Lessons

Lesson Info

Living Your Good Life

What I'd like to do is just check in really quickly with the in studio audience and if you could just tell me what you're one biggest breakthrough has been from the first part of this course I'm to start with john john can you say like, what was your one biggest breakthrough so far? John what was your biggest victory so far? Biggest victory so far is now I know now I know what I want my creative, enterprising little experiments project to be and that vision is like one hundred times bigger than it used to be and I believe that it's possible and when we talked initially said I'm not sure all male monetize this yes well, I'm pretty sure now cool okay? Not worried good you're not worried. All right, yoni what was your biggest victory so far? I've gained the confidence to do me nice. Yeah? What does that mean? Well, you know what say yes to a lot of other people and take care of other things before my business myself so saying no and to that and saying yes to may putting myself is the prio...

rity and my business whatever my goals are okay and roll quickly. Let's um next gen um uh for me it's really been getting very clear about my values and what I stand for and that's given me more clarity to really envision you know how I want to move forward because I'm much more clear about what I stand for, kathy yeah, but similar to that, learning from your worst in your best experiences. And I had never connected the dots between that and what my goals in life would be and with my career and my job, actually, you know, putting those together your business, my business and felix last. But at least with your one biggest victory so far, much more organized than I was before. Ok, big time, you know, awesome. All right, have a guest. I have a surprise guest just here in the studio, and, um, this is, uh, really inspiring individual who's got some things to talk about that I think are really going to play and well, to our creative community, who tends toe isolate. So my experience of artists is that they tend to spend a lot of time by themselves. It's art being an artist can be yeah, a very isolating experience, but, um, this next guest is going to turn that around so that you don't have to isolate, no matter where you are on the globe. So if you would please, please welcome my friend scott owns more have a seat, have a seat, all right, so, scott, um you and I have a mutual friend, jonathan fields. So the way we connected originally was we're both on the good life project, right? And we went out to dinner and sat next to each other and you told me a little bit about live your legend. So what is live your legend and why did you start it anyway? Well, I feel like it started from everyone's beginning of hating your job. Yeah, I did my job well, you have his mood where you kind of can't stand it anymore so I have I have a pain a lot of generally a lot of pain although my latest coal or my my purpose right now has been to figure out how do you manufacture the pain so that you don't have to have a heart attack, right can actually do it before you get forced to yeah it's a separate topic but an important one. I started out working actually down the street a big corporation it was miserable was the job goes where you want grey beige colored cuban yeah, it was bad, it was really bad and I was I could finish my job in two hours and I was supposed to be busy the rest of the day do you mind what you mind if I ask what you do your job waas so I was a distribution analyst for for international division of some fortune five hundred company it sounded cool actually then I got there and it was no just you know, I don't like to talk about wayne traumatized you know, but I'm so glad it happened because I said absolutely can never happen it needed to happen that way because if you didn't experience that discomfort and that dissatisfaction with that job would you be doing what you're doing today? No, I don't I don't not absolutely not I think about this a lot is there a couple of jobs I so wanted out of college that were like my dream jobs that I had worked so hard for? I got straight is owners roll everything all the stuff right? And I got turned down for them and I was crushed and now it terrifies me to think of that would have said yes, yeah, you would have had to victor frankel stuff, right? You you would so yeah, you had a very different life and you've got a pretty pretty cool life I like it. So is it sunday you're leaving saturday, saturday so on saturday scott and his wife are they've sold everything here in san francisco and you are going to travel around the world for a year for here it's open ended, but how we plan to be back for christmas this year I guess and we're currently selling her stuff it's being removed as I speak actually should should should we put the word out he have anything else for so we got some good stuff all right so what are you going to be doing tell me what's the what's the what is the mission of live your legend eso live your legend it was named after the alchemist pal aquellos book which is a great book bite away unbelievable book I think it's the best selling book second to the bible I'm pretty sure it's like it's the alchemists everybody read that read like three hours I've read it eight times every time we leave the country it's about a boy pursuing his personal legend like the path you cannot pursue the path you never finish you just travel it that's how life goes you love it you're excited so live your legends about finding doing work you love and it sort of was kind of a career tools website and we have guides and courses and stuff which is great but well I realize that you can have the best crew tools on the planet but they're worthless if your friends tell your stupid for using them when sadly as we all take throat like people assume we're taking the road less traveled a lot people listening but on that path it's daunting and a lot of your friends or people that were around you before you started take this path khun dao you and think you're crazy. And if left people tell your stupid and crazy, you start to believe them and you'll probably give up and so that's a tragic. So we have two how do we, how we deal with that way? Why do you surround yourself with people who will support you? Right? And you support them in turn, right? Yeah. It's, like jim room quote, you're the average of the five people who spend the most time with me. I think that is the most powerful life hack in the history of the world. I mean, if you want to run a marathon, if you want to lose fifty pounds, if you want to change your job, hang around people already doing it, it starts to become normal and that's something that you did rights because you started. So you had this cubicle job and you were in a lot of pain, which actually served you later. And you instead of living that dollar exit existence in the cubicle, you decided to create this. But you've got some help. You, actually you, actually, you know, walked your talk. You formed a group of supporters and I think you moved from you actually moved right from southern california, so it happens san francisco? Yeah, even santa barbara had gone to school and I was living working on there and actually then I was working with a job in love with a good group of people, but I still want to be out only on doing one thing. And so the thing was a living legend before that is a different website and it for four years I got zero attraction little zero growth like my parents and my wife chelsea pretty much paying attention. I thought I thought that was cute. You mentioned that like nobody actually went to your first four year. This is important to remember, like most people look at like models or people they look up to and think I wantto, you know, be like them and do their thing will pay attention what they were doing when nobody ever had heard of him hurt. That's. Excellent advice. You get totally confused, like, if you want to look at let's say like tim fares for work week no, no, what was he doing before you people know who tim was? More than one yeah, right, yeah, well there tony robbins was bankrupt. Yeah, I mean, there's just you got to look back deeper into it and it also you're gonna have poor expectations, which will lead to frustration. Which leads to giving up way too early because this is a process. Yeah, so, yeah. So you gotta manage your disappointment. Right? It's, you have to expect the disappointment or just measure differently. Like for me. For those four years I was measured by am I writing things that I'm excited about? A by sharing them with people who I think it could be helpful for. I was writing these book reviews for personal element books. I would send them to different friends who I thought they could be useful for, even though the traffic was going nowhere. No subscribers, no nothing. I was even really measuring that way either. Either way, what do you think? This so I know you were dissatisfied with your job, but then you obviously were starting to create a very specific vision. And you must have innate. Lee felt you had a purpose that was different than you were going to ever be. Ableto live in a corporate cubicle. Was there like, a moment that ignited this this vision because your career created a worldwide community at this point? Let's say I mean it's so I mean it's generally it seemed like an evolution but what happened was I said alright I have to find something I can screw up that's how bad my job has had no impact at all absolutely put it in the negative and then I went out to selfishly discover what do the apparently the statistic is something like eighty percent of people don't like the work they do it's pretty clear what twenty percent have in common and I did this intense research project that's now been a decade long and growing it is mainly for myself and that is that made those discoveries they really like three things people had in common when I made those discoveries mawr friends ask for help and I would sit down for lunch with them okay so many pies yeah so this was this was a lesson that we talked about before you solving a problem for yourself and once you solve the problem for yourself then you can solve the problem for other people right? Yeah and that's and that's always when people said scott I want help I have to warn them because at that point eighty percent of the people who would have lunch with me would quit their jobs within two or three months dangerous well and it wasn't that I was doing special mainly house why are you doing what you're doing and they would say I lie supposed to and most people when, when someone says out loud because I'm supposed to it's like a pattern interrupt, they know, wait a second, that wasn't right, yeah on then something after each other. Yeah, but then I started to think, what if you could create a community where these crazy people like all of us, you know, that are are supported and we hang out together because if if all the people who the world is saying or crazy are all together, then it becomes normal for us, and then maybe we can have some other people join us, and all of a sudden we start to build this, I call it a revolution cause I think that's really what needs to happen in this world of of work and creativity, although I think when you have a choice, like if you're like, if you have no choice, it's one thing, but if you have a choice but you're not actually making that choice, it's an incredibly painful place to be, and you don't want to look back on the landscape that was your life and say, I wish I would have taken that chance and wish I would have gone for it. It does help to have a community, though, so let's talk about that you're going to go around the world starting on saturday, what do people want to meet you like they're people all over the globe listening right now. So that's what's so fun about this right now, and first of all, you just touched on the biggest risk in the history of the world. I think the risk that you'll regret that you didn't do it, and that is how I run my my life, my decision making process, everything it's not like. Well, I fail because you will always fail. Things won't always work out, right? The best things happen that you didn't plan all itself. So anyway, I love that you said that. Is that why you decided to go travel around the world? You look back and think, you know, you and your wife would have been really twenty or thirty eight years old, I look back, well, I wish I wouldn't have traveled around the world and then along like it seriously, but so what's what's fun is that now we have local communities for livia legend in through about three hundred cities in over seventy countries remark how that is an incredible I mean, you're you're doing an incredible service, so are a lot of people and one of things we talk about in this course is, well, the one of my famous quotes are my justin calls it my an isms is it's not about you it's about them, and when you make it about them, then it will be about you. So you are being a tremendous service to people all around the globe and that's amazing! I appreciate that it's definitely not a u it's away because the first well the groom happened in sydney and tomorrow night there having an event, there's three continents coming to their event in sidney. Sidney, I'm sure some of you guys are watching, but we have I mean, we have in one of the most active groups is in consumer kenya and kuwait city what's interesting is these have totally different cultural backgrounds, different like belief sets, but everyone comes together for that same why that you talked about because people want to make a difference, to look back at their life and real and think that it hadn't mattered in some way bigger, small and so we've have these people cross culturally close across languages, cross everything, come together for this reason, and they get to get there every month we launched this a year ago, it's in totally non commercial thing, by the way, these are free. And you can all join there's no, you confined it's what? What what's the name of the website? You just want to live the legend dot net slash meet up it'll take you straight to a page that tells you based on where you are in the world where the closest meet up is and tomorrow we're doing a global same day we call the world party where every meetup group meets on the same day all around the world. So we're gonna have about three hundred these things and seventy countries all in the same the same time tomorrow well now at the same time because laying up late at night the first one starts probably in cities we're going to start first about eighteen hours and then they start rolling and so but libya there's no net slash meet up and that will just show you what you can do it you, khun find a group and take note everybody don't try and do this by yourself are you facebook group joined artist with rife is great but as we were talking yesterday was that I was in the whole food parking lot getting talking to you as you were packing up your stuff way we were just talking about how you know facebook's great twitter's gray emails great but it's not the same sharing the same air so it's great because it feels so facilitates this happening of still isn't this community that we have around the world but it's on ly great if you use it as a tool to come back and do what you and I are doing right now is like this is firing chemicals in our body like the oxy toasting the serotonin that's happening that doesn't happen on facebook, right? You get like this little door state or skype? Yeah, even skype it's weird like when we hug something different happened right there then if we hung out on skype, right? But the sad thing is, most people think of facebook friend is a real friend and that is that is the real tragedy I think of today because then people aren't getting outside of the house and it's scary and it and there's more stress and the court is all this stuff it gets crazy. Yeah, I think people are a lot of people are really lonely let's just say they're really lonely and well and so guess what there's other people were lonely, so there's an opportunity to meet now I think one of things I learned about you is that you lived in spain for a while and you had a different experience of community there and I just got back from england won't visiting my family and there is a different experience of community there also the food's not as good but it's true, but it was anyway that that inspired part of what you're doing to write well, it just woke me up like I studied abroad there and then when I couldn't talk about when I was a junior in college and when I couldn't get a job after college I went on a trip around europe for six weeks since I don't have a job, we just stayed in spain for the year and startle english teaching business and that was fun and we're tour guides on the weekends of spain, morocco in portugal which was a was a party it was great but we also you've got to just see like these people every day they just wait to hang out with their community and they for hours on end and yeah, they're not super wealthy they're wanted I think one of the poor countries in the u but you look at them on the day to day basis there's just happiness there's multi generations and a home there's this community and I I just been this libel one of like there's a different way it's not all about climbing this lattice this ladder based on status that's a definite success is society told you where you're supposed to be defined with success right or else you end up this ladder leaned up against the wrong wall or ladder tow no wall and it's just tragedy so that it was a total paradigm shift for me. Yet when I moved home, I went straight to that fortune five hundred companies. I listened. Oh, my older mentors, right? But it only took seven months for me to quit that's well, good for you. It took me a whole lot left. Took me a lot longer, teo, actually, well, it's and it's a hard thing to do and this is, by the way, not like a rara quit your job show like that is one thing to be really like don't really watching, like, really, we recommend do all this stuff on the side, so you have a really powerful vine to jump onto when you leave whatever you're leaving or maybe you can if you get some this stuff right, you'd make tweaks. You might never need to leave your job and find a whole new set of purpose on dh what you do, so do one quick quote that came to mind what got me to leave so quickly because I heard a quote from warren buffett and it said I'm taking a job just to build a resume is like saving up sex for old age. Go back for a second think about crazy that is right actually right you know and because it's not like for the privileged few it's not like oh you have to have like some special backer and experience to do stuff you love everyone wants you to love your work like the world is better right if you think your boss doesn't want to he doesn't do it cost a fortune for your employees to know like what? Right right you know I have to say I'm happy that you got out earlier, right? I charged through for over a decade trying teo to make it work because I was under the spell that you know, painters artists starve and you know it's a crazy limited belief that like has to be broken, which is what you're doing here is also yeah so I mean I was able to break the spell for myself so I'm hope hopefully breaking the spell for other people but I do want to go back to the idea of not quitting your day job because that is what I did and I don't recommend that people put that enormous amount of pressure I quit my job and moved here to san francisco I didn't know anyone I didn't have a plan and so it wasn't the best move, so if you could give I mean it worked thank god but if you could give people like three pieces of advice you talk to people in your community all the time who were trying to make this fundamental shape change in their life and you probably see patterns right for so if you could deliver like three pieces of advice to someone who is not doesn't like their job doesn't like what they're doing and really wants to live their purpose, what would you say to them? Yeah besides going to your meat up, which is free totally for your fun, great fun groups, but I was actually talking with simon cynic last week about this who wrote start with wine has given one of the popular ted talks of all time I wash it little twenty times I built livia legend, living legend local purely based on the y of making difference in the world it's not like the group in kenya who has a poster the size of half that wall that says liberal isn't local, they wouldn't have that sign it said scott densmore on because it's not about doesn't not aboutyou muslim don't know who I am right and that's the beauty because it's about the why? And so anyway, we were talking about simon's work in leadership in inside of companies, and I said, so what do you do if you don't like your job he's like you become a leader, find some way to make other people's experience better like just do the things you can control right this second like you can always infused kindness in tow in compassion what you're doing and see like change your state changes you understand? And the best way to change a state I think is too often help someone else to show you that you're not as bad off as you think and there's a lot of other things like I mean take strength finder to point out that is such a priceless till come out of yourself and be of service to someone else yeah, and then strength finders is excellent and I'm I'm not affiliate without it all but I give it recommended non stop it should be I feel it should be a thousand dollar book I think the test is like nine dollars or something, but whatever anyway, do something just to learn about yourself and think ok, what am I spend my time on today that I don't like? And what could I be spending my time on that I do, like inside this circle of control and you're certain current circles and third last but not least what would you one piece of parting advice that you would give the audience find someone one person inspires you and spend time with no one? Does this stuff on their own way always say that we don't succeed alone no, nobody does. And this stuff is so scary and intense, and you will give up way too early if you're doing this stuff by yourself. I mean, that's, just how it works south, too. Wow, I'm so happy for you. I think e thinkyou're doing tremendous work, and I'm so glad you came on because, like I said, a lot of artists really work in isolation. I say artist in the broad sense of the term. So thank you so much, it's an honor. And I think one thing that I've learned in all this is that the fastest way to do the things you don't think I'd be done hang around people already doing that. So, like, hanging around you, hang on, jonathan is gonna come in on tsunami, it becomes normal, so thank you, thank you, our next surprise guest, whose friend? And, um he is, um, someone you may have heard about, he created an amazing siri's called the good life project, and, um, I met him, uh, when he called me from new york city is that I'm a blogger, and I wasn't really quite sure what a blogger was way back then, so I'm writing a book called career renegade or not, I'm going to have the title yet and I was like sure what a blogger is ok I'm sure I'll talk to you so we talked and then he came out with this book called career renegade and he came up with this other book called uncertainty he's really smart and then he created this whole siri's called the good life project which I think is what we're all aiming for here we think about fulfilling our creative purpose so if you would please welcome my friend jonathan feels e have a seat wow jonathan it's been a while since I saw you last in the the world domination somebody probably yeah yeah how you doing? I'm doing right so um jonathan I remember when you and I first spoke on the phone we stopped for a long time we did was supposed to be like a fifteen minute pre interview that turned into a hour it was a long time and then actually owned a yoga studio in hell's kitchen you still owned it then yeah I remember pacing around this empty room just like talk joan like this conversation can go on and it has it yeah you called and said I'm writing a book and it's pretty much done but you would do this interview you know I'd like to include you in the book I stumbled upon the book was the sense I think that she handed in the manuscript we weren't edits yeah stumbled upon your story and it was just too perfect not to and someone incorporate so I wanted to of course first called to see if it was really an artist actually write later made a facade is these days and the interwebs yes you can yeah and and it wass and I was like, okay, this needs that we need to we need to dance in some way yeah become a friendship and so much more yeah and so you were that's when you wrote the book career renegade I know you're you're said it was outdated but I don't think it is I think it has a tremendous inspiration and advice in this book to this day so I'm gonna recommend it which interesting is I think is that book came out one of the fundamental promises of that book was like um do something that is actually deeply meaningful to you and potentially leave her job in the book came out in january of two thousand nine the single worst week in the history of the economy since the great yeah quit now yeah this is it was a really interesting time what's interesting is the fundamental ideas and I think are much more relevant now where people are really they were rattled that now they're coming back and realizing they want to do something it was just a lot of the resource is I mean when I was writing that book I was concerned about including twitter in the book because I didn't know if it would still be around my god that's funny says different time yeah, so one of the conversations we had with part of the conversation we had initially we talked about some painful moments that you had on, um, one of the things that's a bit controversial about my course is that I asked people to look at the most painful times in their life, just like scott did right when he was trapped in a cubicle, because they can inform our most deeply held values. And I think before you became this incredible author and speaker, you were a hedge fund attorney theater knee. Yeah, I was both actually okay, yeah, I started the sec and I'm a new yorker, so right on down was working at a big firm doing hedge funds, deals and stuff like this, and I end up in the hospital emergency surgery when with the huge infection in the middle of my body, when essentially my immune system shut down and and this saying ate a hole through my testing from the outside it so a little bit of a wake up call when your body rejects your career, you kind of have to listen, yeah, yeah, although it took me body was killing more time to really just kind of own it step back but you know, we all go through syriza wake up so I mean, that was one since then they're probably been two or three other huge wake up calls and I've shifted my career path like in really substantial ways every time, essentially starting from zero again, right? You keep getting reset, but I think that that was significant the first significant reset when it comes to your work, right? Yeah, I think so, yeah, I think so. And then, um nine eleven happened, right? And that also I probably shifted your value your focus it didn't you know what it did was so I was married still am and had a three month old baby had just purchased place in new york city, and I had literally signed the least for a floor in the building to open a yoga center the day before nine eleven a six year lease and I woke up and in time yeah, and, you know, two thoughts go through your head and don't say that one is how do I know? Because, you know, if you're in new york city, you knew somebody that was in the towers, not many people, right? And then what am I dealing? You know, like, I'm really gonna launch a business into this abyss of pain right with married with a home and a three month old child to take care of and uh it was another moment of sort of like awakening and reckoning for may to really understand what matters to me so what does it matter when you when that happened to you and you had that moment of realization what did you determine matters? You know I didn't determine it there was there was a moment where where she did know somebody who was lost there and a couple of days later I ended up volunteering and being living like you know ten feet away from what they were calling the pile back then right is a very scary day from me and then the next day I think it was we went up to a friend's house where they were all hoping that the dad came home remember this he never did and and I remember to this day it's so vivid in my mind everybody left we had our a little girl like yellow car see carrie and it was me my wife and this friends and my wife and her went upstairs to put tio that I think six month old the bed right and they ask me to go upstairs and read a story to the two and a half year old and I just remember him sitting there with a storybook on his lap wondering where his dad was like you know what this is life's short life I was your short and and I'm far enough into life so that um I have responsibilities I'm not going to just blow things up you know, there's a certain means that I want to live at I don't want to go back to living hand to mouth s o I make decisions differently than I might have in my twenties or thirties even right? But I knew that there had to be a transition and I knew that I had to build something that was both deeply meaningful to the world and deeply meaningful to me. So what is that? What issue if you had to describe what your creative what you obviously have a purpose that's yielded good life project and so many other wonderful things that you're doing how would you describe what your purpose is? Your creative purpose? I mean, I'm whatever call maker scientist, okay? I mean, what it means is I'm driven teo create cool things to bring beauty into the world and I'm also driven to figure out complex problems and then when I figure out the citizens to share them with people bumbled around that I've been entrepreneur my pretty much my whole life except that the aberrant stint in the law right and meet jean jackets for awhile I yeah, I mean I learned my walkaround money in high school painting album covers and gene jack is that when there were album covers and paint the album covers on jean jackets said what you did yeah no I mean like I had some grateful dad's molly hatchet, which was the hardest one ever painted I had you know, the whole right come on, I'm doing for twenty five dollars and I didn't know what I was doing said no train under price but I was always just like an artist and I and I learned never paint the back of a jean jacket with oil paints no um there's a big learning curve in life you always have create I was also an artist as a kid I was always and even today I mean that we're growing this company and I know that you know, in the early days I have to be a founder, which means I have to play every role fundamentally and as we build the team, we build the business we're literally this in the middle of this year I brought the team together in portland actually, and I said I'm about to make a shift. I said the next eighteen months we'll see me moving from ceo back to creative lead because that's where I come a lot of the most and that's where of most value to the business and to those who we serve um and and I knew that I would have to sort of sacrifice for a couple of years and do the things that I didn't necessarily love to do in the name of building the resource is in the team to allow me to move back to that place where I'm like so your purposes say it again creative science I mean it's I don't believe in the concept of life purpose but this isn't like that and this isn't really you know my purpose I think there's a singular statement that defines who you are but there's something about having more clarity that leads us in the right direction I mean been working fiercely on this because I just, you know, just hand in the management from the next book and the central question but you know, so I want to wake up and know that I'm absorbed in activities and relationships that fill me up surrounded by people who I can't get enough of being in service of something bigger than me how that expresses itself changes it, but I'm sure you know I'm also an artist, so I need to be fully expressed in that side of me I'm willing because I have a value of supporting my family make sure ok, so I'm willing to move fluidly between what I need to do to take care of that value tana, but also feel like I'm fully expressing what I am and who I need to be in the world so let me ask you this, you when you created the good life project this's essentially what we're all after here, this is the big question that's the big question was there a moment that inspired that? Why did you call it the good life project? Why do you even decide to do that investigation anyway? Yeah, that's star, you know, it's, really the manifestation of a lifelong quest turned into a vocation in the beginning twenty twelve and it's really? I've been spending my whole life seeking, you know, an answer to this question, and I'm somebody who's, not overly bent towards metaphysics. I'm not overly bent towards religion or faith, I'm spiritual and open, but I'm also very practical and science driven and I wanted to try, and I like to learn from the people who are not just speaking about living a good life alert to learn from people who are not offering platitudes and and, you know, capturing all sorts of stuff that they read from other people threshing, embodying it in the way that the existence that was curious about what your criteria for this story, because you have such eclectic nick way have, you know, like I sat down with bernie brown, you're grounded theory researcher. You know reese spent her life researching vulnerability and shame I sat down with milton glazer probably the most iconic living designer in the world right now eighty six years old, massively prolific astonishing man you know with sack comical rinpoche a the head of shambala buddhism globally tto learn from them and the criteria is really can I travel the world and find a collection of humanity who were embodying something that I wanted to body? What can I learn from that kind of sit down have a conversation and just, you know, find out what what is it that they're doing? What fuels that? What moves them and then when I get a big enough cross section of those people can start to identify common patterns well, that was my next question. So you've you've done this deep research and and I still think it's just beginning for may I may we continue, you know, right? So you so you can you're continuing the good life project podcast, right? So what? So based on the research that you've done, what patterns emerge about, what great, what makes a good life and I'm sure that different for everybody yeah, well, that's one of the big patterns that emerged was really interesting because if that when I was talking with noting laser at the end, I always ask everybody was it means you live a good life and he has been caught off guard by the question I should have prepped you I don't know, so turn to me most people answer that question like and I said, you know, one of the interesting thing is that I thought that once we got ten, twelve, I mean, now we're in the l a probably so many episodes and somebody conversation I thought we'd probably see after about a dozen people just repeated themselves that we never did oh, they did find it differently that very, very differently there some big um, common themes, but the language ing around it is always very different and you know, the the the way that the things that people lose all their different and very often it's tied to life cycle is well, you know, you find a good life in your twenties and thirties very differently then somebody in the forties or fifties who would find it very differently than somebody in their seventies and eighties so let's go there so let's, talk about let's say you're in your twenties or thirties and for those who interviewed in that age bracket, what were some of the patterns that defined their good life? Yeah, confusion seriously about what that's great because I don't think a lot of people in their twenties and thirties have a figure and this absolutely it's not bashing I had no clue I still have moderate clearly and this is why I'm on this question why I do what I do, right? But I think to me that's his gorgeous time of owning the fact that you absolutely like, you know it's it's it's um uh, you know, like children, trump has famous quote you like the the bad news is you're falling there is no, no, no, but the good news is there is no ground, you know, it's a part of your job is just to accept that you're in the space of uncertainty and your job is just to explore and experiment to me. We did an episode once where you know the question I was just just answering was, what would I tell my twenty something year old self? And the big thing I would say is chill out and run a series of deliberate experiments to just test ideas. What liked me up without the idea of, like having to make anyone succeed, I think you know, the primary metric when you're in your twenties should really be data, not success. So is that the advice you would give to people watching all over their cologne? I think, yeah, I think when you're especially I think at any point you're like because honestly, most people never run those experiments most people sort of, you know what do they do in your ex pe? And this is seth gordon's beautiful answer when asked about living a good life and he said basically, yeah, if you're living somebody else's good life, you're making a huge mistake on most of us do that, you know, most of us do exactly that this comes straight out of the bhagavad gita, you know, classic and you're here to live your good life, but we become so down by the strictures of society and parents that we don't do it, so we want to be loved and accepted, and we don't want to risk that right anyway, because we need to belong because we don't belong on we find that, you know, waiting for the scots live here that's what we need to go, teo so so I think, you know, when you're younger, you're primary job is really to find that those things that light you up, you know, what makes me feel like I'm lead up like I'm on purpose like I'm fully expressed in the world, right? And to run a series experiments actually figure that out like for me, I knew pieces of the puzzle, but I kind of walked away from them for a long time you went from being an artist right in high school to an sec attorney that's a pretty and by the way right but I also want to make it clear that sec attorneys hedge fund attorneys, investment bankers, accountants or artists absolutely you know they express the art in a different ways precedented when I'm in my it's a different very different orientation like spreadsheets were not my media right but for some people they are yeah no they are um yeah we're not doing any lawyer or accounting bashing here it's just a matter of uh you just I'm just making the point that such a big change you know from seeing yourself as an artist and high school and then you know changing to study the law it's interesting that you made that shift it was an aberration a long line yeah and then right into yoga studio yeah right yeah. You know, I love to create I love to breathe life into things on dh into things that matter to other people and again like this was all along that continuum of exploration is what does it mean to live life? Well, you know what? The elements where the pieces of that puzzle on that that will be a lifelong exploration for may write constantly again trying to get as close to the source is as I can so I read a tongue you know, I watch a ton and listen to a ton but I want to I look which is why you said like, you know with what I do the people that I seek are not famous some of them happen to be famous and I don't talk to them because they're famous, right? I talked to him because there's something about the way that they're living their lives that draws me to them we all know the person who walks into the room and radiates light, right? And we all want to be that person whether we own it or not, right? You know? So I want to find out what makes that person radiate light and then is there something that I can get from that that will help me do this? So you talked about people in their twenties and thirties when we come to the next chapter ray, the forties and fifties was for think of a number what was common with that general, you know, I'll jump back also, I think in the twenties and thirties happiness becomes like a really primary driver. I think when you for a lot of people when you move into your forties and fifties there we tend to have a shift which where there's still happy this but there's an overlay of meaning that starts to become starts to rise up meaning becomes more of an important yeah, I know it's my what's, my purpose what's the meaning of my life but we simply cannot wake up today feeling like I'm on purpose right, right. Neal, can I wake up knowing that when I go to bed at the end of this day, I feel like there's been a sense of meaning and what I've done like there's, a sense of purpose and what I've done, and that doesn't mean that you're you're, like, employed, you could be a parent, you know, and derive meaning from that, you could be a caretaker taking care of elderly here that could be an artist, creating beautiful bodies at work will be a painter, whatever it may be, but I think the more you hit a point where the runway ahead of you, you know, maybe the less than the runaway behind you, the more it triggers us just as human beings to want to really think through this concept of, um, what we gonna do with the time that I have left and we're all assuming we have time left is one of the biggest points of inspiration for me with my friend angela, who, uh, did make it and, um, we yeah, she she made me pick hard look at well, what am I doing? I'm god, I'm not happy this isn't working and what am I going to do about it? Yeah, and I think what you know, the further you get into life them or that reality becomes present in your life and that's why I like it was nice to hear that you actually had did something in this course that terrifies most people which is a meditation on impermanence there's I mean this was part of steve jobs famous stanford commencement speech yeah like death may well be life's greatest invention because the more that you connect with that the more you meditate on the idea that you're not going to be here I'm not going to be here the people I love more than anything in the plans are not going to be here we don't know if it's god william won't be tomorrow and the next day or any time soon but we don't know when that you know we're we're going to check out and the more you actually own that it's actually not mme orbit its astonishingly inspiring I agree spires action yeah exactly and it shifts things that are important into the right priority you know that b s starts to fall away don't even give it time because it doesn't deserve any people I don't know if you deal with this at all with with artist but people constantly ask me how do you figure out what to do about it? I get interviewed what's your productivity system and like you know what I think about dying yeah exactly because if you think about dying right if you think about that you're gonna be like oh, my that's what I need to dio right like this is the one thing that actually need to do right before I check out now my priority if I go to bed today having a late check everything I mean think about this right if you have a checklist right now take a look at it right and think about our all those things on that checklist like, do any of them actually matter if god forbid like I go to bed tonight and I don't wake up tomorrow are the things on my checklist today, the things that I would have wanted to finish this day, right? And if not figure out what needs to be on there, right? So I'm sure you get the question of how right? So I think scott's providing a great resource on how you surround yourself with people who are going to support you. Um, do you have any house besides reviewing your checklist any soon? Oh, prescriptive advice to people watching because I think people are hungry for they want to know what to do like they get it, they get the big idea, but they want to know on a practical level, what do I do? Yeah, um I'm gonna I'm actually give you a precursor to that because you can't know what to do until you know who you are well, that's. Exactly right. That's. How we started this whole course with understanding who we are looking in the mirror looking at her most painful times because you do need to know who you are before. Anything so that's, the biggest misstep is that everybody moves to what do I do? Rand it's backwards cart before the horse, right? You know, so the biggest thing that you can actually you understand to know what to dio is take a big step back and figure out who am I? What do I care about what I believe in, and an incredibly powerful tool for that is meditation? I agree. This is what I tell the fiber of, of my daily practices and mindfulness practice and it's two forms who one is every morning. I have a cd practice sometimes at night too, but it's a practice and it's also it's it's a state of being, you know. So if I sit in the mindfulness practice in mourning and I really got calm, I become aware become president. And then I walked through life reactively, you know, not being delivered about the choices that I'm making, the decisions and the actions that I take complete b s it really doesn't do a whole lot. All right you know so you give away your power do and most of us live reactively I think I called reactive life disease is one of the biggest killers of actual life that we have and the way that you avoid that as you train yourself in the presence and presence also it creates enough clarity in the water for self awareness to bubble up you know and that is a not an easy process I'm sure that if you've really been focusing on that in this course you probably have some comments from people they're like oh yes and some coming from other people like their stuff bubbling up I really oh yeah we have some very uncomfortable and I don't want to deal with definitely yes meditation doesn't make everything better because it creates the stillness in the water for the things that you actually need to understand about yourself to come up and then you have to make a choice about how am I going to respond to these so I think what it does uh you know, there's a lot of noise in our head and that's actually that noise is actually what's running the show and it's bubbling up from our subconscious we're gonna have dr george pratt on tomorrow was going to actually help us unwind some of that noise threesome meditation an acupressure techniques um but for people listening in meditation practice sounds great but it's seems daunting yeah brutal so I'm gonna I'm gonna give a record so I started doing it I actually had a moment of clarity brushing my teeth I said this on my last course I haven't electronic toothbrush that runs for two minutes and I thought to myself if I could brush my teeth for two minutes twice a day at least then I could certainly sit down with my iphone timer and meditate and then I'd do that for a week and then maybe after another week I'll bump it up to three minutes so that's how I started meditating you you started somewhere yeah I mean, I've meditated on and off for a long time but I never actually took it seriously until I had another one of those huge turning point moments where I was laurie brought to my knees by something that was going on health wise and it was this or some very, very dark thoughts andi that's that you know. So then I I turned to it with everything that I could because this was the only way that I saw out of what I was going through, but for most people you don't get to that place and god willing, you won't get to that place I think the easiest way to actually pick up the practices is not to try and do it by yourself, but it's actually to be guided if you have a teacher that's great, but most people don't sew but online amazing resource is if you've got tyra brock runs insight meditation center in washington every week publishes her podcast, which is just it's a teaching that's recorded live and then about a twenty five minute guided meditation. Can you say her name again? Tara brock beyond a ch okay, free there's no charge. Go check out our podcast, it's. Fantastic. And everyone should get something new. Susan pie over. Another dear friend of mine. Um, shambala meditation teacher runs the open heart project. Also weekly publishes his beautiful guided meditations and it's free. So I think the the easiest entry point for most people is guided practice. And that may go on for years. That's completely fine, right? Whatever works for you. Totally fine. Yeah. So I think the other thing, this is a business course, believe it or not, but I have to tell you that meditation mindfulness meditation is probably the single biggest business unlock tool I have ever that's what I was about to say. So you said it for me? Yeah, exactly. That's why we're talking about it right now, that's. Why? We're emphasizing right now, my biggest struggle in meditation is that so many astonishing ideas and solutions drop while I'm sitting right that I'm like, I literally have created a mechanism to not lose those ideas, even though in meditation, teacher says it's kind of dicey, maybe shen don't write don't break right think we're one of the big memories or like devices to remember stuff is you create a visual and then place things in a very visual room, so I literally have my pink fuzzy idea couch, and if I'm sitting in meditation and a phenomenal idea drops or solution or a book or, you know something, I want to do drops ok a quick snapshot picture of it, and I'll place it on my pink fuzzy couch mentally go mentally, right? It's not really the kind of cool that was, um, and then when I'm done with meditation, I just bring up the couch and anything that's dropped us sitting on there, it's weird the way that the brain works, but we remember things visually that way you do remember them come out a minute surprised because I didn't know if it would work and I found that that's classic instruction is very often let it go, because if it's really that good would come back to you, I found they don't always come back to me. And that's so I kind of like very quickly I'm just like place it there and then bring my mind back to my breath of meditation, whereas I'm doing but as a business tool to levels one, it opens up ideation, creativity, inside base, problem solving on a profoundly different levels to it allows you to zoom, lens out and understand the social dynamic in a room the way that almost nothing else does, and instead of reacting aggressively like this, just something that you don't quite understand, you can pause for a moment assume the lens out, say, what's really happening here really understand the underlying social dynamic, which is never what's on the surface, right what's, right? What is what is driving that that is the big determiner of the outcome? If you're an artist and you're trying to get, you know, like a representation or gallery, or just trying to, like partner, collaborate with somebody you know, like there's, a conversation that happens on the surface but there's the much deeper, nuanced conversation, the social dynamic, and if you don't know how to zoom the ones out, if you don't know how to look for the real conversation, you'll miss it on you miss ninety percent of the opportunity, the possibility, without having any idea why, and so I found that this tool also gives you that ability and it's it's like you're psychic abilities it's a little bit bizarre from a business level it's just my best ideas my best solutions and my best reads of possibility I have come from this practice and when you were an attorney were you meditating know know know that I knew that I knew how to do it so when I ask you something so when you were an attorney and this obviously this illness was building up inside of you had first of all do you think it would have had you been meditating or do you think you would've noticed that something was off earlier on in the game I think both of those would be radically I knew something was off but I ignored it because that's what we did you know we were paid ridiculous amounts of money to do the impossible and not enough time that that was our job right? So I was an excruciating pain for probably the better part of three days but I knew that we were on a deal and I had to hit the deadline that's just what we did um you know, literally like just went straight from there into the hospital um but yeah, I think I would have been much more checked into what was really going on and how bad it really wass but also I would have been able to manage the stress that led to that and that essentially created my immune system in a much different way right? So if you wouldn't imagine back tio like the jonathan fields right who um just got out of the hospital he was about to take a dip front row because he knew this particular route wasn't working and um he hadn't developed a meditation practice yet and he hadn't uh clarified any particular vision um maybe that's like some of the people who are watching right now could you give some advice to that that younger version of jonathan ah lot of advice trying to figure out the one for the people who are sort of shame is for asking for three so don't start with three yeah like first meditate first meditate right um which is what I actually advice my s o I actually advise artists also to to meditate I mean started meditation practice even if it's just two or one minute a day it's fine just start second star to take notes on what lights you up and what shut you down you would burn what lights you up on what burns you out? You have to act on it right away but just start to take notes on it notice right? Just notice you know and literally write it down I mean when I got back to the office because I did go back to the office after I recovered in the hospital I took out a yellow pad and I started writing down the things that I thought I'd want to do with my life that would light me up could I figure out how to make enough money to support my family doing them in new york? So you literally made a list did my office is like a lawyer you'd see me sort of like, smiling and maniacally scribbling and I wasn't doing a lot of work you know that this was like this was, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that because one of my last joo bees I did the same thing I had a secret note pad and I was plotting my exit um I would finish my work I was responsible I finished my work, but then after my work was done, I would start writing down my plan and I had no idea, I mean, my mentor wayne tebow couldn't tell me how is going to make money even though he was his campuses were selling for over a million dollars he didn't have any concrete advice for me so there's something also soothing about starting to build your exit plan, you know totally great and and, you know, there's, I have something I call the beacon theory, okay? What's the beacon beacon theory is essentially that when you exist in the world in a state where you are fully aligned with the fiber of who you are, you're expressing that alignment through however you contribute to the world and through doing that, you're deeply in service off whoever it may be there's a there's, a congruence, there's, a sense of of of alignment that creates a radiance that turns you into a beacon. You start to radiate light, right opportunity start to flow in your dad, and this is where I get, because normally I'm very practical, very signs driven person, right? Right? And I want it, but I've seen this happen now so many times to so many different people from so many wash up, and I'm not also to me, it's like that doesn't mean everything is easy. It doesn't mean that you know whatever you want to do, the world, the universe rises up and you could do anything you want to do, right tackle, or sometimes it does sometimes it's still going to smack you down, right? Sometimes you ole pal, aquila wrote in the alchemist in the classic hero's journey just because you're on the path that's right for you doesn't mean that there won't be challenges and tests. You won't have to find allies, you know it may be a brutal journey to the elixir. Right and you'll need to keep yourself aligned with the truth right? Always right and there'll be a lot of tests along the way a lot of people think that because it's not easy it's not right and and that just it knocks so many people from doing something that's deeply you know what they're about right? You know, but I found that when you really when you set up that level of alignment when you become a beacon a structure rated on that level um no matter what challenges you face um you face them with greater grace and equanimity um on dh the world eventually does start to circle around to support you and to enable how did you see evidence of that when you made this shit happened for you because you you made a drastic shit. Yeah. So I have, like I've started growing a soul the number of companies now and people tend to come with me from place to place. I mean, we just read a two hundred fifty person event um a couple of months back we louis took over summer camp for kids um and turn it into, like maker and entrepreneur camp for adults. It was the most astonishing thing, but what was really cool for may is that my wife is a director of camp she's in and we're in business together um but we brought together a team to facilitate this entire experience and the core members of that team were many of the people who were core members of my team a dozen years ago two businesses to go three businesses ago so one of the beautiful things that I found is when you have that sense of congregants and alignment and service um and an expression that people come to you um, people I think you have the beacon is about radiating by it and people want to be in the presence of light does that mean that I have it all time? Of course not you like I mean, you cranky something yeah, I'm an idiot I'm out of a line man I screw up, I don't exercise I do write like no world human, right? We're all along past somewhere and we go back we go forward, right? But what I find is that the times where things really go the best were the most grace where I'm living the best life is when I can set up that alignment right and surround yourself with port of people and yeah and that you share your value found lee easier when you're in that state because those people want to be around you, right? So we've talked about meditating we've talked about sketching out your exit plan or maybe it's not your exit plan, maybe it's just a list of what lights you up noticing what lights you up in? What actually, one thing is that I always say justice is this person does this environment does this project? Does it? Is it giving you energy, or is it seemed to take it away? Or is it leaving you flat? And if it's not giving you energy, it's timeto like all of it, let me throw in a third one, which is, um, maybe a little bit unusual because I'm sure I've got a ton of amazing, amazing stuff here, but this is something I'm sensitive, which is under the context of self awareness understand your social orientation and build your work process around it, so it could be a concrete example of what that means introvert or extra bird. So a lot of us saying that an extroverted is like a raging person at a party and the interest and an anti social hermit curmudgeon who hates people right? It couldn't be less true. So so susan kane is a friend mine who with this beautiful book called quiet, which is a powerful, powerful exploration of introverts and a lot of artists, a lot of very famous letter, very successful artists were deeply introverted introverted is not about whether you have social capability it's about what fills you up, what empties you out right, simon injury fundamentally I love to be on stage would put me in front of a thousand people on the stage and I'm the happiest person in the world for an hour but when I'm done I don't want to work the room I need to go walking solitude to recover yes I understand I love it but on energy at the end of yes I understand you know so I re fuelled by being alone over the small group of people wanted to people right? You know that when you met scott you know we had there were like seven or eight of us, you know and we close down a restaurant with a couple of bottles of wine and it was this beautiful small, intimate conversation you have an evening where you really connected yeah and that's you know, so but we don't think about when we're creating our work context or work float or social orientation, whether the place that we work is going to empty us out or fill us up, you know? So so I didn't meditating you can notice that much more not absolutely and also we know that I mean everybody everybody who's watching this you know, whether you get filled up by people or whether you get emptied out by people it's just a matter of like saying ok, that actually matters in a really big level matters in a really big way because it's your life force is either leaking out or your life forces is being powered on right so if you have you know if you're working on a project if you're working on a show if you're trying to write a book you know then and you know that being constantly socializing with a lot of people empties you out don't do it you know I just finished turned into management for book a couple of weeks ago and the last two months if you emailed me you've got a message that basically said I'm in a cave leave me alone I'm honored you emailed back you wantto threepio because I know that about myself I know that I have to preserve all of my energy for a really fierce creative deadline and I'm also like because I lean towards the end just introverted side of the spectrum preserving and then regling filling the reservoir means that I need to be really selectively social in order to honor that right? So a lot of what you're talking about is just basic self management really you know like it's this is this is this is important to you as the creator as the artist you are the factory you are the pr department you are you're all of it so how you are feeling but and your energy level is critical to the operation if weaken you know, go back to this business focus essential that you manage yourself and you're gonna have a fourth one then yeah go ahead. Uh might have for yeah don't work. Oh yeah that's a good idea liv drank like a sow but I don't believe in writer's block I don't either I don't believe that a lot I don't believe in any kind of block anyway when you when you can't figure out what to put somewhere right the problem is not that I feel like you're not getting a painter you're not a good enough writer you don't just where people go so let's meet just break this down for a minute because this is important because I hear this painter's block writer's block and it's b s and really is b s and um it's you you can talk about what? Tara, I want you to talk about how you get past a stumbling block but I just want to share for a moment. What I do is I will put my painting overalls on, I'll put the paint out and I'll get ready to pay and if I still don't feel like it, I'm allowed to check out but just showing up and being prepared, the likelihood is I'm probably gonna paint something it's probably going to be great or it's gonna be okay all right she's showing you just you know, making a discipline out of it and also being willing to quit right being willing to quit and go have a nice cream column right? I mean, I find that if for some reason I can't the words aren't just screaming to get out of me and onto a page the problem is because I stopped living prom is all I'm doing is working so I don't have anything was throw that said you know, like how vain it is to sit down to write when you have not yet stood up to live that's the problem if you can't write there's something you're not living enough to actually have something to write about if you're writing fiction and you're having trouble writing robert mckee the legendary sword like story girl once said to me we had this great conversation whereas interview I mean it's like you know the fundamental thing that fuels everything for especially for fiction writers and screenwriters is a ruth with ruthless self knowledge you know if you're having an issue writing then you need to go out and understand the world that you're creating the characters that you're creating and yourself on a deeper level you know that's where the work is so so go out and live go deeper into your psyche and go deeper into the world around you and then you will be vibrating you'll be like running that your canvas your computer whatever your medium is your camera let it flow through you and become expressed but we don't do that we just ideas let me work harder if its not coming and I actually I do believe in you know steve press feels resistance but at the same time but I also believe in the fertile void, right? Exactly you know, we were destroying the fertile void right now we're filling every single gap I was at a coffee shop recently and a scan and every single head was down checking cell phone, you know? And the problem is that you know, this was a research in the second book it was really critical is that every good idea that we have happens not when we're trying to get a good idea, but when we struggle with the idea and then we create a pause and the idea drops, the insight based ideation doesn't happen when we're trying to make it happen. It happens when we create space for it to drop that's, why it's called inside because we can't trace on a little thing where it came from, it just comes but it only comes during the pause when we killed the pause we kill the idea, right? And it comes I believe it comes from outside of us, which is and that's what steve, what press field police also way had an interesting conversation cause I don't I don't think I think it's I believe it comes on the outside of us it's the capital and mute yes, even the little and you know we're talking about the exit plan making those less and when you really just have a problem going back and even looking at the list or you know you're really dealing with a great sense of procrastination nation how you overcome that? Um can I um okay saying I don't believe in procrastination either yeah yeah neither is there a reason why procrastination is never about procrastination it's about you? You haven't nailed what you want to be doing yet when you start to key in on the things that like you up, you will not be able to be held down to stop from doing them you're gonna like every free moment that you have you're gonna be working on it, you're gonna be carrying around a little mole skin taking notes you're gonna be stealing moments here and there to do more and more and more of it. So if you're like really procrastinating um it's either abject terror because it is absolutely the thing that you're here to do and you're terrified that it's gonna take you away from the sense of belonging to a current community so maybe that's actually legit um but more often what I found is that it's that, um you're not doing things that genuinely are letting you up um and so here's here's one I'll give you two that's we want tool is hunkered down uh what is it what does they look at the task that's turning west right? What is the smallest deconstructed what five test make up that test what five tests make up that test bite size get it down to something where there's no conceivable rationale for you not doing it you have you know like bj fogg who runs a persuasive technology lab at stanford has a model where he says every behavior is a function of motivation action and a trigger right so break it down so that you have the motivation to do it you actually want to do it and that the behavior the thing that you're procrastinating the actual action is so simple that there's no conceivable way that you couldn't not do it with the greatest of ease right like open the cover of your silly he would say if you want to start running just put your shoes like instead of committing to running two miles commit to running thirty seconds and put your shoes in your outfit like on your bed so the first thing you walk up there you can do it with your eyes closed feel your way out the house run for thirty seconds because in your mind you're like I don't care how bad I feel I can do thirty seconds, come on, right? And then once that becomes ritual behavior, the duration and intensity of the behavior expands organically over time, so focus on minimizing really chunking down the behavior to create the ritual, which turns into a habit, and then the behavior expands organically if in fact, it's a behavior that's meant to expend a lot of people find this it's not I also want to add to that because I think one of the other barriers teo, are let's say, um, creators of procrastination is perfection itis and a lot of artists least who I know and I suffer from the disease might suffer from it also, right when I was painting jean jackets through a number of jean jackets because they weren't perfect, yeah, and how much did that cost in time and money and effort, right? So I would say so if you're delaying what you need to do, ask yourself, are you are you not doing it because it needs to be perfect? Are you willing to do it and have it be messed up? That would be another piece. Yes, so I was in san diego a couple years ago sitting down with bob taylor, who started telling guitars legendary you're making now they hand make hundreds of guitars every day and I was telling it was like, you know, I had this really deep fascination I want to learn how to make a target become a luthier, not professionally, just because I want to work with my hands and build something you do need to work with your hand. I know I do and that's part of what I'm moving towards this year. That's the shift from ceo to creative lead is designed to build around that with with our company now, and I said to him, you know, I was I think I'm just gonna go take a course and these two week courses, I'm just trying to make the schedule. They said here's, what you do go online like today by yourself for five dollars, you tor kid make one horrible guitar next week, I think you learn more doing that, I'm just on the fact that is going to suck, right? Because you'll learn mohr doing that you'll ever learn through that process because you'll understand why things are wrong and then make another one that's kind of that and then making a little bit better. If we look at the greatest artists in the world, they were like, oh, my god, astonishing works of art, and then you look at like, you know, the stuff that they did in their early career and you're like that really like really, really and people pay ungodly amounts of money because it has their name on it, but the truth isthe like that was the early learning process and it's really not good, right? You know, beauty and like incredible works of art, incredible entrepreneurial achievements it's there is a volume element, so back to the chat room yeah, be willing to suck that's the other thing failure to suck for a long time, possibly or on suck occasionally even after even after you've good even, you know, imagine he he really strongly rejects the idea of a style even though if you look at his work, they're very, very clear styles. But he fiercely rejects the idea of a style because he said, you know, every time if I become known as having this style than every client who comes to me it's gonna want to do something in this family's like I want to grow as an artist, right? I'm not statically I don't have this one style for life, so he would eventually he got to a point where it's like people who come to me, you're gonna have to trust that even if it's not in the style that I'm known for it's going to be good it's going to be right now, I'm gonna push myself and he would take work that would allow him to grow beyond and go into that place of uncertainty and I wouldn't necessarily say suck because I don't think anything that glaser does has probably not I mean it's pretty astonishing, but he risks the possibility of not being having that level of mastery in the style that he's built for last x years as he experiments and grows. So you interviewed a number of people in the good life project in a number of them are creatives this's our audience are creatives are there particular up episodes that you recommend they tune into absolute milton nizer blazers wanderley lisa condon has a wonderful san francisco based illustrator debbie millman, who runs a design matters podcast the start of the the branding program at a in new york, um and his ahead of brandy for sterling um yours, of course scott's got, um yeah, I've sat down with a number of bars flash uh rosenberg um wonderful, sort like mixed media artist in new york city and really fun character talks about seeing and curiosity yeah, I love actually love sitting down with artists because it's just so funny and fun to go into the process in their psyche um especially artists who feel like they've they're thriving right? Because so many don't yeah, somebody don't, and what do you see is the fundamental disconnect between artists who were thriving and artists who were not and there's a question a loaded question. But I'm curious well, and we only have a minute. But, uh, what do you think it is? So so they're probably a lot of them, but I think one of the biggest ones is that they're not entitled to thrive. There's think they bought they've bought into this idea that they, if you become mine, actually starving artist, you're a sellout. Being commercially successful and being a beautiful, exquisite fully express orders is putting beauty into the world means you're selling out b s it's complete b s and I think all the work we've done so far in this course proves that everything we're going to create here is grounded in our deep. We held values and our purpose. We're not selling out at all. Everyone here is coming from their core truth. Love it. Yeah, gosh, you're so smart, you know yourself.