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

Summary

Good Life Project Podcast Summary

Episode: "Your Life in One Word? This Could Change Everything"

Guest: Erin Weed
Host: Jonathan Fields
Date: May 18, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, host Jonathan Fields welcomes Erin Weed, creator of "The Dig," a purpose-excavation method designed to distill an individual’s life purpose into a single defining word. Erin has spent 13 years refining this process with thousands of clients—including TEDx speakers—and now presents it in her new book, Just One Word: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Discover Your Purpose and Unleash Your Power.

Rather than a typical interview, Erin leads Jonathan through the entire Dig process live, using his life story to surface themes, form clusters, and, by the episode’s end, land on Jonathan’s one-word essence. Listeners learn both the philosophy behind the method and how to apply it to their own journeys.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What is "The Dig"? (05:34)

• Definition: Erin describes The Dig as a process for unearthing the single word that encapsulates a person's purpose—a word she views as a "frequency" or energy, not just a descriptor.
• Origins: The method grew out of Erin’s work as a TEDx Boulder coach, helping overwhelmed speakers distill sprawling ideas into crisp, one-word messages, which often led to more impactful talks.

  “What I was looking for was those one word themes. How does this all tie together?... Once the person got to it, they were like, yes, that’s me.” (07:12)

2. Why Find Your One Word? (06:19)

• Purpose is proven to affect mental health, decision-making, and life satisfaction.
• The "word" acts as a North Star, informing actions, relationships, careers, and communication.
• Not knowing your word doesn’t mean you’ll live a bad life, but it can provide a powerful tool for clarity and alignment.

  “When you’re more clear, you can feel more confident about the life you live.” (06:43)

3. The Process of "The Dig" (08:57)

• Tell your life story, unprompted, while the facilitator listens for recurring one-word themes.
• Erin distills these themes into a "personal operating system" (10 or fewer words), with one word as its "captain."
• Most people misidentify their own word; the true word is “one layer deeper.”

  “A startling 100% of people who thought their word was one thing were wrong.” (11:02)

4. Jonathan’s Dig—Live Process

Childhood and Early Influences (12:14–19:33)

• Grew up in a close-knit neighborhood; values creativity and community.

• Deep connection to water—symbolizes calm, exhale, and presence.

  “It lets my whole body exhale... It makes everything as okay as it can be.” (13:35)

• Early dreams: architect, particularly of homes, drawn by the idea of delighting people—creating spaces that “make their eyes pop.”

  “Delight. It means that you are surprised in a way that makes your entire system light up.” (15:14)

Creative Drives (18:30–20:40)

• Hands-on maker—building, painting, and creating from childhood through adulthood.
• The process, not the result, is central; finds flow and satisfaction in making, less so in the finished product.

  “It’s the process versus the result. 100%.” (19:56)

Life Transitions and Setbacks (24:26–28:49)

• Left law after a health crisis; theme of reevaluating what truly matters (“What am I doing with this one wild and precious life?”).
• Dives into entrepreneurship and movement-based work; sees possibility rather than obstacles.

Possibility and Uncertainty (28:49–31:49)

• Wired for possibility—always seeks what could be, not what is.
• Must make peace with uncertainty as the “price” of possibility.

  “Uncertainty and possibility, two sides of the same coin. So if I just want to walk through the world and say yes to possibility, then I have to say yes to uncertainty.” (31:47)

Creative Work and Good Life Project (32:08–37:18)

• Motivated by creating moments of connection, magic, and resonance (as in yoga teaching and podcasting).
• The most meaningful impact comes when content catalyzes change for others.

Defining Themes from Jonathan’s Story (49:15–54:21)

• Words surfaced: create, build, possible/possibility, delight, magic, exhale, play, movement, present, moment
• Erin describes these as forming clusters around a central "heartbeat"—movement, present, exhale, and moment—while "play, possibility, magic, build, delight, create" circle around.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Power of the One Word

• Erin Weed:

  “Usually someone’s dig word is actually on the other side of the word that they actually thought it was. It’s like just the one layer deeper, and that is the magic.” (11:11)

Jonathan Realizes His "Moment" Theme

• Jonathan Fields:

  “Where do I feel most myself? It would be create and build. You know, like, when I’m making things, I drop into a state of possibility and play... When I’m making things, everything in me exhales. I just completely get lost in this state of flow. I’m deeply present in the moment.” (63:02)

• Erin Weed:

  “I think ‘moment’ could be your word. It just feels like this is what you’re in service to…you want to just own this time that we all have.” (63:49)

On the Practical Use of Your Word

• Erin Weed:

  “It’s really all about just knowing yourself and aligning with it... Use your word to make decisions with.” (66:13) “You could do this with a partner or family...it would just start a conversation or create a level of understanding that allowed you to just go deeper.” (67:53)

On Urgency and Presence

• Jonathan Fields:

  “Don’t wait. Don’t wait to be the person that you know you are... Don’t wait to show up in the way that you know makes you feel whole and seen.” (45:53)

• Debbie Millman’s phrase (via Jonathan):

  “Don’t wait.” (45:53)

On the True Nature of Magic and Delight

• Jonathan Fields:

  “I think magic is sort of like a part of the feeling of delight. Like, this is, this is just magical.” (53:37)

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Key Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Topic | |--------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:34–07:12 | What is the Dig? Origins and development | | 08:57–10:06 | How the process works | | 11:02–11:48 | The "one layer deeper" effect; practical instructions | | 12:14–15:15 | Childhood, creativity, and water as theme | | 18:30–19:56 | Building, making, and “the process over the result” | | 22:21–23:04 | Future-orientation and possibility | | 24:26–28:49 | Law career, crisis, reinvention, and yoga studio founding | | 28:49–31:49 | Possibility, uncertainty, and learning to be present | | 32:08–35:58 | Transition to writing and Good Life Project’s inception | | 37:18–38:14 | Feedback and impact—Camp GLP and transformative moments | | 41:23–42:25 | Embracing “magic” alongside rationale and logic | | 49:15–54:21 | Reviewing key words and resonance clusters | | 63:02–64:33 | Naming “moment” as core word; reflection on resonance | | 65:36–65:44 | Presence and process—loving the making itself | | 66:13–68:32 | How to use your word in life and relationships |

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Naming your word: The Dig process helps identify your "one word," which often lies deeper than surface-level self-description.
• Your operating system: Key life themes cluster around a central essence—your "captain" word—which acts as both guide and gold standard.
• Purpose in practice: Your word offers practical alignment for decisions, relationships, creative work, and day-to-day living.
• Conversation starter: Sharing words and systems with others deepens mutual understanding.

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Recap & Action Step

“If there’s one thing you can do this week, sit with this question: What’s the word that keeps showing up across the chapters of your life? Not the word you want it to be—the word that’s actually there.” (70:19)

Jonathan entered expecting his defining word might be "create" or "build," but discovered through Erin's process that "moment"—the capacity to inhabit, create, and cherish moments for himself and others—is at the heart of his purpose. For listeners, the episode offers a roadmap to do the same deep work and, perhaps, a surprising insight into their own essence.

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Final Thoughts

To live a good life?
Erin Weed: “To be true to oneself and to never stop seeking what that is.” (68:51)

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Transcript

[Erin Weed]

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

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

So there's a version of you that you already know is real. You can feel it, you know, the way you want to spend your time, the kinds of problems that light you up, the moments when you look back and think, that was really me at my truest. And yet, and yet most of us spend years, sometimes decades circling that person without being able to live that life, that truest self life, let alone even name what's at the center of it. Well, what if you could distill that essence, your essence, into a single word that became kind of like the unlock key for your most authentic real self in all parts of life? That's the provocative claim that today's guest is making, and she's backing it up with a process she has developed she calls the dig that she has conducted over many years with over a thousand people to help them figure out their defining word and then build everything from their business to careers and relationships around it. And what really surprised me, she shared that. And what really surprised me is also a second statement that she shared with me, that 100% of people who come into this process thinking they already know their word, they're wrong every single time. In her experience, the real world, the real word, it lives kind of like one layer deeper. Erin Weed is a speaker coach and keynote speaker. She's a creator of something she calls the dig, which is this provocative kind of purpose excavation method that she has spent 13 years refining with founders and leaders and change makers across every stage of life. She has spent over a decade as a head speaker coach for TedX Boulder, has helping people distill enormous messages down to the single truest thing that they had to say. And her new book, Just One Word, the surprisingly simple method to discover your purpose and unleash your power, walks you through the same process that she used in this conversation. But this conversation, today's episode, is very, very different because in this episode, Erin ran the full dig on me live from the beginning of my life. Story to the moment that my Word landed. Towards the end of our conversation, you'll hear how themes surface, how clusters form, and what it feels like when one word that has been kind of running in the background for your entire life finally has a name. By the end of this hour, you'll have a clear picture of how to do this yourself, and you'll know what to look for in your own story. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. And the place I want to start with Aaron is the very beginning of how this method came to be. And if you're wondering what my word is, by the way, stay tuned. We'll jump in there right after this short break.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Today we're talking about how you don't have to earn more when you can save more. But okay, so you brought me this stat. T Mobile customers had the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and AT&T over the past five years. That seems surprising.

[Erin Weed]

Surprising but true. Which honestly, is what people need right now. Affordable wireless service isn't a perk, it's a difference.

[Harris X Data Announcer]

Based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3 21 and Q4 25 compared to average at and T and prize and bills. Comparison excludes discounts, credits and optional charges. For more details, see harrisx.comT mobile bills

[Capital One Advertiser]

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[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Goodlight Project is sponsored by Amazon Health AI. So guys, we gotta talk about your secret late night intern Internet searches. You know the ones. Bumpy leg rash, hair loss, itchy burn. Trying to figure out your body by endlessly searching for answers. We all do it and it never works. Thankfully, there's Amazon Health AI. It can connect your symptoms with your medical history to offer personalized care 24 7. So call off the search. Amazon Health AI is here.

[Jonathan Fields]

Healthcare just got less painful. So I am excited to dive into this thing that you call the Dig. You and I have been talking about this for years. We go way back and I've heard you've created this. You have done it with everyone from

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

founders to neighbors to Celebrities.

[Jonathan Fields]

And it's this process which has been just like profoundly revealing. And it's now sort of like the focus of your new book, Just One Word. So what is the dig?

[Erin Weed]

The dig is a method to unearth that one word that is your entire purpose. And I think that's incredibly important because in a world that is just so busy and overwhelming and we're always seeking, it's just so nice to be able to land on that one word, which I really think of as a frequency. It's not so much of a descriptor word. It's more about a feeling, a way that we carry ourselves through the world. And also the thing that we're here to learn and also the thing we're here to teach.

[Jonathan Fields]

So the idea is you distill it down to a single word.

[Erin Weed]

We do. And the way we do it is we go backwards in order to go forwards. So we look in your history to figure out your future.

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay, I'm going to ask you a lot more about the process in a moment. But why do we care? Why does it matter that we actually know this?

[Erin Weed]

I think purpose is incredibly important. And all the research shows that purpose is just a thing that affects your mental health, it affects your quality of life. It affects everything. And when we know that one word, we can start aligning with our purpose. We can align our actions, we can align our decisions, we can align our messages. So knowing that one word is. I see it as like a. It's almost like a north star. It's something to guide us.

[Jonathan Fields]

What happens if you don't know it?

[Erin Weed]

What happens if you don't know it? What a good question. Well, I think you still can live a great life, for starters. I just feel like it's a tool. It's just an extra tool to give us more clarity. Because I find that when you're more clear that you can feel more confident about the life you live. When you feel more confident, you can start connecting with more people and be more connected to yourself.

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay, so you have been developing this process for how long?

[Erin Weed]

13 years. Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

What was the origin of it actually?

[Erin Weed]

The origin was actually TedX Boulder. And previously I was a professional speaker. I owned a company called Girls Fight Back which taught women's safety and self defense classes at schools and colleges across the world. They were more like big seminars and assemblies. And after I sold that company, I started working with TedX Boulder to coach their speakers. And what I found was that people were so overwhelmed by these big messages. They had, they had so much data so many ideas. They were having a really difficult time distilling it all down. And so I would basically just tell people, tell me everything. And before long I would just be sticky, noting the wall would be completely covered. And what I was looking for was those one word themes. How does this all tie together? And so once I found these one word themes, I ultimately distilled it down to just one word for the entire message. And once the person got to it, they were like, yes, that's me. And then, surprise, surprise, those ended up being viral TED talks because they felt so clear and confident in what they were putting out to the world.

[Jonathan Fields]

So, I mean, it sounds like it's important not just because it tells us more about like who we are and kind of like why you're here to a certain extent, but also in terms of communicating that to the world. It sounds like then you can use it as a foundation to really figure out, like, what is the story that I'm telling. And that's whether it's a personal relationship, a job, like whatever it is in your life.

[Erin Weed]

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

[Jonathan Fields]

Let's talk process. How does this actually work?

[Erin Weed]

The process is very simple. All you have to do is show up and be you and tell me your whole life story. And how many times has somebody.

[Jonathan Fields]

That sounds easy, I mean, I hate

[Erin Weed]

to steal your job.

[Jonathan Fields]

And everything takes like a week.

[Erin Weed]

Surprisingly, I found that the average person's life story, when given no prompt to end, is about 90 minutes. People talk for about an hour and a half about their life story, and then at that point they usually feel about complete. And so in that life story, I look for these one word themes that keep coming up when you're a child, when you're a young adult, when you're all the way up to present day. And as I find these one word themes, they all come together to be an operating system, 10 words or less. That operating system is exactly how you tick. It is your operating manual for yourself. It's also your core message if you're a person who is a speaker, an author. And so within this operating system, there's one Word that's in charge. So if you think of the operating system like a sports team of you, the dig word is the captain.

[Jonathan Fields]

As long as we've known each other, we have never sat down, and actually, I don't know. My word.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, well, maybe we should figure it out.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm game.

[Erin Weed]

You're down?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

Okay. Well, you know, I never leave the house without sticky notes and a Sharpie. So here we are.

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

I'm nervous.

[Erin Weed]

So Jonathan Fields is letting me interview him. So, like, let's just, like, allow that in for a moment. Well, first of all, thank you. I always like to thank people that sit down in these chairs and are willing to share, because that's. I just see it as a very sacred thing, you know, to share your past. And could we begin from the beginning?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. I mean, I'm sweating already, so let's just do it.

[Erin Weed]

Well, I'm actually curious, like, what is. What is the source of tension for you? Like, in this moment?

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't know where we're gonna go.

[Erin Weed]

Okay. Do you have a word in mind? Like, do you feel like I know my word?

[Jonathan Fields]

I feel like I probably do.

[Erin Weed]

Interesting.

[Jonathan Fields]

But I kind of don't want to say it because I want to just see where this takes us.

[Erin Weed]

Okay, well, let's check in at the end. I have actually found that a startling 100% of people who thought their word was one thing were wrong.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Interesting.

[Erin Weed]

And I don't need to be right or anything, so it's not about that. But it's just usually someone's dig word is actually on the other side of the word that they actually thought it was. It's like just the one layer deeper, and that is the magic.

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay. Okay. I'll keep it in the back of my mind.

[Erin Weed]

Okay, sound good.

[Jonathan Fields]

And suspend judgment.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, sound good. Sounds good. Okay, well, I'm gonna be sticky. Noting I'm just gonna be writing things down. I'm gonna be putting up some words that start popping up as we go along, so don't be distracted by them. And maybe even everybody who's listening or watching can be kind of thinking of words too.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, sounds good. By the way, for anyone who is listening and not watching, if Erin puts up sticky notes or anything like that that she references, we will take a couple of screenshots and create a little link that we can point you to so you can see whatever it is that we're talking about.

[Verizon/Wayfair Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

And I'll also say them out loud, too.

[Jonathan Fields]

Cool.

[Erin Weed]

All right, great. So we begin at the beginning okay, what's your birthday and where were you born?

[Jonathan Fields]

So born in New York City in November 1965.

[Erin Weed]

What was your family like?

[Jonathan Fields]

Mom, dad, older sister by two years. And to the extent that I can really remember anything from that long ago, just very neighborhoody.

[Erin Weed]

Like what would be the words you'd use to describe it?

[Jonathan Fields]

Close knit. I feel like we knew our neighbors in the building.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. How do you think people would describe you growing up?

[Jonathan Fields]

Always creative.

[Erin Weed]

Let's fast forward a bit. So you grow up. Did you stay in that same place?

[Jonathan Fields]

No, we ended up moving out to Long island and eventually to Port Washington, which is the town actually that was the real east egg from the Great Gatsby. It's actually based on a real town, really little peninsula. Egg shaped peninsula on Long island, on the water. So I grew up basically in a small water town. Just has that York.

[Erin Weed]

How did that shift your life?

[Jonathan Fields]

I mean, I loved it. I love water, which is one of my biggest sadnesses. Like I don't have a lot of sadnesses, but like living in Colorado.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

Not being near large bodies of water, I feel it. The end of my block was a bay and I would just ride my bike down there and kind of climb up on top of the lifeguard's house and sit. That was my place.

[Erin Weed]

What does. What does water do for you?

[Jonathan Fields]

It lets me. Just lets my whole body exhale. My mind exhale also. Yeah. It makes everything as okay as it can be. Hmm.

[Erin Weed]

Do you find that you tend to hold your inhales a lot and so that it's a good reminder to complete the process?

[Jonathan Fields]

I think there were times in my life that I did. I don't feel like that's me now.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. Does exhale to you mean like release?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, it's like my whole nervous system downregulates.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. Like my heart rate slows, my mind stills, my body relaxes.

[Erin Weed]

What did you want to be when you wanted when you grew up?

[Jonathan Fields]

When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect actually. And yeah, I just always had this impulse to build stuff. So the idea of building cool structures was something that I thought it was really cool.

[Erin Weed]

Are there certain kind of structures that

[Jonathan Fields]

you were pulled to houses? Yeah, yeah, just like really cool, interesting houses.

[Erin Weed]

What about houses versus like big skyscrapers or something?

[Jonathan Fields]

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

[Erin Weed]

What is that feeling if you had to put it in one word that eyes pop?

[Jonathan Fields]

Delight.

[Erin Weed]

Delight. What does that word mean to you?

[Jonathan Fields]

It means that you are surprised in a way that makes your entire system light up. Hmm.

[Erin Weed]

That is a great word.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's a good word.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. Like, I feel like Stephanie is really the queen of that.

[Erin Weed]

Yes.

[Jonathan Fields]

For those who don't know, Stephanie's my wife. She is.

[Erin Weed]

She's amazing.

[Jonathan Fields]

Absolutely amazing at creating experiences of delight.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is brought to you by Peloton. So I spend a lot of my day in my head building things, solving problems, creating. And one of the most reliable ways I found to move from stuff to clay earlier is to just move, not think about moving, not plan the perfect workout.

[Jonathan Fields]

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[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

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[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Today we're talking about how you don't have to earn more when you can save more. Okay, so you brought me this stat. T mobile customers had the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and AT&T over the past five years. That seems surprising.

[Erin Weed]

Surprising but true. Which honestly is what people need right now. Affordable wireless service isn't a perk, it's a difference.

[Harris X Data Announcer]

Based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3 21 to Q4 25 compared to average AT&T and prize and bills comparison and excludes discounts, credits and optional charges. For more details, see harrisx.comT mobile bills.

[Erin Weed]

So keep us going through your timeline here.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah,

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

so that was me.

[Jonathan Fields]

Like teens. Probably spent a lot of time exploring art when I was a kid. Also, I was always doing something with my hands. I was always making stuff with my hands, building stuff, drawing stuff, painting. Taught myself to paint when I was middle school or high school and just painted on a really regular basis. My mom was also a potter when I was a kid. So the basement of our house was a studio with three electric wheels, a massive old kick wheel with a 200 pound concrete flywheel in the corner, kilns off property. She had like a giant literally walking gas fired kiln that would take a day to fire. So I was around that energy all the time. And I grabbed the corner of that studio and just set up my own little mini improvised painting studio. And I would just completely lose myself there.

[Erin Weed]

What is your criteria for making, building, creating? Does it have to be like, do you have. When you set out to make, build or create, is there something you're striving for?

[Jonathan Fields]

Honestly, I think it's less about being able to say that I've done the thing and it's more about doing the thing.

[Erin Weed]

So it's the process versus the result 100%.

[Jonathan Fields]

You know, I get like, I mean like later in life I've written a whole bunch of books and I'll get the box of books in the mail from the publisher as you may have gotten recently yourself. And I would just let it sit for weeks and Stephanie was like, what's wrong with you?

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

You just got the book, it's here,

[Jonathan Fields]

it's hardcover, it's like, don't you want to see it? I'm like, yeah, sure. For me, it was a process of creating it. That was where the magic was. And it's pretty much always, am I proud of the things that I've created when I can look back and say I've been able to come close to closing the gap between taste and experience, expression, yeah, that makes me proud. But at the end of the day, it's not why I do it. That's just a signal that, like, I'm getting closer to actually doing what I came to do.

[Erin Weed]

Okay, so what did you end up going to college for?

[Jonathan Fields]

Screwing around, Majored in, not attending classes. I was a horror student, but I was building stuff from the day that I was there. I started a business, sound, lighting, mobile, disc jockey. And we grew it into like, one of the business businesses that was really sort of like the main player in that field, like at all the parties, all the concerts. And building that business and then being out and DJing at clubs until 3, 4 in the morning was most of my life in college. We had massive speaker stacks and equipment in, like, the house that I lived in. And I would just play with it all day long and then go out and get paid to play with it all night long. Which led me to my senior year where I didn't have enough credits to graduate, so I had to take 21 credits a semester.

[Erin Weed]

Oh.

[Jonathan Fields]

And begged my way into a one credit class on earthquakes just to be able to get out. But I was building like I was in that case. And like, music has been a persistent passion of mine also from the earliest days. I played guitar really horribly for most of my life, but I just love any kind of good music.

[Erin Weed]

And you've even made guitars, right?

[Jonathan Fields]

I have, yeah.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yep.

[Erin Weed]

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

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, less anxiety, but constantly future thinking.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Jonathan Fields]

I am. I am perpetually living in the future. Not in a bad way. Like, I'm not spinning or fretting about it. I'm not. I'm not weirdly wired. Not so much in a doom and gloom way, but more in a possibility way.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Jonathan Fields]

So, like, I live there because I'm constantly. I'm constantly exploring what I think is going to be coming and seeing how I might be able to play with that, to leverage it, to turn it into something and to be to a certain extent ahead of the curve. And that has led me a number of times actually to be too far ahead of the curve where I would bring something to life that was a little bit before its time.

[Erin Weed]

Can you give me an example of that?

[Jonathan Fields]

I mean you could argue actually at the yoga business that we created in New York City was a bit ahead of its time. We were trying to. I launched Yoga Studio literally on the eve of 911 in New York City. But the ultimate goal was to build the first ever national roll up business franchise that was national chain.

[Erin Weed]

Okay.

[Jonathan Fields]

And probably I came to realize that it wasn't necessarily a business that I wanted to be in. It wasn't a business I wanted to build, somebody else did and, but they did it differently. And it was a couple of years before yoga hit sort of like a level of mass appeal and understanding and was embraced on a level where you didn't really have to convince people that there was something interesting here. You basically just had to open it where it didn't exist. And so it was a different experience for me. I mean I ended up selling that business seven years later. But yeah, and they're just probably a whole bunch of ideas that I've had over time where it's sort of like world wasn't quite ready.

[Erin Weed]

Okay, but you didn't start off with this yoga studios, right? You had a bit of a life before that. Can you.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, so. So after college, sold the business and then I went back to law school. Not necessarily because I had an interest in being a lawyer, but because I had screwed off so much in college that I was just really curious what I was truly intellectually capable of. I want to challenge myself and I want to challenge myself in a way where I thought whether I actually practiced or not, it would give me a set of skills that would be relevant to almost anything that I did. So I sold my car, did all the other things, moved into the city and spent three years in law school. And thankfully I was the kid who basically showed up and said I'm here with a mission. I wasn't there to just delay my life for three years, which a lot of people do with grad school. I was there because I wanted to actually challenge and see what I was capable of doing. I got really fortunate. I worked really hard and I graduated with a lot of credibility in my class and ended up then working for the federal government for three years, the sec. I also working in a massive federal bureaucracy with crazy politics and crazy inefficiency. As somebody who likes to just get things done, it was maddening. So I left and I went into a mega firm in New York, then switching sides. Incredible firm. All the prestige you could ever want, like, the track that everybody would want coming out of law school. Incredible salary for, like, somebody who didn't know what he was doing. And I showed that every day that was there. And I ended up in. In the hospital because we were on a deal where basically I barely went home for three weeks and my immune system shut down. A huge infection blossomed in the middle of my body and ate a hole through my intestines from the outside in. So, yeah, hit the button on the deal, ignored the pain, because that's what we do, and then pretty much went straight to the hospital. Thankfully, surgery was successful, but it really made me rethink, what am I doing with this one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver would say. And it was clear that it wasn't going to be that. And that sent me slowly back into the world of entrepreneurship and at that point, movement and fitness. Because I've always had a deep connection to just sort of like somatic expression, too, the connection between mind and body. And I wanted to learn that industry. I wanted to understand what was working and what wasn't working. So talked my way into a job as a personal trainer making $12 an hour, which I was okay with because I was getting paid something just to learn an entirely new industry after, like, that career.

[Erin Weed]

That had to be a wild experience.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. My biggest fear was is that, like, one of my clients or colleagues from law review in law school would, like, see me with a client, like, stretching them out, like, you know, on the grass in Central park, wearing tights and running shoes in the middle of the day and be like, oh, what a shame. Like, what a fall from grace. But very quickly, I ended up building my own business. And within a couple years, like, those very people that. Whose judgment I was concerned about were the ones who were reaching out to me to find out how I did what I did.

[Erin Weed]

What do you think you figured out that other people didn't?

[Jonathan Fields]

That everything's figureoutable. It's like, that there's.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

I see, like, I'm weirdly wired, and

[Jonathan Fields]

then I wake up in the morning and I see possibility. You know, like, people see obstacles. People see reasons why not, and I see reasons why. And if, you know, if almost nobody is doing it, and most people assume that's because it's not doable, I look for the one or two who are as proof that it is possible and ask, like, what's my contribution? What's my flavor? That's not being done. And it. Yeah, I'm weirdly wired for possibility. I don't. Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

So that wasn't something that you just decided positive thinking?

[Jonathan Fields]

No, no. I mean, I've been. I've been around a lot of anxiety my whole life. It's. It doesn't. It's not my default. My default is really looking at uncertainty. I feel very uncomfortable with high stakes uncertainty. It affects me physically and psychologically, which is why I've studied a lot and built practices to be okay doing it. Because I know I have to be in that space to do the thing I'm here to do. Like to live in a place of possibility is also to live in a place of uncertainty. You know, there's no separating the two. And so. But being in that space is really deeply unsettling for most people. Including me.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

Especially as the stakes rise. So I've had to learn how to be okay there.

[Erin Weed]

What advice do you give people who are wildly uncomfortable with it?

[Jonathan Fields]

People tend to have three reactions to it. One, as soon as they feel it, they'll either speed forward to try and get through whatever the moment is as quickly as possible so they can just stop feeling it. They'll backpedal to pull themselves out of it enough so that they stop feeling it, or they'll sit in stasis, they'll become paralyzed. They just don't know what to do. And they're afraid to go back, they're afraid to move forward, so they just sit and suffer. In my experience, that's probably most people, and they don't realize that's actually what's happening. And to me, it's like one approach to Buddhism or one of the sort of core teachings is that life is suffering. And I always struggle with that. The way that my mind has come to interpret it is that life is uncertain. That is the only certain thing in life is that it is and will be perpetually uncertain. And a life where you allocate the vast majority of your waking hours to trying to lock down the future, to trying to make it certain, which is what almost all of us do. That is suffering. It will always be suffering because it is impossible to do or to have. So to me, I've stopped trying to do that. I've stopped trying to make life as certain as possible. And I've started to equip myself with the practices and skills to let me be as okay as I can in the space of uncertainty as stakes rise. That doesn't mean I always am, but that's the shift in approach that I've taken. And again, because the other truth is that like I said before, uncertainty and possibility, two sides of the same coin. So if I'm here, like, if I just want to walk through the world and say yes to possibility, then I have to say yes to uncertainty. At the same time, I can't just choose one or the other. So I have to teach myself how to be okay with it.

[Erin Weed]

It's big work.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. And it's a work that never ends. It's not like, check the box and you're good.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's a practice and it's the stakes rise and change and you get brought to your knees again. It's another practice. Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

Take me into podcasting and books and that whole area of your life.

[Jonathan Fields]

So I was running a yoga studio in New York City. We were about six years in all the highs and lows of running a business in New York with a physical location. We were renting a floor in a building, the six year lease and a personal guarantee and yeah, signed the day before 9 11. And yeah, there were high highs. I mean the business was doing pretty well, but there were low lows and just profound uncertainty. And I also had developed a real interest in writing and creating in a different way. I mean, it's magical when you walk into a yoga studio and you're the teacher and you know there are 50 bodies mat to mat and it's sweaty and for 90 minutes you create this sort of like ecstatic synchronicity between everybody in like their movement and their breath. And you can like bring them down to Shavasana on the end and you feel everybody, the whole room exhale and you're just like, fuck, yes. It is magical to know that you've played even like some role in helping make an experience like that happen. And I loved it. And years of that wore on me. Years of running the business at the same time and supporting it. Especially because married and we had a three month old baby when we started that business. So it was a lot. So. And I had developed an interest in writing and I'd been doing a bunch of writing on the marketing side of things. Deep interest in just human psychology. What moves people to action, how do I motivate a lot of people to actually have that same bent towards possibility and then take action towards it. This to me is what marketing is, you know, and I just got really curious in like why people don't Take more control over the future of their work lives. That led me to get curious about writing a book about it and got really fortunate and I got an agent from a big publisher where I got an agent out of the gate who took me cold and then got a deal. And that started my writing career. And once that was begun, I actually, it was right around the time that Tim Ferriss had just come out with a four hour workweek. I literally called him and got him on the phone. I was like, so what? Like, how do you do that? How do you like, make books sell now? And he's basically. It's like back then it was blogs, like blogs and like getting on a plane and talking to people at events. So I just started shifting gears into the online world and that led me into this whole new world of like digital. Like it wasn't called being creative back then. You know, this was a blogger and then it was digital content and then it was social media. And this was, you know, the days when you're at south by Southwest in 2007 or 2008 and. And Twitter has. It's itty bitty and it's crashing every three seconds because the servers can't hold. And that just over time

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

led me

[Jonathan Fields]

to want to devote more time and energy to that world and to write more and to speak more. And that sort of was my introduction to that whole space. And then. Yeah. So sold the book. The first book came out in January of 2009. I sold the studio towards the end of that of 2008, handed over the keys Dec. 31, walked out the door, taught my last class. Most people did not know it was my last class until I brought them up from Shavasana, which is final relaxation for anyone who's never taken that class and said, hey, listen, there's something I need to share with you. Wow. And that was emotional. Yeah. But it felt right too. Like there was no looking back. I had done what I came to do.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

And that moved me into this world that I've been in for a long time. Since 2012. We started Good Life Project, the podcast. 14 years later, it's become what it is now. Which if had you asked me back then, I would have laughed out loud like, there's no, there's no way. A, there's no way it's going to become the size and reach so many people. And B, there's no conceivable way I would be doing anything for 14 years.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. What do you think the secret sauce is of Good Life Project?

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't know. I think we started at a time where it was not nearly as crowded as it is now. And then if we just never stopped, which we didn't, you know, eventually you just slowly grow and slowly grow, slowly grow. There was no, like, magic, like, hockey stick moment with us. It's 14 years of just never stopping and also continuing to shift and change.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. It's almost like evolving is kind of in the middle of possibility and uncertainty. It seems like they're all tied together somehow.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Erin Weed]

Like holding both the uncertainty and the possibility and, like, evolving through it. What is some of the best feedback that you've gotten from your listeners over the years? Like, something that just hits your heart. You're like, yes, we're doing it.

[Jonathan Fields]

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

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Wild Alaskan Company. So here's something I've been thinking about lately. The gap between knowing something matters and

[Jonathan Fields]

actually doing it consistently.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

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[Jonathan Fields]

Give yourself that extra layer of protection.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Visit ADT.com or call 1-800-ADT ASAP or just click the link in the show notes when every second counts, count on adt.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

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[Erin Weed]

Surprising but true. Which, honestly, is what people need right now. Affordable wireless service isn't a perk. It's a difference.

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[Erin Weed]

What's interesting about you is, I mean, there's so many interesting things but, like, you are such a logical, deep thinker. You have used the word magic or magical three or four times. And I'm just curious, what is your definition of magic?

[Jonathan Fields]

I think there's a connection between the whole. Between magic and possibility. You know, it's this. The belief that it's tied to, like, the belief that things that people can't understand and say are impossible can actually happen and that there are also just things that we can't often explain, but they are.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

You know, there's been a tension my whole adult life, at least, where the rational side of my brain is always looking for the. The explanation for phenomena. The older I get, the less I feel the need to have that explanation, and the more I just accept the fact that this happened. It is. I have no explanation for it. It feels kind of mystical, and that's okay.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. Bring us up to present day.

[Jonathan Fields]

So hanging out Bola, Colorado was not planned. We didn't think we were moving. We just thought we were escaping the pandemic. And here we are, six years later, Still doing the podcast. Built and recently sold one other company along the way. That was a deep dive into the intersection between meaning and work. Focusing deeply on really looking back at Good Life Project right now and reimagining who we are, what we're about, and super excited about a lot of things that we're about to give birth to in the next couple of months and years, connected with this brand and community, hanging out with friends here, who I have probably more friends here in six years than I had in New York City in 30 years, because just a shared value set. And I was also a bit of a weirdo in New York City, you

[Erin Weed]

know, the best kind of weirdo.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. Well, but not necessarily. You know, like, there are people follow certain prescribed paths very often, and here everyone's kind of weirdo facts, so it kind of makes it easier. And, you know, for 34 years, my wife has been my best friend. And for 25 years, like, we've had the blessing of having, like, an incredible kid. And there's really nothing more important to me than those relationships.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, they're pretty amazing.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. They are not gonna fight you on that.

[Erin Weed]

What would they both say are your best superpowers and your biggest shadows?

[Jonathan Fields]

Probably that I'm relentlessly possibility. I'm relentlessly oriented towards possibility.

[Erin Weed]

Mm.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm a dreamer. I'm not a dreamer who basically just dreams. I'm a dreamer also, like, works really hard to make what I see real. That's the maker impulse in me, the builder. Like for me it's not just about like what's possible, you know, like that's fun, but the real fun is making it real. It's not enough to just like see or dream. To me that's a little bit of like wasting time. Like I want to actually make it real.

[Erin Weed]

It's almost like the possibilities, the pre work requisite for you to be able to make the thing.

[Jonathan Fields]

And I think it's a double edged sword because I see so many things that I can become really distracted and fragment my attention and that becomes super frustrating for me.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

And also I, I may believe things are possible that maybe aren't really all that possible and allocate energy and resources to it and then realize maybe not. So I think it's like it's both the plus and the minus. Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

Let's imagine that you've lived a long life. You're 150 years old, you're on your deathbed, all of your loved ones are around you and you have an opportunity to impart your final wisdom. What are you going to say to, to your loved ones?

[Jonathan Fields]

The words that Debbie Millman shared with me like years ago, like just come right into my head. So these aren't my words. Don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait to be the person that you know you are. To share the person that you know you are. Don't wait to do the things that you want to do. Don't wait to show up in the way that you know, makes you feel whole and seen. Yeah. Don't wait for permission.

[Erin Weed]

Interesting. I love that there's like an urgency in it.

[Jonathan Fields]

There is. And it's weird because a number of people brought up at different points in my life, the word urgency. They're like, why are you pushing so hard so fast? Like, why does this need to happen now? And I don't know the answer, but I think at least for the second half of my life, I think it's probably connected to 9, 11 because I just like I saw people go to work that day and not come home. And like, you know, these weren't people who were doing anything dangerous. These weren't people where you'd be like, oh well, they chose to do this thing. They're a rock climber or they're this or they're like risky behavior. These are people living everyday lives doing the thing they do. And they went to work in the morning and didn't go home at night, made no promises. And it's the other thing that's constantly scrolling in my head. It's part of the don't wait thing. So I think there's a bit of a self imposed urgency that I have because God willing, I do have a lot of time left, but I generally don't bank on that.

[Erin Weed]

It's a good way to move through the world. Right. Especially when you have uncertainty as a theme that comes up in your life.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, I mean, you know this visually. Yeah. Been through this with a lot of people in your life too.

[Erin Weed]

So yeah, the uncertainty and the possibility, life falls somewhere in between all of that. Is there anything else that feels important about your story that might illuminate all of a sudden this next part?

[Jonathan Fields]

I was going to say I tend to see around corners, but it's not really that. It's. I think I just tend to see things that sometimes a little bit off and to the left that maybe get missed because they're not part of the instruction set. Look at all these words.

[Erin Weed]

I know. And I've really had to restrain myself. You know, we're working on a smaller surface area, but I've. But these are the words that are coming up and for listeners, I just want to say some of these words. And part of this dig. Process is very intuitive. You know, we're obviously this is pattern recognition that we're doing here, but it's also like a feeling. And I believe everybody has something called a resonance meter. And if you can almost imagine that it's like a speedometer in your car, there's zero, there's a hundred. And so where does this hit on your resonance meter? So maybe as you hear these words you can just kind of drop in as you've heard Jonathan's story and just like. Oh yeah, that feels, that feels pretty high in the resonance meter, right. Like 90. So words like create, know, breathe, build, delight, play, present, possible, curious movement, contribute uncertain or certainty, exhale, see magic moment, conscious. How does it feel when you see all those words?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, they pretty much all resonate pretty strongly. They connected to me in a lot of different ways.

[Erin Weed]

Well, this is your process. I'm here just as a facilitator, but I always like to start off with just talking through what I intuitively was feeling as you were going through your story. Because this is when the operating system starts to take shape. And it actually takes a shape. Some people it's like a circle or an equation or a rocket ship or a tree. And it has a different feel to it. And you have some very interesting themes around time, time and space. I would say. And just like how you dance with time and space and even just like one of your very first stories, you're talking about. You're talking about breathing, exhale, which also is presence, right? So I think those are kind of clustered together. And then you also have this ability to. To play and what's possible. It always seems to have, like, for the most part, a pretty positive lens on what's. What's possible there. And then you're just. You're a builder. You're actually doing thing. You're building, you're contributing. There's like a movement. I think move or movement is critical. It's. It's like. It almost feels like it's like fulcrum in your system because it's like there's out there and then like, what you see is possible and then there's like the doing to make it so. And you've got to do it. You've got to do it now, right? You have to. Don't wait too. And that goes back to the time themes. This doesn't totally feel like it's in the operating system. That's uncertain. I think that's just like a tension that you hold really well. Exhale almost feels like it's like in the middle of your operating system. I'm starting to sense maybe a certain circle is kind of part of you. Like, it feels almost very like amoeba. Ish. It's like it feels very active and curious.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's funny. It's like one of the. And you know this because this was in my ted talk, my TEDx, that you asked me earlier, like, what is. Is there a common, like, piece of feedback that we tend to get and actually, what I didn't say, but this is actually the single biggest theme in 14 years when we hear from listeners is they listen because there's something about my voice that makes them feel okay. Like, makes them feel calm. A lot of people actually listen because help them feel like things are going to be okay. And a solid chunk of people listen because it helps them fall asleep at night, which is real feedback.

[Erin Weed]

The ultimate compliment.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, you put me to sleep.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Always felt a little bit weird about

[Jonathan Fields]

that, but, like, grateful that I could be of service in some way. So the exhale thing is interesting too.

[Erin Weed]

I think it's. I will be honest, I have never seen that word pop up in a dig before, which is always very exciting for me because I've done over a thousand of these. But, like, there's like a movement to it. There's an in and an out, up and down, back and a force, an exchange, a constant evolution to it, which is really fun. And I think what's also interesting about that, just even with your yoga studio and I'm being attracted to this. It's just like, it's like bringing people back to the present to breathe. Like we, you, you referred to as like a. Yeah. Kind of moment. Right. Like that final savasana. And it's like that magical moment that happens when you bring people here. And I think this is just part of it because you're such a builder, you're such a maker, you're such a contributor, you're such a giver. I also, I loved what you said about magic and I, I loved how you talked about magic as like, like an, from an actual magician perspective of like all the work that goes into making something magical. What you and Stephanie do, you know, at the camp and everything, so much work. Like as your friend, I just knew like how hard you guys were working and just like. But those people show up and it just feels like magic. Right. And so there's the doing that creates that. So there's, there's something to that. And I think magic kind of drives you. I also loved when you said the word delight. I don't know, those almost feel a little similar sometimes in operating systems we can kind of like swallow up one word with another and magical and delight almost feels a little similar. I don't know. Does it feel different for you?

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't know if they feel different actually because sort of like I think magic is sort of like a part of the feeling of delight. Like this is, this is just magical. Yeah. For those listening and wondering what the sounds are going on right now. It's just like Aaron's moving a whole bunch of post it notes around the background again. We'll take some screenshots of this. Yeah. And we'll show you what's actually going on and just drop it into the show. Notes in the link.

[Erin Weed]

And the fun thing about this is like there's no right or wrong answer. Right. It's like this is only determined by you, but it's an evolution we feel into it and we're able to kind of drop into these one word frequencies and just see how they play out as you're looking at these words. Is there, is there one word that's like really tapping on your shoulder is just being like, hey, I'm super, super important. Look at me.

[Jonathan Fields]

Exhale. Build. Possible. It's more possibility than possible. Like it's just. It's kind of the same thing. Yeah. I love making something from nothing. You know, you have to live in place of possibility in order to do that. But also, there is something around creating this experience where you just let people breathe again, including me. I think that's part of my aspiration, you know, is to try and work more of that in along the way, because I can sometimes move at a pace that's pretty breathless. Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

What really pisses you off?

[Jonathan Fields]

Manufactured drama. We all have enough organic drama in our lives. When I see or put in a mode where there's drama that's just clearly manufactured for the purpose of drama, I have no interest in that. I think disrespect. It's not even like me being disrespected. I've kind of learned how to deal with that. I love this phrase moral beauty, which is when we see an act being done, when we witness something being done that is just so beautiful, so graceful, so kind of so generous. It lands as, like, this experience of moral beauty that moves us so deeply. And I think, like, we can also witness immoral disrespect. And that lands in the exact opposite way. Yeah, I just, like, I truly believe that every human being has value simply because of the fact of their birthday.

[Erin Weed]

Let's go back to that manufactured drama thing for the moment. I always ask the question about what makes people mad, because within that is a violation. You are violated by something, and it's over the actual situation. So what about manufactured drama is a violation to who you are and what you believe?

[Jonathan Fields]

There's probably a couple of things. One, it stops me from being able to exhale. Two, it puts roadblocks in front of me, my ability to create the things that I want to create, because then I have to deal with a situation that's been fabricated rather than actually deal with the very real challenges of making something which will often include drama. But it's not drama that exists simply for the purpose of drama and also because it dissects my nervous system. It's uncomfortable.

[Erin Weed]

Well, what I'm seeing is, like. It almost feels like you have kind of core heartbeat to your operating system. The words movement, present, exhale, and moment, they just all seem to be dancing together. And then it's almost like you have three clusters that are moving around it. You have play, Impossible, Magic and delight, Create and build. And I don't know, it almost reminds me of, like, the Jetsons. You know, they're, like, cruising around in their little ships, but they're. They're around a nucleus of some sort. And how does that, how does that land on you when I say that?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, that feels pretty real. Yeah, it feels pretty, I think like there's, there is this core of just deep grounding. And maybe that's what, again, people have resonated with over many, many, many years. That's probably part of what people resonated with. When I taught yoga, like in a classroom for seven years,

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

you know, I'm

[Jonathan Fields]

not even as a speaker. I'm not like when I do keynotes, I'm not a rah rah, like super up and down, bouncing all over the stage, motivational speaker. I'm a storyteller. Like, I like to cast a spell, bring people into it and not break the spell until the moment is done. And that's getting them into the moment. You know, even in. And when we were doing, for the first six years, eight years of the podcast, we had our own studio in New York and people would come in and we'd close the door just like we're doing now. And then it wasn't unusual for people to open the door after and walk out and be like, what just happened there? And I loved being able to be a part of that. To help co create experiences like that and then to be able to actually have listeners and viewers like, at scale around the world, be able to be a piece of that too.

[Erin Weed]

I know you identify as a maker from your sparketype.

[Jonathan Fields]

I do.

[Erin Weed]

It's almost like you're a moment maker.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, that's part of it. So the top of my website for years, it says I make things that move people. Those can be moments. You know, an event, a keynote talk, a piece of media, a class, a conversation. It can also be physical things. It can be objects. So I think for Stephanie, it's actually a lot more moments. For me, I enjoy those. But also as an introvert, me being present or centered in those moments can also be uncomfortable because I don't need to be centered. I don't need to have credit for it. I would be thrilled to be invisible and have the work speak for itself. I don't need the ego to get credit for it.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, that's so true. Is there a word missing on here? Do you feel like we really love love? What's your definition of love?

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't know. Like asking a fish to divine water. I know, it just is.

[Erin Weed]

Is the expression of this operating system, like how you love people?

[Jonathan Fields]

Interesting question. Possibility and play. Yes. Magic and delight. Yes. Create and build. Yes. Movement Being present, Appreciating the moment, collectively exhaling. Yes.

[Erin Weed]

If I had a dry erase board here, I would probably just take a marker and just put a big heart around this whole thing to, like, encapsulate it.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. You know, I'm taking woodblock printing classes right now, and the two designs that I've actually made, one is a spray can that says Love on it, and the other is, like, a reinterpretation of this sort of, like, legendary Robert, Indiana, sort of like four square with. What says Love in it? It's a recurring theme.

[Erin Weed]

Okay. Okay. If you had to. If you had to, like, pick a captain of your sports team, assuming this. All this looks correct for you. This is your operating system. You're welcome to move things or push back on anything. Like, does this feel true on the resonance meter? Does it score high?

[Jonathan Fields]

Sort of the collection of all these words.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. How they dance together, how they're grouped, what they are.

[Jonathan Fields]

I think so.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. Okay. Which one would you say is the captain of your team here? And usually, one of the reasons I ask that question of what makes you really mad, is that I've found recently that usually, like, those violations is where our.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's like the opposite.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. It's just the thing that gets, like, that reaction.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Right.

[Erin Weed]

And, you know, a lot of your violations were around wasted time, slow processes when you were talking about working it.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

With the government.

[Jonathan Fields]

Using resources, time, and energy for something other than.

[Erin Weed]

Right. Just being distracted. Your energy going places that maybe isn't the most efficient.

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't know. Possibility might be.

[Erin Weed]

Is there anything on the other side of possibility?

[Jonathan Fields]

Impossibility.

[Erin Weed]

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

[Jonathan Fields]

Well, I mean, if. So if I look at all of this and I ask myself, where do I feel most myself? It would be create and build. You know, like, when I'm making things, I drop into a state of possibility and play. When I'm making things, there's a sense of magic to it, especially when, like, I start to see it taking the form and shape of what I see in my mind, which leads to delight. When I'm making things, everything in me. Exhales. I just completely get lost in this state of flow. I'M deeply present in the moment. And I feel, I mean, movement, not in terms of physical movement, but in terms of like from. I've started in one place and there's a momentum that's building as I move towards, like into deeper into a process of creation.

[Erin Weed]

Okay, that's really cool with moment and momentum. Like, almost like moment is the root of that. I didn't really think about that at all. There's a lot of movement in the moment, if you will. I, I mean ultimately this, this is your process, but like, I think moment could be your word. I think based on hearing your story, it just feels like this is what you're in service to. Whether you're using that moment to love, to connect, to create, to build, to serve, to contribute to, to experience magic. It just feels like you, you, you want to just own this time that we all have. However long that might be.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm gonna sit with it.

[Erin Weed]

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

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah.

[Erin Weed]

So that's kind of part of the process.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah. So you want to know what I came into it thinking it would be? What make or create or build. Like those two. So they're on there and they're central to it. But I wonder if like part of that is like what I'm thinking is like, how does that tie back to me? Both not just creating moment, a moment for others, but also me being able to, to inhabit moments myself, which has always been my work because I live so much in the future. And a lot of my work has been bringing myself back into the moment and not just forsaking it in terms of what I see as possible in the future.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. Well, even as you're talking about why you make things, it's for the process. It's for the moments that go into making them.

[Jonathan Fields]

Right. No doubt.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. That's really beautiful.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Wow.

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay. I'm complete now.

[Erin Weed]

Now you know your life purpose.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

I don't have to do any more growth.

[Jonathan Fields]

Nothing. So what do I do with this?

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

Like if somebody's following along, like they grab your book and they're gonna like you're. You basically walk people through like a self guided version of this process in the book. So like say somebody does this and like, wow, that this Kind of rocked my world. But like, now what do we do with this?

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, well, with the people I work with as a coach is just turning this into a message because right here is your core message. And this, this could be a speech, this could be your next book. And by the way, it probably will be because I've noticed that like when people land on their word, it starts to show up in your life everywhere. It's so fun. But for those of you who aren't maybe into doing messages or sharing, it's. It's really all about just knowing yourself and aligning with it. You could use the word moment to make decisions with. How do I feel about something in the moment? And in the book, I give a bunch of tools for almost like, almost like double checking yourself when you're about to make a decision to be like, okay, but would my dig word be on board with this? You know, is this a. Is it? I try to stay away from black and white thinking with the grounding questions I call them. But like, what does this moment feel like? You know, if I can imagine my path going down this way, what does the moment feel like? And then you can answer and decide from that place. I also feel like it's a great superpower when you know how to dig and you can dig other people and you know, the people in your space and they have their word. Like my partner's word is serve. I know if they're having a bad day, it's probably because they're not in a place of service.

[Jonathan Fields]

And knowing them like, yeah, that makes total. It's like, boom, light bulb.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah, it's just like, now I know, you know, why are they upset? Why are they depressed? Why are they.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's like, how can we move barriers to being able to like show up in that way?

[Erin Weed]

Yeah. And what's going to make them happy too? And so, so it's really fun when you know other people's words because then I also like, I just fall in love with everybody I dig because I'm just like, yeah, it's your word.

[Jonathan Fields]

So it's so interesting. Like you could do this with like a partner or family. We had like similar thing with the Sparka types. Like people would do it. Like we get all these messages saying people would do it like, you know, with a partner or something like that. And like it would just start a conversation or create a level of understanding that allowed you to just go deeper. And it's like same thing if like you know your person's word and then like and this whole, like, the bigger sort of like operating system. Right. And it just gives you insight.

[Erin Weed]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Fields]

Into how to support them, how to relate to them, how to. When you see them struggling, like maybe what might you look for that's underneath it? Even if they can put words to

[Erin Weed]

it, it really is never ending. You just can keep pulling on the strings.

[Jonathan Fields]

This has been awesome.

[Erin Weed]

Thank you so much.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Thank you for trusting me with this.

[Erin Weed]

Thanks for trusting me.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm gonna ask you the question that I ask everybody at the end of all these conversations in this container of good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up,

[Erin Weed]

to live a good life is to be true to oneself and to never stop seeking what that is.

[Jonathan Fields]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

So the thing I'm sitting with from this conversation is that moment when Erin kind of looked at all the post it notes on the wall and started pointing to clustered. I had not really consciously noticed because the word she landed on was not the word I came in expecting. I thought it would be something about making or building.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's related.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

And those things are very real. They're in there, but they orbit something deeper. And that's kind of the whole point of the dig. Three things that I thought would be interesting to pull out from this. First, the operating system idea that your life story doesn't just produce a single word. It actually produces this kind of like a constellation of about 10 with one word at the center that functions like the captain of all of the others, and together they form this operating system. I found that really useful to see it all just kind of teased out together. Second, is this violation signal that she talked about Erin's insight that whatever makes you genuinely angry or upset is almost always pointing toward your core word because the violation is on the other side of your deepest value. And the third, this idea that 100% of people generally come into this process if they think they know their word, they're almost always wrong. Every person who thinks they already know

[Jonathan Fields]

their word, it just doesn't work out that way.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Which means the real word is always a layer deeper than wherever you start looking. If there's one thing that you can do this week, sit with this question. What's the word that keeps showing up across the chapters of your life? Not the word you want. Want it to be the word that's actually there. And hey, before you leave next week, we're sitting down with Dr. Lucy Hone to talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is. This invisible grief that comes without a funeral, just the losses that often do not count as real loss in our culture, but may be driving more of our suffering than we know.

[Jonathan Fields]

Lucy is a leading resilience research. Her TED Talk on resilience has been

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

viewed more than 9 million times and she's also someone who has lived through the kind of loss that changes everything. You do not want to miss this one. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And do me a favor.

[Jonathan Fields]

Also a seven second favor.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Share this episode with just one person who you think maybe is circling or looking for their own work right now. Their own shirt Lake center this episode of A Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me.

[Jonathan Fields]

Jonathan Fields editing helped by Troy Young.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Chris Carter crafted our theme music and of course, if you have not already,

[Jonathan Fields]

follow us wherever you get your podcast so you never miss a conversation.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing

[Jonathan Fields]

off for Good Life Project

[Erin Weed]

Foreign.

[Jonathan Fields]

This episode is brought to you by

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Airalo, the world's leading EIM brand. So last summer I was in Japan. I mean really in Japan. Not just Tokyo, but deep in the mountains, places where I genuinely wondered if any signal would reach. And my Aerolo Esim just worked beautifully. I was on maps, texting people. I love finding the hidden spots that made the trip feel like mine. And around that same time my daughter spent six months traveling solo in Southeast Asia, country after country. And if you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm about to say. That particular combination of pride and low grade worry is real, but because she had Aalo, she could reach us whenever she needed to and we could reach her. That was everything for my wife and me. That's what Airalo gives you. Yes, it saves you real money. Travelers save over $70 on average on a week long trip compared to standard carrier roaming fees. Yes, it's available in 200 plus destinations trusted by over 30 million travelers with strong local carrier partnerships, so the connection is genuinely reliable and there are no hidden fees, no roaming surprises. You activate before you land and you're online the moment you arrive. But what it really gives you is the ability to be present to the place, to the people you love most, whether they're beside you or back home

[Jonathan Fields]

waiting to hear from you.

[Podcast Host (Jonathan Fields)]

Get unlimited data this [e-mail] that's a I R A L O.com or just click the link in the show notes.

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