394 How to Live a Good Life with Jonathan Fields

"The moment that you decide that you've got it figured out is the moment you stop living." - Jonathan Fields If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/394 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Episode number 394 with bestselling author Jonathan Fields. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Today, I have the pleasure to introduce to you a really dear friend of mine, someone I've known for, I believe, seven, maybe eight years now. We met back in Chicago at a blogging conference a while ago. And Jonathan is one of those guys that I'll text or I'll call whenever I'm in a bind, whenever I'm in a tough spot, either in my business or just mentally or emotionally, I'm going through a challenge. I'll send him a text or I'll give him a call and ask him his advice. He's one of those sound wise individuals who's been through a lot, seen it all, and always seems to have incredible guided advice.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  For those that don't know who Jonathan Fields is, he's a New York City dad, husband, entrepreneur, podcast host, and award-winning author. He founded a mission-driven media and education venture called Good Life Project, where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected, and vital lives. His new book, How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom, offers a gateway to a life of meaning, connection, and vitality. And we got a chance to connect while both of us were speaking at a conference, World Domination Summit earlier this year.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  And some of the things we talked about during this interview are the three different buckets that create a good life. So if you don't feel like you have a good life right now, there are three different buckets you need to fill up. And we talk about what those are, also why people are Seeking belonging so deeply right now and what happens to us when we're not connecting face to face with people, the value of choosing which metrics to focus on in your business, why you have to know yourself well in order to be fulfilled. This is a big one, guys, and the big differences between in-person relationships and digital ones. Make sure to enjoy this one. I hope you get a lot out of this.

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  Jonathan's been a good friend for a long time, and I know you're gonna love this. Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com/394 and to check the full show notes and the video back on the show notes as well at episode 394. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Jonathan Fields.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, Jonathan Fields in the house. Good to see you, man. Yeah. We are in your hotel room here in Portland. We are. We're both at a conference called World Domination Summit with Chris Gilibou, a friend of ours, who you actually introduced me to a few years ago. And having fun, man. It's been a while since I've seen you. I know, and you're on the tail end of a whole bunch of traveling right now. Olympics and it's been crazy, but you've got a book coming out called How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom by Jonathan Fields. And it's coming out right now, so I want to make sure everyone to go pick up a copy. It's an awesome book. And why, why this book? Why How to Live a Good Life?

• 3:48Lewis Howes?

  I actually remember, you know, talking to you when you came up with this like four years ago. I think this whole brand with first a video series, website, camp, events. Now the book, why, why did you want to go into this direction where before you were doing some other work?

• 4:10Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's sort of like this this evolution where so the book I wrote before this has been almost five years since I had a book out and that book was called Uncertainty and it it won a fairly prestigious

• 4:21Jonathan Fields?

  About five years ago? Dude, yeah, it's like that long ago. Wow, crazy. So it so it came out. It was I was proud of it. It did well and it won this interesting award from eight hundred CEO Read, which was it was named the best personal development book of the year that came out. And I had this really weird response to it because on the one hand, I'm like, this is this is awesome. It's it's a really nice honor. And on the other hand, I'm like, ah, I'm not a personal development guy. Like, I'm about entrepreneurship and all this stuff. And it's interesting because I had this conversation with a couple of people who know me really well. And they're like, no, but you are that person. You know, and you need to actually start stepping into it and owning the fact that fundamentally, what you are about is exploring and examining human potential, like how we actually live on the planet and get a lot of good stuff out of our time here.

• 5:06Jonathan Fields?

  And what I've come to realize over those probably four years or so is that I am deeply fascinated in entrepreneurship and the world of business building and but and this is kind of a more recent sort of realization for me is that my deeper interest is in how like entrepreneurship, for example, it's really cool to help people bring things to life. I know you do a lot of this too, right? But what's actually even more interesting to me is how like the the the process of entrepreneurship, the gauntlet of entrepreneurship changes the entrepreneur. You know, it's this amazing canvas for the development of human potential. And what I started to realize about myself is that that's actually probably the deeper fascination for me.

• 5:49Jonathan Fields?

  And I've kind of been saying, well, you know, couching it in terms of entrepreneurship and business because it's like it's a way that I feel like I can legitimize myself. Rather than just saying, actually fundamentally, I'm about exploring deeply the human condition and how we live better in the world. I'm like, you know what? At a certain time, you just got to step into who you are. So it's not I'm not walking away from that side of myself. But it was kind of like, it's time to stand in the fact that this is actually an essential part of who I am. And we've been, you know, so Good Life Project emerged as not just a media company, but It was an attempt for me to go out and find these teachers who embodied elements of really living a good life.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Jonathan Fields?

  And then sit down with them and learn from them. You know, so over the years, it's similar to what you do, right? With sort of like people around performance and expertise and mastery. You know, for me, it was like this broader exploration of what are the pieces of the puzzle? And, and it was really, it was kind of like it was time.

• 6:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Jonathan Fields?

  You know?

• 6:50Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, was it 15 years ago you opened a yoga studio, right?

• 6:54Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  The day before or day after nine 11?

• 6:56Jonathan Fields?

  Two thousand and one, I signed the lease for a floor and a building in New York City. The day before nine 11.

• 7:03Lewis Howes?

  You're crazy.

• 7:04Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, married, had a, had a new home, three month old baby. And I, I committed to literally like a six year lease for a floor and a building in Hellskitch in New York City. And woke up the next morning.

• 7:15Lewis Howes?

  Before nine 11, yes.

• 7:16Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, yeah, literally the day before nine 11.

• 7:18Lewis Howes?

  Life is good, everything's smooth in New York.

• 7:20Jonathan Fields?

  I'm about to do this incredible thing, right? And build what I hope would be sort of the premier yoga center.

• 7:25Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh. Before yoga was getting

• 7:27Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  super popular.

• 7:28Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, this was like, you know, there were nuggets of it and there were definitely a handful of great studios around the city. But I wanted to sort of take things to a different level. I came out of the world of business before that, so I was looking at this from a different lens.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  And this was pre Lululemon?

• 7:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  And it's like prime pre like Yoga Works.

• 7:45Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, what I knew was back then, most people like yoga, I, I had been practicing yoga and I knew that it can make a really big difference. But you ask your average sort of person who came from my background out of like, you know, in the middle years, you know, like unfit, sedentary, unflexible and kind of like hesitant about all things woo woo. To go to like the average yoga studio that was around then. And, you know, so you take like a forty something year old dude who walks in like, okay, step number one, take off your shoes. Step number two, you know, sort of like it.

• 8:14Lewis Howes?

  Sit in prayer mode or something.

• 8:16Jonathan Fields?

  Right, you know, like, and you're, you're very often surrounded by incense, you know, so it's a little bit weird. And then you, there's, there'd be a whole bunch of chanting and a Dharma talk in class. And it was, it was terrifying for a lot of people. And I came to love that myself, but I also knew that most, it, it pushed away so many people. So the idea with that was like, can we? Preserve the power of the practice and build a community and a company that that that lowered barrier to participation. So that anybody could walk in the doors and actually feel really like like I'm OK here. I mean, and we went to the level of even, you know, a lot of our students are women and still in the yoga world. The vast majority of people who practice and go to studios are women.

• 8:57Jonathan Fields?

  And I know that women tend to suffer a much higher level of scent triggered migraines. So one of the things we did was actually we didn't have incense. Because I want even like on those like any any way I could remove a barrier to somebody coming. You know, we went there, but that was kind of like my first foray into business meets lifestyle slash movement slash. Or like my my that deeper interest in like, how do we develop the person?

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  How do we develop a better life?

• 9:23Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Lewis Howes?

  How do we have a good life or, you know? And you did that at the perfect time, it sounds like with nine eleven, right?

• 9:27Jonathan Fields?

  Well, yeah, I mean, yes, yes and no, like, looking back, yeah. I mean, you know, I woke up the next morning like everybody else who's a, you know, longtime New Yorker. I was horrified and, you know, we lost somebody that day as well. And but there was a moment that happened after that where, you know, so we literally, and I remember this so clearly. We my wife, me and three month old baby, little like car seat, jumped in a car, drove up to the house of person who we knew was actually working on the top floor of one of the towers. And we're all kind of like, you know, holding vigil at his wife's house. It was, you know, a friend of ours and there were a whole bunch of people. The end of that day, you know, nobody really knew what was going to happen, who was going to come home.

• 10:09Jonathan Fields?

  Everybody left and it was just my wife, like my kid and her and and and they went up to put one of the kids asleep. They had two little kids and nine month old and two and a half year old. And they asked me if I would go upstairs and and read to the two and a half year old. And I can remember walking up the stairs and just opening the kid's door. And here's this two and a half year old boy sitting in bed, you know, like half tucked with a book on his lap. You know, and in the back of my mind, I'm starting to get the idea that his dad is never coming home.

• 10:37Lewis Howes?

  That night.

• 10:37Jonathan Fields?

  And like my job just that night is just to spend a few minutes like reading this way. He has no idea who I am.

• 10:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:42Jonathan Fields?

  To just try and make something somewhat OK for this like few moments before he goes to bed that night. And the rest of his life was going to be really different. And driving home from there, I was like, you know, I'd have a decision to make, you know? This is terrifying time. You know, am I going to launch a business into a sea of pain? And you know, potentially put my family at risk. But the flip side was, man, my, my friend didn't go to work that morning expecting not to come home. Like, we got one pass through. And, and if I was gonna do it, the city was never more in need of a, a business that was built around a community that was built around healing.

• 11:22Jonathan Fields?

  You know, so we went forward with it and eight weeks later, we opened this thing and, uh, you had to change a lot of the way that we opened and launched. Right. Just to be super respectful. But flourished really, really quickly because we were serving this really deep need. And it was an amazing, amazing window in time to be in New York City, serving, uh, a, a deep and profound healing need. Um, when people were literally wandering around. And a day is just trying to find people to be with, where they could just find a little bit of stillness, a little bit of solace. So yeah, that was sort of like one of the, this is probably very likely, you know, you could probably trace the beginnings of this book. Sure. Back to right around that moment. Yeah. What were you doing before that? I was a lawyer in a past life. Crazy, right?

• 12:07Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I came out of law school. I was the entrepreneur. Like, I was a lemonade stand kid. Right? Like you were the athlete. I was a lemonade stand kid. And, uh, but I made like this kind of like left turn and ended up going to law school. I was really fortunate, did well in law school and had some great opportunity coming out. So I was in a big firm, you know, doing. In New York City, you know, great job, the power job, where you're wearing fancy suits, doing huge deals, doing like mergers and acquisitions and security and, um, but even in that job, there was a moment where I barely slept and barely came home for three weeks. And I ended up in emergency surgery because I literally, uh, my immune system basically cratered. And an infection, huge infection brewed in the middle of my body and ate a hole through my intestines from the outside in.

• 12:52Jonathan Fields?

  Wow. Sent me into surgery. I came out, knock on wood, everything was fine. But you know, when your body rejects your career. Yeah. At some point, it's like. You gotta make a change. Yeah, you gotta listen and, uh. Did you change pretty quickly or did you? It took me, I, I, I probably made the decision that, like, I knew at that moment in time, I was like, all right, this is killing me. It's not working. Right. I stopped doing all the stuff that kept me okay, like my practice, my exercise, all the stuff I love. I wasn't doing it all. And at the same time, I looked down the road and this was probably the bigger thing. I was like, okay, all the people that have the job that supposedly I'm working towards. Do I want that? Like if I look at their lives, do I want to live that life?

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Jonathan Fields?

  And the answer was no, it was like a crystal clear no. And that was a moment where I was like, all right, there's, if I truly love this path and I have friends that do and they're still in it, I would be like, all right, I'll figure out how to be okay and work this hard.

• 13:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:43Jonathan Fields?

  But I didn't, you know, so that was a moment where I was like, all right, I'm on my way out. But even then, it took me better part of a year to take that journey out because I had a lot invested in my journey to date and I had to kind of figure my next step. But my next step was making 12 bucks an hour as a personal trainer.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:59Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 14:00Lewis Howes?

  So personal trainer before yoga?

• 14:01Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so I like the first step out, because I reconnected. I trained as a gymnast for the first half of my life competitively and I love movement and exercise.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Jonathan Fields?

  And I looked at-

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  Still do a backflip?

• 14:13Jonathan Fields?

  No.

• 14:14Lewis Howes?

  On a trampoline, baby.

• 14:15Jonathan Fields?

  You probably can, can you?

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I figure, right?

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  I'm like a springboard.

• 14:19Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Jonathan Fields?

  But I was, I wanted to, I want to go back and connect with that. And you know, you blend entrepreneurship with fitness and movement. And I want to, and I looked at the fitness industry and I started reading a lot of the data and started getting into like the industry research. And you know, truth is, it's relatively disastrous when you really understand the business model. You know, it's, it's, it's an industry that where 80 to 85% of adults in the US won't join or stay members of clubs. And billions of dollars of marketing have been thrown at it over the years. And part of the challenge is because the fundamental model is designed in a way which maximizes revenue per square foot, rather than actually serves the outcome driven and sort of like social needs of the people who are in the facility.

• 15:04Jonathan Fields?

  So, so my goal was like, let me figure out a better mousetrap. Let me figure out where the brakes are. So that's why I didn't want to start in management. I started as a personal trainer making 12 bucks an hour because I want to know what's happening.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Understand it, yeah.

• 15:15Jonathan Fields?

  On the most basic level, like where are the breakdowns? What's working, what's not? Then shortly after, I opened my first facility, which is like a- A small, it's like 5,000 square foot high end training center. And yeah, I don't even know if you know this, like part of the story. Yeah. Yeah, we grew that. Like a one on one person. So we grew that after about two and a half years, sold my stake in that company. I had a partner in it to an investor group. And but we were doing in pretty short order, we were surrounded by like two massive gyms on either side. And we were crushing them from like a training revenue standpoint. In a month, we were doing more than the average big box gym was doing in a year. Wow. In terms of like training revenue and stuff like that.

• 15:59Jonathan Fields?

  And it was largely because my whole goal was just like, how do I serve and delight on a profound level? And how do I really understand the psychology of what people need to get out of this? And a lot of it was built around community and deliverable outcomes. Rather than just locking people into long term commitments. Right, the result, focusing on the results. Yeah. Focusing on how to live a better life. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that emerged really quickly is this idea that we are like beasts that have to belong. And that, you know, when you walk into a lot, you know, so where do you find belonging these days? It used to be at work, but a lot of people don't find it there. It used to be in faith based organizations, a lot of people are running from those places. Right. Local trade organizations and leagues, a lot of those things are going away now.

• 16:44Jonathan Fields?

  So a lot of people are walking around in like deep pain because we literally have to belong to survive. But the places we used to find that belonging are going away fast, or they're just not providing it anymore. So I somehow understood early on that part of what we needed to do was self for fitness. But part of what we need to do is self for belonging, for connection. And so we built fierce communities. And that alone was a game changer for people. And that's a lot of what I've still continued to sort of explore. I mean, it's like what you're doing with School of Greatness, right? You're not just, this isn't just a podcast. Right. I mean, you've got a global community here that's like profoundly connected. Yes. You know, and it's a huge part of why you're just exploding because you're, you're building something bigger. Right.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Now, how did you build community into a fitness gym or fitness studio?

• 17:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so, I mean.

• 17:36Lewis Howes?

  Obviously, people are coming and going.

• 17:38Jonathan Fields?

  Right, but so like on a couple of different levels. One, we really established, like, I focused on culture. I was like, what are we about? You know, like, this is what we believe, you know? And, and so from the, the most fundamental touch points, and it's like, here's our guiding philosophy. And it's like, community matters, people really matter. We're about cultivating relationships as much as we are about improving somebody's fitness, or helping them lose weight, or improve their, you know, cardiac risk, you know, disease. So, so from there, then you start to build policies around it. So like, when somebody, really simple example, that makes a really big difference. When we had the yoga center in New York City, at some point, we started to, you know, computerize all the front desk stuff, and we gained the ability to actually give everybody

• 18:21Jonathan Fields?

  little, little key tag swipes, so they could swipe in and just like, you know, boom, just use your swipe and go into class. And nobody would have to talk to anybody at the front desk. I literally ordered a box of those. We didn't, you know, I had the system set up and ready to go. And when they came, I was like, this isn't, this is against what I stand for.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  Not talking to people, yeah.

• 18:38Jonathan Fields?

  Because what it's gonna do, it's gonna remove that one human touch point where somebody says, you know, like, hey, Louis, it's so awesome to see you again today. Can I check you into class? And most people think that's a tiny little thing, but it's actually huge, because it makes somebody feel like, like, they actually know me, like, this is actually, yeah, this is a community, like, I belong, you know? It's like, it was interesting, so, I know you're tuned into this, because when we walked out last night to grab, to grab a green drink, we walked out the door, and the guy who opened the door, you're like, hey, Carlos, what's up, man? Can I ask you a question? You notice stuff like this, and you care about it, you know? And the thing is, everybody does. But you're keyed into it in a way that I think the, the need to actually, like, identify and connect with people.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Jonathan Fields?

  Most of us are disconnected from that. We just walk around in pain. And we don't understand that a big part of that pain is actually coming from the fact that. We feel isolated, even if we're surrounded by people.

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, especially more and more with social media.

• 19:33Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  Our phones and everything.

• 19:34Jonathan Fields?

  Right.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  You know, I think the key to the success is relationships, you know, and the key to successful relationships is intimacy and being vulnerable or connecting. With those people, not just saying, I have a social media friend, but connecting. So I like that, you know, it's interesting that you remove that element, such a small thing that people would think that would be more convenient for people is actually what pushes them away from you probably even more.

• 19:57Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and it did like it made the process less efficient.

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Jonathan Fields?

  No doubt about it.

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  There's people backing up, there's.

• 20:02Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, you had no doubt about it, but at the same time, it made it more human. And that's like for me, it's like you choose your metrics, you know, was my metric going to be efficiency? Or was my metric going to be elevating community and humanity? You know, and I had, there was a clear answer, you know, it's like, um, I had a recent conversation, probably a couple of years ago now with Seth Godin, who we both know. And, um, and we were talking about scaling, he's like, I got one metric, trust. All I care about is scaling trust. You know, it's like people focus on likes or money or this or that, it's like, I want to scale trust. You know, so it really, so much of it comes down to what are the metrics that we want to focus on? And then build around it for me, it was human connection, you know, that, that is just so important.

• 20:45Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Well, in the book, you talk about three buckets to how to live a good life. What are, what are the buckets and connection is community or connection is one of them?

• 20:53Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, yeah, so, and, and I want to just like create, there are so many, it's funny, like for me to write a book called how to like live a good life, you know, like, who am I?

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:02Jonathan Fields?

  You know, it's like thousands of years of philosophers and great sages and thinkers, so. And, uh, but what I realized is, is that, you know, all I have are my stories and my lens. And, and, and the question for me was if we've known everything there is to know for thousands of years, why are we still not okay in the world?

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  Why are we hurting?

• 21:21Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so, and, and, and I think a big part of it is because, um, it's the models, it's the way that, that what we know is conveyed. It's not conveyed in a way which is like really simple, straightforward, you hear it once, you remember. And the other thing is it's so simple that it's, it's. Almost impossible not to act upon it. Like, it's gotta be actionable in somebody's lives who's a grown up, who's busy. Like, you can't ask somebody to just constantly blow up their lives and walk away from everything. Because your average person in their middle years isn't gonna do that. They would rather live the rest of their lives miserable than than suffer the pain of blowing it up and starting over. You know, and you can certainly debates on both sides of that, but that's just the truth on the ground. So I wanted to just create a really simple model where somebody would hear it once, they're like, yeah, that makes sense.

• 22:06Jonathan Fields?

  And they would understand every day how to do a little something. So that over time, it wasn't about big disruptive moves. It's like, there's a little something I can do today, and then tomorrow, and then tomorrow. Then over a couple of weeks or months, you kind of like, stuff is actually better. And I didn't even really have to try. So the idea of the buckets was, look, life is fundamentally about filling three buckets. Connection, we've talked about, love and belonging to your relationship, right? Between other people, friends, lovers, family, colleagues, source, you know, if that's something which is meaningful to you, the natural environment or the physical setting you're in. So that's connection is one bucket. Second bucket is vitality. It's the state of your mind and body. And to me, to actually try and explain those as two different things is just ludicrous.

• 22:50Jonathan Fields?

  You know, mind and body are 100% one universal feedback mechanism. You can't work with one without affecting the other.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Jonathan Fields?

  So it's optimizing around a lot of mind and body, which you know, you've kind of become a master at. And then the third one is is what I call contribution. And that's really about how are you bringing your gifts to the world? You know, are you are you are you moving into the world in a way where there's meaning and a sense of purpose? Where you feel lit up, where you feel like you you know your strengths and your values and your beliefs? And you are 100% stepping into them every day with what you do. And when you lay your head on the pillow at night, you're like, yeah, like that, I feel good about how I spent my time on the planet today.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Meaningful work, yeah.

• 23:33Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  Contributing and living in service. You know, one of the, I think Tony Robbins said that the key to fulfillment is growth and contribution.

• 23:40Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  If you want to feel fulfilled. You need to be doing one of those two things, if not both of them. You need to be growing, learning, you know, in your own personal life, then also serving other people. It could be your family, your community, the world. It could be anything, but you gotta be in service in some way.

• 23:55Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, totally. And I think you also, like, you need to feel like you're being fully utilized.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:00Jonathan Fields?

  You know, there's, we did a survey, I wanna say it was like a year or two back now, and it was, it was kind of asking, I can't remember the exact question. It's like, um, do you feel like you're leveraging, like, you're actually accessing your full potential? And we had a whole bunch of different things that were potential pain points for people. And the number one pain point was a feeling of, I know that I have so much more, but I can't figure out how to close the gap between the potential that I'm leveraging every day and the potential that I know deep down I have. Like, I can't figure out how to close that gap.

• 24:33Jonathan Fields?

  And a lot of it has to do with, with self ignorance, with just not knowing yourself well enough to understand what matters to you. Like, what do you actually, like, believe matters in this world? You know, cuz you can't be intentional, you can't wake up in the morning and do what matters if you don't know yourself well enough to understand what matters to you. You don't know yourself well enough to understand, like, what are your actual strengths? Like, what do you believe in the world? You know, so how can you decide to do more of that if you don't actually know what it is?

• 25:01Lewis Howes?

  So how do you find out what you believe? And what if your beliefs change? When you learn new things, you're like, oh, what I thought I, I lived in this religion my whole life and I realized, like, that stuff is not what I believe anymore.

• 25:12Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Lewis Howes?

  Or certain things, you know, my whole life's a lie now, you know, whatever, I don't know.

• 25:17Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and, and it's, it's, there, there, there's sort of like this interesting split, right? There are certain things which you probably consider more like on the level of a trait. It kind of is what it is. You know, it's like, you know, you're a tall dude. You're gonna be a tall dude your whole life. You know, you've got a certain color of eyes. Uh, but there are also cer- certain internal traits. And so things like strengths, where there's been a ton of research and exploration around them. Increasingly, a lot of people would now argue in the research world that you kind of have, you know, your strengths. And there, you can definitely help build strengths, but they're relatively stable, you know, over the, the period of your life. You know, so it's really important to understand it. And they're great short and fast assessments that you can use to actually figure that out these days.

• 26:00Jonathan Fields?

  And then say, okay, I wanna leverage these as much as I can, like, when I'm out there doing my work in the world. Beliefs is the other thing. Those change, right? I mean, Yeah, um, I, my belief system now is profoundly different than was 10 years ago. Really? And 10 years before that, like what I believe matters to me, what I believe is, you know, about what's possible and what's not possible. It's hugely different. You can change belief, you can snap beliefs, you can change them in a heartbeat. You think that's a good thing or a bad thing if our beliefs change every I think it's a great thing. About 10 years or whatever. I think it's an awesome thing. I think, I think the moment that you lock yourself into certainty about your beliefs is the moment that you stop growing, is the moment where you, Milton Glaser had this amazing

• 26:43Jonathan Fields?

  conversation with, who's one, you know, the most iconic living designer. And at one point, I mean, he has designed some of the most incredible things on the planet. You may not know his name, but you know something that he's created. And he said to me, like certainty is a closing of the mind. The moment you are certain, the moment like you lock down the possibility that something might be different, or you might believe differently in the future, is the moment that you stop asking questions. It's the moment where curiosity ends. It's the moment where, where the uncertainty that's necessary for possibility to emerge in your life vanishes. Because if you're certain about something, then you stop exploring anything beyond that, right? And, and the moment you stop exploring, there's no possibility in your life anymore. Your life starts going sideways.

• 27:27Jonathan Fields?

  Man, I don't know about you or like your listeners, I'm pretty sure about you and pretty sure probably about your listeners too, but I'm not here to go sideways. Yeah. You know? What if your beliefs are already pretty solid? For like, Yeah. You've got really solid beliefs. Yeah. It, it's so part of what Why change them? You know, if already you're living a good life with these beliefs. Well, so, but that's the second part of, of like what you were just saying is a really thing, right? So if you are indeed living a good life with your beliefs, no reason to change them. Hmm. Right? But the question you gotta ask is like when somebody's like, well, this is what I believe, I believe and I'm pretty sure I'm right and it's all good and it's given me the life that I have. You know, the next question is, well, how's that working for you? Right. Like, are you actually sitting here, living a good life?

• 28:12Jonathan Fields?

  You know, like, do you have these beautiful, deep and enduring relationships? Are you doing meaningful work where you feel like you're fully leveraging, utilizing the world? Are you connected to source and people? Or is your, like, are you vibrant? Like, are you radiating health? You know, because if somebody says, I'm locked into my beliefs and they're good, they're viable, solid beliefs, and that's how I live my life according to those beliefs. And you can point to major, you know, places in their lives that are relatively disastrous. Right. Something's got, something's not working.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:42Jonathan Fields?

  You know, so part of the process, I think, sometimes with, if you have that conversation with somebody is literally ask them, you know, not from like an arrogant little how's that working standpoint, but just like, how's that actually working for you? Like, that's, that's cool. Like, if you have these beliefs and they've been with you for life, and you feel like you're actually really living the life that you're, you want to live and you're meant to live, go for it. Keep them.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:05Jonathan Fields?

  But if you're not, something's got to change.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:07Jonathan Fields?

  You know, so, I mean, it's like I say in the book, like, I'm, I'm not asking for anybody to buy into anything. You know, the only thing that I ask anybody for is to be open to the possibility that there might be another story, another truth. You know, something else that they can do out there that might allow them to be better in the world.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Jonathan Fields?

  You know, and then try it. And I'm not a huge fan of just like leaning into what anybody tells you on pure faith. It's like, run and experiment.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:33Jonathan Fields?

  You know, let your personal experience tell you whether your belief is still valid or whether something's got to change.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  You talk about how to fill the buckets up, right?

• 29:44Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  You go through each chapter on how to fill them up. What is, how does someone fill up the connection and the community bucket right now with this overwhelming amount of, I need to generate more following on social media and constantly on their phones? How does someone get away from that when it's the source of their business?

• 30:03Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  It's digital connection, you know?

• 30:06Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it's such an interesting question. We're moving from just hanging out like this, like we are now, to always having a screen between us, non-stop, you know? And on the one hand, it's not a bad thing because a lot of really great relationships can start.

• 30:20Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 30:20Jonathan Fields?

  Digitally.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  For me too, yeah.

• 30:22Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, you know, and, but, but the relationship never really happens to me on the level that it can happen until I'm in a room with somebody. Even if it continues almost entirely digitally after that, it's different if I've actually spent some time face to face. Part of what happens when you put a screen in front of somebody is that, and there's really interesting research that's been done, Sherry Turkle out of MIT and some other people, is that it removes empathy from the conversation. You know, and so we stop actually.

• 30:53Jonathan Fields?

  Having empathy with somebody else, you know, it sort of, it creates a level of not just anonymity, but like, um, so a lot of conversation happens in the digital space and it's what they call asynchronous, meaning it's not just, you know, like, we're not just talking and like, we can look at each other and the conversation happens in real time. It's like you get a text or somebody snaps or whatever it is and you gotta respond to it. And you're thinking, like, you actually take a couple of seconds to think about, how am I gonna formulate, like, what should I say? Right? And when you do that, you're always gonna present sort of cleaner, better, Best version. version of yourself when you do that. And the problem is, it removes those moments of real-time vulnerability. And like, those, like, those, just mini snapshots of vulnerability of like, your dorkiness or geekiness or whatever it is that really makes you you.

• 31:38Jonathan Fields?

  When those leave the conversation, that, those are the most profound, those are like, those are the moments where, where you connect on a level that blows apart, like the shiny, happy self that you tend to show other people when there's a screen in between them. You know, um, what's kind of interesting about Snapchat to me is that it's almost become a, like, a step back into that place of, like, being totally vulnerable. I think maybe because a lot of people know it goes away, right? So when I look at, you know, like, the way that my daughter uses Snapchat, like, her friend's like, they're, you know, like, sharing all sorts of, like, crazy, silly, like, dopey pictures, like, hyper-vulnerable. Yeah, bad angle, like, whatever, yeah. Right. And, and that's kind of like become the ethos on that particular platform, whereas,

• 32:22Jonathan Fields?

  but almost every other one, it's all, it's almost always, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And that kind of kills your ability to connect on that deeper level where it's like, I'm struggling today, man, or I'm a bit of a weirdo, or I'm different than you in this way, or like, I just made a mistake. You know, those are the moments where the most profound relationships take root, you know, even on a personal level, you know, like, one-to-one with a partner in life, you know, if the conversation always stays at the level of like, well, tell me about the good stuff that happened to you today. You know, and, and tell me about the bad stuff too, but tell me how, you know, tell me in a good way. Yeah, right. Right? Don't, I don't want any of the mess. That's not a relationship. No. You know, so when you allow for that stuff to happen, that's where the really juicy stuff happens.

• 33:07Jonathan Fields?

  And, um, and so much, so often, technology takes a lot of that away, or just enough of it away. That it strips away what's really awesome about the relationship. And there's an argument to be made also that it it deludes you into thinking that you actually are connecting with a lot of people. And stops you from then going out and having those real face to face or deeper conversations that make a real difference. But so I'm not like anti technology. I mean, we're sitting here right now and there's a lot of technology happening between us. But I think it has its place and very often its place is to find people who you think would be really well aligned with you. Start a conversation and then as soon as you can, like take it real time. Yeah.

• 33:50Jonathan Fields?

  Um, cause that's where the magic really happens. And and the flip side is also we talked about individual connection, but also community. You know, building, being part of something bigger than you, where you feel like there's shared values and beliefs and aspirations is really important to us. So how can people find that? Yeah. Through their hobbies, through? Yeah. I mean, for like, again, it this goes back to first, you gotta do a little bit of work to know yourself. Right. You know? Right. And that's why, you know, you have so many freshmen show up in college and they join everything on the planet. Right. And they come home at the end of the freshman year and they're they feel alone and isolated. Right. And it's not because they haven't tried and they're not they're surrounded by people all day, every day.

• 34:32Jonathan Fields?

  It's because they actually never just hit pause long enough to do a little bit of work to learn about themselves enough to actually know. Well, this is what needs to be in place. Like, I want to join a club where, you know, like everybody's, you know, like there's there's their social wiring is a little bit quieter. You know, and they want to, you know, they're kind of into art and they really dig nature. And they have deep philosophical conversations rather than I want to join, you know, like a fraternity. Where it's all about partying, people like really extroverted and social, not that that's every fraternity, but you know. To know which of those things is right for you, you gotta know yourself first. Um, and we just, we don't do that work and it's actually not.

• 35:14Jonathan Fields?

  To just get at least a baseline level of knowledge about like who we are and what we care about, doesn't take that much work.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:21Jonathan Fields?

  It just takes a willingness to go a little bit deeper into ourselves before we try and actually go out into the world and find, like involve ourselves with relationships and communities that actually resonate with who we really are, rather than the facade of who we think we should be.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. How we find ourselves.

• 35:37Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  What's like?

• 35:38Jonathan Fields?

  Asking questions. You know, there are, there are a set of baseline assessments that we've used in different programs that we've run and stuff like that. Like we've used for strengths, for example.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Jonathan Fields?

  You know, there are two big assessments. One, the Strengths Finder, which a lot of people know. There's probably a lesser known one called the VIA Strengths Assessment, and that, that actually is really heavily researched and came out of the world of positive psychology. And so both of these things generally, they'll give you, you take a questionnaire, it takes 20 minutes, right? And they'll give you a list of like 20 to 25 strengths, and your top five are generally the ones which really are the heartbeat of the things. And, but they're different also. Like the VIA Strengths is more about your, your virtues. You know, and whereas Strengths Finder would probably be more apt to describe them more along the lines of like your talents or your gifts. But either way, the idea is, once you have a sense of these things, like can you move through your day

• 36:30Jonathan Fields?

  in a way where you're leveraging them as much as you possibly can? Cause when you build your life around your ability to leverage those things, rather than spend all of your time trying to fix what's wrong, a lot of what's wrong starts to drop away.

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:43Jonathan Fields?

  And you feel like really empowered. Same thing when it comes to, you know, like your values and beliefs. You start asking questions. Like the most fundamental question, like the question you start with is, what's important to me? You know, and then your first line answer is going to be something like, wow, family, or money, or power, you know, cars, whatever it may be. Yeah. A lot of people stop there. Like, let me just, what are my top five there? And that's going to give you really shallow answers, which is going to give you a really shallow life. You know, so then you ask the next question. You essentially keep asking that question. Well, of these things, like, why are they important? You know, and then why are they important? You keep asking the why question until you get down to like a deeper emotional level of why these things matter. So it's not hard.

• 37:29Jonathan Fields?

  But sometimes it's not fun.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Jonathan Fields?

  And that's why we don't do the work, you know, I know over the last few years, like we've been friends for a while now. You've gone deep.

• 37:37Lewis Howes?

  Real deep.

• 37:38Jonathan Fields?

  On a personal level, you know, like to see what you've gone, like to see the depth that you've like learned yourself. Kind of stunning and so much of the of the shift that you've made in your professional life and your personal life over the last three years. You know, have been an outgrowth of just a deep process of self-discovery, really knowing yourself on a level that when we first met. Like your level of self-knowledge and the way you bring yourself to the world is so different. You know, it's like it's palpable and I think people feel that they respond to it.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Jonathan Fields?

  You know?

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  The funny thing is, I feel like I'm just getting started, you know?

• 38:11Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, totally.

• 38:11Lewis Howes?

  It's like, oh, man, there's so much more to discover, you know?

• 38:13Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Lewis Howes?

  When I feel like I've figured something out, it's like, no, you haven't figured anything out.

• 38:16Jonathan Fields?

  Right, right. You always hit that threshold. You're like, I think I have it dialed in. Like the next step is like, I know nothing.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  I know, it's the word.

• 38:22Jonathan Fields?

  Completely ignorant. It's like.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  It's good, though, to keep questioning your beliefs and values and make sure that you're doing what works for you and the world.

• 38:31Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And it's like, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, like is to be open. You know, and I look at things like this as, okay, this is my snapshot. This is a moment in time right now. Right? This is what I think I know and understand about myself and about the world and the way that I that I move into it.

• 38:48Jonathan Fields?

  But I'm going to keep asking questions. I'm going to keep running experiments. I look at, you know, so my current company, you know, we've been around for four years now. We're growing nicely, but built into the name of the company is the word project. You know, because to me, it's a series of experiments. This is a project for me. You know, and and I wonder if we looked at building a good life as just a project with a series of experiments. You know, like that would give us so much more freedom to allow ourselves to be open to whatever the experiments yield. Rather than saying like, this has to succeed now in this window of times. Like, no. I'm going to run an experiment. You know, my my goal is to actually just learn. You know, and this may give me the answer that I really want, which would be awesome.

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Jonathan Fields?

  May give me an answer that I'm not all that comfortable with, right? But then the question is, so what do I do with that?

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:38Jonathan Fields?

  You know, and then how do I actually run the next experiment and then the next?

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  I'm such a huge fan of experiments or games, whatever you want to call them. For me, I feel like that's the way I learn is by taking on a challenge. Okay, for this week, for this month, I'm going to do something every single day to see what works, what didn't work, or what I learned from it. And I feel like, and I usually do it around things I'm most afraid of. Things I'm most afraid of.

• 40:00Jonathan Fields?

  What's an example of like?

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  When I was a teenager, it was like I was terrified to talk to girls.

• 40:04Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  So every day I was like, anytime I get butterflies when I see a girl that I like, I have to go up and talk to her. Like, that's my challenge. That's my game for the day. And just say hello and see where the conversation goes. It was like terrifying. Another one was public speaking. I was terrified of speaking public, so I said, okay, every week I'm going to go to a public speaking class for a year. And I did that and I was able to see so much growth over the year. It was terrifying. It was horrible. It was, you know, a lot of work, a lot of pain and suffering. But I see where I'm at now, like eight, nine years later from when I started that challenge. Like, I'm able to really be in front of people and make an impact. You know, still a lot more to go, still a lot farther to grow.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  But if I didn't take on an experiment or that challenge of that project years ago, then I wouldn't be here. And so I constantly take on challenges, projects, games, whatever you want to call it. And I feel like that's the juice. It's like we learn, it's like my master's program, you know? It's when we take on those projects.

• 41:04Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and it's like, I mean, the moment that you decide that you're done, that you're good, you got it all figured out, to me, is the moment that you start living, or stop living. You know, because that's the moment that, like we said, that's the moment that growth ends. You know, and at some point you'd love to be like, I mean, this is, you know, quote that I throw around, it's part of like our Good Life Project Living Creed. It's right towards the end, which is, a good life is not a place at which you arise. It's a lens through what you see and create your world. You know, and so many of us are like, they're like, when I get there, then I'm going to be living that good life. Right? It's like, when I get this, I'm going to be living that good life. And like, I just need this much money in the bank, or this house, or this relationship, or this power job. And, and then they get there and they're like.

• 41:46Jonathan Fields?

  You know, just a little bit more, you know, that's the answer is just, there's actually really fascinating research around this that's been done where people, you know, they'll ask, well, how much do you need to feel like, you know, like you're, you're good in life, you know? And they say, well, a million dollars. Right. And then they'll track people like, you know, like when they actually hit that number. And then they're not good? Never. Literally never. You know, then the, the amount is always a little bit further down the road. Why is that? It's, I think it's just the way that we're wired. We're constant, we're wired for more, you know, we're wired for discontent to a certain extent. And it's, it's really interesting. Um, I think part of it is just societally, you know, like we're taught that these particular things matter.

• 42:29Jonathan Fields?

  You're like these, there, there's a set of metrics that, that tell you when you've made it, when you're actually living that good life, you know? And it's kind of predefined by culture, you know? So what's interesting is that if you actually look at the American culture or Western culture in general, it's pretty universal, right? It's a certain amount of money. It's a job that makes a certain amount of money, has a certain amount of prestige, a certain amount of cars in the garage. You know, a house of a certain size or an apartment of a certain size, you know, like it's all these standardized things, which basically are checkpoints that say, okay, now you're living that good life. But when you actually leave Western culture, you go into more Eastern based cultures, the metrics change pretty profoundly. Even Western culture that's European versus American, you know, the emphasis on family. Family, community.

• 43:14Jonathan Fields?

  In Europe or South America, Central America, totally different. You know, it's so much less about what we have or how much we're making. I mean, if you go to Ireland and you're like, the first question out of your mouth is, so what do you do for a living? People are like, what's wrong with you? Right. You know, it's like they care about like, who are you as a human? They can't, they're actually more interested in like, you know, who is your family? And so there's, there's just become this really strong emphasis on what you have as the metric for living a good life. In the U S and even in Western countries where it's not the U S base, it shifts pretty quickly to how deep are your relationships? How much time do you spend with people that you love, that you can't get enough of? Then when you go even farther east, it's how much stillness do you have in your life?

• 43:57Jonathan Fields?

  You know, it's how, how at peace are you? You know, do you lay your head down? At the end of the day, feeling like you've done meaningful work, you've been of service and you're at peace. You know, so if we actually started to exalt those as metrics that really define a life well-lived, man, so many of us would then start to realize, oh, I can actually have that right now.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I don't need to chase something.

• 44:19Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, like I could be living this now. It's just a matter of like, I want to wear a different lens. You know, now, and it relieves so much pain because we don't have to feel like we're just, this is all about suffering until I quote, make it. It's like, no, you know, like, maybe circumstances aren't exactly as I need them to be now, but there's a whole lot of good right now, too. And if I shift the metrics of what it means to actually be living that awesome life, there's so much which I can either just see right, right here now that I don't see or create in the moment. You know, because I have control over my choice. Like I can move from being massively reactive and maniacally busy,

• 45:01Jonathan Fields?

  doing things that are generally not all that meaningful to me and set by somebody else's agenda. Right? So I rest my head on my pillow at the end of the day, being frazzled, stressed, no peace at all, wiped out. And when you ask me how my day was, I'll tell you busy and you'll ask, you know, ask like, what did you do that mattered? And you'd be like, I really don't know. Versus saying, okay, I'm going to wake up in the morning and the first thing I'm going to do is just spend a few minutes in stillness. Just like, you know, get into myself and then ask myself, all right, what's the single most meaningful thing that I, the one single most meaningful thing that I could do today? You're like, let me do that. Everything, anything else that happens beyond that, awesome bonus, right?

• 45:45Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. Yeah. So check as many boxes as you want after that, you know, and ask, you know, and you wake up in the morning and this is like a morning bucket check, right? Really quick scan, you know, like how, how full is my vitality bucket today? You know, zero to 10, it's about a seven, right? How full is my connection bucket today? Yeah, it's, it's an eight. Like I feel like I'm, I'm doing really good. I'm in loving relationships. I'm like, I've been talking to my friends and hanging out with them. You know, how full is my, my contribution bucket? I don't feel like I've been doing stuff that's really mattering to me or like my strengths. I just don't feel like I'm really leveraging myself all that fully. It's just kind of low, right? So I'm probably going to say, okay, so today I want to focus on doing a little something to fill that contribution bucket. I want to really figure out, okay, what can I do today? That's really going to make me feel like I'm standing in my strengths.

• 46:31Jonathan Fields?

  You know, and you just like, you don't have to make the whole day maniacally about this. Just like, what's one little action I can take? That'll fill that bucket a little bit. And like you can rest your head at the pillow, you know, on your pillow at the end of the day saying, you know, like, okay, A, I chose instead of just responding to other people's agendas.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:48Jonathan Fields?

  So right away, it's a win, right? You, there's, there's something I call reactive life syndrome, right? Which is basically we go through life, you're being dominated by other people's agendas and being maniacally busy with stuff that doesn't matter to us. You're like, the minute you choose, then that goes out the window because you move from being reactive to intentional.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:07Jonathan Fields?

  And that's where life really starts to light up.

• 47:10Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think our suffering comes from?

• 47:13Jonathan Fields?

  Uh, life. I think so much of it comes from expectations. Expectations about, about what we should have, who we should be, um, what life is supposed to be like.

• 47:28Jonathan Fields?

  I think part of it is also, so part of it is expectations that have us chasing things that we think really matter that don't.

• 47:38Jonathan Fields?

  You know, there's a, and so part of it is that, part of it is that we are also, most of us are softwired to seek security slash, which also just another word for certainty. So there's, there's only one thing in life that I am absolutely certain about. And that is that we can never have certainty. Right? So, so there's literally no conceivable way. There's nothing that we can do today or for the rest of our lives to lock down a certain future, a certain minute, a certain moment. Right? Nine 11 for me was a huge wake up call.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Jonathan Fields?

  You know, um, so by definition, if we invest the vast majority of our waking hours in trying to pursue something that's impossible to attain for our entire lives, that's suffering. You know, rather than saying, listen, I don't know what the future holds. I, I, I'm going to lock it down as much as I can. You know, I want to have some money in the bank so my family's taken care of. You know, but fundamentally, I'm also going to acknowledge the fact that to a large extent, it's unlockdownable. I'm going to work really hard to do great work and do good things in the world. But at the same time, I know at the end of the day, life's uncertain.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think I learned that early on when I was 23 or 24, you know, I had a dream to play in the NFL and I got injured. And I was like, my whole life was changed because. There was no other option. This was like, this is happening. I'm gonna make it happen. But when I wasn't open to, okay, well, things change or things are uncertain or things. You know, maybe there's a different path for me. Like, I wasn't even open to it. And so there was like this suffering and this pain and depression for a year and a half, two years, because I was just like, what do I do now?

• 49:18Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. Well, so I'm curious, what, and yes, it's interesting, we've talked about this, right? Probably a bunch of times, but I don't think I've ever asked you, like, what snapped you out of it? Like, what took you from a place of like laying on your sister's couch to back to a place of curiosity and possibility?

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  I think, uh, you know, my, my dad had gone through a really bad accident at the same time, a head trauma, and he was in a coma for a few months. And he wasn't able to really, he's still alive, but he hasn't been able to fully kind of recover to the dad that I knew. Uh, emotionally, spiritually, he's just had a head trauma and, uh, it's, you know, so it's been hard for him to get back. And I remember taking care of him. We like had to teach him how to write and how to talk again and how to just do normal, functional things. Remember certain things. And I remember being like, wow, okay. Like, I don't have my dad to like just have my back or to like go to mentor me to kind of lean back on. He was always like my safety net.

• 50:14Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  He was always like, go live your dream and then come work for me, you know? Go do your thing. And then when you're ready, when you're done with that, like, I've got a spot for you, type of thing. So I never had to like figure it out on my own. He was always there to support me. And after a couple of years of on my sister's couch, I was like, oh, my dad's not gonna be able to support me. I'm, I'm not gonna be able to like have him anymore as a safety net. I was like, well, I can either continue living like this and feel like I'm worthless piece of crap on my sister's couch, adding no value to the world, or I can figure out what I'm gonna do the rest of my life. And, um, that's when I started taking on these challenges. I was like, okay, well, I wanna make an impact. I need to learn how to speak and communicate.

• 50:52Jonathan Fields?

  Right.

• 50:52Lewis Howes?

  Cause I was just a big dumb jock, you know? I mean, I had a big heart and I could connect with people, but I didn't know how to deliver and package my message in a way that people were able to receive it.

• 51:02Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  And so I started doing public speaking and then learning about online marketing, cause I was like, I just need to make money. And I was just like, okay, I'm discovery mode now. And I'm gonna try everything.

• 51:11Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  And, um, I think that's what it was. I just made a decision after a couple of years. I was like, okay, I'm gonna be something.

• 51:17Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna make something of my life. I'm gonna make an impact. I'm gonna make a difference. You know, I'm gonna show people that I matter. And, um, And do something with my life.

• 51:28Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  That's it's just time and awareness and awakening.

• 51:32Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and I think that's what happens with so many people too. It's sort of like you're like you're wallowing and wallowing and wallowing. And like you hit a point where you just like, look.

• 51:42Lewis Howes?

  Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

• 51:43Jonathan Fields?

  Right, it's like if I don't make a different choice now, this is going to be my life.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 51:47Jonathan Fields?

  And I'm not liking the trajectory.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:49Jonathan Fields?

  That this is taken, it's sort of like, this is, this is one of the things that made me leave the law like way back in the day. I was like, I was, I was coming up on 30 years old, you know, and I'm like, if I don't do this now, it's going to be another 20 years.

• 52:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Jonathan Fields?

  Before I make this decision. And even though I wasn't comfortable doing it and.

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're making good money, you've got security.

• 52:08Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, like I had the job that everybody wanted, you know, and I was like, but if I don't do this now, I literally, it's going to be a couple of decades. Before I'm going to be back in this place where I'm going to be willing to actually extract myself from the pain that I'm feeling now.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Jonathan Fields?

  Um, so I'm always, I'm always so curious like what those inciting incidents are for people.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  I think I also had nothing to lose. I didn't have a job, I didn't have a family, I didn't have these things. So it's like, let me just go see what I can create.

• 52:34Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  Since I'm already at the bottom, you know? Yeah, it was interesting. It was definitely an interesting time.

• 52:39Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  It's like you gotta build momentum, you know, it's like.

• 52:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  I had nothing and I just had to build momentum, it takes a while.

• 52:44Jonathan Fields?

  So, so here I'm kind of sorry, I'm like, I'm taking over the interview. It's like, but I'm really curious, cause we've never talked about this. So part, part of the reason I wrote this, like when it really comes down to it is because I, I would love for this book to go out into the world and be the inciting incident. That, that inspires somebody to say, wait, let me think about things differently. Like maybe like this is a moment where I don't have to blow things up. I can actually start, I'm curious, with, with the School of Greatness, when you wrote the book, was that in your mind at all too? As like one of the reasons for the book?

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  To be like, um.

• 53:16Jonathan Fields?

  To sort of like be this like thing that kind of like sparks somebody.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah. I mean, when I read Four Hour Work Week, that was like the catalyst for me to start working and everything I was doing.

• 53:25Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 53:25Lewis Howes?

  Eight years ago. And I was like, I want to create a piece of work that's opens people up to possibilities.

• 53:30Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  To what's possible in their life. And to like start moving forward towards that life that they want. And absolutely, so that's great. I mean, I like also, you have a thing about nature in here too.

• 53:41Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, I mean.

• 53:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  You have all these different challenges, you know, a 30 day challenge here about how to, you know, fill up your buckets, which I think is extremely important because. Playing games, having challenges, having a project, whatever you want to call it, is something I think we should always be doing. And I think you give some great examples of how to take it on, so we don't have to think of our own challenge.

• 54:02Jonathan Fields?

  And that was the whole idea. I was like, you know, I could, I'm a writer fundamentally, so I love, just the craft of writing, I love. I love actually obsessing over sentences and stuff like that. So I'm a weirdo like that. But fundamentally, also, I want to write something that was, you know, I'm in the middle of my life. I have, my days are full, you know, and I have a lot of friends that are in the same position. And I want to create something that was actionable for somebody that already had a full life, where they could just, like, they get, there was something to do every day, where they could just flip it open. I mean, literally, you can, you can read this not linearly. You can pick a chapter, it's a day, say like, this is something I'm gonna do today. You know, it's short, it's sweet,

• 54:42Jonathan Fields?

  but it makes a difference. A lot of the stuff is also all scientifically validated. There's research behind it. But you brought up the tree thing, which is, which is something that I've known intuitively for, for life, is that like, my reset is nature. It's either the woods or the beach. For me, I grew up, the beach was the end of my road, so the water for me is really like where I touch stone. But also, I mean, there's something about being in nature, especially walking in the woods, which is just like profoundly calming. It's a major reset for me. So I got really curious. It turns out there's that, there's a ton of research on how nature literally, you know, it changes our physiology and our mindset and our, you know, the chemicals that are coursing through us.

• 55:23Jonathan Fields?

  There's actually, there's a Japanese word, shinryyoku, which translates to forest bathing. And there are shinryyoku designated forests in Japan, where they literally designated, where, you know, you can go into them. And just walking in these forests, it will literally change your life. But, you know, not all of us have forests, right? So the research also shows that simply, Being in an office or being at home during the day and being in a setting where you have a plant in view that you can see versus having no green at all, even that tiny thing makes a really big difference.

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 55:58Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  So have plants or

• 55:59Jonathan Fields?

  It's crazy.

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  Something in your office or your house.

• 56:02Jonathan Fields?

  So it's like as simple as you like, you can go out for a walk where there, you know, you're around a whole bunch of green, even if you can, in your, in your home or work setting, put something green in it and it actually makes a difference, like little things.

• 56:13Lewis Howes?

  I believe that. I mean, just imagine yourself in a box all day, you know, with no life in there.

• 56:18Jonathan Fields?

  Nah.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to feel alive, I guess, when you're in a box constantly without life. But when you put life in there, then

• 56:24Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  You know, you're connected in a different way.

• 56:26Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. I mean, there's even, there are studies done on hospital patients, um, ones where you're in a room where there's, you can't see out the window with trees and others where there's actually a window with trees. The recovery rates are faster.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 56:38Jonathan Fields?

  They experience less pain and they're discharged more quickly from the hospital.

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 56:42Jonathan Fields?

  When you have a window where you can see like nature outside of it.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 56:44Jonathan Fields?

  Amazing.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  I think it's all, I mean, it's, it seems, I mean, it seems true because it's like if you can see possibility of growth and you can see like

• 56:53Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  Something that's alive, you probably feel more inspired to get out. I don't know.

• 56:57Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just seeing a brick wall.

• 57:00Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  In New York City, you know, across the street from your window or something.

• 57:03Jonathan Fields?

  Right. Whatever it is, it just, it makes a difference.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:06Jonathan Fields?

  That's all I know.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Amazing. What's missing in your life right now?

• 57:10Jonathan Fields?

  Um, space. Um, two things, space, uh, but that's a deliberate choice right now and working with my hands. Um, so for me, you know, I've, whenever you're bringing something to life, which is a big project you worked on for years, things get compressed and your days get, get busy. Um, and I hate that word busy, but, but it, you know, the saving grace for me, and I think it's really important for anybody, is that it's okay to fill your day with a lot of stuff, but do it deliberately. Don't just take it by default. Don't let like other people's stuff pile into your day to fill it up. Fill your day with stuff that you've chosen matters to you. So right now, like there's not a ton of space in my

• 57:51Jonathan Fields?

  days, um, cause I'm bringing something that I care deeply about to the world. So there Filled as I like bring it out there, but I'm choosing, you know, this is so I'm choosing what I'm gonna do. I'm choosing what matters, why it matters. And I'm choosing to be in this place for a certain window of time where I know I'll then step back out of it.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Jonathan Fields?

  And at the same time, I still have a daily practice, you know, which keeps me my mindset still. And allows me to still optimize and fill my vitality bucket. And if that starts to get messed up, I'll pull back. Um, the other thing is working with my hands. Uh, there's something like that. I don't know if you feel this way too, but I grew up as a kid, worked with my hands and I was an artist also. And then I built houses in the summers during college. There's something about creating where like you're physically using your hands to make something. And then at the end of it, you can step back and just like see it and touch it and feel it and be like, I made that.

• 58:44Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 58:44Jonathan Fields?

  And I haven't been, I've been creating a lot, but in the digital space over the last couple of years.

• 58:49Lewis Howes?

  It's not the same.

• 58:49Jonathan Fields?

  And I'm feeling this itch to actually dive in and just work with my hands more.

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What would you make?

• 58:55Jonathan Fields?

  A guitar. I've been talking about this for years. Um, and, and, and as a part of it is like, that's gonna be actually kind of like probably one of my rewards.

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  After the book comes out.

• 59:06Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, exactly. It's to learn to actually do that.

• 59:08Lewis Howes?

  You haven't done it before?

• 59:09Jonathan Fields?

  I haven't, you know, you can, you can go to these programs, basically.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  Classes, schools.

• 59:13Jonathan Fields?

  Dive intensely.

• 59:14Lewis Howes?

  I thought a friend did that too, yeah.

• 59:15Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 59:16Lewis Howes?

  You go for like a week or two and you like make a guitar, right?

• 59:18Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, exactly. But even just little things like work with my hands, like I've started, like I'll start painting a little bit again. And just to feel like I'm making stuff with my hands, um, and making art, yeah.

• 59:28Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Yeah, I feel like I don't have that itch, but I have the itch to create art through sports.

• 59:33Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  To play, to use my, to use my hands to like throw a ball, a catch to like, touch people, like be messy. On in sports and playing basketball, it's like, I, that's my itch, you know? But, um, and maybe because I'm just not that talented at the artist stuff yet.

• 59:48Jonathan Fields?

  It's not even that. It's, it's that, that is your artistry.

• 59:51Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 59:51Jonathan Fields?

  You know, your canvas is, is athletics, is sports, is movement.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  For me, it's beautiful.

• 59:56Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Lewis Howes?

  It's, you know, I feel like.

• 59:58Jonathan Fields?

  No, I've seen you, I've seen like footage of you in like various different settings. I'm like, that is mastery. That is, that is artistry.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. So, um, what are you grateful for in your life?

• 1:00:07Jonathan Fields?

  Uh, my family. Like, I mean, I'm grateful for so much. My God, there's like almost nothing that I could say I'm not grateful for. But the thing that comes to me first and foremost, my family, I mean. You know, my wife is just one of the most amazing people on the planet and my kid is, you know, an awesome human being who's growing into a really just a, you know,

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  She's awesome.

• 1:00:28Jonathan Fields?

  A good person.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Jonathan Fields?

  Who cares about the world and, um, yeah, and, and my wife is also my business partner too. So we literally work together and live together and breathe together 24/7. And we're married almost 20 years now.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How do you navigate that when you're married and work together?

• 1:00:45Jonathan Fields?

  It's so funny. People are like, you guys should do some sort of program or workshop on like, building a life and building a business together. And we're like, honestly, we don't, we, we don't know how it works.

• 1:00:56Jonathan Fields?

  You know, it just does. We have different skill. We, I think a big part of it is we're really fortunate in over a period of a, you know, a long time together. We've grown as individuals in a way where we're still deeply complimentary to each other. You know, and sometimes honoring your own personal path has people growing away from, um, the way that they, they need to be to stay together. And, and that's a tough thing, but it's also an okay thing.

• 1:01:20Lewis Howes?

  Wait, say that again. Honoring your own personal path, what?

• 1:01:22Jonathan Fields?

  You know, I, I think so. It's really important to, to honor your own personal growth, to grow into the person that you know, like to become fully expressed as who you are as an individual in the world, you know? And when we're in a relationship with other people, whether it's a partner or friends or even business partners, you know, if each one of us are like doing what we need to do to become who we need to be individually, we change, we evolve. And over a period of years or decades, sometimes you change and evolve in a way where you're still deeply connected and complimentary and the relationship still is profoundly beautiful. You know, sometimes you evolve in a way individually where you're not as complimentary anymore. You know, it doesn't mesh nearly as well anymore. Maybe it's a business partner. It's time to, you know, grow apart.

• 1:02:07Jonathan Fields?

  Maybe it's a partner in life. And so part of, you know, a part of it, I think, is work, a part of it is all the classic stuff for relationships. Part of it is also, you know, honoring who we need to become individually. And there's a certain amount of, of just luck in that still being the person who's still deeply complimentary and you're like, we're blessed in that we've both grown individually in a lot of ways, in a way where we're both like just so profoundly still in love with each other and love working together.

• 1:02:38Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 1:02:39Jonathan Fields?

  You know, and co-creating stuff together and building community. And we also, just on a practical level, like from a business standpoint, we do different things.

• 1:02:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:47Jonathan Fields?

  And we have different MOs and we're good at different things.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  So it works.

• 1:02:50Jonathan Fields?

  It works.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  In both areas.

• 1:02:51Jonathan Fields?

  It's not for everybody.

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, we're growing so much, I feel like so many people are growing apart in, in relationships as well, right? Marriages, it's like more and more divorce. Do you think it's because people are growing into who they truly are more and more? Or do you think it's more of a cop out or they're just not working enough?

• 1:03:11Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I don't know if I have an answer to that. Yeah.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  Because everyone's different, huh?

• 1:03:18Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, although here's a really interesting bit of data, and I haven't validated this, but I've sort of actually been told it recently, is that arranged marriages actually have a higher success rate than what I would call sort of like a natural, you know, like love based marriage. And I don't, there's, there may be all sorts of societal constructs that make that not healthy or healthier, I don't really know. But it's kind of like that, when I heard that, it stopped me, I was like, huh, what's really going on there? But um, I don't, I don't have, I don't have an answer to that, but I just.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, this life.

• 1:03:51Jonathan Fields?

  Knock on wood, every day, I consider myself blessed and grateful.

• 1:03:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great, congrats on that. It's called the three truths, three truths question.

• 1:03:59Jonathan Fields?

  Cool.

• 1:04:00Lewis Howes?

  So it's your last day, many years from now, all your work has been erased from time.

• 1:04:05Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Lewis Howes?

  And you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you know to be true about everything you've created in your life that you would pass on to your family, friends and the world. What would be your three truths?

• 1:04:17Jonathan Fields?

  Lead with love, meaning matters, and embrace the unknown.

• 1:04:27Lewis Howes?

  I like those. They're solid. Uh, two final questions, uh, but before I do, I want to make sure everyone, before I ask them, I want to make sure everyone gets the book, How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields, Soulful Stories, Surprising Science and Practical Wisdom. Make sure to pick it up right now. And, um, in, on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, there'll also be a link on the show notes on how to get this. So go pick up a copy, um, and let Jonathan know what you think. Um, before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Jonathan, for your incredible friendship to me and your incredible grace. I look at you as such an incredible, as a graceful human being.

• 1:05:06Jonathan Fields?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  And that grace for me is like, is like guidance. You're like this guiding individual human being that really leads with soul. And for me, it's something that I really appreciate because, you know, you helped me with so many things. And when I was going through a lot of discovery of myself, I turned to you for guidance and grace. So I want to acknowledge you for what you've created in the world and how you've shown up for me to be willing to, you know, bare my soul to you and, and talk about things that, that happened to me and really reveal it on the podcast a couple of years ago. And, uh, you know, that, that episode that we did together brought so much healing for not only me, but so many people in the world. So I want to acknowledge

• 1:05:50Lewis Howes?

  you for your continual showing up, giving, leading with love and, um, being so graceful.

• 1:05:57Jonathan Fields?

  Uh, thank you, man. I appreciate that.

• 1:05:58Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Yeah. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:06:02Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. Um, yeah, it's like, it's probably evolving for me. Um, owning the, doing the work to really understand who you are, what matters to you in the world. Um, and how you need to express yourself. And then, um, aligning the actions, aligning the way that you live every day with the truth of who you are, in a way where you close the gap between that person and the person you bring to the world.

• 1:06:43Lewis Howes?

  Jonathan Fields. Thanks, man.

• 1:06:44Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:45Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, man.

• 1:06:48Lewis Howes?

  There you have it. I hope you enjoyed this interview with my dear friend Jonathan Fields. Again, such an incredible human being who is a leader to so many people. You know, whenever people talk about Jonathan or speak with his name in a sentence, it's always in a good light. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything negative about Jonathan. He's just such a good person and very wise. So make sure to share this with your friends, LewisHowes.com/394. Connect with Jonathan. Make sure to get his new book, How to Live a Good Life. If you feel like something's missing right now, pick up the book and start reading it. As always, if this is your first time here, then welcome. Welcome to the School of Greatness community.

• 1:07:31Lewis Howes?

  Make sure to leave us a message over on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, @LewisHowes. Let us know what you thought of this and subscribe to the podcast over on iTunes. And let us know what you thought. Leave a review if you feel so inclined. I love you so very much. We do this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So if this is your first time here, get ready because you've got greatness coming your way. As always, guys, thank you so much for being here. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.