Living the Good Life

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I talk health, beauty and personal development with some of the coolest people in the world. And I give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel your health and your life. And today's show is all about how to live a good life and who doesn't want that? And I've got the expert on living a good life. He's actually dedicated his life to learning this and developing a framework for it. I mean, what a great job he has. I was like, how do you explain to your parents what you do? It is Jonathan Fields of the Good Life Project. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He is on a quest to inspire possibility and he lives in New York City with his wife and kid. He's an entrepreneur and award winning author. He founded mission driven media and education venture Good Life Project where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected and vital lives. He has a top rated podcast I've been on. I had the good fortune to go hang out with him, hang out at his house and do that. It's, it's fantastic, as is this book.

How to Live a Good Life.

Soulful story, surprising science and practical wisdom. And he's had millions of downloads, by the way, on his podcasts and views in more than 150 countries. And he's got a great group of events, trainings and courses. So this is definitely one you're going to want to pick up and he is going to share with you. I'm not going to give it away, but just some really simple things like what I like to think of as hacks that can help you kind of shift into living a good life. He's been doing the research and he's going to share the shortcuts with you. So today's guest is Jonathan Fields. All right, so let's do it. Jonathan Fields, welcome to the show. I am so glad you're here with me today.

I'm so glad to be here with you.

So you have literally written the book on living a good life.

I know quite a title, right? How to Live a Good Life. That's the name of the book.

And there's so many questions that come up, like what is a good love? But let's start before we get into that. What's a block from someone living a good life? What's a big barrier that would stop someone from living a good life?

Being reactive and mindless. Probably the single biggest thing is that people wake up in the morning and from the minute they open their eyes to the minute they go to bed, they're basically responding to everybody else rather than being intentional and choosing what they want. And that means they fill every waking moment with stuff that just doesn't matter a whole lot to them and that crowds out the space for the stuff that does.

So reactive. And I see in your books. I got your book.

I got lucky, I got your book early.

And I know you have this whole reactive life syndrome that you talk in there. What do you do about it?

Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of things you want to do. One is really start to develop a daily mindset practice and a daily mindfulness practice. And we've heard that term all over the place. Right. Mindfulness is the hot buzzword, but there's a reason for it. It's the hot new thing that's been around for 2,000 years because it.

Really Good one. Yeah.

It's bringing us back to the stuff that really matters. And the beautiful thing is in the book I actually lay out literally a really simple script where you can sit and every morning for just a couple of. And we even have a resource part of it also where you can download. I have a whole bunch of audio guided ones because a lot of people don't want to actually just do it themselves in the beginning. And the magic is that it actually doesn't take a lot of work. The instructions are really simple. And over time, it starts to actually just drop you into this place where you become more and more aware of what you're doing, what you're not doing, and it gives you the chance to start to make choices more.

And it's just getting used to doing that as your daily morning habit.

Yeah, absolutely. I could throw out one other if you want. I know we're.

Yes, we want. We want that.

Yeah. So there's a really fun way to sort of turn technology on its head also. Most people look at technology as a way to sort of. It cultivates mindlessness, right? You're just constantly checking non stop. It's like addictive and mindless and it takes you out of the things that matter. But you can actually turn that on its head. Take your mobile device, open up whatever app you use that will set a vibration, alert or an alarm. And then what I want you to do is every hour or so, just set it to vibrate and make sure it's a vibration, like a couple of dots or something where you know that this is what it's for. Keep it in your pocket and then you're the only one who'll know. Every time it vibrates, that's your signal to take about 15 seconds, pause, take a nice breath in, notice where your mind is. Is it spinning out ahead of you or mired in regret? Bring it back to the moment and just look around and appreciate what's happening right there, maybe who you're with also.

Now, I know you've been doing this Good Life project because that's how I met you. You've been doing this for years and years. This has been your thing and I've got to backpedal because what is a Good Life? And you've interviewed so many people on it.

Yeah, right, yeah. No, I've been following this question for decades and it's been my actual vocation for about five years now with Good Life Project. And I've had an opportunity to sit down with so many amazing people, you included, by the way.

Thank you.

Who've got so much stuff dialed in that I see a lot of patterns. And what I start to see were these three things that bubbled up and I call them the Three Good Life buckets. So one is vitality, one is connection, and one is contribution. Vitality is simply about optimizing your state of mind and body. Connection is about cultivating deep and meaningful relationships. And contribution is about the way you bring yourself your gifts, your strengths, your beliefs, your values to the world. So if you want to sort of live your best life, a good life is doing a little something every day to fill those buckets until they're pretty close to topped off and then just keeping them full. So it's more of a practice than a place that you arrive at.

Well, and I love it too, because it's just simple. There's three things. You just focus on those three things and you brought up one that I think is probably having experience. Now I'm going through this thing with my son with the brain injury. And the biggest challenge that we're having is one that I think a lot of people are having. It's a challenge of being disconnected, of feeling isolated. So I love that you brought that up. What are you doing for your connection bucket?

It's a huge thing. And when we talk about connection, most people focus on love, friendship, family and things like that. So let's go somewhere a little bit different with this because one of the things that actually moves the needle the most, but people don't focus on is belonging, actually finding a like minded community. And now that can be three people or it can be 3,000 people. But what you want to look for are a group of others who see the world similarly to you. They have shared values, they have shared beliefs. There's a sense of safety in the environment that's created. And sometimes what actually really adds to it too is that you all like to participate in similar activities or the pursuit of something that kind of sparks you or lights you up from the inside out when you find that. What we know is that there's tremendous research on belonging and we are wired. We literally have to belong. If we don't, we not only wither physically and psychologically, but we actually don't think the way that we need to think. Our creativity, our ability to innovate really plummets. So it's a really critical thing. So one of the most powerful things you can do is find those people where you have a sense of belonging. And if you can't find them, then create it.

Sounds like my mastermind group.

Exactly. And that's a big part of why people do things like that, because that's where they can find those people. And all of a sudden they're like, oh my God, these are my people.

Yes, it is so important. And you know, you think about it because so many of us, you know, I hang out with all entrepreneurs, but for so many of us, until I started to find the groups, I was hanging out by myself and most of us were. And then all of a sudden we get together like, ah, wow. Other people that think like I think so it does make a big difference. What about I want to know about your buckets is what I want to know. Jonathan. So what about your contribution bucket? Like what are your top things there?

Yeah, so one of the things that I did a couple years back was I took two different strengths based assessments. One was the one that came out of a lot of research from the University of Pennsylvania, the VIA Strengths Indicator. And then the classic one that a Lot of people use the strengths finder and pretty much no matter what, the top of mind comes out with some blend of love of learning, creativity and appreciation of beauty and things like that. So what I do is I try and spend as much of my time every day learning as much of my time every day, sort of like problem solving and creating new things. So I love to take really complex problems like, oh, let's say how to live a good life and then get really creative and see if I can distill something really complex into ideas and instructions and a process that's so simple that it's nearly impossible not to do it. So that's what a lot of my work is about these days. And you know, well, it's a lot of work work and I put in a lot of hours. I feel like I'm pulled from ahead. I feel like I would wake up in the morning and the fact that this is actually my quote J O B is this incredible bonus for me because I would do it even if I had to pay for it.

Do you have to explain to people when they say, now what do you do for a living? And you say, well, I figure out how to have a good life.

Yeah. Obviously my answer changes depending on who I'm talking to and where it is pretty dramatically considering I'm 50 and most of my friends my age still can't understand what I do or how they glitz.

I bet I was like going, God, I'd love to try to explain that one to my mom. My mom has no idea what I do. And then if I said that, she'd go, huh, right. I imagine you have a lot of people who want your job too. Now, what about vitality? So what do you do? What's your vitality bucket?

Yeah. So for me, really the core of my vitality. And I talk about vitality, I'm talking about mindset and your physical body. And I don't see you and I are so much aligned on this. There's no separation there. It's this crazy fallacy to talk about your mindset, your state of mind. Mind and your state of body as two separate things. It's one universal feedback mechanism. So for me, the real center is meditation and movement and my mindset practice. Every day I roll out of bed and just about the first thing I do is I sit and I have a 25 minute mindfulness practice first thing in the morning. From there I have a yoga mat that I actually have rolled out the evening before. I also know that if I tell Myself, Well, I'm going to go and do a 30 or 60 or 90 minute practice in the morning. I'm probably not going to it. So my commitment is actually, I literally, I sit for a short meditation, about 25 minutes. That may sound long for a lot of people, actually, but I've been doing it for years. I'm very comfortable with that. I've worked up to it over time. And then I roll onto my yoga mat and my commitment is really simple. It's about three minutes and I say, okay, I'm going to do a little bit of breathing and about three sun salutations. And what I find is that. But that commitment is so small and so easy. There's no way that I'm not going to do it because it's just I can feel like I've done those three things and I've succeeded. But what inevitably happens is I start to do it and then I start to move a little and I feel good. I'm like, you know, I'll do a little bit more and a little bit more, a little bit more. And I find myself moving into a fuller practice because I've kind of like, I've just gotten myself to the mat. And for most people, that's actually the bigger barrier. Once they're there, then they'll do everything I had in a very past life. I don't even know if I think you know this about me. I owned a fitness center. And how did you.

No, I did not know this about you.

Yeah, and I started out in the business as a personal trainer.

Oh my gosh. You knew that I was a personal trainer too.

I did, yeah, of course, of course. So I was working out with clients outside in Central Park, New York, and I remember showing up at 6am on the corner of 72nd and 5th Avenue one day and my client came walking up and he started cracking up and I'm like, what are you laughing at? He says, you know, I have to tell you, you could pretty much go home right now. He's like, the only reason I really pay you is because I know that it's going to force me to show up at 6:00am he's like, once I'm here, I'm fine, I'll run. But it's the showing up that's actually the most challenging part.

It's so funny you say that because I had one client who literally said, just come over, make sure I get on the treadmill and you can leave. And I'm like, this is like, wow, this is an easy job, I should get more clients like you. That's mentioned meeting a client in Central Park. And you know, you live in New York City, not the Mecca for being able to get out and, you know, get out and really into nature. Although there is that beautiful park. But you talk about nature and how important it is. So why is that and what do you do with it? And are you out in the park a lot?

Yeah, I do. And the part of the city that I live in, two blocks in one direction is the Hudson river, and then three blocks in the other direction is Central Park. And that's very intentional. So for me, I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, whenever I was stressed or just fragile or I just needed to chill, I would either go walk by the water, which was down at the end of one of my blocks, or at the end of another street. I lived on a corner, was woods, was just nature. And those became the places where I just knew intuitively. I would really kind of reset and everything would come back to center. What's interesting is later in life and especially researching this book, I found out there's actually tremendous research on how being in nature, especially in trees and forests, changes our physiology and our psychology in pretty profound ways. Everything from being really powerful as something to work with, anxiety and depression and anger, to reducing pain and all sorts of disease risk and stuff like that. It can be something as regular as going out and walking in the woods, which I try and actually go out into Central park pretty close to every day, or even something as small as having a plant inside in the space that you're working on on a daily basis. And having that in view is enough to make a difference.

So you want hear something super interesting. So my son with the tbi, of course one of the biggest things that happens with brain injuries is they get super depressed and anxious and I mean to the point, like suicidally super depressed and anxious. And one of the things that that Grant started doing, and now I'm realizing it's just self medication, is he started getting very into hydroponics and he now we like. I came back to the house that he lives in with my ex husband and it is like there are plants everywhere. There's the fish tanks with the plants growing and plants outside. And I just kind of looked at this and went, oh my gosh, that's so funny. I'm like, okay, breathe. That's okay. It's just like, you know, but it literally, it's like plants, like the plants are taking over the House. But it is what he's doing that is calming him. Yes.

Yeah. And it's the type of thing that we all know intuitively, like Thoreau's. We go walking in the woods. That's where so many of us touch stone. What I found really fascinating is that there's actually substantial research to validate that now.

Well, there you go. He just knew that intuitively and is living that so interesting. All right, I'm gonna throw a curve ball at you. This will be an easy one, though. The one thing you do every day that makes the biggest difference in your life.

Spend time with my family. My wife and daughter. They're my everything. I love what I do. I have a great team. I'm also very fortunate. It's funny, my voice cracks when I talk about them because it means that much to me.

Now we just love you even more. It's like, okay. It's like the entire audience just melte.

Yeah. They're my world. They really are. Everything I do, I do because it allows me to just spend more time in grace with them.

Okay. Jonathan, you're so awesome. We just love you so much. Thank you for joining me. Now people want to go deeper, and they want to know how to live the good life. So where shall they go?

They can go to goodlifeproject.com if they want to actually check out the first copy of the book and just read it for free. They can go to goodlifeproject.com or you can also find it all over the place.

All over the place. And you will want to have this. This is one you definitely want for your success library. So Again, that is goodlifeproject.com and Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today. Now, after the break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question comes from John in Newark. And John asks jj, I know I need to be exercising, which I haven't done, I admit it, for years, but I have very little time. So what's the most important thing I can do? All right, so actually, I'M gonna give you a formula. And if I had to pick just one thing, one thing, John, for you to do, I would have you do what I call burst training. I like to say burst to blast fat, because it's going to help build muscle, raise growth hormone, help your body handle stress better, and you can do it in a very short amount of time. But I'm going to backtrack a bit, because what I'd like you to think of first is I'd love you to go get one of those trackers, because what you measure, you can improve. So, you know a Fitbit or one of those, put it on and just start taking any opportunity you can to move more. Take the stairs, park farther away, you know, anything that you can throughout the day. And you're going to record this because you will find that just by paying attention and measuring it and recording it, you'll actually start doing more. So that's step one is just to move more. Now, moving doesn't count as exercise. In order for it to count as exercise, you have to get hot, sweaty, and it should hurt a little bit. And so we're going to move next into burst style training. And burst style training is where you move as much of your body as possible for 30 to 60 seconds and then you actively recover for twice as long. Let me explain. That would be like if you're out for a little walk, you would run for 30 to 60 seconds, then you'd walk it off for twice as long and you'd run again. If you're going up the stairs, maybe you're taking two stairs at a time or running the stairs up for 30 to 60 seconds, then you walk back down them for twice as long. You can do this on a bike, you can do this in the pool, you can do this running stairs, you can do it doing jumping jacks. There's a variety of ways to do it, but it's just the concept of moving as much of your body as possible. Going all out. You shouldn't be able to keep. Keep going past that 30 to 60 seconds and then recover is twice as long actively to help buffer the lactic acid. And you want to do that to accumulate four to eight total minutes of bursting. And you want to do that three days a week. So the step one is we're going to get you to move more. And then step two is you're going to move into doing burst style training. Now, in both the Sugar Impact diet and the Virgin Diet online programs, I then take you into doing resistance training and what Jonathan just talked about there. Moving into some yoga flow stuff. But let's just start with getting you moving, tracking it and measuring it, starting to move more where you can and then adding in the burst training and then we can take it from there. Let's just start small. Remember, little hinges swing big doors now. If you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. I love hearing from you. And one more way I'd love to hear from you. I would so appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch and be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. Alrighty. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you to live courageously. Show up. Step up. You are stronger than you think.

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