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Our resident New Yorker, Jonathan Fields, returns to chat about How To Live A Good Life, his new book (available for pre-order purchase right now at https://goodlifeproject.com/book) available on October 18. Jonathan has followed a circuitous path in his solopreneur career, and has realized that there are three main buckets to fill if you want to live a good life: contribution, connection, and vitality. We dig through each one to give you some tips you can put into action today!
Mike and Jonathan Discuss:
- 4:36 2016 for Jonathan Fields has been a year of creation and disruption
- 6:21 We think we have this figured out. See life as a series of projects or experiments. Some may last a couple of weeks. Some may last years and some may last decades then finish them when they organically come to an end
- 9:28 Define yourself by the experience not by the entity.
- 12:39 At College Jonathan was Entrepreneur/sound and lighting technician/DJ started his first company. Built it and sold it. Travel for three months around Australia went back to the US and got a job in outside sales. Hated it. Left and went to Law school. After burnout from practicing Law, Jonathan went back to his duel love of mind body and entrepreneurship. Began as a $12 personal trainer. Six months later opened his firsts facility. Grew the business and expanded twice. 2 years later sold it to an investor group. Took a year off to write and play. Signed a lease for a floor in New York City, the day before 9/11. Opened a Yoga center. Grew that with a beautiful community. The end of 2008 Jonathan was focused on other things so sold that company. Started to focus then on writing books and building communities in the online space. Three books in and a few ventures 2012 came and launched the Good Life Project. This is now his core professional focus since then.
- 16:18 Being contrarian. Instead of niche down, building a broader audience for a more generalized experience, needs, desires and aspirations know that he could ask them what do they need and create solutions that were very specific within that larger community.
18:25 Decisions. Being intentional about the way you craft the days, the weeks and the months in your life is something a lot of us just don’t do. We allow other people stories from the moment we wake up control everything through the course of our day. We get to the end of the day and every minute had been filled but not by a whole lot of stuff that is important to us. We are not intentional about it. We were living by default. You should say no, when I open my eyes, I choose how this day will unfold, I choose what I’m about to say yes or no to. It is a game changer. - 20:50 When Jonathan realized he was not living a good life
- 22:31 Defining a good life for Jonathan. See life in three buckets. Vitality, Contribution, and Connection
- 24:33 Good is the enemy of great
- 30:37 Money, happiness, life satisfaction
- 35:13 Experience with REV.com and Jonathan’s writing process
- 41:27 Jonathan’s primary form of creative expression is writing. He sold a different book to his publisher to the one that he is releasing now
- 43:36 The easiest and most personal of all the books he has written
- 46:03 The book is focused on the three-bucket model.
- 46:41 Contribution Bucket: How are you bringing yourself to the world and contributing to the world that is deep and meaningful for you. What gives you a sense of purpose or passion?
- 51:24 The Givers Glow
- 55:53 Connection Bucket: If you don’t feel a sense of belonging, we wither and in a pretty fierce and fast way. Belonging is a physiological and psychological need. What are our values and beliefs? Then look for people that share those values and beliefs. When you see the world in the similar sort of way, that’s what brings people together.
- 61:51 Vitality Bucket: Most obvious, Exercise and nutrition. Less obvious would be cultivating mindfulness.
- 63:58 Take your wearable/fitness or mobile device set a timer to go off on vibrate, every half hour or at random moments during your waking hours, anywhere from 8 to 10 times a day. Jonathan calls them Awareness Triggers. It’s a trigger for you to pause and for that moment notice where your mind is. Is your mind spinning forward? Is it trapped in the past? Is it present in the moment? Regardless take a nice deep breath, look around and say, what’s going on here? Am I responding intentionally? Am I doing some meaningful to me? Or am I just reacting to this vibration in my pocket because it just happens to be there? These awareness triggers can start to train you to be present in the current moment. Once you are in the present moment and once you realize you were spinning back and forward into the past and future or just reacting. You start to know when to reset.
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