Good Life Project - Your Life in One Word? This Could Change Everything | Erin Weed

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Somewhere in the last few years, a lot of us started asking a version of the same question: who am I now, and what am I actually here to do? The answers don't come from a quiz or a vision board. But they just might come from the one word that has been running your life all along, whether you knew it or not.Erin Weed is a speaker coach, keynote speaker, and the creator of the Dig, a purpose-excavation method she has used with over a thousand leaders, founders, and changemakers across every stage of life and reinvention. Her new book, Just One Word: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Discover Your Purpose and Unleash Your Power, is the culmination of that work. She also spent over a decade as head speaker coach for TEDxBoulder, helping people find the one true thing they need to say and the courage to say it.In this conversation, you get to watch the Dig happen in real time, because Jonathan sits down in the chair and lets Erin guide him through the full process.What you will explore:What the Dig is and why close to 100% of people who think they know their word are actually wrongHow your life story, all of it, from childhood to present day, contains a 10-word operating system that explains exactly how you tickWhy your deepest violations, the things that make you genuinely angry, point directly toward your core wordThe difference between the word you think defines you and the one that actually doesHow knowing your word changes the way you make decisions, support the people you love, and build the things that matter most to youWhat Jonathan's word turned out to be, and the moment in the conversation where it landedIf you have ever felt like you were circling your purpose without quite landing on it, this conversation is for you.You can find Erin at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sharing our conversation with Dr. Lucy Hone to talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is: the grief that comes without a funeral, the losses that do not count as real loss in our culture but may be driving more of our suffering than we know. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The dig is a method to unearth that one word that is your entire purpose. And I think of as a frequency. It's not so much of a descriptor word. It's more about a feeling, a way that we carry ourselves through the world. And also the thing that we're here to learn and also the thing we're here to teach. Usually people don't like their words. Usually when it starts to land, it's like, it's almost like it hits a little too close. So that's kind of part of the process.

So there's a version of you that you already. know is real. You can feel it, you know, the way you want to spend your time, the kinds of problems that let you, the moments when you look back and think, that was really me at my truest. And yet, and yet, most of us spend years, sometimes decades, circling that person without being able to live that life, that truest self-life, let alone even name what's at the center of it. Well, what if you could distill that essence, your essence, into a single word, that you can, that became kind of like the unlock key for your most authentic real self in all parts of life. That's the provocative claim that today's guest is making.

And she's backing it up with a process she has developed, she calls the dig, that she has conducted over many years with over a thousand people to help them figure out their defining word and then build everything from their business to careers and relationships around it. And what really surprised me, she shared that. we do that. And what really surprised me is also a second statement that she shared with me that 100% of people who come into this process thinking they already know their word, they're wrong.

Every single time in her experience, the real world, the real word, it lives kind of like one layer deeper. Erin Weed is a speaker coach and keynote speaker. She's a creator of something she calls The Dig, which is this provocative kind of purpose excavation method that she has spent 13 years refining with founders and leaders and change makers across every stage of life. She has spent over a decade as a head speaker coach for TEDx Boulder, helping people distill enormous messages down to the single truest thing that they had to say. And her new book, Just One Word, The Surprisingly Simple Method to Discover Your Purpose and Unleash Your Power, walks you through the same process that she used in this

conversation. But this conversation, today's episode, is very, very different. Because in this episode, Aaron ran the full dig on me live from the beginning of my life story to the moment that my word landed towards the end of our conversation. You'll hear how themes surface, how clusters form, and what it feels like when one word that has been kind of running in the background for your entire life finally has a name. By the end of this hour, you'll have a clear picture of how to do this yourself, and you'll know what to look for in your own story. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. And the place I want to start with Aaron is the very beginning of how this method came to be. And if you're wondering what my word is, by the way, stay tuned. We'll jump in there right after

this short break. So I am excited to dive into this. thing that you call the dig. You and I have been talking about this for years. We go way back. And I've heard you've created this. You have done it with everyone from founders to neighbors to celebrities. And it's this process which has been just like profoundly revealing. So, and it's now sort of like the focus of your new book, just one word. So what is the dig? The dig is a method to unearth that one word that is your entire purpose. And I think that's incredibly important because in a world that is just so busy and overwhelming and we're always seeking, it's just so nice to be able to land on that one word, which I really think of as a frequency. It's not so much of

a descriptor word. It's more about a feeling, a way that we carry ourselves through the world, and also the thing that we're here to learn and also the thing we're here to teach. So the idea is you distill it down to a single word. We do. And the way we do it is we go backwards. in order to go forwards. So we look in your history to figure out your future. Okay. I'm going to ask you a lot more about the process in a moment, but why do we care? Like, why does it matter that we actually know this? I think purpose is incredibly important. And all the research shows that purpose is just a thing that affects your mental health, that affects your quality of life, it affects everything. And when we know that one word, we can start aligning with our purpose. We can align our actions. We can align our

decisions, we can align our messages. So knowing that one word is, I see it as like a, it's almost like a North Star. It's something to guide us. What happens if you don't know it? What happens if you don't know it? What a good question? Well, I think you still can live a great life for starters. I just feel like it's a tool. It's just an extra tool to give us more clarity because I find that when you're more clear, that you can feel more confident about the life you live. When you feel more confident, you can start connecting with more people and be more connected to yourself. Okay. So you have been developing this process for how long? Thirteen years. Yeah. What was the origin of it, actually? The origin was actually TEDx Boulder. And previously, I was a professional speaker. I owned a company called Girls Fight Back,

which taught women's safety and self-defense classes at high schools and colleges across the world. There were more like big seminars and assemblies. And after I sold that company, I started working with TEDx Boulder to coach their speakers. And what I found was that people were so overwhelmed by these big messages they had. They had so much data, so many ideas, they were having a really difficult time distilling it all down. And so I would basically just tell people, tell me everything. And before long, I would just be sticky noting. The wall would be completely covered. And what I was looking for was those one word themes. How does this all tie together? And so once I found these one word themes, I ultimately distilled it down to just one word for the entire message. And once the person,

and got to it, they were like, yes, that's me. And then surprise, surprise, those ended up being viral TED Talks because they felt so clear and confident in what they were putting out to the world. So, I mean, it sounds like it's important not just because it tells us more about like who we are and kind of like why you're here to a certain extent, but also in terms of communicating that to the world, it sounds like then you can use it as a foundation to really figure out like what is the story that I'm telling. And that's whether it's personal relationship. a job, like whatever it is in your life. Yeah.

I mean, I love a good navel gaze and just like doing the deep personal development work. We both have that in common. And there's something so incredibly cathartic, but also an act of service to also share what we discover with the world. And so for me, it feels a little incomplete to just find your word. I also want people to like write about it, talk about it, share about it, build a business around it, build a brand around it. Let's talk process.

How does this actually work? The process is very simple. All you have to do is show up and be you. And tell me your whole life story. And how many times is somebody... That sounds easy. I mean, I hate to steal your job and everything. It takes like a week. Surprisingly, I found that the average person's life story, when given no prompt to end, is about 90 minutes. People talk for about an hour and a half about their life story. And then at that point, they usually feel about complete. And so in that life story, I look for these one-word themes that keep coming up. When you're a child, when you're a young adult, when you're all the way up to present day. And as I find these one-word themes,

they all come together to be an operating system, 10 words or less. That operating system is exactly how you tick. It is your operating manual for yourself. It's also your core message, if you're a person who is a speaker and author. And so within this operating system, there's one word that's in charge. So if you think of the operating system like a sports team of you, the dig word is the captain. As long as we've known each other, we have never sat down and actually, I don't know my word. Yeah. Well, maybe we should figure it out. I'm gay.

You're down? Yeah. Okay. Well, you know I never leave the house without sticky notes and a Sharpie. So here we are. Okay. I'm nervous. So Jonathan Fields is letting me interview him.

So like, let's just like allow that in for a moment. Well, first of all, thank you. I always like to thank people that sit down in these chairs and are willing to share because that's, I just say it as a very sacred thing, you know, to share your past. And could we begin from the beginning? Yeah, I mean, I'm sweating already, so let's just do it. Well, I'm actually curious. Like, what is the source of tension for you, like in this moment?

I don't know where we're going to go. Okay. Do you have a word in mind? Like, do you feel like I know my word? I feel like I probably do. Interesting. But I kind of don't want to say it because I want to just see where this takes us. Okay.

Well, let's check in at the end. I have actually found that he's startling 100% of people who thought their word was one thing were wrong. Interesting. And I don't need to be right or anything. So it's not about that, but it's just usually someone's dig word is actually on the other side of the word that they actually thought it was. It's like just the one layer deeper, and that is the magic. Okay. Yeah.

I'm going to keep it in the back of my mind. Okay. Sound good. And suspend judgment. Yeah, sound good. Sounds good. Okay, well, I'm going to be sticky noting. I'm just going to be writing things down.

I'm going to be putting up some words that start popping up as we go along. So don't be distracted by them. Yeah. And maybe even everybody who's listening or watching can be kind of thinking of words, too. Yeah, sounds good. All right. By the way, for anyone who is listening and not watching, if Aaron puts up sticky notes or anything like that that she references, we will take a couple of screenshots and create a little link that we can point you to so you can see whatever it is that we're talking about. Yeah, and I'll also say them out loud too.

Cool. All right, great. So we begin at the beginning. Okay. What's your birthday and where were you born? So born in New York City in November, 1965. What was your family like? Mom, dad, older sister by two years.

And to extent that I can really remember anything from that long ago, just very neighborhoody. Like what would be the words you'd use to describe it? Close-knit. I feel like we knew our neighbors in the building. Yeah. How do you think people would describe you growing up? Always creative. Let's fast forward a bit.

So you grow up. Do you stay in that same place? No. We ended up moving out to Long Island. and eventually to Port Washington, which is the town actually that was the real East Egg from the Great Gatsby. It's actually based on a real town. Really?

Little Peninsula, egg-shaped peninsula on Long Island, on the water. So I grew up basically, yeah, in a small water town just outside in New York. How did that shift your life? I mean, I loved it. I love water, which is one of my biggest sadnesses. Like, I don't have a lot of sadnesses, but like living in Colorado. Yeah. Not being near large bodies of water. I feel it. The end of my block was a bay. And I would just ride my bike down there and kind of climb up on top of the lifeguard's house and sit. That was my place. What does water do for you? It lets me just let my whole body exhale. My mind exhale also. Yeah.

It's like makes everything as okay as it can be. Hmm. Do you find that you tend to hold, your inhales a lot and so that it's a good reminder to complete the process? I think there were times in my life that I did. I don't feel like that's me now. Yeah. Does exhale to you mean like release? Yeah. It's like my whole nervous system down regulates. Okay. Yeah, like my heart rate slows, my mind stills, my body relaxes. Mm-hmm. What did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect, actually. Hmm. And yeah, I just always had this impulse to build stuff. So the idea of building cool structures was something that I thought was really cool. Are there certain kind of structures that you were pulled to? Houses. Yeah. Yeah, just like really cool houses.

What about houses versus like big skyscrapers or something? I don't know. There's something kind of cool about, I think, just the same. scale of a house. And also I think I associated skyscrapers with being sort of industrial and monolithic, whereas like in a home, you could get really creative and also talk to like one person or two people and really figure out like what can we make that will just make their eyes pop and make them walk into it and have the same feeling that I had when I was by water. Yeah. What is that feeling if you had put it in one word, that eyes pop? Delight.

Delight. Hmm. What does that word mean to you? It means that you're surprised in a way that makes your entire system light up. That is a great word. It's a good word. Yeah. Yeah. Like I feel like... Stephanie is sort of like the queen of that.

Yes. For those who don't know, Stephanie is my wife. She's amazing. Absolutely amazing. And creating experiences of delight. Hmm. Okay. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

So keep us going through your timeline here. Yeah. So that was me, like teens. Probably spend a lot of time exploring art when I was a kid also. I was always doing something with my hands. I was always making stuff with my hands, building stuff, drawing stuff, painting. I taught myself to paint when I was middle school or high school. and just painted on a really regular basis.

My mom was also a potter when I was a kid. So the basement of our house was a studio, you know, with like three electric wheels, a massive old kickwheel with like a 200-pound concrete flywheel in the corner. Kilns off property, she had like a giant, literally walking gas-fired kiln that would take a day to fire. So I was around that energy all the time. And I grabbed the corner of that.

studio and just set up my own little little mini improvised painting studio and I would just completely lose myself there. What is your criteria for making building creating? Does it have to be? Like do you have when you set out to make build or create, is there something you're striving for? Honestly, I think it's less about being able to say that I've done the thing and it's more about doing the thing. So it's the process for the result. Yeah, 100%. You know, I get like, I mean, you know, like later in life, I'm written a whole bunch of books and I'll get the box of books in the mail from the publisher, as you may have gotten recently yourself. And I would just let it sit for a week. And Stephanie was like, what's wrong with you? Like, you just got the book. Like, it's here.

It's hardcover. It's like, don't you want to see it? I'm like, yeah, sure. For me, it was a process of creating it. That was like where the magic was. And it's pretty much always, am I proud of the things that I've created when I can look back and say, I've been able to come close to closing the gap between taste and expression?

Yeah, that makes me proud. But at the end of it's not why I do it. That's just a signal that like I'm getting closer to actually doing what I came to do. Okay. So what did you end up going to college for? Screwing around. majored in not attending classes.

I was a horrible student. But I was building stuff from the day that I was there. I started a business, sound lighting, mobile disc jockey, and we grew it into one of the business businesses that was really sort of like the main player in that field, like at all the parties, all the concerts. And building that business and then being out and DJing at clubs until 3, 4 in the morning was most of my life in college. We had massive speaker

stacks and equipment in the house that I lived in, and I would just play with it all day long and then go out and get paid to play with it all night long, which led me to my senior year when I didn't have enough credits to graduate, so I had to take 21 credits a semester and begged my way into a one-credit class on earthquakes just to be able to get out. But I was building, Like, I was been in that case, like, music has been a persistent passion of mine also from the earliest days. I played guitar really horribly for most of my life. But I just love any kind of good music. And you've even made guitars, right?

I have, yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. So it feels like a lot of the words that are, you're talking about, they're very, like, in the moment. Like, have you ever struggled in your life of just, like, not being in the moment? Constantly. Anxiety or just future thinking, past,

stuff. Yeah, less anxiety, but constantly future thinking. I am, I am perpetually living in the future. Not in a bad way. Like, I'm not spinning or fretting about it. I'm not, I'm not weirdly wired, not so much in a doom and gloom way, but more in a possibility way. Okay. So, like, I live there because I'm constantly, I'm constantly exploring what I think is going to be coming and seeing, like, how I might be able to, play with that to leverage it, to turn it into something, and to be to a certain extent, ahead of the curve. And that has led me a number of times actually to be too far ahead of the curve, where I would bring something in life that was a little bit before its time. Can you give me an example of that? I mean, you could argue actually at the yoga business that we created in New York City was a bit ahead of its time. We were trying to, I launched a yoga studio literally on the eve of 9-11 in New York

City. But the ultimate goal was to build the first ever national roll-up business of franchise that was national chain. Okay. And probably I came to realize that it wasn't necessarily a business that I wanted to be, and it wasn't a business I want to build. Somebody else did. And but they did it differently, and it was a couple of years before.

yoga hit sort of like a level of mass appeal and understanding and was embraced on a level where you didn't really have to convince people that there were something interesting here. You basically just had to open it where it didn't exist. And so it was a different experience for me. I mean, I ended up selling that business seven years later. But yeah, and there's just probably a whole bunch of ideas that I've had over time where it's sort of like World War. wasn't quite ready. Okay, but you didn't start off with the yoga studios, right? You had a bit of a life before that.

Can you bring me... Yeah. Yeah, so after college, sold the business, and then I went back to law school. Not necessarily because I had an interest in being a lawyer, but because I had screwed off so much in college that I was just really curious what I was truly intellectually capable of love. I want to challenge myself,

and I want to challenge myself in a way where I thought, whether I actually practiced or not, it would give me a set of skills that would be relevant to almost anything that I did. So I saw my car, did all the other things, moved into the city, and spent three years in law school. And thankfully, I was the kid who basically showed up and said, like, I'm here with a mission.

I wasn't there to just delay my life for three years, which a lot of people do with grad school. I was there because I wanted to actually challenge and see what I was capable of doing. I got really fortunate. I worked really hard. And I graduated with a lot of credibility in my class and ended up then working for the federal government for three years. The SEC, I also working in a massive federal bureaucracy with crazy politics and crazy inefficiency as somebody who likes to just get things done. It was maddening. So I left and I went into a mega firm in New York then switching sides. Incredible firm. All the prestige you could ever want,

like the track that everybody would want coming out of law school. Incredible salary for, you know, like somebody who didn't know what he was doing. And I showed that every day that I was there. And I ended up in the hospital because we were on a deal where, um, Basically, I barely went home for three weeks, and my immune system shut down. A huge infection blossomed in the middle of my body and ate a hole through my intestines from the outside in. So, yeah, hit the button on the deal, ignored the pain because that's what we do. And then pretty much went straight to the hospital. Thankfully, surgery was successful.

But it really made me rethink, what am I doing with this one wild and precious life as Mary Oliver would say? And it was clear that it wasn't going to be that. And that sent me slowly back into the world of entrepreneurship. And at that point, movement and fitness. Because I've always had a deep connection to just sort of like somatic expression to the connection between mind and body. And I wanted to learn that industry. I wanted to understand what was working and what wasn't working. So talked my way into a job as a personal trainer, making $12 an hour.

which I was okay with because I was getting paid something just to learn an entirely new industry. After, like, that career, that had to be a wild experience. Yeah, my biggest fear was that, like, one of my clients or colleagues from Law Review in law school would, like, see me with a client, like, stretching them out, like, you know, on the grass in Central Park, wearing tights and running shoes in the middle of the day and be like, oh, what a shame? game. Like, what a fall from grace. But very quickly, I ended up building my own business. And within a couple of years, like, those very people

whose judgment I was concerned about were the ones who were reaching out to me to find out how I did what I did. What do you think you figured out that other people didn't? That everything's figureoutable. It's like that there's, I see, like, I'm weirdly wired, and then I wake up in the morning and I see possibility. Yeah. You know, like people see obstacles, people see reasons why not, and I see reasons why.

And if, you know, if almost nobody is doing it and most people assume that's because it's not doable, I look for the one or two who are as proof that it is possible and ask, like, what's my contribution? What's my flavor that's not being done? And it, yeah, I'm weirdly wired for possibility. don't. Yeah. So that wasn't something that you just decided positive thinking and no. No, I mean, I mean, I've been, I've been around a lot of anxiety my whole life. Um, it's, it doesn't, it's not my default. My, my default is really looking at uncertainty. I feel very uncomfortable with high stakes uncertainty. It affects me physically and psychologically, which is why I've studied a lot and built practices to be okay doing it, because I know I have to be in that space to do the thing I'm here

to do. Like to live in a place of possibility is also to live in a place of uncertainty. Yeah. You know, there's no separating the two. And so, but being in that space is really deeply unsettling for most people, including me. Yeah. Especially as the stakes rise. So I've had to learn how to be okay there. What advice do you give people who are wildly uncomfortable with it? People tend to have three reactions to it. One, as soon as they feel it, they'll either speed forward to try and get through whatever the moment is as quickly as possible so they can just stop feeling it. They'll backpedal to pull themselves out of it enough so that they stop feeling it.

Or they'll sit in stasis, they'll become paralyzed. they just don't know what to do and they're afraid to go back, they're afraid to move forward so they just sit and suffer. In my experience, that's probably most people and they don't realize that's actually what's happening.

And to me, it's like, one of the pressure of Buddhism or one of the sort of core teachings is that life is suffering. And I always struggle with it. The way that my mind has come to interpret it is that life is uncertain, that is the only certain thing in life,

is that it is and will be perpetually. uncertain and a life where you allocate the vast majority of your waking hours to trying to lock down the future to trying to make it certain which is what almost all of us do that is suffering it will always be suffering because it is impossible to do or to have um so to me i've stopped trying to do that i've stopped trying to make life as certain as possible and i've started to equip myself with the practices and skills to let me be as okay as I can in the space of uncertainty as stakes-wise.

That doesn't mean I always have. But that's the shift in approach that I've taken. And again, because the other truth is that, like I said, before uncertainty and possibility, two sides of the same coin. So if I'm here, like if I just want to walk through the world and say yes to possibility, then I have to say yes to uncertainty.

at the same time. Like, I can't just choose one or the other. Yep. So I have to teach myself how to be okay with it. It's a big work. Yeah. And it's a work that never ends. It's not like, check the box and you're good.

Yeah. It's a practice. Yeah. And it's a stakes rise and change. And you get brought to your music, and it's another practice. Yeah. Take me into podcasting and books and that whole area of your life. Yeah.

So I was running a yoga studio in New York City. We were about six years in. All the highs and lows are running a business in New York. With a physical location, we were renting a floor in a building, the six-year lease and a personal guarantee. And, yeah, signed the day before 9-11. And, yeah, it was, there were high highs. I mean, the business was doing pretty well,

but there were low lows and just profound uncertainty. and I also had developed the real interest in writing and creating in a different way. I mean, it's magical when you walk into a yoga studio and you're the teacher. And, you know, there are 50 bodies mat to mat and it's sweaty. And for 90 minutes, you create this sort of ecstatic synchronicity between everybody in like their movement and their breath. And you can like bring them down to Shavasana on the end. And you feel everybody, the whole room, exhale.

you're just like, fuck yes. It is magical to know that you've played even like some role in helping make an experience like that happen. And I loved it. And years of that war on me, years of running the business at the same time and supporting it, especially because married and we had a three-month-old baby when she started that business. So it was a lot. And I had developed an interest in writing.

And I'd been doing a bunch of writing on. the marketing side of things, deep interest in just human psychology, what moves people to action? How do I motivate a lot of people to actually have that same bent towards possibility and then take action towards it? This to me is what marketing is, you know? And I just got really curious in like why people don't take more control over the future of their work lives. That led me to get curious about writing a book about it. And I really, really, really. I was fortunate, and then got an agent from a big publisher. I got an agent out of the gate who took me cold and then got a deal.

And that started my writing career. And once that was begun, I actually was right around the time that Tim Ferriss had just come out with four-hour work week, and literally called him and got him on the phone. And I was like, so what, like, how do you do that? How do you make books sell now? And he's basically, like, back then it was blogs. You know, like, blogs and like getting on a plane and talking to people at events. So I just started shifting gears into the online world.

And that led me into this whole new world of digital, like, digital, like, it wasn't called being creator back then. You know, this was a blogger, and then it was digital content, and then it was social media. And this was, yeah, the days when you're at South by Southwest in 2007 or 2008, and Twitter has, you know, like, it's itty-bitty and it's grashing every three seconds because the servers can't hold the, and it's, and that just over time, led me to want to devote more time and energy to that world and to write more and to speak more. And that sort of like was my introduction to that whole space. And then, yeah, so sold the book. The first book came out in January of 2009.

I sold the studio towards the end of that of 2008, handed over the keys December 31st, walked out the door, taught my last class. Most people did not know it was my last class until I brought them up from Shavasana, which is final relaxation for anyone who's never taken that class, and said, hey, listen, there's something I need to share with you. Wow. And that was emotional.

Yeah. But it felt right, too. Like, there was no looking back. I had done what I came to do. Yeah. And that moved me into this world that I've been in for a long time since. 2012, we started a Good Life Project, the podcast. 14 years later

it's become what it is now which had you asked me back then I would have laughed out live like there's no there's no way there's no way it's going to become the size and reach so many people and B there's no conceivable way I would be doing anything for 14 years

yeah what do you think those secret sauces of Good Life Project? I don't know I think we started at a time where it was not nearly as crowded it as it is now. And then if you just never stopped, which we didn't, you know, eventually you just slowly grow and slowly grow, slowly grow. There was no like magic like hockey stick

moment with us. It's 14 years of just never stopping. And also continuing to shift and change. Yeah. It's almost like evolving is kind of in the middle of possibility and uncertainty. It seems like they're all tied together somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like holding both the uncertainty and the possibility and like evolving through it. What is some of the best feedback that you've gotten from your listeners over the years? Like it's something that just hits your heart. You're like, yes, we're doing it. Probably just that's something that we put out into the ether made a real difference for them.

I mean, there have been like so many versions of that, that we created a moment or there was something that was said. Often it's not something I've said, but just there was a moment that happened or something that a guest has shared that's really awakened something. thing in them that's made a real difference. Like they're struggling and it's really helped them through something. I think that's when they see themselves in somebody or some moment or some experience. The hands down, the thing that we've done that has been the most impactful is the adult summer camp that we ran for five years, camp GLP. They came thinking that they were there to learn a whole bunch of things and what they realized when they got. there as they were there to just reconnect with a part of themselves they had left behind decades

ago. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. What's interesting about you is, I mean, there's so many interesting things, but like you are such a logical, deep thinker. You have used the word magic or magical three or four times. And I'm just curious, what is your definition of magic? I think there's a connection between the whole, between magic and possibility. You know, it's this, the belief that, it's, it's tied to like the belief that things that people can't understand and say are impossible can actually happen.

And that there are also just things that we can't often explain, but they are. Yeah. You know, there's been a tension in my whole adult life, at least, where the rational side of my brain is always looking for the explanation for phenomena. the older I get, the less I feel the need to have that explanation. And the more I just accept the fact that this happened, it is. I have no explanation for it. It feels kind of mystical. And that's okay.

Yeah. Bring us up to present day. So, hanging out. Bole of Colorado was not planned. We didn't think we were moving. We just thought we were escaping the pandemic. And here we are six years later. still doing the podcast built and recently sold one other company along the way that was a deep dive

into the intersection between meaning of work focusing deeply on really looking back at good life project right now and reimagining who we are, what we're about, and super excited about a lot of things we're about to give birth to in the next couple of months and years. connected with this brand and community, hanging out with friends here who, I have probably more friends here in six years than I had in New York City in 30 years because just a shared value set. And I was also a bit of a weirdo in New York City. You know, I'd... The best kind of weirdo. Yeah, well, but not necessarily, you know, like, there are people follow certain prescribed paths very often. And here everyone's kind of a weirdo.

facts. So it kind of makes it easier. And for 34 years, my wife has been my best friend. And for 25 years, we've had the blessing of having an incredible kid. And there's really nothing more important to me than those relationships. Yeah. They're pretty amazing. Yeah, they are.

Not going to fight you on that. What would Daveo say are your best superpowers and your biggest shadows? Probably that I'm relentlessly, possibility. I'm relentlessly oriented towards possibility. I'm a dreamer. I'm not a dreamer who basically just dreams. I'm a dreamer also, like, works really hard to make what I see real. That's the maker impulse in me, the builder.

Like for me, it's not just about like what's possible. You know, like, that's fun. But the real fun is making it real. Yeah, it's not enough to just like see or dream. To me, that's a little bit of like wasting time. Like, I want to actually make it real. It's almost like the possibilities, the prerequisite for you to be able to make the thing. And I think it's a double-edged sword because I see so many things that I can become really distracted and fragment my attention.

and that becomes super frustrating for me. And also, I may believe things are possible. That maybe aren't really all that possible. And allocate energy and resources to it and then realize, maybe not. So I think it's like, it's both the plus and the minus. Yeah. Let's imagine that you've lived a long life. You're 150 years old.

on your deathbed, all of your loved ones are around you and you have an opportunity to impart your final wisdom. What are you going to say to your loved ones? The words that Debbie Millman shared with me like years ago, like just come right into my head. So these aren't my words. Don't wait. Don't wait.

Don't wait to be the person that you know you are or to share the person that you know you are. Don't wait to do the things that you want to do. you don't wait to show up in the way that you know makes you feel whole and seen. Yeah, don't wait for permission. Interesting. I love that. There's like an urgency in it.

There is. And it's weird because a number of people brought up at different points in my life, the word urgency. They're like, why are you pushing so hard so fast? Like, why is this need to happen now? And I don't know the answer, but I think, At least for the second half of my life, I think it's probably connected to 9-11. Yeah.

Because I just, like, I saw people go to work that day and not come home. And, like, you know, these aren't people who are doing anything dangerous. These aren't people where you'd be like, oh, well, they chose to do this thing. They're a rock climber or they're this or they're risky behavior. These are people living everyday lives doing the thing they do. And they went to work in the morning and didn't go home at night. made no promises. And it's the other thing that's constantly scrolling in my head.

It's part of the don't wait thing. So I think there's a bit of a self-imposed urgency that I have. Because, God willing, I do have a lot of time left. But I generally don't bank on that. It's a good way to move through the world, right? Especially when you have uncertainty as a theme that comes up in your life. Yeah. I mean, you know this visually.

Yeah. Been through this with a lot of people in your life too. Yeah. The uncertainty and the possibility. Life falls somewhere in between all of that. Is there anything else that feels important about your story that might illuminate us in this next part? I was going to say I tend to see around corners, but it's not really that. I think I just tend to see things that sometimes a little bit often to the left that maybe get missed because they're not part of the instruction set.

I know these words I know and I've really had to restrain myself you know we're working on a smaller surface area here but I've but these are the words that are coming up and for listeners I just want to say some of these words and what part of this dig process is very intuitive you know we're obviously this is pattern recognition

that we're doing here but it's also like a feeling and I believe everybody has something called a resonance meter and if you can almost imagine that it's like a speedometer in your car There's zero, there's 100. And so where does this hit on your resonance meter? So maybe as you hear these words, you can just kind of drop in as you've heard Jonathan's story and just like, oh yeah, that feels, that feels pretty high in the resonance meter, right? Like 90. So words like create, know, breathe, build, delight, play, present, possible, curious, movement, contribute, uncertain or certainty. Exhale, see, magic, moment, conscious. How does it feel when you see all those words?

Yeah, they pretty much all resonate. Pretty strongly. They're connected to me in a lot of different ways. Well, this is your process. I'm here just as a facilitator, but I always like to start off with just talking through what I intuitively was feeling as you were going through your story, because this is when the operating system starts to take shape and it actually takes a shape. Some people, it's like a circle or an equation or a rocket ship or a tree. And it has a different feel to it. And you have some very interesting themes around time, time and space, I would say, and just like how you dance with time and space. And even just like one of your very first stories, you're talking about breathing, exhale, which also

is presence, right? So I think those are kind of clustered together. And then you also have this ability to play in what's possible. It always seems to have like, for the most part, a pretty positive lens on what's possible there. And then you're just, you're a builder. You're actually doing the thing. You're building, you're contributing. There's like a movement. I think move or movement is critical. It's like it almost feels like it's like a fulcrum in your system because it's like there's out there and then like what you see is possible and then there's like the doing to make it so. But you've got to do it. You've got to do it now, right? You have to, you have to don't wait too. And that goes back to the time themes. This doesn't totally feel like it's in the operating system.

That's uncertain. I think that's just like a tension that you hold really well. tail almost feels like it's like in the middle of your operating system. I'm starting a sense maybe a circle is kind of part of you. Like it feels almost very like amoeba-ish. It's like it feels very active and curious. It's funny. It's like one of the, and you know this because this was in my TED talk, my TEDx, that you asked me earlier, like, what is, is there a common like piece of feedback that we tend to get? And actually what I didn't say, but this is actually the single biggest theme in 14 years when we hear from listeners is, um, They listen because there's something about my voice that makes them feel okay, like makes them feel calm.

A lot of people actually listen because it helps them feel like things are going to be okay. And a solid chunk of people listen because it helps them fall asleep at night, which is real feedback. The ultimate compliment. Yeah. You put me to sleep. Always felt a little bit weird about that, but like grateful that I could be of service in some way. Yeah. So the exhale thing is interesting too.

I think it's, I will be honest, I have never seen that word pop up in a dig before, which is always very exciting for me because I've done over a thousand of these. But like there's there's like a movement to it. There's an in and out, up and head down, back in a force, an exchange, a constant evolution to it, which is really fun. And I think what's also interesting about that, just even with your yoga studio and I'm being attracted to this. It's just like, it's like bringing people back to the present to breathe. Like we you refer to as like a fuck yeah kind of moment, right? It's like that final sversana and this like that magical moment that happens when you bring people here. And I think this is just part of it because you're such a builder. You're such a maker.

You're such a contributor. You're such a giver. I also, I loved what you said about magic. And I loved how you talked about magic as like, like, like, from, an actual magician perspective of like all the work that goes into making something magical. What you and Stephanie do, you know, at the camp and everything, so much work. Like, as your friend, I just knew like how hard you guys were working and just like, but those people show up. It just feels like magic, right? And so there's the doing that creates that. So there's,

there's something to that. And I think magic kind of drives you. I also loved when you said the word delight. I don't know. Those almost feel a little similar. Sometimes in operating systems, we can kind of like swallow up one word with another and magical and delight almost feels a little similar. I don't know. Does it feel different for you? I don't know if they feel different actually because sort of like, I think magic is sort of like a part of the feeling of delight. Like this is just magical.

For those listening and wondering what the sounds are going on right now. It's just like, Erin's moving a whole bunch of post-it notes around the background. Again, we'll take some screenshots of this. Yeah. And we'll show you what's actually going on and just drop it into the show notes in like. And the fun thing about this is like there's no right or wrong answer, right? It's like this is only determined by you, but it's an evolution and we feel into it. And we're able to kind of drop into these one word frequencies and just see how they play out. As you're looking at these words,

is there, is there one word that's like really tapping on your shoulder or is just being like, hey, I'm super, super important. Look at me. Exhale, build, possible. It's more possibility than possible. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, I love making something. from nothing. You know, you have to live in a place of possibility in order to do that. But also there is something around creating this experience where you just let people breathe again, including me. I think that's part of my aspiration.

Yeah. You know, it's to try and work more of that in along the way. Because I can sometimes move at a pace that's pretty. breathless. Yeah. What really pisses you off? Manufactured drama. We all have enough organic drama in our lives.

When I see or put in a mode where there's drama, it's just clearly manufactured for the purpose of drama. I have no interest in that. I think disrespect. It's not even like me being disrespected. I've kind of learned how to deal with that. I love this phrase moral beauty, which is when we see an act being done,

when we witness something being done, that is just so beautiful, so graceful, so kind, so generous. It lands as like this experience of moral beauty that moves us so deeply. And I think we can also witness immoral disrespect, and that lands in the exact opposite way. Yeah. I just, like, I truly believe that every human being has value simply because of the fact of their birth. Yeah.

Let's go back to that manufactured drama thing for the moment. I always ask the question about what makes people mad because within that is a violation. You are violated by something and it's over the actual situation. So what about manufactured drama is a violation to who you are and what you believe? there's probably a couple of things. One, it stops me from being able to exhale. Two, it puts roadblocks in front of my ability to create the things that I want to create because then I have to deal with a situation that's been fabricated rather than actually

deal with the very real challenges of making something, which will often include drama, but it's not drama that exists simply for the purpose of drama. And also because it disaffects my nervous system. Yeah. It's uncomfortable. Well, what I'm seeing is like it almost feels like you have kind of core heartbeat to your operating system. The words movement, present, exhale and moment. They just all seem to be dancing together.

And then it's almost like you have three clusters that are moving around it. You have play and possible, magic and delight, create and build. And I don't know, it almost reminds me of like the Jetsons, you know. they're cruising around on their little ships, but they're around a nucleus some sort. And how does that land on you when I say that? Yeah, that feels pretty real. Yeah.

I feel it's pretty real. I think like there is this core of just deep grounding, and maybe that's what, again, people have resonated with over many, many, many years. That's probably part of what people resonated with when I taught yoga, like in a classroom for seven years. You know, I'm not even as a speaker. I'm not like when I do keynotes. I'm not a raw-rah,

like super up and down bouncing all over the stage motivational speaker. I'm a storyteller. Yeah. Like I like to cast a spell, bring people into it, and not break the spell until the moment is done. And that's getting them into the moment.

You know, even in when we were doing, you know, for the first six years, There's eight years of the podcast. We had it on a studio in New York, and people would come in and we close the door, and just like we're doing now. And then it wasn't unusual for people to open the door after and walk out and be like, what just happened there? Yeah.

And I loved being able to, like, be a part of that, to help co-create experiences like that. And then to be able to actually have, you know, like listeners and viewers, like at scale around the world, be able to be a piece of that, too. I know you identify as a maker from your sparkotype. I do. It's almost like you're a moment maker. Yeah. That's part of it.

So the top of my website for years has said, I make things that move people. Those can be moments, you know, an event, a keynote talk, a piece of media, a class, a conversation. It can also be physical things. It can be objects. So I think for Stephanie, it's actually a lot more moments. For me, I enjoy those. But also as an introvert, me being present or centered in those moments can also be uncomfortable. Because I don't need to be centered.

I don't need to have credit for it. I would be thrilled to be invisible and have the work speak for itself. Like, I don't need the ego to, like, get credit for it. Yeah, that's so true. Is there a word missing on here? Do you feel like we really... Love. Love.

What's your definition of love? I don't know. Like asking a fish to divide water. I know. It just is. Is the expression of this operating system, like, how you love people? Interesting question. Possibility and play, yes.

Magic and delight, yes. Create and build, yes. Movement, being present, appreciating the moment, collectively exhaling, yes. If I had a dry race board here, I would probably just take a marker and just put a big heart around this whole thing

to like encapsulate it. Yeah. I'm taking woodblock printing classes right now and the two designs that I've actually made. One is a spray can that says, love on it. And the other's like a reinterpretation of that sort of like legendary Robert Indiana sort of like four square with what says love in it. It's a recurring theme. Okay. Okay. If you had to, if you had to like pick a captain of your sports team,

assuming this all this looks correct for you, this is your operating system. So you're welcome to move things or push back on anything. Like, does this feel true? On the resonance meter, does it score high? Sort of the collection of all these words? Yeah, just how they dance together, how they're grouped, what they are. I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Which one would you say as the captain of your team here? And usually one of the reasons I ask that question of what makes you really mad is that I've found recently that usually like those violates. violations is where are... It's like the opposite. Yeah. It's just the thing that gets like that reaction.

Right. And, you know, a lot of your violations were around wasted time. Slow processes when you were talking about working it with the government. Using resources, time, and energy for something other than... Right. Just being distracted, your energy going places that maybe isn't the most efficient. Um, I don't know, possibility. might be.

Is there anything on the other side of possibility? Impossibility. No. That's true. Because you said earlier, like, possibility itself is not the thing. It's about making the thing that you see possible. So it almost felt like when you said that, that it's kind of like your beacon for what you create. And, I mean, I'm, again, being pulled to these three little clusters on the outside of, like, being

like what you do? So if I look at all of this and I ask myself where do I feel most of myself, it would be create and build. You know, like when I'm making things, I drop into a state of possibility and play. When I'm making things,

there's a sense of magic to it, especially when I start to see it taking the form and shape of what I see in my mind, which leads to delight. When I'm making things, everything in me exhales. I just completely get lost. in a state of flow. I'm deeply present in the moment. And I feel, I mean, movement, not in terms

of physical movement, but in terms of like from, I've started in one place and there's a momentum that's building as I move towards like into, deeper into a process of creation. Okay, that's really cool with moment and momentum. Like, it's almost like moment is the root of that. I didn't really think about that at all. There's a lot of movement in the moment, if you will. I mean, ultimately, this is your process, but like, I think moment could be your word. I think based on hearing your story, it just feels like this is what you're in service to, whether you're using that moment to love, to connect, to create, to build, to serve, to contribute, to experience magic. It just feels like you, you want to just own this time that we all have, however long that might be.

I'm going to sit with it. You should. Yeah. But it's a beautiful, like the whole thing is beautiful. And there's no wrong answer. But I think what's important about knowing our words, and by the way, usually people don't like their words. Usually when it starts to land, it's like, it's almost like it hits a little too close. Yeah.

So that's kind of part of the problem. Yeah, so you want to know what I came into it thinking it would be? What? Make or create or build. Yeah. Like those two. So they're on there and they're central to it. But I wonder if part of that is like what I'm thinking is like how does that tie back to me both not just creating a moment for others, but also me being able to inhabit like moments myself.

Mm-hmm. Which has always been my work because I live so much in the future. Yeah. So, and a lot of my work has been, like, bringing myself back into the moment. Yeah. And not just forsaking it in terms of what I see as possible in the future. Yeah. Well, even as you're talking about why you make things, it's for the process.

It's for the moments that go into making them, right? No doubt. Yeah. That's really beautiful. Wow. Okay, I'm complete now. Now you know your life purpose. I don't have to do any more growth, nothing.

So, what do we do with this? Yeah. Like if somebody's following along, like, they grab your book and they're going to, like, you're basically walk people through, like, a self-guided version of this process in the books. Like, say somebody does this and like, wow, this kind of rocked my world. But, like, now what do we do with this? Yeah. Well, with the people I work with as a coach is just turning this into a message. Because right here is your core message.

And this could be a speech. This could be your next book. the way, it probably will be because I've noticed that like when people land on their word, it starts to show up in your life everywhere. It's so fun. But for those of you who aren't maybe into doing messages or sharing, it's really all about just knowing yourself and aligning with it. You could use the word moment to make decisions with. How do I feel about something in the moment? And in the book, I give a bunch of tools for almost like, almost like double checking yourself when you're about to make a decision to be like, okay, but would my dig word be on board with

this. You know, is this a, is it, I try to stay away from black and white thinking with the grounding questions I call them, but like, what does this moment feel like? You know, if I can imagine my path going down this way, what does the moment feel like? And then you can answer and decide from that place. I also feel like it's a great superpower when you know how to dig and you can dig other people and you know the people in your space and they have their word. Like my partners, word is serve. I know if they're having a bad day, it's probably because they're not in a place of service. And knowing them, like, yeah, that makes it's like, boom, light bulb. Yeah. It's just like, now I know, you know, why are they upset? Why are they depressed? Why are they? It's like, how can we

move barriers to be able to, like, show up in that way? Yeah. And what's going to make them happy, too? And so, um, so it's really fun when you know other people's words, because then I also, like, I just fall in love with everybody I dig because I'm just like, yeah, it's your word. So that's so interesting. Like you could do this like a partner or family. We had like similar thing with this archetypes. Like people would do it. Like we get all these messages saying people would do it like with a partner or something

like that. And like it would just start a conversation or create a level of understanding that allowed you to just go deeper. And it's like same thing. Like you know your person's word. And then like and this whole like the bigger sort of like operating system. Right. And it just gives you insight.

Yeah. Into how to support them, how to relate with to them how to. When you see them. struggling, like maybe what might you look for? Yeah. That's underneath it, even if they can't put words to it. It really is never ending. You just can keep pulling on the strings.

This has been awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for trusting me with this. Thanks for trusting me. I'm going to ask you the question that I ask everybody at the end of all these conversations in this container of Good Life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life is to be.

true to oneself and to never stop seeking what that is. Thank you. So the thing I'm sitting with from this conversation is that moment when Erin kind of looked at all the post-it notes on the wall and started pointing to Clustered, I had not really consciously noticed because the word she landed on was not the word I came in expecting. I thought it would be something about making or building. It's related. And those things are very real.

They're in there, but they orbit something deeper. And that's kind of the whole point of the dig. Three things that I thought would be interesting to pull out from this. First, the operating system idea that your life story doesn't just produce a single word. It actually produces this kind of like a constellation of about 10 with one word at the center that functions like the captain of all of the others. And together, they formed this operating system. I found that really useful to see it all just kind of teased out together.

second is this violation signal that she talked about. Erin's insight that whatever makes you genuinely angry or upset is almost always pointing towards your core word because the violation is on the other side of your deepest value. And the third, this idea that 100% of people generally come into this process, if they think they know their word, they're almost always wrong. Every person who thinks they already know their word, it just doesn't work out that way, which means the real word is always a layer deeper than wherever you start looking. If there's one thing that you can do this week, sit with this question.

What's the word that keeps showing up across the chapters of your life? Not the word you want it to be, the word that's actually there. And hey, before you leave it next week, we're sitting down with Dr. Lucy Hone. To talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is. This invisible grief that comes without a funeral, just the losses that, that often do not count as real loss in our culture, but may be driving more of our suffering than we know. Lucy is a leading resilience researcher.

Her TED Talk on Resilience has been viewed more than 9 million times, and she's also someone who has lived through the kind of loss that changes everything. You do not want to miss this one. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcast, so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And do me a favor also, a seven-second favor. share this episode with just one person who you think maybe is circling or looking for their own word right now, their own sort of like center.

This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Troy Young, Chris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you have not already follow us wherever you get your podcast so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. You know,