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

The dig is a method to unearth that one word that is your entire purpose. And I think of as a frequency. It's not so much of a descriptor word. It's more about a feeling, a way that we carry ourselves through the world. And also the thing that we're here to learn and also the thing we're here to teach. Usually people don't like their words. Usually when they like it, when it starts to land, it's like, it's almost like it hits a little too close. So that's kind of part of the process. So there's a version of you that you already know is real. You can feel it, you know, the way you want to spend your time, the kinds of problems that let you at the moments when you look back and think, that was really me at my truest and yet, and yet most of us spend years, sometimes decades circling that person without being able to live that life, that truest self-life, let alone even name what's at the center of it. Well, what if you could distill that essence, your essence into a single word that became kind of like the unlock key for your most authentic real self in all parts of life? That's the provocative claim that today's guest is making. And she's backing it up with a process she has developed. She calls the dig that she has conducted over many years with over a thousand people to help them figure out their defining word and then build everything from their business to careers and relationships around it. And what really surprised me is also a second statement that she shared with me that 100% of people who come into this process thinking they already know their word, they're wrong. Every single time in her experience, the real word, it lives kind of like one layer deeper. Erin Weed is a speaker coach and keynote speaker. She's a creator of something she calls the dig, which is this provocative kind of purpose excavation method that she has spent 13 years refining with founders and leaders and change makers across every stage of life. She has spent over a decade as a head speaker coach for Ted Expolder, helping people distill enormous messages down to the single truest thing that they had to say. And her new book, Just One Word, the surprisingly simple method to discover your purpose and unleash your power, walks you through the same process that she used in this conversation. But this conversation, today's episode is very, very different because in this episode, Erin ran the full dig on me live from the beginning of my life story to the moment that my word landed towards the end of our conversation. You'll hear how themes surface, how clusters form and what it feels like when, when one word that has been kind of running in the background for your entire life finally has a name. By the end of this hour, you'll have a clear picture of how to do this yourself. And you'll know what to look for in your own story. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. And the place I want to start with, Erin, is the very beginning of how this method came to be. And if you're wondering what my word is, by the way, stay tuned. We'll jump in there right after this short break. Welcome to Reynisches Revier, Germany's most exciting investment hub where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Reynisches Revier is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at BePart of It dot nrw. So I am excited to dive into this thing that you call the date. You and I have been talking about this for years. We go way back and I've heard you've created this. You have done it with everyone from founders to neighbors to celebrities. And it's this process which has been just like profoundly revealing. So and it's now sort of like the focus of your new book, Just One Word. So what is the dig? The dig is a method to unearth that one word that is your entire purpose. And I think that's incredibly important because in a world that is just so busy and overwhelming and we're always seeking, it's just so nice to be able to land on that one word, which I really think of as a frequency. It's not so much of a descriptor word. It's more about a feeling, a way that we carry ourselves through the world. And also the thing that we're here to learn and also the thing we're here to teach. So the idea is you distill it down to a single word. We do. And the way we do it is we go backwards in order to go forwards. So we look in your history to figure out your future. OK, I'm going to ask you a lot more about the process in a moment. But why do we care? Like, why does it matter that we actually know this? I think purpose is incredibly important. And all the research shows that purpose is just a thing that affects your mental health, it affects your quality of life, affects everything. And when we know that one word, we can start aligning with our purpose. We can align our actions. We can align our decisions. We can align our messages. So knowing that one word is I see it as like a it's almost like a North Star. It's something to guide us. What happens if you don't know it? What happens if you don't know it? What a good question. Well, I think you still can live a great life for starters. I just feel like it's a tool. It's just an extra tool to give us more clarity, because I find that when you're more clear that you can feel more confident about the life you live. And when you feel more confident, you can start connecting with more people and be more connected to yourself. OK. So you have been developing this process for how long? Thirteen years. Yeah. What was the origin of it, actually? The origin was actually Ted Exboulder. And previously, I was a professional speaker. I owned a company called Girls Fight Back, which taught women's safety and self-defense classes at high schools and colleges across the world. There were more like big seminars and assemblies. And after I sold that company, I started working with Ted Exboulder to coach their speakers. And what I found was that people were so overwhelmed by these big messages they had. They had so much data, so many ideas. They were having a really difficult time distilling it all down. And so I would basically just tell people, tell me everything. And before long, I would just be sticky noting. The wall would be completely covered. And what I was looking for was those one word themes. How does this all tie together? And so once I found these one word themes, I ultimately distilled it down to just one word for the entire message. And once the person got to it, they were like, yes, that's me. And then surprise, surprise, those ended up being viral TED Talks because they felt so clear and confident in what they were putting out to the world. So I mean, it sounds like it's important not just because it tells us more about who we are and why we're here to a certain extent, but also in terms of communicating that to the world. It sounds like then you can use it as a foundation to really figure out what is the story that I'm telling. And that's whether it's a personal relationship, a job, whatever it is in your life. Yeah. I mean, I love a good naval gaze and just doing the deep personal development work. We both have that in common. And there's something so incredibly cathartic, but also an act of service to also share what we discover with the world. And so for me, it feels a little incomplete to just find your word. I also want people to like write about it, talk about it, share about it, build a business around it, build a brand around it. Let's talk process. How does this actually work? The process is very simple. All you have to do is show up and be you and tell me your whole life story and how many times is somebody's that sounds easy. I mean, I hate to steal your job. It takes like a week. Surprisingly, I found that the average person's life story when given no prompt to end is about 90 minutes. People talk for about an hour and a half about their life story. And then at that point, they usually feel about complete. And so in that life story, I look for these one word themes that keep coming up. When you're a child, when you're a young adult, when you're all the way up to present day, and as I find these one word themes, they all come together to be an operating system. 10 words or less. That operating system is exactly how you tick. It is your operating manual for yourself. It's also your core message. If you're a person who is a speaker and author. And so within this operating system, there's one word that's in charge. So if you think of the operating system like a sports team of you, the dig word is the captain. As long as we've known each other. We have never sat down and actually I don't know my word. Yeah. Well, maybe we should figure it out. I'm gay. You're down. Yeah. Well, you know, I never leave the house without sticky notes and a Sharpie. So here we are. Okay. Okay. I'm nervous. So Jonathan Fields is letting me interview him. So like, let's just like allow that in for a moment. Well, first of all, thank you. I always like to thank people that sit down in these chairs and are willing to share because that's, I just say it as a very sacred thing, you know, to share your past. And could we begin from the beginning? Yeah. I mean, I'm sweating already. So let's just do it. Well, I'm actually curious. Like what is, what is the source of tension for you? Like in this moment? Um, I don't know where we're going to go. Okay. Do you have a word in mind? Like, do you feel like I know my word? I feel like I probably do. Interesting. Um, but I kind of don't want to say it because I want to just see where this takes us. Okay. Well, let's check in at the end. I have actually found that he's startling 100% of people who thought their word was one thing were wrong. Interesting. And I don't need to be right or anything. So it's not about that, but it's just usually someone's dig word is actually on the other side of the word that they actually thought it was. It's like just the one layer deeper. And that is the magic. Okay. I'm gay. I'll keep it in the back of my mind. Okay. Sound good. And suspend judgment. Yeah. Sound good. Sounds good. Um, okay. Well, I'm going to be sticky noting. I'm just going to be writing things down. Um, I'm going to be putting up some words that start popping up as we go along. So don't be distracted by them. And, um, maybe even everybody who's listening or watching can be kind of thinking of words too. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. By the way, um, for anyone who is listening and not watching, um, if Aaron puts up sticky notes or anything like that, that she references, we will take a couple of screen shots and, um, and, and create a little link that we can point you to. So you can see whatever it is that we're talking about. Yeah. And I'll also say I'm out loud too. Cool. All right. Great. So we begin at the beginning. Okay. What's your birthday and where were you born? Um, so born in New York city, um, in November 1965. Mm hmm. What was your family like? Um, mom, dad, older sister by two years. And to extent that I can really remember anything from that long ago, just very neighborhood-y. Like what would be the words you'd use to describe it? Close knit. Hmm. I feel like we knew our neighbors in the building. Yeah. How do you think people would describe you growing up? Always creative. Let's fast forward a bit. So you grow up. Did you stay in that same place? No, we ended up moving out to Long Island and eventually to Port Washington, which is the town actually that was the real, um, East egg from the Great Gatsby. It's actually based on a real town. Really? Little peninsula, egg-shaped peninsula on Long Island on the water. So I grew up basically, yeah, in a small water town just outside of New York. How did that shift your life? Um, I mean, I loved it. I love water, which is one of my biggest sadnesses. Like I don't have a lot of sadnesses, but like living in Colorado. Yeah. Not being near large bodies of water, I feel it. The end of my block was a bay and I would just ride the bike down there and kind of climb up on top of the lifeguard's house and sit. That was my place. What does, what does water do for you? It lets me, just let's my whole body exhale. My mind exhale also. Yeah. It's like, makes everything as okay as it can be. Hmm. Do you find that you tend to hold your inhales a lot and so that it's a good reminder to complete the process? I think there were times in my life that I did. I don't feel it. That's me now. Yeah. Does exhale to you mean like release? Yeah. It's like my whole nervous system down regulates. Okay. Yeah. Like my heart rate slows, my mind stills, my body relaxes. Mm hmm. What did you want to be when you wanted, when you grew up? Um, when I was younger, I wanted to be an architect. Actually. Hmm. And yeah, I just always had this impulse to build stuff. Mm hmm. So the idea of building cool structures. Mm hmm. Was something that, that was really cool. Hmm. Are there certain kind of structures that you were pulled to? Houses. Yeah. Yeah. Just like really cool houses. What about houses versus like big skyscrapers or something? Um, I don't know. There's something kind of, uh, cool about, I think, just the scale of a house. And also I think I associated skyscrapers with being sort of industrial and monolithic, whereas like in a home, you could get really creative and also talk to like one person or two people and really figure out like, what can we make that will just make their eyes pop. Hmm. And make them walk into it and have the same feeling that I had when I was by water. Yeah. What is that feeling if you had to put it in one word, that eyes pop? Delight. Delight. Hmm. What does that word mean to you? It means that you're surprised in a way that makes your entire system light up. Hmm. That is a great word. It's a good word. Yeah. Yeah. Like I feel like we- Stephanie is sort of like the queen of that. Yes. For those who don't know, Stephanie is my wife. She is. She's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. And um, creating experiences of delight. Hmm. Okay. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Welcome to Rheinisches Revier, Germany's most exciting investment hub, where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinisches Revier is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at BePart of It dot nrw. So keep us going through your timeline here. Yeah. Um, so that was me like teens. Um, probably spend a lot of time exploring art when I was a kid also. Mm-hmm. Um, I was always doing something with my hands. I was always making stuff with my hands, building stuff, drawing stuff, painting. Um, taught myself to paint when I was middle school or high school. Mm-hmm. And um, just painted on a really regular basis. My mom was also a potter when I was a kid. So the basement of our house was a studio, you know, with like three electric wheels, a massive old kick wheel with like a 200 pound concrete flywheel in the corner. Kilns, off-property shit, like a giant literally walking gas-fired kiln that would take a day to fire. So I was around that energy all the time. And I grabbed the corner of that studio and just set up my own little mini improvised painting studio and I would just completely lose myself there. What is your criteria for making building, creating? What do you mean? Does it have to be? Like do you have, when you set out to make, build your create, is there something you're striving for? Mm-hmm. Honestly, I think it's less about being about, being able to say that I've done the thing and it's more about doing the thing. Mm-hmm. So it's the process versus the result? Yeah, 100%. You know, I get, like, I mean, you know, like later in life, I've written a whole bunch of books and I'll get the box of books in the mail from the publisher, as you may have gotten recently yourself and I would just let it sit for weeks and Stephanie is like, what's wrong with you? Like, you just got the book, like it's here, it's hardcover, it's like, don't you want to see it? I'm like, yeah, sure. For me, it was a process of creating it that was like where the magic was. And it's pretty much always, I mean, am I proud of the things that I've created when I can look back and say, I've been able to come close to closing the gap between taste and expression? Yeah, that makes me proud. But at the end of the day, it's not why I do it. That's just a signal that like I'm getting closer to actually doing what I came to do. Okay. So what did you end up going to college for? Screwing around, majored in not attending classes. I was a horrible student. But I was building stuff from the day that I was there. I started a business, sound lighting, mobile disc jockey, and we grew it into like one of the businesses that was really sort of like the main player in that field, like at all the parties, all the concerts. And building that business and then being out and DJing at clubs until three, four in the morning was most of my life in college. We had massive speaker stacks and equipment in like the house that I lived in. And I would just play with it all day long and then go out and get paid to play with it all night long, which led me to my senior year where I didn't have enough credits to graduate. So I had to take 21 credits a semester and begged my way into a one credit class on earthquakes just to be able to get out. But I was building. Like I was in that case, and like music has been a persistent passion of mine also in the earliest days. I played guitar really horribly for most of my life, but I just love any kind of good music. And you've even made guitars, right? I have, yeah. Okay. All right. So it feels like a lot of the words that you're talking about, they're very like in the moment. Like have you ever struggled in your life of just like not being in the moment? Constantly. Anxiety or just future thinking past stuff? Yeah, less anxiety, but constantly future thinking. I am perpetually living in the future. Not in a bad way. Like I'm not spinning or fretting about it. I'm not weirdly wired, not so much in a doom and gloom way, but more in a possibility way. So like I live there because I'm constantly exploring what I think is going to be coming and seeing like how I might be able to play with that to leverage it, to turn it into something. And to be to a certain extent ahead of the curve. And that has led me a number of times actually to be too far ahead of the curve. Where I would bring something in life that was a little bit before its time. Can you give me an example? I mean you could argue actually at the yoga business that we created in New York City was a bit ahead of its time. We were trying to, I launched the yoga studio living on the eve of 9-11 in New York City. And but the ultimate goal was to build the first ever national roll-up business of franchise that was National Chain. And probably I just, I came to realize that it wasn't necessarily a business that I wanted to be and it wasn't a business I wanted to build. Somebody else did. And but they did it differently and it was a couple of years before yoga hit sort of like a level of mass appeal and understanding and was embraced on a level where you didn't really have to convince people that there was something interesting here. You basically just had to open it where it didn't exist. And so it was a different experience for me. I mean I ended up selling that business seven years later. But yeah and there just probably a whole bunch of ideas that I've had over time where it's sort of like world wasn't quite ready. Okay but you didn't start off with this yoga studios right? You had a bit of a life before that. Can you tell me? Yeah so after college, sold the business and then I went back to law school. Not necessarily because I had an interest in being a lawyer. But because I had screwed off so much in college that I was, it's just really curious what I was truly intellectually capable of. I want to challenge myself and I want to challenge myself in a way where I thought whether I actually practiced or not, it would give me a set of skills that would be relevant to almost anything that I did. So I sold my car, did all the other things, moved into the city and spent three years in law school. And thankfully I was the kid who basically showed up and said like I'm here with a mission. I wasn't there to just delay my life for three years, which a lot of people do with grad school. I was there because I wanted to actually challenge and see what I was capable of doing. I got really fortunate, I worked really hard and I graduated with a lot of credibility in my class and ended up then working for the federal government for three years. The SEC. I also working in a massive federal bureaucracy with just crazy politics and crazy inefficiency as somebody who likes to just get things done. It was maddening. So I left and I went into a mega firm in New York then, switching sides. Incredible firm, all the prestige you could ever want, the track that everybody would want coming out of law school. Incredible salary for somebody who didn't know what he was doing. And I showed that every day that I was there. And I ended up in the hospital because we were on a deal where basically I barely went home for three weeks and my immune system shut down. A huge infection blossomed in the middle of my body and ate a whole through my intestines from the outside end. So yeah, hit the button on the deal, ignored the pain because that's what we do. And then pretty much went straight to the hospital. Thankfully, surgery was successful, but it really made me rethink what am I doing with this one wild and precious life as Mary Oliver would say. And it was clear that it wasn't going to be that. And that sent me slowly back into the world of entrepreneurship and at that point, movement and fitness. Because I've always had a deep connection to just sort of like somatic expression to the connection between mind and body. And I wanted to learn that industry. I wanted to understand what was working and what wasn't working. So talked my way into a job as a personal trainer making $12 an hour, which I was okay with because I was getting paid something just to learn an entirely new industry. After like that career, that had to be a wild experience. Yeah, my biggest fear was that like one of my clients or colleagues from Law Review and Law School would like see me with a client like stretching them out like, you know, on the grass in Central Park wearing tights and running shoes in the middle of the day and be like, oh, what a shame. Like what a fall from grace. But very quickly, I ended up building my own business. And within a couple of years, like those very people that whose judgment I was concerned about were the ones who were reaching out to me to find out how I did what I did. What do you think you figured out that other people didn't? That everything's figure outable. It's like that there's I see it like I'm weirdly wired and then I wake up in the morning and I see possibility. You know, like people see obstacles, people see reasons why not and I see reasons why. And if you know, if almost nobody is doing it, and most people assume that's because it's not doable, I look for the one or two who are as proof that it is possible and ask like, what's my contribution? What's my flavor that's not being done? And it yeah, I'm weirdly wired for possibility. I don't. Yeah. So that wasn't something that you just decided positive thinking and no, I mean, no, I mean, I've been I've been around a lot of anxiety my whole life. It's it doesn't it's not my default. My default is really looking at uncertainty. I feel very uncomfortable with high stakes uncertainty. It affects me physically and psychologically, which is why I've studied a lot and built practices to be okay doing it because I know I have to be in that space to do the thing I'm here to do. Like to live in a place of possibilities also to live in a place of uncertainty. Yeah. You know, there's there's no separating the and so but but being in that space is really deeply unsettling for most people, including me. Yeah. Especially as the stakes rise. So I've had to to learn how to be okay there. What advice do you give people who are wildly uncomfortable with it? People tend to have three reactions to it. One, as soon as they feel it, they'll either speed forward to try and get through whatever the moment is as quickly as possible. So they can just stop feeling it. They'll backpedal to pull themselves out of it enough so that they stop feeling it or they'll sit in stasis. They'll become paralyzed. They just don't know what to do and they're afraid to go back. They're afraid to move forward. So they just sit and suffer. In my experience, that's probably most people and they don't realize that's actually what's happening. And to me, it's like one approach to Buddhism or one of the sort of core teaching is that life is suffering and I always struggle with it. The way that my mind has come to interpret it is that life is uncertain. That is the only certain thing in life is that it is and will be perpetually uncertain. And a life where you allocate the vast majority of your waking hours to trying to lock down the future to trying to make it certain, which is what almost all of us do, that is suffering. It will always be suffering because it is impossible to do or to have. So to me, I've stopped trying to do that. I've stopped trying to make life as certain as possible. And I've started to equip myself with the practices and skills to let me be as okay as I can in the space of uncertainty as stakes rise. That doesn't mean I always have. But that's the shift in approach that I've taken. And again, because the other truth is that, like I said before, uncertainty and possibility two sides of the same coin. So if I'm here, like if I just want to walk through the world and say yes to possibility, then I have to say yes to uncertainty at the same time. I can't just choose one or the other. So I have to teach myself how to be okay with that. That's big work. Yeah. And it's a work that never ends. It's not like check the box and you're good. It's a practice. And it's the stakes rise and change. And you can brought your knees again. It's another practice. Take me to podcasting and books and that whole area of your life. So I was running the yoga studio in New York City. We were about six years in. All the highs and lows are running a business in New York. With a physical location, we were renting a floor in a building, the six year lease and a personal guarantee. And yeah, signed the day before 9-11. And yeah, it was, it was, there were high highs. I mean, the business was doing pretty well, but there were low lows and just profound uncertainty. And I also had developed a real interest in writing and creating in a different way. I mean, it's magical when you walk into a yoga studio and you're the teacher and, you know, they're 50 bodies, mat to mat and it's sweaty. And for 90 minutes, you create this sort of like ecstatic, ecstatic synchronicity between everybody in like their movement and their breath. And you can like bring them down to Shavasana on the end. And you feel everybody, the whole room, exhale and you're just like, yes, it is magical to know that you've played even like some role in helping make an experience like that happen. And I loved it. And years of that wore on me, years of running the business at the same time and supporting it, especially because married and we had a three month old baby when he started that business. So it was a lot. So, and I had developed an interest in writing. And I'd been doing a bunch of writing on the marketing side of things, deep interest in just human psychology, what moves people to action. How do I motivate a lot of people to actually have that same bent towards possibility and then take action towards it? This to me is what marketing is, you know. And I just got really curious in like why people don't take more control over the future of their work lives. That led me to get curious about writing a book about it. And really fortunate and that got an agent from a big publisher. And we got an agent out of the gate who took me cold and then got a deal. And that started my writing career. And once that was begun, I actually was right around the time that Tim Ferriss had just come out with four hour work week. I literally called him and got him on the phone. And I was like, so what like, how do you do that? How do you like make books sell now? And he's basically like, back then it was blogs, you know, like blogs and like getting on a plane and talking to people at events. So I just started shifting gears into the online world. And that led me into this whole new world of like digital, like it wasn't called being creator back then. You know, this was a blogger and then it was digital content. And there was social media. And this was, yeah, the days when you're at South by Southwest in 2007 or 2008. And Twitter has, you know, like it's itty bitty and it's crashing every three seconds because the servers can't hold the and it's and that just over time led me to want to devote more time and energy to that world and to write more and to speak more. And that sort of like was my my introduction to that whole space. And then, yeah, so sold the book. The first book came out in January of 2009. I sold the studio at towards the end of that of 2008, handed over the keys December 31 walked out the door, taught my last class. Most people did not know it was my last class until I brought them up from Shavasana, which is final relaxation for anyone who's never taken my class and said, hey, listen, there's something I need to share with you. And that was emotional. Yeah. But it felt right to like there was no looking back. I had done what I came to do. And that moved me into this world that I've been in for a long time. Since 2012, we started Good Life Project, the podcast. 14 years later, it's become what it is now, which if had you asked me back then, I would have laughed out loud. Like there's no there's no way there's no way it's going to become the size and reach so many people and be there's no conceivable way I would be doing anything for 14 years. Yeah. What do you think the secret sauce is of Good Life Project? I don't know. I think we started at a time where it was not nearly as crowded as it is now. And then if you just never stopped, which we didn't, eventually, you just slowly grow and slowly grow, slowly grow. There was no like magic, like hockey stick moment with us. It's 14 years of just never stopping and also continuing to shift and change. Yeah. It's almost like evolving is kind of in the middle of possibility and uncertainty. It seems like they're all tied together somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Like holding both the uncertainty and the possibility and like evolving through it. What is some of the best feedback that you've gotten from your listeners over the years? Like it's something that just hits your heart. You're like, yes, we're doing it. Probably just that something that we put out into the ether made a real difference for them. I mean, there've been like so many versions of that, that we created a moment or there was something that was said. Often, it's not something I've said, but just there was a moment that happened and or something that a guest has shared that's really awakened something and then that's made a real difference. Like they're struggling and it's really helped them do something. I think that's when they see themselves in somebody or some moment or some experience. The hands down, the thing that we've done that has been the most impactful is the adult summer camp that we ran for five years, Kim GLP. They came thinking that they were there to learn a whole bunch of things and what they realized when they got there is they were there to just reconnect with the part of themselves they had left behind decades ago. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Welcome to Rheinische Serviet, Germany's most exciting investment hub where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinische Serviet is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at BePart of It dot nrw. What's interesting about you is, I mean there's so many interesting things, but like you are such a logical deep thinker. You have used the word magic or magical three or four times and I'm just curious what is your definition of magic? I think there's a connection between the whole between magic and possibility. You know it's this the belief that it's tied to like the belief that things that people can't understand and say are impossible can actually happen. And that there are also just things that we can't often explain, but they are. Yeah. You know there's been a tension my whole adult life at least where the rational side of my brain is always looking for the explanation for phenomena. The older I get the less I feel the need to have that explanation and the more I just accept the fact that this happened it is I have no explanation for it. It feels kind of mystical and that's okay. Yeah. Bring us up to present day. So hanging out. Bole Colorado was not planned. We didn't think we were moving. We just thought we were escaping the pandemic and here we are six years later. Still doing the podcast. Built and recently sold one other company along the way that was a deep dive into the intersection between meaning and work. Focusing deeply on really looking back at Good Life Project right now and reimagining who we are, what we're about and super excited about a lot of things that we're about to give birth to in the next couple of months and years connected with this brand and community. Hanging out with friends here who I have probably more friends here in six years than I had in New York City in 30 years because it's just a shared value set. And I was also a bit of a weirdo in New York City. The best kind of weirdo. Yeah, well but not necessarily. There are people follow certain prescribed paths very often and here everyone's kind of weirdo. Facts. So it kind of makes it easier. And for 34 years my wife has been my best friend and for 25 years like we've had the blessing of having like an incredible kid. And there's really nothing more important to me than those relationships. Yeah, they're pretty amazing. Yeah they are. Not going to fight you on that. What would Devo say are your best superpowers and your biggest shadows? Probably that I'm relentlessly possibly. I'm relentlessly oriented towards possibility. I'm a dreamer. I'm not a dreamer who basically just dreams. I'm a dreamer also like works really hard to make what I see real. That's the maker impulse in me, the builder. Like for me it's not just about like what's possible. You know like that's fun but the real fun is making it real. It's not enough to just like see or dream. To me that's a little bit of like wasting time. Like I want to actually make it real. It's almost like the possibilities, the pre-workback was it for you to be able to make the thing. And I think it's a double edged sword because I see so many things that I can become really distracted and fragment my attention and that becomes super frustrating for me. And also I may believe things are possible. That maybe aren't really all that possible and allocate energy and resources to it and then realize maybe not. So I think it's both the plus and the minus. Yeah. Let's imagine that you've lived a long life. You're 150 years old. On your deathbed all of your loved ones are around you and you have an opportunity to impart your final wisdom. What are you going to say to your loved ones? The words that Debbie Milman shared with me like years ago like just come right into my head so these aren't my words. Don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait to be the person that you know you are or to share the person that you know you are. Don't wait to do the things that you want to do. Don't wait to show up in the way that you know makes you feel whole and seen. Yeah. Don't wait for permission. Interesting. I love that. There's like an urgency in it. There is. And it's weird because a number of people brought up at different points in my life the word urgency. They're like why are you pushing so hard so fast? Like why does this need to happen now? And I don't know the answer but I think at least for the second half of my life I think it's probably connected to 9-11. Yeah. Because I just like I saw people go to work that day and not come home. And like you know these are people who are doing anything dangerous. These are people where you'd be like oh well they chose to do this thing. They're a rock climber. They're this or they're they're risky behavior. These are people living everyday lives doing the thing they do. And they went to work in the morning and didn't go home at night. Made no promises. And it's the other thing that's constantly scrolling in my head. It's part of the don't wait thing. So I think there's a bit of a self-imposed urgency that I have. Because god willing I do have a lot of time left but I generally don't bank on that. It's a good way to move through the world. Yeah. Especially when you have like uncertainty as a theme that comes up in your life. Yeah. I mean you know this visually. Yeah. Been through this with a lot of people in your life too. So yeah. The uncertainty and the possibility. Life falls somewhere in between all of that. Is there anything else that feels important about your story that might illuminate us in this next part? I was gonna say I tend to see around corners but it's not really that. It's I think I just tend to see things that sometimes a little bit often to the left that maybe get missed because they're not part of the instruction set. That's really these words. I know. And I've really had to restrain myself. You know we're working on a smaller surface area but I've but I these are the words that are are coming up and for listeners. I just want to say some of these words and what part of this dig process is very intuitive. You know we're obviously this is pattern recognition that we're doing here but it's also like a feeling and I believe everybody has something called a resonance meter and if you can almost imagine that it's like a speedometer in your car there's zero there's a hundred and so where does this hit on your resonance meter. So maybe as you hear these words you can just kind of drop in as you've heard Jonathan's story and just like oh yeah that feels that feels pretty high on the resonance meter right like 90. So words like create, know, breathe, build, delight, play, present, possible, curious, movement, contribute, uncertain or certainty, exhale, see, magic, moment, conscious. How does it feel when you see all those words? Yeah they pretty much all resonate pretty strongly they're connected to me in a lot of different ways. Well this is your process. I'm here just as a facilitator but I always like to start off with just talking through what I intuitively was feeling as you were going through your story because this is when the operating system starts to take shape and it actually takes a shape. Some people it's like a circle or an equation or a rocket ship or a tree and it has a different feel to it and you have some very interesting themes around time, time and space I would say and just like how you dance with time and space and even just like one of your very first stories you're talking about you're talking about breathing, exhale, which also is presence right. So I think those are kind of clustered together and then you also have this ability to play and what's possible. It always seems to have like the most part a pretty positive lens on what's possible there and then you're just, you're a builder, you're actually doing things, you're building, you're contributing. There's like a movement. I think move or movement is critical. It's like it almost feels like it's fulcrum in your system because it's like there's out there and then what you see is possible and then there's like the doing to make it so and but you've got to do it. You've got to do it now. You have to don't wait too and that goes back to the time themes. This doesn't totally feel like it's in the operating system. That's uncertain. I think that's just like a tension that you hold really well. Exhale almost feels like it's like in the middle of your operating system. In a sense, maybe a circle is kind of part of you. It feels almost very amoeba-ish. It feels very active and curious. It's funny. It's like one of the, and you know this because this was in my TEDx, that you asked me earlier, what is, is there a common like piece of feedback that we tend to get and actually what I didn't say, but this is actually the single biggest theme in 14 years when we hear from listeners is they listen because there's something about my voice that makes them feel okay, like makes them feel calm. A lot of people actually listen because it helps them feel like things are going to be okay and a solid chunk of people listen because it helps them fall asleep at night, which is real feedback. The ultimate compliment. Yeah. You put me to sleep. Always felt a little bit weird about that, but like grateful that I could be of service in some way. So the exhale thing is interesting too. I think it's, I will be honest, I have never seen that word pop up in a dig before, which is always very exciting for me because I've done over a thousand of these, but like there's, there's like a movement to it. There's an in and out, up and down, back in a force, an exchange, a constant evolution to it, which is really fun. And I think what's also interesting about that, just even with your yoga studio and I'm being attracted to this, it's just like, it's like bringing people back to the present to breathe. Like you referred to as like a fuck yeah kind of moment, right? It's like that final Savasana and it's like that magical moment that happens when you bring people here. And I think this is just part of it because you're such a builder, you're such a maker, you're such a contributor, you're such a giver. I also, I loved what you said about magic. And I loved how you talked about magic as like, like an, from an actual magician perspective of like all the work that goes into making something magical. What you and Stephanie do, you get away at the camp and everything, so much work, like as your friend, I just knew like how hard you guys were working and just like, but those people show up. And it just feels like magic, right? And so there's the doing that creates that. So there's, there's something to that. And I think magic kind of drives you. I also loved when you said the word delight. I don't know, those almost feel a little similar. Sometimes in operating systems, we can kind of like swallow up one word with another and magical and delight almost feels a little similar. I don't know. Does it feel different for you? I don't know if they feel different actually, because sort of like, I think magic is sort of like a part of the feeling of delight. Like this is, this is just magical. For those listening and wondering what the sounds are going on right now, it's just like Aaron's moving a whole bunch of post it notes around the background. Again, we'll take some screenshots of this and we'll show you what's actually going on and just drop it into the show notes in the link. And the fun thing about this is like, there's no right or wrong answer. It's like, this is only determined by you, but it's an evolution and we feel into it and we're able to kind of drop into these one word frequencies and just see how they play out. As you're looking at these words, is there one word that's like really tapping on your shoulder or is just being like, Hey, I'm super, super important. Look at me. Exhale, build possible. It's more possibility than possible. I guess it's kind of the same thing. Yeah, I love making something from nothing. You know, you have to live in place of possibility in order to do that. But also there is something around creating this experience where you just let people breathe again, including me. I think that's part of my aspiration. Yeah. It's to try and work more of that in along the way because I can sometimes move at a pace that's pretty breathless. Yeah. What really pisses you off? Manufactured drama. We all have enough organic drama in our lives. When I see or input in a mode where there's drama, it's just clearly manufactured for the purpose of drama. I have no interest in that. I think disrespect. It's not even like me being disrespected. I've kind of like learned how to deal with that. I love this phrase moral beauty, which is when we see an act being done, when we witness something being done that is just so beautiful, so graceful, so kind, so generous. It lands as this experience of moral beauty that moves us so deeply. I think we can also witness immoral disrespect and that lands in the exact opposite way. I truly believe that every human being has value simply because of the fact of their birth. Let's go back to that manufactured drama thing for the moment. I always ask the question about what makes people mad because within that is a violation. You are violated by something and it's over the actual situation. What about manufactured drama as a violation to who you are and what you believe? It's probably a couple of things. One, it stops me from being able to exhale. Two, it puts roadblocks in front of my ability to create the things that I want to create because then I have to deal with a situation that's been fabricated rather than actually deal with the very real challenges of making something which will often include drama, but it's not drama that exists simply for the purpose of drama. Also, because it, the disrespects my nervous system is uncomfortable. What I'm seeing is it almost feels like you have kind of core heartbeat to your operating system. The words movement, present, exhale, and moment, they just all seem to be dancing together. Then it's almost like you have three clusters that are moving around it. You have play impossible, magic and delight, create and build. I don't know. It almost reminds me of the Jetsons. Cursing around in their little ships, but they're around a nucleus, some sort. Yeah. How does that land on you when I say that? Yeah, that feels pretty real. I think there is this core of just deep grounding and maybe that's what, again, people have resonated with over many, many, many years. That's probably part of what people resonated with when I taught yoga in a classroom for seven years. I'm not even as a speaker. I'm not like when I do keynotes, I'm not a raw, raw, like super up and down, bouncing all over the stage, motivational speaker. I'm a storyteller. I like to cast a spell, bring people into it, and not break the spell until the moment is done. And that's getting them into the moment. Even when we were doing, for the first six years, eight years of the podcast, we had our own studio in New York and people would come in and we'd close the door and just like we're doing now. And then it wasn't unusual for people to open the door after and walk out and be like, what just happened there? And I loved being able to be a part of that, to help co-create experiences like that. And then to be able to actually have, you know, listeners and viewers at scale around the world be able to be a piece of that too. I know you identify as a maker from your sparketype. I do. It's almost like you're a moment maker. Yeah, that's part of it. So the top of my website for years has said, I make things that move people. Those can be moments, you know, an event, a keynote talk, a piece of media, a class conversation. It can also be physical things. It can be objects. You know, so I think for Stephanie, it's actually a lot more moments. For me, I enjoy those. But also as an introvert, me being present or centered in those moments can also be uncomfortable because I don't need to be centered. I don't need to have credit for it. I would be thrilled to be invisible and have the work speak for itself. Like I don't need the ego to get credit for it. Yeah, that's so true. Is there a word missing on here? Do you feel like we really love? Love. What's your definition of love? I don't know. Like asking a fish to divide in water. I know. It just is. Is the expression of this operating system like how you love people? Interesting question. Possibility in play, yes. Magic and delight, yes. Create and build, yes. Movement, being present, appreciating the moment, collectively exhaling, yes. If I had a dry race board here, I would probably just take a marker and just put a big heart around this whole thing to like encapsulate it. Yeah, you know. I'm taking woodblock printing classes right now and the two designs that I've actually made. One is a spray can that says love on it and the other is like a reinterpretation of that sort of like legendary Robert Indiana sort of like four square with what says love in it. It's a recurring theme. Okay. Okay. If you had to, if you had to like pick a captain of your sports team, assuming this all, this looks correct for you. This is your operating system. So you're all going to move things or push back on anything does this feel true on the resonance meter? Does it score high? Sort of the collection of all these words? Yeah. How they dance together, how they're grouped, what they are. I think so. Yeah. Okay. Which one would you say is the captain? And usually one of the reasons I asked that question of what makes you really mad is that I've found recently that usually like those violations is where are the opposite. Yeah. It's just the thing that gets like that reaction. Right. And you know, a lot of your violations were around wasted time. Slow processes when you were talking about working it with the government. Using resources time and energy for something other than right. This being distracted, your energy going places that maybe you isn't the most efficient. I don't know. Possibility might be. Is there anything on the other side of possibility? Impossibility. No. That's true. Because you said earlier, like possibility itself is not the thing. It's about making the thing that you see possible. So it almost felt like when you said that, that it's kind of like you're beacon for what you create. And I mean, I'm again being pulled to these three little clusters on the outside of like being like what you do. So if I look at all of this and I ask myself, where do I feel most myself? It would be create and build. You know, like when I'm making things, I drop into a state of possibility and play. When I'm making things, there's a sense of magic to it, especially when like I start to see it taking the form and shape of what I see in my mind, which leads to delight. When I'm making things, everything in me exhales. I just completely get lost in this state of flow. I'm deeply present in the moment. And I feel, I mean movement, not in terms of physical movement, but in terms of like from, I've started in one place and there's a momentum that's building as I move towards like into deeper into a process of creation. Okay, that's really cool with moment and momentum. Like it's almost like moment is the root of that. I didn't really think about that at all. There's a lot of movement in the moment. Well, I mean, ultimately, this is your process, but like, I think moment could be your word. I think based on hearing your story, it just feels like this is what you're in service to, whether you're using that moment to love, to connect, to create, to build, to serve, to contribute, to experience magic. It just feels like you want to just own this time that we all have, however long that might be. I'm gonna sit with that. You should. Yeah. But it's a beautiful, like the whole thing is beautiful and there's no wrong answer. But I think what's important about knowing our words and by the way, usually people don't like their words. Usually, when they like, when it starts to land, it's like, it's almost like it hits a little too close. Yeah. So that's kind of part of the process. Yeah. So you want to know what I came into it thinking it would be? What? Make or create or build. Yeah. Like those two. So they're on there and they're central to it. But I wonder if like part of that is like, I'm what I'm thinking is like, how does that tie back to me both not just creating moment, a moment for others, but also me being able to inhabit like moments myself, which has always been my work because I live so much in the future. Yeah. So and a lot of my work has been like bringing myself back into the moment. Yeah. And not just forsaking it in terms of what I see as possible in the future. Yeah. Well, even as you're talking about why you make things, it's for the process. It's for the moments that go into making them. Right? No doubt. Yeah. That's really beautiful. Wow. Okay. I'm complete now. Now you know your life purpose. I don't have to do any more growth. Nothing. So what do we do with this? Yeah. Like if somebody's following along and like they grab your book and they're gonna like, you're basically walk people through like a self guided version of this process in the books. Like say somebody does this and like, wow, that this kind of rocked my world. But like, now what do we do with this? Yeah. Well, but the people I work with as a coach is just turning this into a message because right here is your core message. And this could be a speech, this could be your next book. And by the way, it probably will be because I've noticed that like when people land on their word, it starts to show up in your life everywhere. It's so fun. But for those of you who aren't maybe into doing messages or sharing, it's really all about just knowing yourself and aligning with it. You could use the word moment to make decisions with. How do I feel about something in the moment? And in the book, I give a bunch of tools for almost like almost like double checking yourself when you're about to make a decision to be like, okay, but would my dig word be on board with this? You know, is this a, is it, I try to stay away from black and white thinking with the grounding questions I call them. But like, what does this moment feel like? You know, if I can imagine my path going down this way, what does the moment feel like? And then you can answer and decide from that place. I also feel like it's a great superpower when you know how to dig and you can dig other people and you know the people in your space and they have their word. Like my partner's word is serve. I know if they're having a bad day, it's probably because they're not in a place of service. And knowing them, like, yeah, that makes it's like, boom, like, bulb. Yeah. It's just like, now I know, you know, why are they upset? Why are they depressed? Why are they, you know, it's like, how can we remove barriers to be able to like show up in that way? Yeah. And what's going to make them happy too. And so, so it's really fun when you know other people's words, because then I also like, I just fall in love with everybody I dig because I'm just like, yeah, it's your word. So it's so interesting. Like you could do this with like a partner or family. We had like similar thing with the spark of types, like people would do it. Like we get all these messages saying people would do it like, you know, with a partner or something like that. And like, it would just start a conversation or create a level of understanding that allowed you to just go deeper. And it's like same thing. It's like, you know, your person's word. And then like, and this whole like the bigger sort of like operating system, right? And it just gives you insight into how to support them, how to relate with to them, how to, when you see them struggling, like maybe what might you look for? Yeah, that's underneath it, even if they can't put words to it. It really is never ending. You just can keep pulling on the strings. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for trusting me with this. Thanks for trusting me. I'm going to ask you the question that I ask everybody at the end of all these conversations in this container of Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life is to be true to oneself and to never stop seeking what that is. Thank you. So the thing I'm sitting with from this conversation is that moment when Erin kind of looked at all the post-it notes on the wall and started pointing to clustered, I had not really consciously noticed because the word she landed on was not the word I came in expecting. I thought it would be something about making or building. It's related. And those things are very real. They're in there, but they orbit something deeper. And that's kind of the whole point of the dig. Three things that I thought would be interesting to pull out from this. First, the operating system idea that your life story doesn't just produce a single word. It actually produces this kind of like a constellation of about 10 with one word at the center that functions like the captain of all of the others. And together they form this operating system. I found that really useful to see it all just kind of teased out together. Second is this violation signal that she talked about. Erin's insight that whatever makes you genuinely angry or upset is almost always pointing towards your core word because the violation is on the other side of your deepest value. And the third, this idea that 100% of people generally come into this process, if they think they know the word, they're almost always wrong. Every person who thinks they already know the word, it just doesn't work out that way. Which means the real word is always a layer deeper than wherever you start looking. If there's one thing that you can do this week, sit with this question. What's the word that keeps showing up across the chapters of your life? Not the word you want it to be, the word that's actually there. And hey, before you leave next week, we're sitting down with Dr. Lucy Hone to talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is. This invisible grief that comes without a funeral, just the losses that often do not count as real loss in our culture, but maybe driving more of our suffering than we know. Lucy is a leading resilience researcher. Her TED talk on resilience has been viewed more than 9 million times. And she's also someone who has lived through the kind of loss that changes everything. You do not want to miss this one. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And do me a favor also, a seven second favor. Share this episode with just one person who you think maybe is circling or looking for their own word right now, their own sort of like center. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Troy Young, Chris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you have not already, follow us wherever you get your podcast so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Welcome to Rheinesches Revier, Germany's most exciting investment hub, where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinesches Revier is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at BePart of It dot n r w.