The School of Greatness - 615 Find Your Belief with Jonathan Fields

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

“Let your personal experience tell you whether your belief is still valid or something has to change.” One of the most important things you can do is keep your beliefs elastic. This gives your mind the freedom and room to grow if it wants to adopt new principles. For those who lock into a set of beliefs, they close themselves off to outside influence. When you do this, your mind stops growing. For this episode of 5 Minute Friday I wanted to bring you this valuable clip from an episode with Jonathan Fields. Jonathan is the founder of a mission-driven media and education venture called Good Life Project, where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected, and vital lives. His new book How to Live a Good Life offers a gateway to a life of meaning, connection, and vitality. Today he shares his insights on why staying open to new beliefs is the ticket to always growing. If you’re looking to expand your mind, listen here on Episode 615. “The moment you lock into certainty about your beliefs is the moment you stop growing.” In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Jonathan Fields believes certainty is the moment you stop growing (0:50) What Jonathan Fields sees as the cause of people’s lives going sideways (1:32) How Jonathan Fields responds to people who are locked into their beliefs (1:56) The definition of a good life according to Jonathan Fields (2:11) What Jonathan Fields asks from people who are locked into their beliefs (3:01) Jonathan Fields’ views on accepting norms (3:21) Plus much, much more...

This is 5-Minute Friday! For those that don't know who Jonathan Fields is, he's a New York City dad, husband, entrepreneur, podcast host, and award-winning author. He founded a mission-driven media and education venture called Good Life Project, where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected, and vital lives. His new book, How to Live a Good Life, Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom, offers a gateway to a life of meaning, connection, and vitality.

I think the moment that you lock yourself into certainty about your beliefs is the moment that you stop growing. It's the moment where you, Milton Glaser, had this amazing conversation with who's the most iconic living designer. And at one point, I mean, he has designed some of the most incredible things in the planet. You may not know his name, but you know something that he's created. And he said to me, like, certainty is a closing of the mind. The moment you are certain, the moment like you've locked down the possibility that something might be different, or you might believe differently in the future is the moment that you stop asking questions. It's the moment where curiosity ends. It's the moment where

the uncertainty that's necessary for possibility to emerge in your life vanishes. Because if you're certain about something, then you stop exploring anything beyond that, right? And the moment you stop exploring, there's no possibility in your life anymore. Your life starts going sideways. Man, I don't know about you or like your listeners. I'm pretty sure about you. I'm pretty sure probably about your listeners too, but I'm not here to go sideways. Yeah. If you are indeed living a good life with your beliefs, no reason to change them. Right. But the question you got to ask is like when somebody's like, this is what I believe. I believe in a pretty sure I'm right. And it's all good. And it's given me the life that I have. You know, the next question is, well, how's that working for you? Are you actually

sitting here living a good life? Do you have these beautiful, deep, and enduring relationships? Are you doing meaningful work where you feel like you're fully leveraging, utilizing the world? Are you connected to source and people? Are you vibrant? Are you radiating health? Because if somebody says, I'm locked into my beliefs and they're good, they're viable, solid beliefs, and that's how I live my life according to those beliefs. And you can point to major places in their lives that are relatively disastrous. Something's not working. So part of the process, I think sometimes if you have that conversation with somebody is literally ask them, not from like an arrogant little how's that working standpoint, but just like, how's that actually working for you? That's cool.

Like, if you have these beliefs and they've been with you for life and you feel like you're actually really living the life that you want to live and you're meant to live, go for it. Keep them. Right. But if you're not, something's got to change. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, it's like I say in the book. Like, I'm not asking for anybody to buy into anything. The only thing that I ask anybody for is to be open to the possibility that there might be another story, another truth.

You know, something else that they can do out there that might allow them to be better in the world. Yeah. You know, and then try it. I'm not a huge fan of just, like just leaning into what anybody tells you on pure faith. Run an experiment. Let your personal experience tell you whether your belief is still valid or whether something's got to change.