Interviewee: Oh yeah. I mean, I’m here with you. Of course I am.
Interviewer: Love it. Jonathan is a New York City dad, husband, entrepreneur, and author. He founded mission-driven media and education venture Good Life Project where he and his team lead a global community on a quest to inspire possibility. His next book, How to Live a Good Life, is out today, Fire Nation. Today. I’m actually holding it in my hand right now. It smells good, it looks good, it is good. Jonathan, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.
Interviewee: Yeah, I mean, I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and I hang out with my family, my wife and my daughter. I’m actually in business with my wife, so we’re building our venture together. And really just in this to make a difference, you know? I have a past life as an entrepreneur, and then as a lawyer actually in a big firm in Manhattan, and then back into the world of entrepreneurship and lifestyle for a long time now, and you know, we’re all about trying to figure out what it means to actually live extraordinary on the planet and then bring community together around that.
Interviewer: Well, I love all of this, and Jonathan, if Fire Nation doesn’t recognize your voice at this time, I don’t know what it’s going to take, because you were on episode 104, so we’re talking way back in the day. Then you were on episode 1181 where you just simply rocked the mic. And now it’s episode 1458, and I want to tell you a quick little side story. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, Jonathan, but my first ever social media conference was in New York City back in 2012. My mentor, Jamie Tardy, she made me go there, and I’m so happy she did.
And when I was there, there were really two really huge authors that were just publishing books back then, and it was Michael Hyatt, and then you with Uncertainty. And I can just remember you guys were like, signing books, and I saw the book there, and I was like, wow, I just admire this guy, what he’s created, what he’s done. Everybody talks so highly about you. And it’s just been really cool to see you progress over these past four years. And I’ve got to be honest. I’m pretty touched and honored that we’ve actually grown a friendship over these four years. So, thank you, brother.
Interviewee: Yeah, thank you back your way. I mean, it’s been really amazing, and I can’t believe that time has flown that quickly. And dude, I can’t believe you’re at number 1400 plus episodes? That absolutely blows my mind. I mean, that is an incredible accomplishment..
Interviewer: Well, thank you. I was at zero back then in New York City, back in 2012, because that was pre-launch, so Fire Nation, this just shows what happens when you come up with a plan, consistent, free, valuable content, and execute. Now, Jonathan, let’s kind of talk about the Good Life Project. What actually led you to start the Good Life Project?
Interviewee: I’ve been a seeker for most of my life, and always sort of tried to figure out how do we actually contribute to the world in a really meaningful way? And I had actually been writing a reflection, a blog post, that was a look back at the year before, and then that actually turned into a 40-page sort of Warren Buffet-style annual report, and at the end of it, I teased this thing called the Good Life Project. I honestly didn’t know what it was back then, but I also bundle what I call my Ten Commandments of Business with it, and the whole idea kind of took off.
And from there, I said, you know what? There’s a hunger to both understand how to build careers and livings and companies differently, but also how to build your life differently. How to lean into it from a place of meaning and connection and vitality. And I guess I just kind of felt like my lens was a bit different than a lot that I had seen. So we started this thing called Good Life Project, and we started on the education and training side, and that quickly grew into a media brand with video and podcasts, and that quickly then grew into events and now our annual camp. And it’s just been amazing to see it turn into a global community, also, where people are just literally connecting and forming their own on-the-ground pods around the world.
Interviewer: What I love about what you’ve done, too, is you’ve just turned it into this multi-faceted community that is just this living and breathing thing. I mean, you now have Camp GLP which takes place in upstate New York where you guys take over this camp for a week, and it’s just this amazing experience of just yoga and exercise and workshops and entrepreneurship. I mean, I was back there a couple of years ago, it was myself and Scott Densmore, were the keynote speakers of that, and just had a blast just having so much fun just being a part of that community and seeing where you’ve grown it to now. And I mean, Fire Nation, if you are looking to go to a place and to be a kid again and to just really connect with Earth and with nature, but also learn the right business skills and stuff, I mean, Camp GLP, it’s something that I literally would have been there this year if it wasn’t for my Puerto Rico, I had to get my residency in this little island here. But I really believe in 2017 I’m going to be there, Jonathan, if you invite me, that is.
Interviewee: Yeah. Hey, you have a standing invitation.
Interviewer: Yes!
Interviewee: But yeah, it really is, you know? It’s this amazing opportunity to kind of step out of the regular world. And as entrepreneurs, so few of us ever do that. We’re so in it every day.
Interviewer: Every day.
Interviewee: That you know, but it’s so important, I’ve found, to completely remove yourself, literally, from your physical environment and just step out into some place, especially in nature, where you’re really just out, where you still learn and you have people that you can talk to, and then you come back with physical and emotional renewal and also great ideas to take action on.
Interviewer: I still feel like I’m getting benefits from being at that camp a couple of years ago. Like, when I think about it, I just get this warm glow. So Fire Nation, this takes place at the end of every summer, like in the early fall. So where can they find out more for 2017?
Interviewee: Pretty much everything is just over at GoodLifeProject.Com.
Interviewer: GoodLifeProject.Com. Bookmark that, Fire Nation. Now, Jonathan, you’ve done a lot of things. I mean, you’ve written books before, courses, product services, communities. I mean, you name it, you’ve done it. So why did you decide to write another book, and why did you write How to Live a Good Life specifically?
Interviewee: Yeah, you know, it’s a real interesting question. Every time I decide to write a book, I ask myself, “Why am I writing another book?” Because it’s a Herculean effort. I mean, you’re just coming off putting together your journal, so you know. It’s like, it’s a big, big effort to put together something that’s, you know, 200-something pages. And you know, fundamentally, after now just spending years sitting down with some astonishingly intelligent people, having some 50 of my own years on the planet, having built, grown, sold a handful of companies, and experienced a lot of life, a lot of ups and probably a lot more downs and figured out navigating our way through, certain patterns begin to emerge, and I realize I had a bit of a different lens on the world. Bit of a sort of really practical, scientific, yet spiritually open lens.
And enough things started to come together that I thought that it really made sense to take a deeper dive into what I was learning and share sort of a simple set of ideas, a simple model. And then also, at the same time, create something that maybe your average person who wouldn’t dive into a course or maybe just isn’t exposed to our world would explore in the form of a book, which is far more accessible and far more affordable to most people. And then but it’s interesting. I kind of took a similar approach with the book that we take when we build courses, which is I didn’t want to just create something that you read. I wanted to create something that you do.
So the book is designed to be an actionable tool where it literally walks you through a series of days and introduces you to ideas, and then gives you very precise instructions and sort of invitations to do things that will make a real difference. And that was important to me.
Interviewer: I just love that you’re kind of coming full circle here now where it’s not just a book, just like a course is no longer just a course. Just like a conference is no longer just a conference with you. Like, it’s a whole camp, it’s a whole experience. There’re just so much more meaning behind this. And you know, me getting an advance copy, thank you for that, appreciate it, I’ve got to read through this, and you talk about something that you call the Good Life Bucket. So can you kind of dive into Good Life Buckets, and maybe expand upon what exactly they are?
Interviewee: Yeah. My pleasure. So I kind of joke that everything that can be known about human potential and personal development has been known for thousands of years, yet the human condition is still largely unchanged. You know? So you’ve got to kind of ask, why? And what I’ve come to believe is that it’s not so much that we don’t know what to do, but it’s that a lot of what we were told isn’t conveyed in a way which is simple. You hear it once, you remember it forever, and it’s actionable. It actually will guide your behavior and your decisions every day.
So I developed this really simple visual model that is really effective at actually being able to wake up in the morning and say, okay, what should I do today to keep building a better life? To keep living a good life? And it’s called the Good Life Buckets, and it’s a really simple concept. Think of your life as three buckets, and we’ll call them Vitality, Connection, and Contribution. And the Good Life, to live a Good Life, the idea is that we want to fill and then keep all three buckets full. So let’s take a minute and talk about each one of those buckets.
So the Vitality bucket, what we’re really talking about here is optimizing your state of mind and body. And I don’t talk about those as separate things. A lot of what I’ve seen really separates them out as mindset and state of mind and then separates out, you know, physical health and body. The research is so crystal clear right now. To talk about them as separate things is completely erroneous. In fact, your mind and your body are completely interconnected feedback mechanisms, and if you are in physical pain, it’s going to very likely lead to emotional and psychological pain and anxiety and potentially depression. If you are in emotional or mindset, psychological pain, it will very likely manifest in very real, measurable symptoms in your body from pain to disability to disease or illness. So that’s all about, to fill that bucket, what we’re really trying to do is dial in and optimize that blended state of mind and body.
The Connection bucket is all about what happens between us and the world. So that’s about our relationships, and it’s our relationships on multiple levels. First, and probably the most forgotten, is our relationship to ourselves. It’s about self-knowledge. Then when we move out from that, it’s about your relationship between an intimate partner, between close friends, between colleagues, between family members, between a community to create a sense of belonging. And if it’s something that’s meaningful to you, to a larger sense of course or whatever you look to as being sort of that bigger thing that exists beyond yourself that you both benefit from and are responsible to. So it’s about really devoting energy to optimizing those in-betweens, those relationships.
And then finally, this is the bucket that most entrepreneurs, we tend to focus on, often to our own destruction, to be honest, is the Contribution bucket. And that’s fundamentally about how am I bringing my gifts to the world? Is it in a way where it’s generating meaning, where it’s aligned with my strengths and my values and beliefs and where I feel spark and lit up by what I’m doing?
And when you take a look at those three buckets, and you kind of just wake up every morning and you do a really quick check and you say, how filled is my Vitality bucket feel today? How full does my Connection bucket feel? How full does my Contribution bucket feel? You can get a pretty quick snapshot, and then pretty quickly figure out where the best place to spend your energy that day might be. What bucket it makes the most sense to start filling that day. And I’ve just found it’s a really simple tool that’s not just theory, but it allows you to actually take action every day.
Interviewer: Now see, one thing that I love is that you actually gave specific examples about filling your bucket, and I mean, Jonathan, you know our audience. We are Fire Nation. We are entrepreneurs, we are small business owners. We are looking to side-hustle our way into something that’s not the nine to five. So Fire Nation, don’t you go anywhere, because when we come back, Jonathan is going to be giving us some examples on filling your Vitality bucket, your Connection bucket, and your Contribution that you’re going to get as entrepreneurs. So we’re going to thank our sponsors and be right back with you.
So Jonathan, we’re back, and I’m really kind of obsessed with this Good Life buckets thing. And you went through the Vitality, through the Connection, through the Contribution, and how waking up in the morning, if we can just check in with ourselves and just kind of put our finger on the pulse and say, “Hey, how am I with these three buckets?” But what I kind of want you to say is, you know, these are ways, Fire Nation, that you can actually fill these different buckets up. Do you have examples for entrepreneurs?
Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s just kind of keep this focused on entrepreneurs since you are one, I’m one, and so are your listeners. So why don’t we keep it really simple, too, because the thing that we both know and the thing that if you’re listening you know, is that entrepreneurs as a general rule, we don’t have a huge amount of time in our day. So we want to actually get the biggest bang for the buck, you know? So I’m constantly looking for the big levers.
So one thing is – Let’s talk about Vitality first. There are probably two things here that I think are super powerful, and we’ll talk about a mindset one and then a physical one, a physical body one, even though they interact with each other. The really basic mindset one is – And John, you and I have talked about this in the past, is the idea of a mindfulness or a meditation practice. And when most people hear that, they’re like, “That’s not simple. That’s brutally hard, it takes way too much time.”
The truth is that you can actually spend literally about two to three minutes, maybe five at the tops, in the morning just sitting, before you do anything, before you pick up your cell phone, before you check your emails, Snapchat, anything like that, and Dumas, I know that you’ve become a huge Snapchatter, so I’m talking to you here, brother. Before you do any of that, just literally, even if you just want to sit up in bed, don’t even get out of bed. Close your eyes, put one hand on your chest, and then just take a series of gentle breaths and just allow your attention to focus on your breath. Don’t change anything. Just allow it to kind of settle there, just for a handful of minutes. It seems so simple, but it actually creates a real shift in your physiology, and it starts to train your brain to let go, to focus in, change your attention, and at the same time, it trains you to keep letting go of things that come up. So it’s just a really simple morning practice.
Let’s talk about a way that you can potentially shift your workflow that actually starts to be really good for your body, too. We’ve all heard that sitting is the new smoking, that it’s disastrous for your health. Well, the truth is, it’s really not just about sitting, it’s about being sedentary, and so many of us, especially, you know, online entrepreneurs end up bound to a chair and in front of a computer all day long. But you can make some really simple changes in workflow that actually allow you to move your body all day long and profoundly reverse this trend. So two examples from my own life, I actually take all of my phone calls and all of my meetings as walking phone calls and walking meetings.
I also have an adjustable desk so that I have a desk where I push a button, and literally it rises up, and I can stand while I’m working. And then it drops back down, and I can sit. So all day long, I’m getting all the same work done, but I’m moving so that I’m able to constantly keep my body in motion for hours longer than if I was just sitting there. And the net effect of that is not just really big improvements in vitality, but also it improves cognitive function, creativity. So it trickles into your contribution bucket, because it really allows you to work at a much higher level.
So we might as well head over to that Contribution bucket then, because there’s a carryover effect there, right? So when you’re thinking about how do I contribute maximally to the world, one of the most powerful ways to do that is actually to move your body, and you’ll find that you actually can solve problems far more effectively, far more quickly, and come up with much better ideas. There’s one other tip that I think is really powerful in terms of your ability to contribute in a really meaningful way, a way that moves the needle and feels like you’re not just kind of, you know, checking off to-do lists that don’t matter to you a whole lot, and that’s – It’s a really simple technique, and it’s called saying no.
You know, we’ve become obsessed with becoming reactively busy, meaning we’re busy with stuff that doesn’t actually matter all that much to us. We’re busy in reaction to the agendas and demands and stories of a whole bunch of other people, because we don’t set boundaries and we don’t say no. And setting those boundaries, what actually gives us the bandwidth to then turn around and say, okay, what is the single biggest needle-mover? What is the single thing, what is the one thing that I can do today that will make the biggest genuine difference in something that matters deeply to me that will allow me to serve, to bring my gifts to the world and is meaningful?
And what you find is the precursor to your ability to do that is your ability to effectively look at everything else that’s being heaped onto your plate and saying no to the vast majority of it very likely, and get comfortable with that process. So practicing no is a really powerful thing to do.
And then let’s come full circle with an example for your Connection bucket. And again, this is about relationships. A lot of times we think, w ell, there are all sorts of things that I can do, things like putting your phone down when you’re actually having a conversation with someone. There’s some fascinating research that shows that simply having your phone on the table when you’re having a conversation with somebody keeps it astonishingly superficial, and the reason is because we don’t want to go deep on any particular topic because we know that if that happens, it’ll be perceived as being really rude if we then check our phone when it vibrates, and we want the freedom to be able to check those updates, those status things.
Interviewer: Wow.
Interviewee: So we will literally, without realizing it, we’ll keep our conversation superficial, and that destroys relationships with our partners, with our colleagues in business, with the people we want to be in service of. So try this on for size. Literally, really simple technique although it’s brutally hard for a lot of people. First, turn off your alerts before you sit down for a conversation with somebody, and then put your phone in your pocket. Even better, if you can bear the anguish of it, leave your phone in a different room.
And you can literally do this in small – Sort of like, train yourself to do it. First, you know, commit to three minutes of it, and then commit to five minutes, and then on, my God, maybe someday you’ll be able to commit to an entire 15-minute block. But so these things seem like almost ridiculously small and inconsequential, but the truth is, when you start to add them up and you repeat the practices day after day, it makes a really profound difference in the way that you end up living your life.
Interviewer: Okay, I love all of this, and number one, thank you for calling me out on Snapchat, because then I get to talk about Snapchat, and I love Snapchat. And guess what I did, Jonathan? I actually started Snapchatting you and my talk right now, so you should go check my Snapchat later, and you can see me giving you the thumbs up and giving you some love as well, for obvious reasons. But I’m really a big fan of all of that, and in fact, I’m going to give a little prime example in my life that I have seen on an increase.
You know, Kate and I have a really good kind of rhythm where we do close down at a reasonable hour, like between five and six, we’re closing down for the day, and then I’m kind of going down and enjoying the pool for a little while, maybe just reading by the pool as the sun goes down, and then we come together for dinner, have a nice dinner together, and then we kind of watch some TV, and I notice that when my phone was there, I would always kind of be checking my phone during the show, and I could notice that when I start checking my phone, that Kate would start checking her phone, and then it’s like, are we even watching this show?
And it just kind of becomes this superficial, we’re not enjoying this Sex & the City show and laughing together and making jokes and kind of commenting to each other about it, but now we’re just kind of like, half in and half out, so we’re not that engaged, and neither one of us are really enjoying it, and what are we doing on our phones? We’re disengaged from each other, too. And so now we leave the phones outside of the room, and it’s kind of brought back that kind of nice fireplace laughter that we had, that connection that we had. So think about situations like that, Fire Nation, that you can bring back and give back to yourself.
Now, Jonathan, what I kind of want to ask you is, what are some specific struggles that entrepreneurs face when trying to build a Good Life? I mean, we talked about the smartphone is a huge thing, and regulating it to when you should use it and when you shouldn’t use it, but what are some other struggles that we face?
Interviewee: You know, it’s a really interesting question, and you and I probably both know this, and I certainly have lived this a number of times and really work to try to reverse it these days, but when we’re working so hard to create something from nothing, or even once we’re building something and we’re in it and it’s going well, but as entrepreneurs, we’re sort of manically focused on what comes next and where we want to go, what we want to create so we can serve better and grow something. And that keeps us working really furiously hard. And one of the things that that often means is that for most entrepreneurs, they spend the vast majority of the time trying to fill that Contribution bucket, trying to bring their gifts to the world and do something deeply meaningful.
At the same time, usually it creates such fierce demand to spend so must effort there that they start to abandon both their Connection buckets. They just assume that those relationships are cemented, that they’re just good, they’ll be there when they need to come back to them. But even more than that, what I’ve seen, and I’m curious whether you’ve seen this, too, is that I think the first thing to go with entrepreneurs is almost always their Vitality bucket. Is they tend to completely abandon their health and their mindset practices. They stop moving. They stop exercising. They stop eating well. They stop taking care of their mindset and doing those practices that cultivate, the things that allow them to actually function optimally.
And it’s really interesting what happens, is that you’re working really, really, really, really hard, and you kind of hit a ceiling with what you’re trying to create as an entrepreneur, and you figure, okay, maybe the problem is it’s that I’m not working smart enough, because I can’t really work harder. So you try to figure out how to get really productive and hyper-efficient and work smarter, and you set up systems and processes, and that helps a tiny bit, right? But then you realize that you just get a little bit more eked out of what you’re doing, but still, you cap out, you hit a ceiling, and you’ve got this knowing, this inner voice that says, “I’m capable of so much more.
This entity, this company, this venture, is capable of so much more. We can operate, we can build, we can serve at such a higher level, and I feel like I’m working as hard as I can work. I’m working as smart as I can work. And somehow, I feel like I’m capped. I’m at a ceiling, and I don’t know how to break through.” And the somewhat counterintuitive answer here is that you’ve actually got to shift your focus away from just trying to fiercely fill that Contribution bucket, and look back almost always at your Vitality bucket, which for so many people has run almost entirely dry.
You know, when your state of body and your state of mind grinds to a halt, it doesn’t matter how hard or how smart you work, you will always be capped out way below your potential, and that thing that you’re trying to create, to build, to make a difference, it will never come close to being what it could be. The answer is not working harder or smarter at that point. It’s actually pulling back a bit and reintroducing all those practices that fill your Vitality bucket, that refuel and reenergize and regenerate your state of mind and your state of body. And what tends to happen is that as soon as you do that, the Contribution bucket, that ceiling on it just sort of like, tears off on its own accord, and all of a sudden, ideas and evolutions and revolutions and things that you never could have thought of before start to come to you.
And the reason is because your body and your mind start functioning at a completely different level. Your cognitive and creative processes, your ability to problem solve and innovate ratchets at a level that just you would never experience when you’re not taking care of what Liz Gilbert beautifully called your animal.
Interviewer: I’ve totally found that the Vitality bucket is the first bucket to run dry. I mean, I look back at my first two years of business, like the end of 2012, all of 2013, all of 2014, I mean, it essentially ran dry, and that’s why I had to completely reconfigure my life and say, hey, 2015, this is a new season of my life. And since then, the last year and a half has been so focused on just really movement and sleep and health and fitness and all of these different things, and it has to be part of your entire life from the very beginning.
And Jonathan, one thing that I just love that you do, and you’re always doing, is you’re giving back, and that’s something that you’re really doing right now with this book. You know, you’re doing something pretty unusual. I’ve actually never heard of this before, but it doesn’t surprise me when I read it, because it’s you. Hello, this is so Jonathan Fields. You know, with the launch of this book, you are planting trees for every single book that’s ordered by October 18th, which, Fire Nation, is today. So what is that all about?
Interviewee: I’m constantly trying to figure out how to have a bigger impact with what we do. So you know, it’s fun to launch a book, it’s fun to launch a company, and you want that entity, that thing, that book, to succeed mightily so that it makes a big difference, and at the same time, for me, it’s always an opportunity to do something bigger. To bundle it with something bigger. So I don’t know about you, John, but this has got to be true because you grew up in Maine. For me, nature has always been this beautiful reset.
When I’m stressed out, when I’m anxious, when I’m just not feeling good, I walk out into the woods, I walk outside, I go to the beach, I walk in trees especially, and it’s like, everything gets better. And in fact, what I realized in writing the book, there’s an entire chapter on this, is that there’s really powerful science that validates that. And at the same time, as an author, I’m writing books, which means even though a lot of people are switching digital, we still use trees to actually create books. So I decided, you know, there’s a really powerful thing that I could do here, which is I partnered with a foundation that allows me to literally plant a tree for every book that’s been preordered, and that will include through the end of the day today.
So I’m actually on a goal, too. It’s a bit of a completely wild and who knows if we’ll be able to hit it mission, to plant 10,000 trees, which supposedly, if my research is right, is also the equivalent of about as many trees that would produce 600,000 books. So not only are we – You know, you’ve heard the phrase carbon-neutral? Well, we’re going for not just tree neutral but tree positive with this whole thing. So it’s good for us, it’s good for the planet, and I love being able to bring things to life in a way that also makes a bigger difference in the world around us.
Interviewer: That’s so cool. I mean, Fire Nation, you can be part of this 600,000 tree giveback. I mean, this is just so cool, and I just love the fact that for every single preordered book, and again, goal of 10,000, there could be 10,000 trees that are being planted. That’s just huge numbers and huge stuff. Now, Jonathan, we always like to end with a bang here, so give us a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.
Interviewee: Probably the single most important thing that I found is to be intentional. We spend so much time reacting to what’s around us rather than pausing and saying, “Does this really matter,” before we actually commit to taking an action. So do a check, you know, do an intentional check before you say yes to anything or put something in your agenda, and ask yourself, am I being intentional? Does this really matter to me? And where can people find me? They can find me at GoodLifeProject.Com.
Interviewer: And where is the best place they can preorder this book?
Interviewee: If they head over to GoodLifeProject.Com/Book, they can preorder it, or literally any online retailer over there. We have some pretty awesome bundles that we have at GoodLifeProject.Com/Book, too, so you may want to check those out as well.
Interviewer: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you’ve been hanging out with JF and JLD today, so keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.Com, and if you type Jonathan in the search bar, you’ll see the show notes page pop up with links to everything that we’ve talked about. Of course, the call to action is to go directly to GoodLifeProject.Com/Book to get the preorder in and the bundles that they have there waiting for you. Jonathan always has goodies galore, so definitely check those out for all the obvious reasons. And Jonathan, I just want to say thank you, brother, for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flip side.