Good Life Project - To Succeed at Anything, Do This [2021]

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Success is not just about knowing what to do. It's about doing it. Information, plans and goals, alone, will not get you where you want to go. Nor will willpower. Success at anything truly meaningful is about something bigger. Today’s show is going to be very different. Instead of deep-dive conversations with guests, it’s just going to be Jonathan, going deep into how to find success accomplishing big, meaningful things. There’ll be a ton of myth-busting and you'll learn something called Success Scaffolding™, a unique approach to making big things happen, especially things you’ve tried and failed at many times before. We’ve shared Success Scaffolding before, but over the years, we keep refining it and making it better and better. So, you’ll want to give this episode a listen with fresh ears even if you've listened to past episodes about it, because there are a bunch of new insights, changes and additions. You may also want to open your "notes" app to take notes. Or, if you'd like a detailed, one-page PDF mind-map of the entire updated 2020 version of the Success Scaffolding framework, be sure to sign up for our Weekly Insider Updates (http://www.goodlifeproject.com/radio/). We'll include a link to a free downloadable PDF in our next dispatch.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketypes/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey there. So today's show is going to be a little bit different. Instead of a deep dive conversation with guests, it's just me talking to you, sharing a framework specifically developed to help accomplish big, often complicated, but deeply desired and meaningful things in all parts of life. You know, 2020, it was a year we will never forget and nor should we. Plans and dreams and visions took a backseat to a universe-imposed mandate to hold everything lightly, to appreciate every moment, every relationship, and find gratitude for whatever semblance of grace or window of peace might have found us,

to make room for uncertainty and upheaval. And plans for so many, they took a backseat to survival, disruption, change, revolution, revelation, and the carving away of blinders and assumptions and the illusions and ideals around equity and safety and the notion that all was good in the world, it forced us to reckon with reality. And I think the question on a lot of our minds as we step into this new year is, where do we go from here? And we can answer that in a lot of ways, and we should and we will on an individual level. It feels like so many of us are looking to step back into 2021 with an intention of reclaiming a sense of purpose, of agency, of direction, a certain generative stance. We want to make things happen, things that matter to us for sure,

but also for many on a much bigger scale, which is honestly a little bit of a challenge given the year we're coming out of where plans rapidly gave way to profound disruption and groundlessness. You know, 2020 was the year we learned to start paying attention, to hold plans and expectations lightly and be ready to do whatever was needed to first just be okay and next find new ways forward. It was a year that took a toll, and for many, it continues to take a toll. And it's important to acknowledge that and not shame anyone for where they are or are not at this moment in time. We are all doing the best we can. We're all moving through this season from different places also.

And for many, the last year, beyond plans that vanished, there was a level of baseline anxiety and unease that made it brutally hard to focus, to act, to create, to make big meaningful things happen. And at the same time, it also showed us a new way of being and relating and in this context, maybe even creating and building. So as we step into 2021 and we start the process, not of forgetting, but of reflecting on what really matters, given the opportunity we feel compelled to make happen in the year to come, we're faced with that question, how? How do we step back into a generative space, a generative, creative, action-oriented stance

and process, one where we're capable of making big things happen while we're still moving through a season of rapid change and uncertainty, you know, in an odd way, this is actually the best time to work toward making big things happen. Because very often the structures, the assumptions, the limitations, the things that stopped us from moving forward, from taking action, from making change, they're all in flux now. We have this powerful opportunity to step back into the space of the unknown and work to breathe life into not just goals and visions, which do matter, but to bring entire new ways of being and relating and contributing and collaborating, living and creating into being. So maybe you want

to reclaim your health or launch a revolution in accessibility to healthcare. Maybe you're looking to start a new business or a career or create a foundation that helps others do the same. Maybe you're hoping to create a book or a podcast or a show or art project or documentary or solve some big problem or create a solution or app or program that is not only the realization of your fierce vision, but also the manifestation of a yearning to make meaning, to become a part of something bigger than you. Or maybe it's something that exists only in the context of your life, but it is deeply meaningful no matter what anyone else would look and how they might describe it. So whatever big visions or goals or hopes or

aspirations you're thinking about as you step into this new year. No matter how much we know how important it is to hold these things lightly, we also really, really want to make them happen, maybe now more than ever. So how do we do that? There's no one answer, but over the years, I have looked at this question in all different circumstances, all different contexts, all different domains, and really developed an approach, a framework for succeeding in nearly any endeavor that I found to be incredibly helpful in my own quests and in those of others. I call this success scaffolding, and it's comprised of what I call the eight P's,

like the letter P. And that's exactly what I'm going to walk you through in a fairly detailed way throughout this episode. So there'll be a whole lot of myth-busting, specific examples, action steps. I have shared this success scaffolding before, but over the years, I keep refining it and making necessary updates. Especially this year, it's important to add a bit of much-needed context to some of the elements and to the states of mind that I may call you to inquire into. So even if you've heard me share a prior version, you'll want to give this episode a listen with fresh ears

because there are a bunch of new insights and changes and additions. And I'll also tell you at the end how to download a detailed one-page mind map that illustrates every critical element that I will share. So be sure to turn off any other distractions, grab a pencil, or open your favorite notes app, which is very often how I take notes these days, and settle in. We're about to see a process of action-taking, of powerful reclamation of visions, dreams, hopes, aspirations, and a very practical, doable way to set up your life, your world, your days in a way that will support them.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 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. So I have been really fortunate and privileged and had the opportunity to say yes to many things and succeeded a few along the way. I've also failed at so much along the way and still have tons of work to do as a human being, trying to be and do better. But when people ask what I'm up to on any given time or what's exciting me, and then I often begin to share what I've been working on or creating,

the most common question that I've gotten over the years is, how do you do that? How do you keep pushing things forward even when life gets hard? Especially over the last year when pushing any endeavor forward seemed an impossible prospect. So in the beginning, it was through a ton of pain and brute force, which is how many of us tend to get things done. And it can work, but it can also leave you completely devastated at the end of the process. But over the years, I have kind of deconstructed my approach to making big, meaningful things, even ones that are really hard, where the stakes are high and the probability is low of making those happen. And I realized that it goes

really far beyond what anyone else has ever taught me about goal setting or achievement or grit or anything else really. What I've learned is that most people fail not because they're destined to or because something is hard or even because they had a bad vision or plan. And it is important to acknowledge that circumstance always plays a role, right? Rare is the domain where every person from every walk of life starts on the same line with the same opportunity and resources. That is reality. Beyond this though, there is a bigger disparity. The belief that simply having a clear vision and right plan allows anyone to accomplish

anything. It's a nice thought, but it's also massively incomplete. And it doesn't really help make anything big or challenging or worthwhile happen or that much more likely to succeed. We need a more robust, a more nuanced, a step-by-step framework for success that sets us up to succeed no matter what comes our way. And after the year we've had, we know things are going to come our way. We need something that is dynamic and responsive and fuels us to keep going even when things get hard because they always will. And when we hit walls and we want to give up because we always will. And this is what success scaffolding is all about.

I'm going to walk you through all eight elements and sub elements now. And be sure to stay to the end because I'm also going to tell you through all eight elements and sub elements now. And be sure to stay to the end because I'm also going to tell you how to download a one page mind map of the entire success scaffolding process. It won't make any sense until you've listened. So don't bother skipping ahead to do it now. But once we've walked through it together, that one page mind map, it may well become a bit of an unlock key for a lot of big things for you. By the way, this is not part of a launch. It's not part of like a sequence where you're going to download the mind map and then get a whole bunch of other stuff and be upsold into a program.

This is purely a standalone offering, one that I hope you will find valuable and tap as we all move into this together, looking to reclaim that sense of some semblance of control and agency and power and the capacity to start to make things again, to start to be generative, to start to make things that matter happen. So let's dive into success scaffolding. As I mentioned, there are eight P's, the letter P. Why P? Because it's kind of fun and because it's easy to remember. And somehow magically I was able to actually find words that started with the letter P that were completely relevant. So let's start out with that first element. And that element is picture, right? Now, some people may say, well, this is the equivalent of a vision. And they're pretty much right, but it is a starting place. What we want to do is get clarity around the place that we're looking to go, the thing that we're looking to create, we want to be able to look out and say one week, three months, six months, one year, three years, five years, a decade, whatever it may be. We want to have some sense of what that thing is. Because once we define it,

once we not only map it, but then actually make it vivid and real, our brains set up this sort of a tension. It's this subconscious tension that starts to say, now that I can see it, my brain is going to start figuring out how to get to it, how to make it real. So creating this is sort of like the first step. So the first one is P and picture. And we have two pretty important elements here. When we are creating the picture of the place we want to be, the thing that we want to create, the outcome we want to make manifest, we need to be as specific as possible. So rather than just saying, oh, I want to get healthy or like, I'd love a job that's cool. In 12 months, I want to be doing

something cool. That doesn't give us anything to do. It doesn't give us a stance of action or steps to take. But if I get really specific, if I add every element, if I close my eyes and I picture, what does this feel like three months out, six months out, a year out? What is the picture that's in my mind? And I start to paint that picture and I get as specific as possible. Then, then I start to have something I can work towards. And then we not only want specificity, we want it to be sensory, as multi-sensory as possible. So we take that picture and we turn it now into a movie and we make it live and real. We add visual to it. We add the five senses, right? So we add sight, we add smell, we add audio, we add tactile. We want to actually make this come alive and bring all the senses

into it because the more we can feel it, the more embodied it becomes, the greater that tension becomes so that our brain starts to work on ways to get there. Now, you may be saying to yourself, and this is the quandary that a lot of founders, whether it's a movement or a company, what they know when they're just starting is they know the nature of a problem or an injustice. They know what they don't want to exist anymore. They know the solution. They know the general qualities of a solution that they want to make happen,

but they don't know the specifics yet. So what I'll tell you is in the early days, that's okay, but you still want to get as specific as possible. So even if you don't know the actual specific details of what the shape and form and the specific are going to look like, you will have a sense of what's important about it, what the qualities are that really matter. So start there, start with those things and start to fill those into the picture. And what you'll find is over time through a process of action taking, the details, the specificity, and the sensory elements will start to reveal themselves and you'll start to be able to build around those. Cool. So that is our first P picture and maybe the simplest of all of them, to be honest, but we start there. Now, before we really dive into more granular stuff,

we get to the second P and the second P is purpose, right? This is your reason why it doesn't mean it's your life purpose. I'm not entirely sure what that term means. If it means anything, it's really been confusing to me, but we want to do something where we are very clear about the reason that we're doing it. Why does it matter to us? Why is it meaningful? And why might it matter to others also? And why does it matter to us that it matters to others? If in fact, this is something which is bigger than yourself, by the way, it doesn't have to be, right? So purpose is really, really important. And we want to understand the reason why we're doing it. Why does that matter so much? Well, I'll tell you why. Because anything that we do that is worth doing, that will have a genuine, meaningful

impact on our lives and maybe the lives of others. well, there's going to be a level of complexity and a level of adversity that drops into the path. Nothing is smooth, right? And when you bump up against roadblocks and adversity, whether you saw them coming or not, and we'll talk a bunch more about this as we go. When things get really hard, when you get dropped to your knees, and generally the bigger the picture is, the more deeply meaningful it is, the more likely it is that you will reach that place. And the bigger the moments of adversity and the challenges will be. When these things drop into your path, if you do not have a clear understanding of why you're doing this, why it matters to you, why it is important, then you'll find it really hard to keep investing energy, maybe resources, maybe risk in the process. You'll basically succumb.

You'll surrender to the adversity, not because you had to, not because it was actually something that was incapable of being moved through, surmounted, but because you didn't have the fortitude that grows out of a clear and deep understanding of the reason why this matters so much to you, the purpose of the entire quest. So that's why it's really important to just really spend some time and ask yourself, why? What is my reason why? Why does this matter so much to me and potentially others if it is something that is bigger than me? Get really clear on the purpose of the thing, of the quest, of the vision. So that is the second P, right? So we have picture and we have purpose. Now let's move over to the third P. And this is where most people actually start. And that is also one of the reasons why they fail. That third P is the plan, the plan. Most people think this is the thing I want to do.

They have some vague idea of it. They don't ever investigate why it really matters to them. And they jump immediately to say, what's the plan? Let me make a plan to make it happen. And generally, it doesn't work for a whole lot of reasons. But one of the big reasons is that most plans, when people rush straight to the plan, the first thing they do is not make a plan that they know actually accommodates their life, but they actually want to find a plan that exists already and then just step into it. The problem is if it doesn't accommodate who you are,

your resources, limitations, constraints, possibilities, privilege, all these different things, the life that you live, again, the moment you hit adversity, the plan blows up because it is not responsive and dynamic and it wasn't made for you. You just stepped into somebody else's plan and it may have worked amazingly for them or for a thousand other people who are not you and do not live your life. If it is not built around you, if it is not designed to be dynamic and accommodate you, the plan won't work. I think about people who are exploring running marathons. There is a fairly standard 14 or 16 week plan out there that allows you to train to run a marathon

that's really well thought is intelligent. And if you follow it, there's a pretty decent chance that you're going to be able to complete a marathon. But here's the challenge. That plan also assumes that you are a certain type of person with a certain baseline level of fitness who lives a certain life that allows you to accommodate the particulars of the plan. If you don't live that life, if you don't have that same realm of flexibility and time and resources, it doesn't matter how good the plan is for everybody else who does. It blows up in the context of the way that you want to do the thing and it doesn't work.

So it's got to be about you. So how do you create or find the plan that is about you? Well, you can start with those sort of fairly standardized approaches and maybe know the general steps to make things happen. So you start to fill those in. But then there are four things I want you to really think about when you think about your plan. We'll start with the first.

The first one is what I call chunks. So rather than saying, this is the end goal, which is important. We talked about that, the picture, what we want to do is reverse engineer. What are the smallest steps that can be taken that gets you from where you are now to where you want to be, right? And you break it down into, well, first let's, what are the big chunks? Well, I'm going to do X for a month, for six months. And then what will it take for me to be able to do this? And then you keep saying, well, what are the smaller pieces of this? And you keep asking, what are the smaller pieces of this? And you keep asking, what are the smaller pieces of this? Until you have a detailed set of chunks or steps that will take you from where you are now to where you want to be. What that does is it tends to reduce the fear and reduce the stakes of succeeding or failing at some really big thing, that very often induces

fear, which leads to anxiety, which leads to paralysis, and we don't take any action. But when you break it into chunks, then the actions become much smaller for any given chunk, and the stakes become much lower. So the fear and the anxiety tends to diminish dramatically. And what you know is that if you just keep moving through one chunk to the next, to the next, to the next, then you're able to keep the fear and the anxiety low, the paralysis low, the action taking high. And the net effect is these steps start to build on each other, right? So that over time you reach that same goal, but without all the fear and the anxiety and the paralysis that comes from

only looking at really big things. In fact, when you just look at the really big thing, very often most people never even start because they become terrified at what it will take to actually get there and the risk that they're taking. So that's the first one. Think about the chunks when you're thinking about your plan. The second one is benchmarks. Benchmarks. So we want to build in regular intervals where

we can kind of step back. We can zoom the lens out a little bit and say to ourselves, huh, how am I doing? In a fairly objective way. Well, why does this matter? So if we have something and we think, well, this is going to take me a year to accomplish, what we want to do is along the way, maybe it's once a week, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's even at the end of the day, a little mini benchmarks. We want to create mechanisms to check in and ask how we do it. This allows us to identify when we're making progress and it allows us to track and be objective about what is and what isn't happening. So if we're not making progress, it allows us to ask the question, well, what's going on here? Maybe I don't actually value this the way that I thought. Maybe my plan isn't quite right. Maybe the vision isn't as clear.

Maybe I don't understand why I'm doing this in a way that really matters. Or maybe my chunks were off. Maybe the steps aren't quite right. Maybe they're too big or small or too far to the left or to the right. When we regularly benchmark, it allows us to both catch us when we start to go off the rails early enough so that we can correct course. And it also allows us to see and acknowledge progress over time when we start to make it. When we check off the chunks and that leads to progress, then we can look back over time and see this trend map. It may be jagged, but we can see the bigger trends and say, wow, I actually am moving forward. I am succeeding. And that's pretty awesome.

Now, why is this so important? Well, it's important because we know from research, from people like Professor Teresa Mabolioli that seeing regular small bits of progress is massively motivating in the way that we commit to something and stay committed to it. But there's another reason, a little bit of a dastardly reason here. Our brains are a little bit beastly in a lot of ways. You probably know what I'm talking about. There's this thing called the negativity bias. So for some reason, and it's probably related to a survival instinct, our brains default to the negative. We tend to obsess over the things that aren't right, or the things that go wrong, or what we have not accomplished. And we spin them into oblivion in our head. And we kind of brush off the successes, the things that are right, the things that we're accomplishing, the forward

progress. It's just the way that most people are. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It probably keeps us safe in a lot of situations. But in the context of trying to accomplish big, important, high stakes things, it can cause a lot of problems because it kind of digs us into a deep hole whereom spin and it stops us from action taking. When we create regular benchmarks and it forces us to get objective to say, how am I doing? What am I measuring? What is the thing that I'm measuring? And then we note it over time objectively, we start to see, oh, wait a minute, that negativity bias, it's actually lying to me. Things are going pretty well. I am making progress. And that becomes a self-motivating spiral, which is really cool. So two powerful reasons for those

benchmarks, right? One is because we want to offset the negativity bias. And two, so that we can track progress and benefit from its motivating effect. Two other elements left in the plan that are really important. One is workarounds. So remember I mentioned adversity always shows up when you're trying to do something big and meaningful, things that will trip you up. And we know that if you do the work beforehand to say, instead of let me be massively optimistic and pretend everything is going to happen perfectly and nothing's going to get in my way, I'm not going to stumble, there'll be no roadblocks. When you do that, it tends to be

not a good thing. But if you actually do the opposite and say, listen, let me be realistic. Given what I know about this thing that I want to do, what are the most likely things that might drop into my path that might derail me? The things that are in my own brain, my own gremlins, my inner demons, the things that are a matter of external circumstance. And you start to think about, well, what are those things? And rather than ignoring them and pretending that they don't exist, which is part of some sort of, let's say, metaphysical approaches to making things happen, we actually have research that shows that you are much more likely to succeed if you do, in fact, anticipate

the potential things that might go wrong, both the inner ones and the outer ones. And then before you even start, make a plan. Well, if this happens, what would I do? So this is part of a methodology developed by Professor Gabrielle Uttingen called WOOP for short, W-O-O-P. And that's short for Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan. And what she found in a laboratory setting, in when she actually researched this, is that people who actually anticipate potential things that will trip them up, figure out the workarounds, develop the plan beforehand, then are much more likely to succeed if and when those things happen because they have prepared for it. Okay, let's talk about the fourth element of the plan. That is integration. And it's what I

hinted at first. One of the biggest failures of plans is that they are not plans that are designed to integrate well into a person's unique life circumstance. Maybe it wars with the available bandwidth. Maybe it wars with somebody's unique ability or lack of ability. Whatever it is, what you want to do is take a look at the plan that you're creating and ask yourself, does this actually fit who I am and the life that I live? If it does, great. If it doesn't, adapt it so that it does. Because it doesn't matter how perfect a plan looks. When you assume that everything is going to go right, it has to be dynamic and responsive to who you are and the life that you live in order for it to survive the quest. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton.

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The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. Okay, let's move on to number four, possibility. Okay. So we've talked about the picture,

the purpose, the plan. Now it's time to talk about possibility for a little bit. We need to believe that something is possible in order for us to invest any energy in making it happen, right? Now, you may have heard kind of the reverse, that in fact, we have to just take action. And then the results of our action will show us that it's possible and we'll keep taking more action. And in fact, that is true. Once you are in motion, but here's the thing, when the stakes are high, when you live a life with limited resources and bandwidth, there's an opportunity cost to every action that you take. And if you do not believe before you take the very first action that in any way, shape, or form, this thing that you want to do is even remotely possible. You will never take

that first action. And then you will never have the opportunity to see the fruits of your labors sort of spiral into belief, which leads to greater action, which leads to more belief, which leads to greater action. I'm focused on the first action here, which most people are not. So in an odd way, once you create the cycle, once you set it in motion, then it becomes a benevolent cycle. But the first step, you will not take that very first step, especially when the stakes are high and the opportunity cost is real, unless at least a tiny bit, you believe the thing that you seek to do is possible.

I call this the 3% rule. You've got to believe at least 3% that this thing is possible. So that brings us to number five. How do you create that belief? Number five is proof. That is the fifth P, right? So we start with a picture. We move on to the purpose. We develop the plan. We have to find some window of possibility, the 3% rule. And we find that very often through elements of proof. How do we prove to ourselves that something is possible, especially before we've even said yes to it? Because remember, one of the biggest things in any plan is to simply say yes to starting, right? So what is the proof that we look to? How do we get our brain to wrap around us saying yes to investing energy, resources, time, money, to taking the first step in and then sustaining action

until the results of that action begin to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Well, four things that we tend to look to as proof. One is facts, data, demos. So if we can see statistics or data, well, out of a thousand people who've done this in the past, 900 people have succeeded. Well, that becomes convincing for us. So we look to facts, data, and demos. Something that shows us in an objective way that this thing that we're thinking about doing is possible. The second thing that we often look to are similar others.

We want to know, is there anyone else out there who's kind of like me, who lives a similar life, who maybe has similar opportunities, resources, and also limitations and constraints? And have they wanted to do something like this? And have they been able to? So we're always looking to see, have other people done this? This is the awesome power in the world of business of testimonials. Because when you can stumble upon a whole bunch of people who seem to be like you, who have done the thing you want to do, your brain says, huh, maybe I could too. And in fact, it may be right. And that brings us to the third element of proof. And that is people that you trust, whether it is an authority, somebody with a pedigree, somebody with a degree, a license, somebody who you trust, whose opinion you trust that tells you, yes, in fact, this is possible.

And it is possible for someone like you. Now, the good news, bad news here is when you place your trust in a credible authority, that may well be really helpful and motivating for you. famous in particular domains and don't necessarily have the credibility, the background, the experience to be able to authoritatively say, drawing on insight, experience, wisdom, knowledge, data, that this is the truth. So be careful. Be careful who you trust. Look for credible authorities who know what they're talking about. And that leads us to the fourth element of proof. And that is micro tastes of our own progress. We talked about chunks, right? Where we take tiny little steps where the stakes are low. The beauty of this is that it allows us to take baby little steps in and then not have to worry so much about big losses because the stakes are low for each chunk step and maybe give it a shot. Now, remember we said that

if the stakes are high, at the opportunity cost is high, we won't even take that first step. One of the beautiful parts of chunking is it also dramatically lowers the stakes. It lowers the opportunity cost and it makes it a little bit easier to take that first step in. Not always completely convincing, but when you bundle it with one or more of the other four elements of proof, that can very often get you there. So we've talked about five elements so far, right? We have talked about the picture. We've talked about the purpose, your reason why. We've talked about a plan. We've talked about finding a sense of possibility, the 3% rule. And we've talked about these elements of proof. Now it is time to talk about element number six, people. The sixth P, people.

So when we want to accomplish something pretty substantial, we need people to go along the ride for us. If we try and fly solo, there's a chance we will still succeed, but the likelihood diminishes pretty significantly. So who are those people? Who do we want to have along the journey with us? Well, we have six different what I call roles. Now, does that mean that you have to have all six roles filled in order to succeed at anything? Short answer is no. But certain roles are probably more mission critical than others. And the more you have, the easier it will be, the more likely you will be to succeed because you have people sharing in specific

energies that are really important and playing specific roles to support you as you try and do something big and meaningful and very often hard. And when you hit the adversity points, they're there to be with you, to pick you up. So what are those six different roles? The first role is what I call co-strivers. What is that? A co-striver is generally somebody who is pursuing a vision similar to yours. So they may be a partner with you or a colleague. Maybe you're working on a particular project together. So you're both working towards the exact same goal and you're making it happen together. But very often they're

actually just somebody with a similar goal who's working sort of in parallel with you. This is like for little kids, your parallel playmates. So remember I brought up that example earlier of running a marathon or maybe a 10K or maybe it's walking a mile, right? A coast driver might be somebody who also has a similar goal of running a marathon or 10K or walking a mile, right? You each have it independently. You might walk different miles, but you're working towards a really similar or the same goal picture at the same time. And the beauty of this is that the energy of coast drivers, this is kind of funny, but it's important.

Very often the primary energy between you and a coast driver is commiseration, right? So on those days where things aren't going quite the way that you wanted them to do, or it's hard, or your body's hurting, or your brain is tired, or life seems to be pushing back against you, your co-drivers are experiencing something similar. And along the way, you get to share this experience with them. You're going through it together. And the fact that you are both in this thing, working hard, stumbling and bumping up against roadblocks and adversity, and things are working some days thing, working hard, stumbling and bumping up against roadblocks

and adversity, and things are working some days and not working other days, but you know that you're not in it alone, that somebody else is going through something substantially similar. It's really powerful in helping you feel like you are not alone along on this quest. And that can be incredibly helpful, especially when things get hard. So those are your co-drivers. The second role are champions. Champions, the primary energy there is they're cheering you on. They're the cheerleaders, right? They're the ones where when you stumble, they may not be alongside sort of trying to do the same thing, but you kind of call them up and say, I didn't do my thing today, or I hit a roadblock, or I ran out of money, or this project, this one step blew up in my face. And they're going to say

to you, you know what? I hear you. I understand what you're trying to accomplish. I know how much it matters to you because they know your picture, your plan, your purpose. They know why you're doing this. And they're going to say, I know this is hard now. I also know that you can do this. And I'm here to support you along every step of the way. They are your champions. And that is an important role to play. So the third role are what I call accountants, not people who run numbers, but the prime energy of your accountants is accountability. They're the ones who know the picture, the plan, the purpose, and they accept the responsibility of essentially holding you accountable to showing up and doing the work. This is not the easiest role to play. Some people love it. Some people love holding you accountable. Other people really don't want to, and they're not good at it because they

just want to love you up and champion you and support you. And, oh, if you stumble or miss a day, that's okay. There's tomorrow. It's no big deal. And then if you miss a week or if you keep not doing things that you say are really important to the thing you want to make happen, oh, it's okay. It's going to be all right. Your accountants are the ones who say, no, actually, you told me this matters to you. You told me what it is. You told me why it matters to you.

And you told me this is what you're committing to doing. And if things get hard, you even told me that this is how I'm going to respond and work around it. And you asked me to agree to hold you accountable to that. And if I don't do that, I'm not doing the thing I promised you I would do. And we need to have a conversation about why this is not happening. Those are your accountants. It is not the easiest role to play.

Some people love doing it. Others really don't. So could the same person who is your champion also be your accountant? This is a question that has come up a number of times when I've shared this framework. Short answer is in theory, yes. In reality, it's really hard because the person who is generally wired to be your champion also very often finds it extremely difficult to hold you accountable when things get really tough and they can't just cheer you on and pick you up, but they actually have to say,

what's happening here? So very often, they're not the same person. They're just not wired the same way. And that brings us to the fourth role. And that is what I call mentors. And the energy of the mentor is wisdom. So the role of a mentor is basically it's somebody who has either been to the place that you seek to go or done the thing you seek to do, or they have worked with many other people and been through the process enough in the role of a mentor or advisor or coach that they have a deep knowledge, a deep understanding, and a deep set of frameworks and tools to truly understand how this process works, what it takes and what it doesn't take, and

how to help you navigate the process, especially when things get hard, especially when you hit a threshold or a wall where you don't know how to move through it. Your mentors are the people who then tap into their wisdom to help you figure out how to move forward when you're struggling to figure out how to do it yourself. So that can be an incredibly important role. That brings us to the fifth role, and that is community. That is a group of other people who share the way that you see the world, who understand you, why you're doing what you're doing,

why this thing that you want to do matters to you. They may not be co-drivers. They may not be doing the same thing that you're doing, but they're very likely in their own process of creating something. They're committed to a process of growth or building or creating, and they share values and aspirations with you, and they know you. And you can show up in community, and the energy of community is belonging because you can show up in community and you do not have to prove anything to anyone. You do not have to be anyone else or do anything else.

You simply show up for who you are as you are in all the glory and all the stumbles and all the struggles and know that when you step into this realm of community, you will be seen, you will be accepted, you will be held and supported. And that is a powerful, powerful energy to have on your side when you're trying to do something big, complicated, and meaningful. And that brings us to the final of the six roles when we're talking about people who can be incredibly helpful that you want to have along for the ride roles, when we're talking about people who can be incredibly helpful, that you want to have along for the ride. And that is challengers. And this idea actually came

from Professor Adam Grant. And it's kind of a new addition to this. It dropped into the realm of the people here, because I realized that in some of my own quests, after hearing the way that Adam creates what he calls challengers, that I did not have this role. And when I added this role into things like my quest to write a book or build something or launch a new brand or company, that they were incredibly important in my ability to not just do it, but do it well and feel good about it. So challengers are people who you have basically said, here's what I want to do.

Here's why I'm doing it. Here's my plan. And then you start doing it. And at every step of the way, you invite, you share what you're doing with them. You share the picture, you share the purpose, you share the plan. And you say to them, I want you to tell me what you honestly think about this. Give me your honest feedback along the way. Because the sooner I can get input from people who I know and who I trust, who can tell me whether they think that this makes sense, it doesn't make sense that there's a better way or a worse way. It's possible or it's not possible, or I'm missing something or I have too much. When I have people who I trust, who know me,

who know what I'm trying to do and have a sense of knowledge or insight about the domain that I'm operating in, and I invite them to challenge my assumptions, my steps, and my actions, not because they're looking to cut me down, not because they're looking to create anything negative, but because they want me to succeed. They want to create the best outcome possible. So I invite them and I say, please challenge me along the way, not because I want to feel terrible about myself. I won't treat this personal, but because I want the benefit of your insight along the way so that I can see the missteps and the mistakes and I can see how to make things better, faster, and I can make changes and adapt so that I'm more likely to actually get to this place where it is as good as it can be and I am

as successful as I can make it. So the energy of the challengers is optimization, right? And again, you have to be important when you're asking people for each one of these roles, because challengers, you have to be sure that they are there to help you rise and not to cut you down. So it'd be really important about how you ask to play this role. So those are six roles, co-strivers, champions, accountants, mentors, community, and challengers. Can some individuals play multiple roles? Depending on the individual, sure. But the energy of each one of these and the job of each

one of these can sometimes be so different that it may not be all that effective to try and bundle them into the same person. So that's our first six Ps, picture, purpose, plan, possibility, proof, and people. 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. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

We're getting down to our final two here. Number seven is practices. Practices. So once we start to actually get in motion, right, we want to start to build habits and practices. We want to build things that we do on a regular recurring basis. And we do this for a couple of reasons. One is because as we start to move into something that is deeply meaningful and we bump up against all sorts of walls and it takes time, Well, for a lot of people at some point along the journey, different emotions start to arise. Sometimes it's hope and excitement

and energy and other times it's anxiety and fear and doubt. And what I found along the way is that when we develop a set of practices that are repeated behaviors, that we start to build the capability to become more calm and resilient, to become more focused and attuned to the world around us and to discern what is real and what is delusion so that we can make better decisions and not melt down along the way. Now, when I talk about practices, what I'm really talking about here are daily practices that are predominantly focused on mindset. So much of what we've been talking about here is built around the people and the structures

and the action steps that you're going to do and the mindset that will allow you to take action, right? So it's sort of more granular and focused around actual steps that lead to progress. When I talk about practices, what I'm talking about here are cultivating the practices of mind that allow you to step into a place of more regular equanimity and openness and calm and ease, even when things get hard, which they always will. So among my practices, the two that I found incredibly helpful for me, no matter what the thing is that I'm trying to accomplish, are meditation or

mindfulness and breathing, or what I would have called back in my younger days pranayama, breathing exercises. Both of these practices are fairly straightforward. They're fairly accessible and you can find all sorts of audio guidance for them all over the place. And when you start to develop mindfulness or meditation practice and a breathing practice, and you make it a daily thing, then what starts to happen is over time, the things that would rattle you start to rattle you a little bit less. Instead of being reactive and often not seeing clearly what's really happening and making poor decisions, you start to allow a little bit more space to land between the stimulus that would have provoked you before and the way that you would respond to it. Rather than reacting in a knee-jerk way

to what you think is happening, you breathe into it. You open into it. You zoom the lens out and say, huh, what's really going on here? And it gives you perspective. It gives you calm when things would normally shake you. It allows you to say, okay, this isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I expected. But this is my truth in this moment in time. This is what is showing up. Now, knowing what I know, what is the best, what is the most constructive and healthy way for me to

respond in this moment? So it allows you to access that calm resilience, allows you to focus in and attune to the situation, and allows you to more readily discern what is real, what is not real, and what is the best response to this? And then make that response. Now, this doesn't have to be a big intellectual process. This very often happens in a matter of seconds. But the more you build these practices, it just becomes a part of you. It becomes a part of the way you move through the world. And it becomes a part of the way that you experience and embrace challenge, especially big, meaningful, complex challenges where you're

trying to make something you really want to happen. This shows up in a really big way in the year that we are moving out of. So we all know, no matter how much you may have set up your success scaffolding or made a plan or entered the year saying, I'm going to do X or I'm going to do Y or I'm going to create this or build this or collaborate with this or make this, or I'm going to run this or lose this or get fit, whatever it may have been. Once we were a couple of months into last year, everything blows up. Everything blows up. Now you may still have been able to do amazing things last year and generate and create amazing things, but I can pretty much guarantee you did not do it in the way that you thought you were going to do it when January 1, 2020 happened. You had to adapt.

You had to change. You had to be responsive. You had to look at what was happening. You had to step out of a place of anxiety and fear and doubt and paralysis. You had to focus on what was happening in front of you. And you had to have the perspective to figure out, huh, this isn't what I expected. There was literally almost no way I could have seen this coming, but it's here. This is the reality. What makes most sense now? Do I completely walk away from this? Do I adapt? Do I adjust? Is my picture still what I thought it would be? Is it still possible the way that I thought it was? Am I still invested in that same reason why? Does the plan that I originally created still work? For most of us, the plan didn't anymore. But if you really understood how and why you put it together, you also understood,

especially if you have the practices of the mind, how to zoom the lens out and think it through so that you could adapt it so that maybe it didn't have to completely grind to a halt. And when you have mindset practices, it gives you the ability to act in this way when things don't go your way. When you don't have these practices, you are largely left to be fairly myopic and reactive. And in the context of a constantly changing landscape where you just don't know how the world or your life is going to change in the midst of you trying to do something really cool and meaningful, that becomes a huge hindrance. Practices. Now, one last thought about these practices.

The best time to start these practices is when you need them least, right? So start them now, start them now. The second best time to start them is when you need them most. The challenges, the chasm between those two in terms of your state of being and your ability to actually start those practices is monumental. When you need them least, you generally have the most bandwidth and the most sort of a psychological access to embrace these practices. When you need the most, it's generally hardest to embrace them, yet you must. And there's one other notion that I want to talk about before we move on to the final P. And that's the distinction with practices between automatic and intentional, habit or ritual. Certain things you want to become just habitual where you don't

think about them anymore. Certain things you always want to be intentional. You want them to be ritualistic. You want to be present in the experience. So if I take, for example, just my breathing exercises, which I do every morning and have for years, there's a part of that that I want to be habit, meaning I don't think about it, it just happens. And there's a part I want to be ritual or intentional. The habit part is I wake up, I get out of bed, I have my eyes half closed and I'm really grumpy and I wander out into the living room and I sit in a particular place, generally the same place in the same way. And I take out my timer and I sit there and I do the exact practice. So all of those little steps, I don't want to have to think about. They just happen automatically because the more automatic they are,

the more likely they are to happen every day. And then the power of the practice builds through repetition. Once I start my breathing practices though, I want to be fully present in them. I don't want them to happen automatically. I want to have my mind focused and aware of my breath. And I do because that is where the greatest benefit comes from. So very often, we want the container for a practice to become habit or automatic, and we want the practice itself to be intentional or ritualistic. And that, my friends, leads us to the final P, number eight. And this is kind of a fun one to end on. I call this the pledge, the pledge. So we start out with a picture, paint your picture, get clear on your purpose, develop your

plan, find a way to access possibility, 3% rule, build proof to increase the likelihood, wrangle your group of people, and then start to deepen into a set of practices. And then finally, we want to bring together our commitment in the form of a pledge. So we literally want to say, what is the thing that I'm doing here? Why am I doing it? What are the actions that I'm committing to take? What are the stakes in this thing? We want to write it down, memorialize it. Now, maybe you don't want to actually write it down. Maybe you don't have the ability to write it down, but we somehow want to memorialize this. So maybe it's audio, maybe it's video, whatever it may be, whatever your form is, you can sit here with an audio memo on your phone and just say, here is the thing that I am

committing to doing. Here is why it matters to me. This is my reason why. These are the actions that I'm committing to take. And the things that I am allowed to change are things that I'm committing to take and the things that I am allowed to change or things that I'm going to allow myself to be responsive to if and when circumstances change and require that. Here are the stakes. Here's what's at stake with this. Now, once you do this, you want to do one last thing, and that is share it. Now, how you share it, that can happen in a couple of different ways.

For some people, you're really comfortable actually sharing this public. Maybe it's something that you're comfortable with everybody knowing, and maybe you would love the accountability of everybody knowing, and the commiseration of co-drivers who are doing something similar, or maybe other champions. There's a way to actually do this where you can rally all the six roles of people behind your pledge. If you share it with your co-drivers and say, hey, listen, let's do this together. Share it with your champions and say, cheer me on while I do this. Share it with your accountants and say, will you hold me accountable

to this? Share it with your mentors and say, this is what I'm committing to do. If I need your help along the way, your insight, will you offer it to me? Share it with the community so that you can feel a sense of belonging as you're doing this. Share it with your challengers so they can look at this and say, hmm, have you considered this or this or this? Right? You can share this in a private way with just a small number of people, if that is your orientation, or if the thing that you're looking to do, you don't want to be big in public, or you can share it in a very public way. I've seen people do variations of this on social media. It really depends on who you are, depends on the roles that you're looking to bring into the quest, and also to a certain extent, the level of exposure you can tolerate.

As a general rule, if you post something like a pledge just generally to the public without having any sense of whether the people who may see it will actually play in a meaningful way any of the six roles that matter to you, you may get a whole bunch of people commenting that actually are completely not invested in you doing this thing that you're pledging to do and maybe even wanting to sabotage or derail you. So think carefully about who you share this with. Share it with the people who are willing to play those very specific roles and who you trust and are there to support you rather than bring you down. And one of the reasons that this works is because it enrolls people in your

commitment. But there's another interesting psychological quirk that's behind why it works. It's a little thing called the consistency principle. There's a psychological principle that was identified, at least for the first time that I know, by Robert Cialdini that says that we as human beings want to be seen as saying and doing things that are consistent with the things we have said and done in the past. It's an impulse that is really strong in almost everyone. So if we say we are going to do something and we say to people who we have really rallied behind us, then there's an impulse in us that kind of is active all day, every day that says, we want them to see us as people who are consistent with what we've said we're going to do.

And the cool thing is that makes us more likely to do it. So this simple pledge, it seems almost insignificant, but the simple act of memorializing it, making it real, making it clear and detailed, and then sharing it with the people who you have enrolled, who you care about, who you want to quote on your team, makes it more likely that they will then support you in committing to your pledge, but also makes it more likely that you will act in a way that is consistent with the pledge that you have made to people in whose eyes you want to be seen as being a consistent human being. I know, a bit of a weird quirk for people. So that brings us through the final P in our success scaffolding, the eight Ps. We start with the picture, specific and sensory. We move to the purpose, the reason

why. We move into the plan. We talk about chunking and benchmarks and workarounds and integration. We talk about possibility, the importance of belief, especially for the first step in the 3% rule and how for that first step, belief precedes action, especially when the stakes are high and there is an opportunity cost. We talked about proof, the four elements that we generally look to, to prove that this thing is possible by people who are like us. We talked about the people who we want to enroll, the co-drivers and champions and accountants and mentors and community and challengers. that cultivate a state of mind and a state of being that allow us that baseline equanimity, calm, resilience, focused attunement, and discernment that then makes the process of striving towards something hard and long-term and ever-changing and dynamic. It allows us to respond to that in a way that is more intentional, more reasoned,

more discerning, and more likely to allow us to be responsive and dynamic and succeed. And then finally, we wrap it into a simple memorialized pledge that we share with the right people so that they are enrolled in our commitment and that we continue to act in a way that is consistent with the way we want to be seen in their eyes. So take a moment and think about what is the thing, stepping out of the year we have just stepped out of, stepping into this new year, acknowledging the reality of who we are, our circumstances, acknowledging the reality of the world that we currently live in, and the fact that we are still in the middle of a lot of uncertainty, a lot of change, a lot of disruptive change that we didn't

see coming and didn't want, and also a lot of disruptive change that we need for us individually and for the world to move forward in a more cohesive, equitable, and meaningful way together. And think about what is the thing as I move into this new place, this new invitation that 2021 is offering me, what do I want to make happen? What is meaningful to me? What does it look like? And then start to actually sit down with your mind map and move through the eight elements of success scaffolding, map it out, and then begin to take action. So I shared in the very beginning that I have created this one page mind map that lays out all of the details of this 8P success scaffolding for you. If you would like that, it is available simply and freely. Just go to the website to goodlifeproject.com, drop your name into the email form, which is all over the website,

and you will get a response that says, hey, welcome. And also here's a link to download your PDF. It is a one pager. It's got a whole bunch of little bubbles in different colors. I did it myself. So if you feel it's a little bit janky, apologies for that, but it has everything that you need. And then start to take action, start to take action because we are in this moment in time where we individually need to reconnect with the possibility of achieving and aspiring and with a sense of meaning and with a sense of people and collaboration and community. And I hope that this tool, that this framework is something that guides you in a way that feels sensible, in a way that feels doable, and in a way that gives you the tools to start to take action towards that thing that you have in your heart that you would like to make manifest, make real in the world in the year to come

and to really understand how to do it in a way that is responsive and adaptive and dynamic and evolves with the times that we're in. I hope you found this valuable. I always enjoy sharing it. And I wish you only the best as we move into this year together. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes.

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in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people, and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. 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 or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. 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 if we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.