Speaker 1: Stepping into change can happen in a functional way, in
Speaker 1: a healthy way, in a constructive way, or a wildly dysfunctional,
Speaker 1: unhealthy and destructive way. And sometimes the difference between the
Speaker 1: two is more subtle than we'd like to think. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how their people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Jonathan Fields. Jonathan has
Speaker 1: been on before and in this episode, him and Eric
Speaker 1: just discuss a few topics they felt like talking about.
Speaker 1: Jonathan is an award winning author, global speaker, and host
Speaker 1: of the popular podcast The Good Life. His work has
Speaker 1: been featured widely in the media, including The New York Times,
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, Oprah Magazine, and many others. He's also
Speaker 1: the author of the book Sparked How to Live a
Speaker 1: Good Life, and others. I'm so excited to be doing this,
Speaker 1: you know, like we have been rolling in the podcast
Speaker 1: space together for years now, talking about similar things. We
Speaker 1: have these great conversations on the side. We're literally talking
Speaker 1: yesterday and we're like, we should have hit record on that.
Speaker 1: It would be exactly great conversation to air. And finally
Speaker 1: we found the time to sit down and just jam
Speaker 1: about some topics that we both cared deeply about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to do this. It's fun to sort of
Speaker 1: do something that's a little bit different, where there's not
Speaker 1: one person who's interviewer and interviewee, but more of just
Speaker 1: a collaboration. Yeah, I love it. So we talked about
Speaker 1: a couple of different topics that have been s top
Speaker 1: of mind. I think things that have been coming up
Speaker 1: in our universes, ecosystems, probably questions that we've been getting
Speaker 1: asked about by a lot of people, and I thought
Speaker 1: it'd be fun to just share some thoughts and ideas
Speaker 1: around these topics. Do you want to tee up the
Speaker 1: first one and we'll just kind of see where it goes. Sure,
Speaker 1: I think the first one that we talked about was
Speaker 1: the idea of how can people bring more meaning and
Speaker 1: get more enjoyment out of their nine to five jobs.
Speaker 1: You know, if they're not in a position where they're
Speaker 1: looking at like, well, I'm gonna quit this and you know,
Speaker 1: go off and chase my passion, but for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons, they've done the calculus, and the calculus is, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm in a pretty good spot here right. This is
Speaker 1: my job. It may not be my deepest passion, but
Speaker 1: it pays the bills. I like it. You know, I
Speaker 1: can think back to myself where I was right and
Speaker 1: I've got a job. It's challenging. I like the people.
Speaker 1: There's there's lots of good here, and yet it does
Speaker 1: take a toll on me if I don't manage my
Speaker 1: mindset around it. Right, So I think we could just
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about bringing more meaning to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think we both love this topic for a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons, and no small part because for
Speaker 1: the typical person. You know, you mentioned nine to five
Speaker 1: the typical person these days, like that nine to five
Speaker 1: is starting to grow, especially in the world that we
Speaker 1: live in over the last couple of years, where boundaries
Speaker 1: have kind of been annihilated. So many people are working
Speaker 1: from home or from cafes or from where it may be, which,
Speaker 1: on the one hand is fantastic, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: more freedom, a lot more flexibility. I know so many
Speaker 1: people that have literally gotten three hours back in their
Speaker 1: day because they're not commuting in our app each way.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the destruction of boundaries, which
Speaker 1: is not used to setting up and working and being
Speaker 1: effective in that space, has almost taken all that time back.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if before we even get into the
Speaker 1: notion of what are some of the things that we
Speaker 1: can think about shifting in the context of the work itself,
Speaker 1: have you been thinking about this notion of boundaries in
Speaker 1: any meaningful way and sort of like how that's sort
Speaker 1: of become this issue that I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, it wasn't nearly a center before the last
Speaker 1: few years. You know, it's interesting if I think back
Speaker 1: on my career and I don't know if this was
Speaker 1: just working in the software industry. I feel like that
Speaker 1: lack of boundaries started a long time ago. It was
Speaker 1: this badge of honor to be sending out emails at midnight,
Speaker 1: and that was always there. And so in the last
Speaker 1: few years for myself, I've actually gotten a little bit
Speaker 1: more stringent with boundaries. And even though my work is
Speaker 1: my life in a way, right, I still have really
Speaker 1: realized I need to set some hard limits otherwise, like
Speaker 1: I can just carry it with me always, you know,
Speaker 1: I can always be like, wow, that's not really work.
Speaker 1: You know, for a long time, until the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, I didn't take weekends, right, I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm only doing like a couple hours. But I
Speaker 1: really realized, like I was never really getting away. And
Speaker 1: so over the last couple of years for me, I've
Speaker 1: suddenly become like, WHOA, this is really great. This ability
Speaker 1: to set some hard boundaries is really valuable. Not checking email,
Speaker 1: though at all hours, is still a challenge. It's so habitual.
Speaker 1: Both I do better with it for a while, and
Speaker 1: I sort of get it put in its box, and
Speaker 1: then it breaks loose again and I wrestle with it
Speaker 1: for a while, and I finally you know, shove it
Speaker 1: back in the corner and completely agree with that. And
Speaker 1: the notion of you came out of you know, sort
Speaker 1: of a mainstream center job for many decades, much more
Speaker 1: recently than I did. I've sort of been bouncing around
Speaker 1: through my own endeavors for the better part of twenty
Speaker 1: years now, but it wasn't even a recently. It was
Speaker 1: a really interesting tell where this was a couple of
Speaker 1: years back, and for some reason it stayed in my mind.
Speaker 1: You know, I was out doing something, I was buying something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, do I use the personal credit card?
Speaker 1: Do you use the business credit card? Because it's one
Speaker 1: big mash up. You know, the distinction started to become
Speaker 1: really hard for me, which in the one way is wonderful,
Speaker 1: it's amazing, but any other way, you know, like there
Speaker 1: are things outside of this thing called the Brook that
Speaker 1: I love and I need to create really intentional space
Speaker 1: war So for me, I've been trying to be much
Speaker 1: more structured. You know, we're literally I bake into my calendar.
Speaker 1: Now you're like, similar to you, I'm really trying to
Speaker 1: respect the weekends at this point because it's become so
Speaker 1: easy to just sort of cloister myself in my own
Speaker 1: office studio for a ridiculous amount of hours. I have movement,
Speaker 1: Like I literally had this all calendared in so that
Speaker 1: I build everything around it. Even though I love what
Speaker 1: I do for the most part, there's always stuff I
Speaker 1: don't love. But sure I don't have the ability if
Speaker 1: I don't build it in in advance to honor the
Speaker 1: fact that there are other things that are important in
Speaker 1: my life for some reason don't have that level of willpower. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I've had to be really diligent about, like this is
Speaker 1: when work starts, you know, and here are the things
Speaker 1: I want to do before work, because otherwise, I mean
Speaker 1: I could just you know, pop on the computer real quick.
Speaker 1: Let me just hop on real quick and see what's
Speaker 1: going on, you know, and then that's it. The morning's gone,
Speaker 1: which is normally you know, movement, meditation, you know a
Speaker 1: few different things that I like to squeeze in the morning.
Speaker 1: So yeah, respecting those boundaries and setting them is really
Speaker 1: important and it's funny to think about. I've shared this
Speaker 1: story before. I for essentially the last ten years of
Speaker 1: my corporate career. Some of that was as a consultant,
Speaker 1: some of it was as a full time person. I
Speaker 1: had side projects. I built a solar energy company, I
Speaker 1: built this podcast, And what I learned during that period
Speaker 1: was really interesting because I had pretty demanding jobs and
Speaker 1: pretty demanding things on the side, and we have this
Speaker 1: sense that we have to always be on. What I
Speaker 1: found was that I got really really good at being
Speaker 1: focused in those other jobs on what was absolutely critical,
Speaker 1: because I wanted my time right. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: give fifty hours a week if I didn't have to.
Speaker 1: So I became very focused on how can I have
Speaker 1: the maximal impact with the minimum amount of time, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of things that I used to be
Speaker 1: a lot more fastidious about, like I've got to reply
Speaker 1: to every email, I've got to be in every meeting.
Speaker 1: I stopped doing a lot of that, and it was
Speaker 1: interesting to see my effectiveness in the eyes of the
Speaker 1: people who employed me was not diminished at all, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of times we feel
Speaker 1: like we have to always be on. There are certainly
Speaker 1: cases where you've got an overbearing boss and you do.
Speaker 1: But I think it's something we can all ask ourselves again,
Speaker 1: do I really you know? Or is that just an
Speaker 1: assumption that I'm making or is that what other people
Speaker 1: are doing? Is that the only way to be good
Speaker 1: and effective at what I do? And if I gave
Speaker 1: myself a little bit more downtime, might I be more
Speaker 1: if in the time I'm on And that turned out
Speaker 1: to be the case for me. Yeah, completely, And I've
Speaker 1: experienced that same thing. I have this weird shorthand for it.
Speaker 1: You know, I sort of asked myself off and you know, like,
Speaker 1: do I feel like the work that I'm doing at
Speaker 1: any given moment is time being served or time being
Speaker 1: of service. It's a subtle shift, but it's actually really
Speaker 1: really important, you know, because in one I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a haftu and the other it's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a gift. It may be hard, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm doing it for a bigger reason and it's nourishing
Speaker 1: on a whole different level. Let's kind of circle back
Speaker 1: to the question that you teat this off with, though,
Speaker 1: you know, because I think bounties are an issue. I
Speaker 1: think being really intentional about what we're doing, especially these days,
Speaker 1: as an issue, especially you've got those side projects, because
Speaker 1: you can get totally fragmented. But for those who actually
Speaker 1: like show up and work that traditional mainstream job. As
Speaker 1: you were saying, there may be a lot that's right
Speaker 1: about it, and there's a lot of sort of popular
Speaker 1: mythology that says we'll just blow it up, and that
Speaker 1: has certainly become so much more normed over the last
Speaker 1: few years that more people are willing to do it.
Speaker 1: My take is on the blowing up option also before
Speaker 1: we get into like how do we actually do that
Speaker 1: that nine to five time better, is that it's become
Speaker 1: so normalized actually that a lot of people are doing
Speaker 1: it prematurely or without being fully informed. And we tend
Speaker 1: as human beings, overestimate the amount of joy that will
Speaker 1: feel when we free ourselves from the shackles of this thing,
Speaker 1: and dramatically underestimate the pain of the disruption that will
Speaker 1: come immediately after that as we're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: which way is up, and we overestimate how quickly we're
Speaker 1: going to get to the next thing, which is going
Speaker 1: to make us come live, which often doesn't. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what your take is on that moment. Yeah, I'm closer
Speaker 1: to it, as you said, like, I'm four years out right,
Speaker 1: and so the four years that I did the podcast
Speaker 1: before I was able to do it full time. I
Speaker 1: mean I remember it was it was a camp GLP.
Speaker 1: The camp you put on was the first time I
Speaker 1: allowed myself to actually even say in my own head,
Speaker 1: I want to do this full time, that's my goal.
Speaker 1: Like up till then, I just did it as a
Speaker 1: hobby and I loved it, and and that was when
Speaker 1: I sort of imagined it. And from that moment on
Speaker 1: it was very much like that. That's what I'm aiming at.
Speaker 1: And when I get there, I'm not saying that it's
Speaker 1: not better than it was. I'm doing work that's really
Speaker 1: meaningful to me. I'm in a really good place. But
Speaker 1: my happiness level did not go from like a six
Speaker 1: to a twenty when I switched, because there was some
Speaker 1: initial relief, but I traded for a new set of challenges. Right,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I don't have a steady paycheck,
Speaker 1: and that's a different animal to wrestle with, right, It's
Speaker 1: a different type of worry. So yeah, I think again,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did it. I feel very fortunate and
Speaker 1: very blessed. But it was not the panacea maybe that
Speaker 1: I thought it would be. It's still effort and there
Speaker 1: are still challenges, you know. I think often of artists
Speaker 1: who think, you know, if I could just do my
Speaker 1: artful time, but that doesn't always work out, right. It
Speaker 1: puts a whole another set of pressures on you, and
Speaker 1: that whole other set of pressures can to corrupt the
Speaker 1: thing that you loved, right, I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: challenges for me has been how do I keep the
Speaker 1: love in what I'm doing when it also has to
Speaker 1: pay the bills and I have to stress a little
Speaker 1: bit about it paying the bills, Like it's not a
Speaker 1: foregone conclusion that it's going to pay the bills. What
Speaker 1: does that do to my relationship to this thing that
Speaker 1: I loved? I don't think we think about that often enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we don't think about it until you're in it.
Speaker 1: And it's also the type of thing where I think
Speaker 1: very often you can't think your way to an answer.
Speaker 1: Um sometimes you actually just have to make the call
Speaker 1: and then realize there are all these different things coming
Speaker 1: up that I need to grapple with it. I didn't
Speaker 1: anticipate that I would really prefer not be the circumstance
Speaker 1: at the moment, And yet here we are totally now
Speaker 1: and then you have to make the decision. Well, was
Speaker 1: it a good call and are these things resolvable? You know?
Speaker 1: Or was what I was doing actually better than I thought? Um?
Speaker 1: And I might want to sort of like move forward
Speaker 1: into something similar that build on that. It's been interesting.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that there will come a time periodically it
Speaker 1: happens less. I've gotten better at being an entrepreneur. I
Speaker 1: think there's a skill set to managing the anxiety that
Speaker 1: comes around not getting a paycheck right that I've gotten
Speaker 1: better at. But I would notice I'm checking the help
Speaker 1: one it adds for you know, software development positions. You
Speaker 1: know what if I could just find a ten hours
Speaker 1: of consulting a week, you know, or I meet up
Speaker 1: with a friend who was you know now four years on?
Speaker 1: Is you know that we were peers and their two
Speaker 1: levels up and I know what their salary is now, right,
Speaker 1: and that's where I would be. I know where they're
Speaker 1: at salary wise, And I think, look at that house,
Speaker 1: that would sure be nice, Like I made some sacrifices
Speaker 1: in order to make it happen, as I'm not like
Speaker 1: poverty stricken. I don't want to paint that picture at all,
Speaker 1: but it is a different situation for sure, especially when
Speaker 1: you can look back at the career that you left
Speaker 1: behind and you kind of know there's a fairly well
Speaker 1: defined ladder of like status and prestige and income and like,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of say, well, like, that's where
Speaker 1: I would have been pretty much with a fair level
Speaker 1: of confidence. It is fascinating and at the same time
Speaker 1: you have to kind of remind yourselves, but look at
Speaker 1: how much I've actually been able to create that wasn't
Speaker 1: there outside of money and status and whatever those other
Speaker 1: indicators are absolutely and I feel set I did the
Speaker 1: right thing. There's the very very little doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1: There's just occasional pangs of it, but that's partially because
Speaker 1: I work to manage those. And it's interesting. I think
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about this before, because I
Speaker 1: had to work to manage my impression of my day
Speaker 1: job while I had it in order to do my
Speaker 1: best work outside of it. And I think this maybe
Speaker 1: transitions to what we're getting to also, which is how
Speaker 1: do you put more meaning into this other thing. I
Speaker 1: had this sense like maybe if I just really resent
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, it'll get me out faster, and that
Speaker 1: turned out to be exactly wrong. I had to find
Speaker 1: a way to love what I was doing while I
Speaker 1: pursued something else, and that actually turned out to be
Speaker 1: the path that worked best. So even as I was like,
Speaker 1: this job, this career is not where I'm going to
Speaker 1: be long term, I still have to invest in it
Speaker 1: in a way, in a curious way, in order to
Speaker 1: keep my overall mental well being at a high enough level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because effectively you're investing in yourself, not the job. It's
Speaker 1: a great way of thinking of it. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: completely agree. You know, I think if you do the work,
Speaker 1: that like, make the thing that you're at currently as
Speaker 1: good as it can possibly be before you make the decision, right,
Speaker 1: Because this is a pattern that I saw on myself
Speaker 1: and I've since seen it in so many other folks
Speaker 1: who have been fortunate to be in conversation with it,
Speaker 1: which is that once we start to feel like maybe
Speaker 1: this isn't quite the right thing for us, and I'll
Speaker 1: speak for myself, I would start to do like a
Speaker 1: hundred tiny things that I wasn't realizing. We're sort of
Speaker 1: subconsciously sabotaging my ability to make it as good as possible,
Speaker 1: to actually make it something I could enjoy. And my
Speaker 1: take is that, like my brain was kind of saying,
Speaker 1: if I make this as painful as humanly possible, then
Speaker 1: my rash brain has an easier time jettisoning, making the
Speaker 1: decision to walk away, and enduring whatever suffering comes from that,
Speaker 1: because I can tell the story of how horrible that
Speaker 1: old thing was without ever really saying, but I was
Speaker 1: complicit in that, you know, And and so the notion
Speaker 1: I love your idea of making it as good as
Speaker 1: humanly possible because then we can have a more objective
Speaker 1: measure and maybe maybe we stay because we actually realize, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm actually working for myself rather than against myself
Speaker 1: in this context, it actually can be way better than
Speaker 1: I thought it would be. And I think that kind
Speaker 1: of brings us full circle to where we started, right, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we actually look at this thing and decide
Speaker 1: is it improvable? And how much of it is about
Speaker 1: circumstance and how much of it is actually about our
Speaker 1: own state of mind, our own frame. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: obvious times where we can look at it and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is circumstance I'm in, I'm in an objectively awful place.
Speaker 1: You know, like I've got a terrible, terrible boss or
Speaker 1: I mean and and they're toxic and harmful situations where
Speaker 1: you just need to get your self out. For sure,
Speaker 1: that's right. But assuming that it's in a gray area, right,
Speaker 1: which is where it's going to fall for most people,
Speaker 1: all things being equal, if I don't have to blow
Speaker 1: my life up, that's probably a good thing. So let
Speaker 1: me see. It's like if you're in a marriage, right,
Speaker 1: and it's well, it's not great, but you're not certain.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, it's not bad enough. I'm planning to
Speaker 1: walk out the door today. I'm uncertain, right, the wise
Speaker 1: thing to do, in my mind, would be to invest
Speaker 1: as much as you can in that marriage and find
Speaker 1: out because if it is savable and you can make
Speaker 1: it good, that is probably the best outcome, right, just
Speaker 1: from collateral damage perspective, right. And so I think if
Speaker 1: we're uncertain, it makes sense to say, well, let me
Speaker 1: assume some of this is my state of mind, and
Speaker 1: what happens if I start to change that? And I
Speaker 1: think it can be really helpful to give ourselves time
Speaker 1: periods to be like, you know what, six months for
Speaker 1: six months, I'm in here and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: everything I can to make this as good as I
Speaker 1: can in six months, and at the end of six months,
Speaker 1: I'll reevaluate Because to your point, when we're either thinking
Speaker 1: we're out the door or when we're on the fence,
Speaker 1: there's all these subtle ways that we don't either invest
Speaker 1: in or we actively make things worse and completely subconsciously.
Speaker 1: It's not like we're intentionally trying to, of course, to
Speaker 1: sadvertize this thing, but I think our brain runs this script.
Speaker 1: That's if I'm leaning towards a decision, I need to
Speaker 1: contribute to the evidence for that decision, especially if your
Speaker 1: brain is kind of feeling like and it may cause pain,
Speaker 1: even though it may open me to possibility, there may
Speaker 1: be pain along the way. I almost wonder if there's
Speaker 1: a social context to this also, in that I know
Speaker 1: that if I make a decision, they're going to be
Speaker 1: those around me who don't understand the decision and potentially
Speaker 1: judge me and judge the decision, And I need to
Speaker 1: point out how bad it was to basically be able
Speaker 1: to still belong and justify what I did. And like
Speaker 1: you said, there will be moments and opportunities and jobs
Speaker 1: where the pain is legit, it's a present, real, it's toxic,
Speaker 1: it may be exploit if whatever it maybe get out,
Speaker 1: but that's not necessarily the majority of our situations. When
Speaker 1: you make this decision. Let's say it's like the six
Speaker 1: month window we're talking about you just outlined, right, So
Speaker 1: it's like the question becomes then for me, like what
Speaker 1: do you do in that six month window? Like and
Speaker 1: you know, of course I've spent years now is really
Speaker 1: in this body of working around the sparkeet types and
Speaker 1: identifying the essential impulse for work it makes you come
Speaker 1: alive and trying to center that, And that's a part
Speaker 1: of it in my mind right totally. Part of it
Speaker 1: is self a deeper commitment to self discovery, like really
Speaker 1: get to know yourself better, what fills you and what
Speaker 1: empties you sparket type is one thing, but there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other things that are really important to
Speaker 1: understand about yourself and then to really sort of like say, well,
Speaker 1: what experiments could I run in that six month window
Speaker 1: that might somehow be able to better align the things
Speaker 1: that I do with who I know myself on a
Speaker 1: deeper level, to be I mean, does that resonate with
Speaker 1: sort of how you would step into that moment or
Speaker 1: I'm curious with you have other ideas also, I have
Speaker 1: other ideas, But absolutely I think you're right. A lot
Speaker 1: of times we know are not satisfied, but we don't
Speaker 1: know what would satisfy us. And so to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, SPARKA type being a great one. It's a
Speaker 1: great framework for that. So yeah, knowing, okay, what does
Speaker 1: satisfy me? You know, what do I enjoy doing? And
Speaker 1: you're closer to the work world is at job crafting,
Speaker 1: you sort of try and within the confines of your
Speaker 1: current job to find tasks and activities that more resonate
Speaker 1: with who you are and what you like to do.
Speaker 1: So SPARKA type other assessments looking at what parts of
Speaker 1: your job do you like? When do you feel good
Speaker 1: for me? I think also really looking at the relationships
Speaker 1: around me was really valuable, Like who I am here,
Speaker 1: who I show up as today actually makes a difference
Speaker 1: in the world, right, So I want to go make
Speaker 1: a difference in the world in this bigger way. Maybe
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a passion, you want to go
Speaker 1: do this thing in a bigger way. But me showing
Speaker 1: up and I work. Let's say I interact with fifteen
Speaker 1: people that day, Right, if I am a light in
Speaker 1: the fifteen people's lives, you know, within reason, Right, those
Speaker 1: fifteen people go home and they interact with other people.
Speaker 1: So there is meaning embedded. If nothing else, I found
Speaker 1: and can find great meaning in how do I interact
Speaker 1: with the people around me? Because there is meaning in that?
Speaker 1: That was one I really leaned on, you know, in
Speaker 1: those last few years in that job, was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: who am I around? Who's on my team? You know,
Speaker 1: I've got people who are on my team and I'm
Speaker 1: investing in their careers. How do I make sure when
Speaker 1: I leave here they've got the best chance for the
Speaker 1: rest of their career. And it wasn't a little bit
Speaker 1: of a leadership role, but even just in meetings, how
Speaker 1: do how do I interact with people? I think it
Speaker 1: really matters and it ripples in ways we don't see.
Speaker 1: That's the hard part is we don't see the way
Speaker 1: it ripples, but it does. You know. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that question. How can I be a light in other
Speaker 1: people's lives? I think sometimes we ask that question in
Speaker 1: the context of our personal lives or personal relationships, it
Speaker 1: may come more easily to people. The notion of asking
Speaker 1: that question in the context of work, to me is
Speaker 1: fascinating because each one, each relationship is an opportunity for
Speaker 1: you to make meaning by contributing to the betterment of
Speaker 1: others around you. Um, and whether you're wired to just
Speaker 1: naturally do that or not, Like, we all experienced some
Speaker 1: sense of purpose and meaningfulness, you know, when we know
Speaker 1: that we have in some way like move the needle,
Speaker 1: even in the tiniest way in another person's life, even
Speaker 1: people who were not all that close to that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting take on how to take that time and
Speaker 1: can I make it more? Yes, the actual work that
Speaker 1: I'm doing matters, But what about the social context, the
Speaker 1: relational container that I'm in. What opportunities do I have
Speaker 1: there to make meaning and to just feel yes, I'm
Speaker 1: going to have an impact on other people's lives, which
Speaker 1: is awesome, But also maybe that really changes the way
Speaker 1: that I experienced the nearly identical work, like the job
Speaker 1: description hasn't changed. Yeah, I mean you read the stories
Speaker 1: in the work literature about like janitors who work in hospitals, right,
Speaker 1: and somehow I always think like these people are exceptional people, right,
Speaker 1: because they are connecting their work as a janitor to
Speaker 1: the higher purpose of healing. You know, you may not
Speaker 1: be able to do that in the same way with
Speaker 1: your work. My last role was you know, I worked
Speaker 1: for the Gap, and the Gap was actually a good company, right,
Speaker 1: like their social values aligned with mine, a lot of
Speaker 1: really good things about it. I found it hard, although
Speaker 1: now when I think about, like when I'm expecting a
Speaker 1: package to arrive and it doesn't arrive, you know, I
Speaker 1: was in the fulfillment side of that business. You know,
Speaker 1: it might be hard to convince myself that shipping genes
Speaker 1: is all that meaningful in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: But again, I was able to find meaning in the people.
Speaker 1: And then I think there's also a chance to find
Speaker 1: meaning in doing the best work of which I am capable.
Speaker 1: There is an intrinsic factor that feels good when we
Speaker 1: do that. When I exercise, I feel good in two ways. Right.
Speaker 1: One is I feel good because I've moved my body
Speaker 1: and all that. But the second is I feel good
Speaker 1: because I did what I said I was going to do.
Speaker 1: There's an internal alignment. And I think when we show
Speaker 1: up at work and we do our best, we really
Speaker 1: step into it and try there's an internal alignment that
Speaker 1: feels good, versus I kind of go in and phone
Speaker 1: it in all day, like no matter what I think,
Speaker 1: that causes an internal misalignment that just subtly doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: So I think we can find meaning just in you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm contributing to the best of my ability
Speaker 1: in the place that I'm at forty fifty hours a week.
Speaker 1: I think there's something that can be found in the
Speaker 1: intrinsic sense. In that way. I love that. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like having a sense of your capability is honoring
Speaker 1: your desire to actually show up as your best self
Speaker 1: and contribute at the highest level you feel capable of,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the expectation is around you. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean literally, I've had friends at work in jobs where
Speaker 1: they went into a new culture and they loved they did,
Speaker 1: and they started just jamming and performing at a really
Speaker 1: high level, and people all around them who had been there,
Speaker 1: some of them for for decades, where like, uh, you
Speaker 1: need to like bring this down like a minute, because
Speaker 1: that's not how we do things here, you know, like
Speaker 1: we work at a slower pace, and were like, this
Speaker 1: is the way that it works here in this shop,
Speaker 1: and my friends are just like devastated because they were alive.
Speaker 1: They were doing the thing that they really enjoy doing
Speaker 1: and at a pace and at a level of competence
Speaker 1: that really lit them up. And then the culture they
Speaker 1: stepped into was saying, like, you can do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, but at a lower level and more constrained level,
Speaker 1: like you can't be fully yourself, and that alone can
Speaker 1: be kind of brutalizing, you know. So it's interesting to
Speaker 1: have even run that experiment if you work in a
Speaker 1: culture where the expectations actually are set at a level
Speaker 1: where you would rather show up and exceed those expectations,
Speaker 1: to just show up and exceed those expectation aations and
Speaker 1: see what happens. You know. My guess is some folks
Speaker 1: will really take notice in a positive way, but there
Speaker 1: may also be an interesting reaction, which is negative. I'd
Speaker 1: be fascinated, like, I wonder if there's research actually on
Speaker 1: dynamics like this in the workplace and how it affects people,
Speaker 1: like whether there would be enough rebound rejection of your
Speaker 1: wanting to show up and function at the highest possible
Speaker 1: level for no other reason that it makes you feel good.
Speaker 1: How culture would embrace that within where you are. I
Speaker 1: think it's a really interesting experiment to run in that
Speaker 1: six month window you were talking about. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be painting and overly unicorn picture. Right.
Speaker 1: The culture you're in really does matter. You know, it's
Speaker 1: hard if you're swimming way upstream. But again, I loved
Speaker 1: what you said, which is experiments in this six month window.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really great way to think about it. Well,
Speaker 1: what if I try this? What if I try that?
Speaker 1: What if I do this? You know what works, what
Speaker 1: doesn't work, what jives with the culture, what causes more?
Speaker 1: You know, Oh I tried that and it actually made
Speaker 1: things worse. All right, Well let's abandon that, because now
Speaker 1: everybody's mad at me. I think you just try and
Speaker 1: then it's six months or three months. Maybe maybe six
Speaker 1: months is too long, but you've got a data point.
Speaker 1: I just find it helpful to set an amount of
Speaker 1: time so that I can step off the fence for
Speaker 1: that amount of time because otherwise, you know, I've done
Speaker 1: this with spiritual paths, right, because you know, I mean
Speaker 1: the nature of our work right, every week, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I how to be doing that, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I gotta try that, you know. And I
Speaker 1: just found I was like all over the place, so
Speaker 1: I would be like, all right, it is this teacher,
Speaker 1: and it is Zen and it is six months, and
Speaker 1: between now and the end of six month, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be like, well, I wonder if that's a
Speaker 1: better Well, of course I will inside my brain and
Speaker 1: then I'll just go Nope, we're staying here. You know.
Speaker 1: I found various areas of my life where it's really
Speaker 1: helpful just to say, for this amount of time, I'm
Speaker 1: stepping off the fence and I'm committing. I'm not ready
Speaker 1: to commit to this for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to commit for a period of time
Speaker 1: because that allows me to actually invest and not have
Speaker 1: that mental energy of it'll be better somewhere else. I
Speaker 1: have a natural grass is greener brain. I think we
Speaker 1: all do. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Yeah, the six
Speaker 1: month window is interesting different in mind. Charlie Gilki I
Speaker 1: think you know also, um yeah with Charlie. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a huge fan of running sort of like quarterly. He's
Speaker 1: like basically commit to everything for at least a quarter.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also a really interesting invitation that
Speaker 1: you're offering, which is said, think about how long it
Speaker 1: would realistically take for you to have enough experience with
Speaker 1: this thing to get a reasonable amount of data to
Speaker 1: make an intelligent decision with it. So, like a spiritual practice,
Speaker 1: three months is kind of a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 1: So it was six months, Yeah, yeah, right, right, you know,
Speaker 1: six years is sort of like probably like more accurate,
Speaker 1: but in our modern day and a like, who's gonna
Speaker 1: wait anywhere near that long? It just doesn't happen in
Speaker 1: our lives. Yeah, yeah, And what was interested is when
Speaker 1: I got to six months, I was like, yes, another
Speaker 1: six months, and another six months, and you know, next thing,
Speaker 1: I know, it's several years I've been working in the
Speaker 1: same path and now I still am and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be working with a different teacher. But that was
Speaker 1: beneficial for me. Same thing with like exercise, I'll just
Speaker 1: find like, all right, I'm gonna try and do this
Speaker 1: for the next you know, ninety days. Let me find
Speaker 1: out what it's like if I stay with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm kind of feeling that this is
Speaker 1: leading us somewhat organically into one of the other topics
Speaker 1: that we were both really fascinated by, which is sort
Speaker 1: of the process of change, because that's part of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, right, like, and we've been talking
Speaker 1: about in the context of work, job, but more broadly,
Speaker 1: I feel like changes in the air, like to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, over the last couple of years, you could say,
Speaker 1: like the amount of forced change has been dramatically increased,
Speaker 1: whether that's a good thing, a bad thing, or just
Speaker 1: a thing I think as a matter of perspective, and
Speaker 1: also whether we're equipped to handle that and how we
Speaker 1: sort of like step into it. And it's certainly not
Speaker 1: like change or groundlessness is something new, you know. This
Speaker 1: is the state of existence, is a state of alize,
Speaker 1: but it's been amplified and centered in a way that
Speaker 1: I feel like for many people it hasn't been until
Speaker 1: fairly recently. And the question is like whether it's imposed
Speaker 1: from the outside in or we just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's something about me or my life, or my relationships
Speaker 1: or my health or whatever it is where I'm actually
Speaker 1: not satisfied. I'm not fulfilled. I want to make something different,
Speaker 1: whether it's an internal change or an external change, Like
Speaker 1: I am not okay with the way things are, and
Speaker 1: I want things to be different, which involves the process
Speaker 1: of change. But like stepping into that, change can happen
Speaker 1: in a functional way, in a healthy way, in a
Speaker 1: constructive way, or a wildly dysfunctional, unhealthy and destructive way.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the difference between the two is more subtle
Speaker 1: than we'd like to think. Yeah, give me an example
Speaker 1: in your mind of like a destructive or dysfunctional way
Speaker 1: of approaching change. I mean, if we take something that's
Speaker 1: sort of like a mass desire for change, like so
Speaker 1: many people want to get fit, right, and certainly after
Speaker 1: the last few years, like someone of us have been
Speaker 1: feel like we're sort of like locked in a cocoon
Speaker 1: and we lost the ability to go outside and do stuff,
Speaker 1: and we're not happy with their weight, We're not happy
Speaker 1: with our fitness, with our ability, with the health markers
Speaker 1: that come from all these different things. So I think
Speaker 1: the impulse very often, like I'm raising my hand right here,
Speaker 1: is okay, I can't take this anymore, Like I'm a blob.
Speaker 1: I know things hurt that shouldn't be hurting, and I know,
Speaker 1: like I'm not able to do these different things. And
Speaker 1: granted I think this is my example that is relevant
Speaker 1: to a lot of different people, and of course everybody
Speaker 1: steps into this from a different place of ability, so
Speaker 1: it's important to acknowledge that. But for me, physical fitness
Speaker 1: and physical ability to whatever extent my body allows it
Speaker 1: to happen, is important to me. It may can you
Speaker 1: feel a certain way, and I know it's important to
Speaker 1: me just for my well being moving forward and for
Speaker 1: my mental health. But there's a sweet spot, right Like
Speaker 1: so my impulse as being a little bit of a
Speaker 1: type a person, I like to will things into reality,
Speaker 1: and that has been my m O for my entire life.
Speaker 1: It's been my m O. And entrepreneurship. It's like I
Speaker 1: have a vision for something and then I will just
Speaker 1: work myself to the bone to make it happen as
Speaker 1: fast as humanly possible. But with things like taking care
Speaker 1: of our physical body, there's a sweet spot where if
Speaker 1: you do it at a certain pace, with a certain
Speaker 1: amount of recovery built into it and a certain amount
Speaker 1: of intensity built into it in a way that honors
Speaker 1: your unique body, then it can be really constructive and
Speaker 1: it can lead to lasting change. You know that's healthy
Speaker 1: and functional and is sustainable. Potentially for years of not
Speaker 1: decades in your whole life, but literally like a hot
Speaker 1: minute faster or like a touch more intense Kennon has
Speaker 1: sent me spiraling over the edge of in r and
Speaker 1: pain and soldering and debilitation. And the same thing is like,
Speaker 1: if I go outside of that sweet spot in the
Speaker 1: other direction, nothing happens. If I decide to go for
Speaker 1: a walk once a week and eat a plant, you know,
Speaker 1: like every other week, like that is not going to
Speaker 1: get me to where I want to be. So I
Speaker 1: think there's this for a lot of things that where
Speaker 1: we're seeking change, you know, especially where we really feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's been insighting incident that's made me really realize how
Speaker 1: un happy you're, uncomfortable or unsatisfying. I'm with the status quo.
Speaker 1: I can't be here for a minute longer. That's a
Speaker 1: great energy to work off of to leverage, but like
Speaker 1: what you do with that can be largely determinative of
Speaker 1: whether the change we seek leads to the outcome we
Speaker 1: want and in a healthy way that's sustainable, or the
Speaker 1: exact opposite. When I think about my life, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the thing that comes most immediately into mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good stuff in there is somebody
Speaker 1: who used to injure himself on a regular basis. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just age or wisdom or a combination.
Speaker 1: On the boat that I've actually gotten better at that.
Speaker 1: You hit an interesting point there about the sweet spot, right,
Speaker 1: because it's really interesting to think about what is motivating
Speaker 1: us and are we setting a direction? Are we setting
Speaker 1: a goal? Is this thing that we're looking at changing
Speaker 1: a value? We know, for example, that setting a short
Speaker 1: term weight goal of like I'm going to lose thirty
Speaker 1: pounds in two weeks, it's probably a terrible idea that
Speaker 1: doesn't tend to work, or if it does, it doesn't last.
Speaker 1: And yet we also know that numbers and goals can
Speaker 1: be motivating, right, So I think it's knowing yourself and
Speaker 1: knowing what works, the things that have worked best for
Speaker 1: me with like, say, fitness is a value that says
Speaker 1: I value being physically fit. Why you know? Now I
Speaker 1: can get into why that is right for me. At
Speaker 1: least for a while, it became very primarily about my
Speaker 1: mental health. As I've looked at my parents aging and
Speaker 1: I've gotten a close up view of what that's like
Speaker 1: that is filtered into like, Okay, I gotta work out
Speaker 1: for my health and the future. That future window is shrinking,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not as far away as it used
Speaker 1: to be. And my parents, both of them in their
Speaker 1: own way, it's like a preview of coming attractions and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna take this more seriously. So
Speaker 1: in that way then fitness becoming a value then is
Speaker 1: less likely to lead to doing too much. I'm just like, look,
Speaker 1: moving my body on a regular basis is like that's
Speaker 1: just what I'm going to do here on out. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a value. Also helps if a week goes
Speaker 1: by and I don't do it, you know, because then
Speaker 1: I'm not like, well I blew it. I was on
Speaker 1: the right track, I would you know, it's just like nope,
Speaker 1: you just kind of get back on. So I think
Speaker 1: if it can become a value a direction that we
Speaker 1: want to move in, because we recognize broadly speaking as
Speaker 1: a direction being kinder, that is another value that points
Speaker 1: to a direction that we can move. But as we said,
Speaker 1: sometimes specificities really value well. So I think it kind
Speaker 1: of depends where you are and how you're trying to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting to position it as a value rather
Speaker 1: than sort of like a specific outcome or a program
Speaker 1: where you like, there are certain boxes that you have
Speaker 1: to follow, certain things you have to do every day,
Speaker 1: and if you don't check the box for too many
Speaker 1: days in a row, well then you know, like it's
Speaker 1: just over and you're completely done. You know, it's I
Speaker 1: think of value and even a practice. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the habit literature, right, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to actually affect change and then have
Speaker 1: a sustain at some point, you very likely have to
Speaker 1: turn the behaviors that lead to the change into a habit,
Speaker 1: something that just starts to happen on autopilot where you're
Speaker 1: not thinking about it anymore. It's just part of who
Speaker 1: you are. And that's what some of the identity or
Speaker 1: some of the habit literature talks about, is the shift
Speaker 1: from behavior to identity, like I'm the type of person
Speaker 1: who does X or who believes X, and then it's
Speaker 1: just a part of you and that's what allows you
Speaker 1: to sustain it. And I think you're right your idea
Speaker 1: of like thinking out of as a value makes it
Speaker 1: a more sustainable type of thing that it makes it
Speaker 1: easier to just kind of say like I wasn't feeling
Speaker 1: up to it. I had like a brutal week of
Speaker 1: work where I just literally couldn't do it. But it's
Speaker 1: not about me having broken the program I was on.
Speaker 1: It's like no broad scheme, like I value this thing.
Speaker 1: There was a short window where it was practically just
Speaker 1: brutally hard to do, so I made a choice not
Speaker 1: to do it, whether it was buche allter intentional. But
Speaker 1: I am still that person and I still have that value.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna wake up today and do the thing
Speaker 1: that I know it's going to make me feel the
Speaker 1: way I want to feel. And like that made mean
Speaker 1: the chance happened slower, but it's still in process. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, right, like I've become a
Speaker 1: Peloton sponsor show. They probably sponsored your show. At one
Speaker 1: point we were on the same network, right, and they
Speaker 1: sent me this bike to try out. I thought, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll get the bike, why not all ride it. Well,
Speaker 1: it turned out, for whatever reason, it was the right
Speaker 1: thing for me. It unlocked something in my fitness. I've
Speaker 1: been doing it for years now and it works for me,
Speaker 1: and I will aasionally do these things. It's a type
Speaker 1: of training you can do on peloton known as power
Speaker 1: zone training, and there are groups outside of Peloton communities
Speaker 1: that form and they will do like a challenge, you know,
Speaker 1: forty five day power Zone challenge. Like I find those helpful, right,
Speaker 1: Even though fitness is a direction, it's a place I
Speaker 1: want to go. I do find a program that gives
Speaker 1: me some specificity can be really helpful community accountability and support,
Speaker 1: and so I don't think it's either or again knowing
Speaker 1: ourselves and what works for ourselves, you know, I just
Speaker 1: know I respond to that sort of forty five day
Speaker 1: program knowing though that I know myself and my life
Speaker 1: well enough to know that most likely I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be in the same place for forty five days
Speaker 1: to do anything, right, So I just except that, like
Speaker 1: two of those weeks, I'm not gonna be anywhere near
Speaker 1: a bike, so something else is going to have to happen.
Speaker 1: I interviewed a guy I don't remember his name, Stephen
Speaker 1: Guys maybe, but he talks about flexible habits. I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting about like when do we need rigidity
Speaker 1: and specificity and when do we need flexibility and finding
Speaker 1: the right balance of those things is really kind of
Speaker 1: an art in some ways. As you were describing that,
Speaker 1: Like the word that kept pupping into my head is agile.
Speaker 1: You know, like we need a certain agility so that
Speaker 1: we have a certain structure in place. It's intelligent, it's
Speaker 1: well thought out. It aligns with that underlying value of
Speaker 1: who we see ourselves are, who we see ourselves wanting
Speaker 1: to become, and what's important to us. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, it gives us behaviors to say yes to,
Speaker 1: like you were just talking about, like forty five day
Speaker 1: challenge or something that you're really drawn to that will
Speaker 1: help effect that change, being committed to it and yes,
Speaker 1: yet also acknowledging your humanity. I remember years ago. It's funny,
Speaker 1: I'm Boulder, Colorado right now, but back then I was
Speaker 1: living in New York. We had flown out to Boulder
Speaker 1: to record a whole bunch of injurviews is when we
Speaker 1: were filming in the very early days. One of those
Speaker 1: people was Brad Feld, who's this sort of legendary founder
Speaker 1: and metric capitalists out here and also just like a
Speaker 1: really d and guy. He was talking about how he
Speaker 1: had this really powerful value around wanting to have a deep, loving,
Speaker 1: connected relationship with his wife, and part of that was
Speaker 1: a commitment to certain rituals that they had, like on
Speaker 1: a morning basis, connecting every morning, and then once a
Speaker 1: month they would have these things called life dinners, where
Speaker 1: they would go out. They could go to a restaurant,
Speaker 1: they get a bottle of wine. They would talk about
Speaker 1: the relationship, the good, like everything that needed to be
Speaker 1: talked about. They would exchange gifts. Sometimes they would laugh,
Speaker 1: sometimes they would cry, sometimes both. Sometimes it was just fine.
Speaker 1: But I bring it up because he knew that he
Speaker 1: wanted to like, he had this value around relationships. He
Speaker 1: knew that the way that he had been in relationships
Speaker 1: in the past wasn't the way that he wanted to
Speaker 1: be in them, so he wanted to affect chains. They
Speaker 1: created these behaviors that really means bul blood. At the
Speaker 1: same time, he also knew that his life, especially then,
Speaker 1: he was on planes, trans and automobiles all the time.
Speaker 1: So they literally built in a tolerance to the life
Speaker 1: dinners of like. It was like eighteen point one percent
Speaker 1: of like life dinners on on a twelve month basis
Speaker 1: that he could miss and they would still look at
Speaker 1: it as this is a successful thing, Like we are
Speaker 1: both committed to this and it's working at it's honoring
Speaker 1: our values. He literally looked at his life in events
Speaker 1: and said, I know that nature of my life, So
Speaker 1: let me acknowledge that and literally build a certain amount
Speaker 1: of flexibility and agility and forgiveness into the bigger process
Speaker 1: so I can still feel like I'm succeeding in my
Speaker 1: own life. If it's something I'm trying to do essentially,
Speaker 1: very very regularly. My tolerance is about ten percent. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not measuring that tightly, but it gives me a
Speaker 1: general sense. If my goal is to meditate every day
Speaker 1: and I missed three days a month, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's like, oh I missed three d is a month.
Speaker 1: I think like I'm nailing it right, Like that's winning.
Speaker 1: Knowing that percent is possible, and depending where you're coming from, right,
Speaker 1: that tolerance might need to be sevent eight percent. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been doing some of these things long enough.
Speaker 1: I think that I've got my system down decently enough.
Speaker 1: But knowing that perfection isn't going to happen is critical.
Speaker 1: Just like, Okay, what does success look like for me?
Speaker 1: If success is a I'm going to be disappointed. You know,
Speaker 1: unless you have a life that never changes and you're
Speaker 1: a robot, you know, expect some amount of deviance from
Speaker 1: the goal. Yeah, and I think building that in the
Speaker 1: beginning it's just really really smart, but we never do it.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about so many different things where I
Speaker 1: kind of think to myself, Okay, I want to achieve this,
Speaker 1: or accomplish this, or change this. I go into research
Speaker 1: and find out what are all the different approaches to this,
Speaker 1: What's the one that makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 1: Where's the program that somebody else has built that proves
Speaker 1: that it works, like that gets you from where you
Speaker 1: are now to the outcome that you on and let
Speaker 1: me follow that program. And I'm thinking to myself how
Speaker 1: many times I've done that, thinking I'm just locked in,
Speaker 1: like I'm ready to go like a habit's proven, like
Speaker 1: thousands of people have done this before me. And then
Speaker 1: I say yes to it, I put into my calendar
Speaker 1: and like nine days later and I'm like, Nope, not happening,
Speaker 1: because like I took something and I never actually said okay,
Speaker 1: so how does this work with my life? Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: doing less of it now, but I did a lot,
Speaker 1: particularly as I left my job and moved into the podcasting,
Speaker 1: I did a lot of one on one coaching for
Speaker 1: a while around behavior, and so I got a lot
Speaker 1: of reps in and just really realizing, like, there are
Speaker 1: some principles that we can talk about, but people are different.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to know yourself. There are some
Speaker 1: people that the direction we need to go is like,
Speaker 1: stop being so hard on yourself. We need to tone
Speaker 1: that way down. There are other people where we need
Speaker 1: to turn the accountability dial up right, not knowing that
Speaker 1: that's just one example of many different variables. How busy
Speaker 1: are you? How chaotic is your life? You know? Are
Speaker 1: you solely responsible for childcare? So if a child gets
Speaker 1: sick it falls on you. What's the health of your parents?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean there's all these different factors that
Speaker 1: really means that there isn't a one size fits all
Speaker 1: for people. And so really thinking about like you said, Okay,
Speaker 1: this program seems to make sense, it seems to be
Speaker 1: the right thing out there. How does this work for me?
Speaker 1: You know, where is it going to work? Where are
Speaker 1: the problems? When I would build a plan with somebody,
Speaker 1: then I would say Okay, what are the five things
Speaker 1: that are most likely to go wrong with this plan.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're a master at that right in certain
Speaker 1: areas of your life. So it's the same thing is
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, I've got this plan for making a
Speaker 1: change in my life. What's likely to go wrong? And
Speaker 1: the thing that goes wrong for a lot of people
Speaker 1: is unexpected things. Kids got sick, mom got sick, had
Speaker 1: to go out of town, I got sick. I mean
Speaker 1: any number of different things were rolling along and then
Speaker 1: that interruption happen. And for people who are like I'm
Speaker 1: really good at starting things, but I can't stay with them,
Speaker 1: I've identified that thing as one of the main problems.
Speaker 1: You're going along and when things are routine, you got it.
Speaker 1: But the less routine your life might be, you've got
Speaker 1: to really be able to roll with the punches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the small scale, day to day black swans, right,
Speaker 1: Geka at the capability to completely derail you, but you
Speaker 1: have no idea what they are until they are, you know,
Speaker 1: until they happen. I think it's a really interesting idea.
Speaker 1: I wonder what you think about this. I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting exercise. Like you were saying to say, like,
Speaker 1: what are the five things that like you can conceive
Speaker 1: how that might happen. But then even say, just given
Speaker 1: the nature of your life, your circumstance, like the context
Speaker 1: you're you're in, let's assume that they're going to be
Speaker 1: certain things that drop into your orbit. You have no idea,
Speaker 1: there's no way for you to actually know them right now,
Speaker 1: right and you build a tolerance just for unforeseen circumstances
Speaker 1: into whatever plan you have. So maybe it's ten percent
Speaker 1: forgiveness or wager room. Either way, you really based on
Speaker 1: the fact that you know your life has hectic, you're
Speaker 1: maybe apparent, you maybe working two jobs, you may be
Speaker 1: like caretaking somebody else, and just to give yourself that
Speaker 1: leeway so that even if those things where you have
Speaker 1: no way to project that they might happen now happen,
Speaker 1: you can still say, and I can honor them, I
Speaker 1: can do what I need to do to take care
Speaker 1: of them, and still feel like I'm succeeding at this
Speaker 1: path of growth and change along the way, rather than
Speaker 1: I gotta tap out, I've just failed. Yeah, And also
Speaker 1: what is a fallback behavior that I might be able
Speaker 1: to do? Tell me more Let's say my goal is
Speaker 1: it's a phrase I use a lot, which is that
Speaker 1: a little bit of something is better than a lot
Speaker 1: of nothing. So a lot of us. If it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm supposed to go to the gym today
Speaker 1: for an hour. Let's say I was going to go
Speaker 1: from twelve to one and I've got a meeting that
Speaker 1: goes till twelve twenty. Instead of going, all right, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've still got forty minutes. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to make it to the gym and back, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go walk outside for twenty minutes. We just
Speaker 1: bag the whole thing. So thinking about what do I
Speaker 1: do if I can't complete this behavior? Is there a
Speaker 1: smaller version of it that I can do? I remember
Speaker 1: this one for me. My goal is like I've got
Speaker 1: an exercise plan and my mom goes into the hospital,
Speaker 1: and now I am going to be at the hospital
Speaker 1: for eight hours a day on top of working. Like exercise,
Speaker 1: It's gone right, except I'm like, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I could just go walk the hospital halls for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: I could go up and down the stairs a few times.
Speaker 1: It's that little bit of something is better than nothing. A.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does give me some fitness benefit, but
Speaker 1: be it kind of reaffirms my commitment. It sort of
Speaker 1: gets me away from like the hard stop, you know,
Speaker 1: where I feel like, Okay, I did the best I could,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I think just thinking about things
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I want to meditate every day,
Speaker 1: you know, and I do it in the morning for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes or whatever. But this morning my kid was
Speaker 1: not feeling well and etcetera, etcetera. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I've got five minutes I could sit quietly my desk,
Speaker 1: you know. It Just is there something small that I
Speaker 1: can do? You know? And again we could say five
Speaker 1: minutes of meditation. Probably in the grand scheme of our lives,
Speaker 1: doesn't make much difference whether you do that five minutes
Speaker 1: or not. But in the context of continuing a behavior
Speaker 1: that you've committed to, it actually does matter a lot, yea.
Speaker 1: And in reinforcing that identity level of value, it lets
Speaker 1: you keep saying I am still the person who does
Speaker 1: X and who says this thing matters to me because
Speaker 1: I figured out a way to do it in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, even though like I was knocked off,
Speaker 1: like what my original intention or what the plan was.
Speaker 1: It's like it it reinforces that identity level of value
Speaker 1: um and that lets you keep saying I'm the person
Speaker 1: who does this, which then makes it much more likely
Speaker 1: that you will keep doing it over time, because it's
Speaker 1: not just a thing you do, it's who you are,
Speaker 1: you know. One of the things I think with change
Speaker 1: should be interesting to explore also is how do we
Speaker 1: look at change over the long term, How much might
Speaker 1: we change? How much can we change? And also the
Speaker 1: issue of comparing ourselves to others, which I think is
Speaker 1: another really pernicious thing that can really get in the
Speaker 1: way of change. Those are really juicy questions. That last
Speaker 1: one especially, It's almost like what I hear when I
Speaker 1: hear you saying that is who are we actually changing for?
Speaker 1: Are we doing this because we want to be accepted
Speaker 1: by other people based on their norms, their standards, just
Speaker 1: because we want to be loved or beloved or held
Speaker 1: by them, or is there something deeper inside of us?
Speaker 1: It just feels like just for me, even if nobody
Speaker 1: ever knows, even I haven't never tell anybody else, like
Speaker 1: there's a way that I want to be differently in
Speaker 1: my skin, in the world and my relationships. That's meaningful
Speaker 1: to me and me alone. The whole question of like
Speaker 1: why we even want to change is interesting, um and
Speaker 1: maybe even determinative in our ability to affect change and
Speaker 1: sustain it. I mean you think it's like that central, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think our why is critically important. Why are we
Speaker 1: doing this? If we don't have good clarity on that,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to maintain. Most real change is going
Speaker 1: to take a significant amount of time, both in investment
Speaker 1: time and calendar days, Like it just doesn't happen quickly
Speaker 1: and so inevitably. Then there's going to be I think
Speaker 1: lots of times where you're like, wow, that seems like
Speaker 1: a good idea, But it sure doesn't seem like a
Speaker 1: good idea today. You know why am I doing this?
Speaker 1: And then also what are my expectations about what the
Speaker 1: nature of the change will be. This is an easy example.
Speaker 1: It's a it's kind of a straw man. But if
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna lose twenty pounds in ten days,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be very disappointed in that when I
Speaker 1: don't achieve that, And particularly if we start thinking about
Speaker 1: changes that aren't as easy to measure as something on
Speaker 1: a scale, you know, my changes to how reactive I
Speaker 1: am to my children, how much might I expect to change.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting back to the idea of tolerance,
Speaker 1: like what's the tolerance that I have knowing that I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be perfect at something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the idea of really understanding your it helps get
Speaker 1: you through all of the moments where you really want
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the behavior that will lead to
Speaker 1: change on any common day. It's having a flashback of
Speaker 1: in a very past life. When I left my career
Speaker 1: as a law lawyer, I was in the fitness industry
Speaker 1: and I started out I was a personal trainer, going
Speaker 1: to people's apartments in New York City, working with them.
Speaker 1: I remember taking the elevator up to this floor in
Speaker 1: a really fancy building in New York City. I get
Speaker 1: off the elevator and I'm walking down a very long
Speaker 1: hallway to meet a new client, like my first consult
Speaker 1: with them. And as I'm like starting to walk towards
Speaker 1: the door, I hear yelling and screaming and I have
Speaker 1: no idea, like it's coming from an apartment. I don't
Speaker 1: know what department it is, and I'm walking down the hall,
Speaker 1: and I'm getting closer to the yelling and getting closer
Speaker 1: to the yelling, and then I realized I'm at the
Speaker 1: end of the hall, like the doorway that I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to knock on is where the screaming is coming from.
Speaker 1: So I just stopped for a minute and I listen,
Speaker 1: and it's a man yelling and effectively saying I never
Speaker 1: wanted to do this, you may you do this, You're
Speaker 1: forcing me to do this, and like, I want nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this. I can't believe you did this
Speaker 1: without my like, and I'm like, oh, dear, this is
Speaker 1: this is my soon to be right, which which I
Speaker 1: am a harder present. Sure I'm going to see for
Speaker 1: exactly sixty minutes and never see again for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, which is exactly what happened. It kind
Speaker 1: of doesn't matter how much other people want you to
Speaker 1: change you, like, there's got to be something inside of
Speaker 1: you that has to want it, especially if it's something
Speaker 1: it's gonna be hard and long and take effort. It's
Speaker 1: got to be more than just a superficial driver. Also,
Speaker 1: it has to be something deeper that's going to keep
Speaker 1: you in it and wake you up in the morning
Speaker 1: and say it's cold, it's raining or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: But I still got to do the work. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a relationship that you really want to repair
Speaker 1: where there's some wounding in the middle of that relationship.
Speaker 1: You know that maybe a month or years long process,
Speaker 1: and it may be hard, but you know, like why
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter so much to you to pair this,
Speaker 1: Like that's a big part of what's going to keep
Speaker 1: you in it. I wonder if oftentimes, even when we
Speaker 1: visit this question, we visit on a on a really
Speaker 1: surface level and we never actually get to like like
Speaker 1: the five level. Why underneath that? Like why does that matter?
Speaker 1: You know? It's like why I want to lose twenty pounds,
Speaker 1: Like why does that matter? Because I've got a twenty
Speaker 1: year reunion coming up and I want to be able
Speaker 1: to look a certain way? And why does that matter
Speaker 1: to you? Well, because when I was in high school
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, I was bullied all the time. And
Speaker 1: why does it matter to you? Like I want to
Speaker 1: both respect myself and come from a place of dignity
Speaker 1: and be respected and treated with dignity. Oh okay, now
Speaker 1: that's something that I think when it's really hard to
Speaker 1: do the work keep you going you've done so much more,
Speaker 1: or like individualized work and behavior chains, Like do you
Speaker 1: feel like that's something that you see fairly often where
Speaker 1: crearly people the initial response to why it's fairly surface
Speaker 1: level and you really have to do some digging. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that your story made me laugh because as you were
Speaker 1: ellien it, I was thinking, this sounds a lot like
Speaker 1: when I used to go to adolescent drug and alcohol
Speaker 1: treatment centers, Like they're just not into it, Like you know,
Speaker 1: like we go there to give a talk and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, every once in a while you find a
Speaker 1: kid who gets it, but the vast majority of them
Speaker 1: simply are like I don't want to be here. My
Speaker 1: parents put me here. The minute I get out, I
Speaker 1: am getting high. And that brought me back for a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that what you said there is an important one,
Speaker 1: like ask why, and I think it's worth getting to
Speaker 1: the most emotional core of it that you can, because
Speaker 1: we are emotional beings. We are driven by emotion, and
Speaker 1: so the closer to that emotional core we can get,
Speaker 1: probably the better off we are. You know. I think
Speaker 1: the other thing that's hard and why people change is
Speaker 1: even with all the research it's out there, all the
Speaker 1: literature that's out there, all the work I've done with people,
Speaker 1: it is still to me to some degree of mystery.
Speaker 1: If you can figure out why a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't get sober, you could solve that problem. Would be
Speaker 1: a billionaire, right, But it's just not that easy. And
Speaker 1: so even with why, you know, like what I find
Speaker 1: really interesting and what's hard is your emotional Why one
Speaker 1: day feels very poignant and then three days later it
Speaker 1: just feels empty. That's hard, you know. I think that's
Speaker 1: part of the challenges. What do I do if my
Speaker 1: mood system is variable enough. I just talked to earlier today.
Speaker 1: You've you've had him on your show, I think a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago for you, Diego Perez Young Pueblo, right,
Speaker 1: And we were talking about determination, you know, because I
Speaker 1: was like, well, where did you find the determination to
Speaker 1: do some of these things? Like you just are like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to meditate two hours a day, Like whoa,
Speaker 1: you know, you're pretty determined guy. He references being in
Speaker 1: a low mood often and that's something I do. And
Speaker 1: we were talking about like dudes and don't for low
Speaker 1: moods right, and one of them was don't reevaluate your
Speaker 1: strategy in a low mood, you know. So when I'm
Speaker 1: in a low mood, I just try and be like
Speaker 1: what's on the calendar, Just just keep moving forward. Is
Speaker 1: not the day to debate whether you care about physical fitness.
Speaker 1: You're not in a place to have any sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Just try and move forward in the best way you can.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's the thing. Sometimes for me,
Speaker 1: I've had to realize that, like my wife feels really
Speaker 1: poignant today, three days from now it feels completely empty.
Speaker 1: I have to trust that it does matter, even though
Speaker 1: I can't feel it in this moment. I have to
Speaker 1: trust that it still does matter to me. A better
Speaker 1: version of me is available and may not be available
Speaker 1: in this moment, but that better version of me exists
Speaker 1: and it thinks this is important. I'm gonna try and
Speaker 1: just stick with that better version, even though the version
Speaker 1: that's here today thinks who cares. That brings up something
Speaker 1: that I think is really interesting that in a way
Speaker 1: references back to a conversation about work and meaning will
Speaker 1: work and sort of like reimagining what you're doing to
Speaker 1: give you a lot more, which is that if we
Speaker 1: are exploring and saying yes to a process of personal
Speaker 1: change or a path of personal change, and we get
Speaker 1: in touch with it, why and we talk about all
Speaker 1: the different sort of ideas and strategies we've talked about
Speaker 1: the same way that we were saying, before you leave
Speaker 1: a job, or even think about leaving a job for
Speaker 1: something else that you hope will be better, do all
Speaker 1: the work to make where you are as good as
Speaker 1: humanly possible. When we think about a process of personal change,
Speaker 1: when we think about saying yesterday, when we're setting ourselves
Speaker 1: up for it, it feels to me like a similar
Speaker 1: principle would be at work here, which is, can I
Speaker 1: get as happy with myself with my current circumstance, with
Speaker 1: the state of my being, my body? How can I
Speaker 1: love as much as humanly possible the current state and
Speaker 1: not just revile it and use that negative energy to
Speaker 1: move away from it? But how can I love myself
Speaker 1: as much as I possibly can in the moment, in
Speaker 1: the state that I am right now and still at
Speaker 1: the same time, you learned to exist differently, because if
Speaker 1: you're just waiting to feel differently about yourself until you
Speaker 1: hit that moment where you're like, check the box changed Now,
Speaker 1: I love me, I love my relationship. I feel like
Speaker 1: that is going to be an empty quest. Like I
Speaker 1: feel like a part of change, which is a little counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: is exploring ways to love or at least like a
Speaker 1: little bit more who you are in this moment in time,
Speaker 1: and trying to add to that in tiny little bits
Speaker 1: along the way, rather than just waiting until this moment
Speaker 1: down the road where I'd like checked the box, the
Speaker 1: change has happened, and now I can finally say yes
Speaker 1: to me. I think that's extraordinarily well said and maybe
Speaker 1: a great exclamation point to put on the end of this,
Speaker 1: you know, is really that very idea of yes, I
Speaker 1: want to change, Yes I want things to be different.
Speaker 1: But if I exist only in things being different, I
Speaker 1: completely miss where I'm at now. I of that idea
Speaker 1: of I'm gonna inhabit my life as it is today.
Speaker 1: I'm going to inhabit myself. I'm going to inhabit my
Speaker 1: world as it is today, while I also look to
Speaker 1: make some changes. And I think you said it really
Speaker 1: well there, So I think that's a great place for
Speaker 1: us to wrap up. Awesome sounds great. We got through
Speaker 1: two of our topics, so we'll have to do this
Speaker 1: again at some point. We're gonna have to come back
Speaker 1: for our around two and maybe me around three, because
Speaker 1: then we're going to keep adding to the topics over time,
Speaker 1: and so awesome to be in conversation in this way. Always, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jonathan, I always enjoy it. Yeah, thank you too.
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