ready. I don't have the right microphone. I don't have the right paints. You know, I haven't spent enough time doing this. The conditions aren't perfect. I need a studio. I need quiet.

Oh, man, if only I had some quiet. I need the right light. Oh, the perfect light. My computer is just not fast enough to be able to actually do what I want to do. So I'm not going to do it until I can actually afford a computer that's fast enough to be able to do this, because then when I put it out into the world, you know, it's not going to be a true representation of who I am and what I'm capable of. So listen, I am a huge fan of operating at the highest possible level. I've spoken before about the fact that while I do believe it's important to, as many of my friends have said in

the past, ship what's on your mind, get it out into the world so that the world can respond to it, and you can in turn respond to that and iterate. At the same time, I also very much believe that you should do everything humanly possible to create the best possible thing, whatever it may be, before you put it out into the world, and then really try and make it land on the level of awesome. And at the same time, there will be moments in your life, moments in time, moments in your career, where you've got roadblocks, you've got barriers. There are things that you just don't have that may in fact make that thing better. But you know what?

If you wait for them, then you end up basically waiting for a perfect moment, perfect resource, perfect partner, perfect companion, a perfect idea that will almost invariably never come. So as I sit here in my closet, surrounded by boxes, with my knees barely jammed under a desk that won't raise any higher, and my microphone propped up on a box, and the sounds of stuff going around behind me, I'm thinking to myself, you know what? I could have probably just resorted to something else this week. I could have probably found a different episode to run in this place,

but this is my job. This is what I'm here to do. And one of the examples that I feel like I need to set in the world is the fact that even when circumstances don't set up to be optimal, you still got to act. You still got to stand back and say, what am I capable of doing now that will come close to the level of quality that I feel good enough to let represent me out in the world? And there will almost always be something that you can do, even if it's not the absolute optimal experience, the perfect scenario. Think about it. What can you construct? What can you do now to be able to actually start to take action rather than waiting for a perfect moment that will never come or perfect permission that will only come from you? So that's kind of the seed that I wanted to plant this week.

This actually started, I sat down to record a different riff or a different set of riffs and I kind of realized that, you know what? We are constantly surrounded by imperfect circumstances that we perceive as barriers to our ability to act at the highest level. When in reality, we are surrounded by imperfect circumstances and resources, but rarely are they as truly barriers to our ability to do the work we're here to do as we think they are. If we'd only be willing to think about how we're going to get the job done with what we have in the time that we have,

not tomorrow, not when it arrives, not when someday comes, but in this moment, right now. A little something to think about. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real, unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. And you can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the

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