New friend: I watch Good Life Project, it’s amazing.

Me: Thanks, I just ask questions, the guests make it what it is. They’re incredible people.

New Friend: That’s not really true. You ask great questions, that’s a big part of if and that’s not easy to do.

Me: Questions are easy. Listening is hard.

New Friend:  Hmmm…

When you listen deeply, the right questions come naturally. Hearts open. Stories tumble. Conversations soar. Magic happens.

The reason behind this is a bit sad. People are so rarely seen and heard these days—on a true-nature level—that when you give them the gift of sustained attention, it’s like removing a source of deep pain. The world outside ceases to exist.

Next-level ideas, needs, insights, stories and revelations come out. And, if you’re paying attention, it’s impossible to not want to know more. So you ask questions out of a genuine sense of curiosity. And the conversation goes places that’d never have been visited had you stayed “on-script.”

This is as true in a business or sales setting as it is in life. I began to cultivate this skill taking depositions in a past life as a newbie S.E.C. enforcement attorney.

The few times I’ve felt interviews go off the rails, it’s because I’ve lost focus. I’m no longer there, stuck in “I need to look good so I’m gonna pretend to listen while actually fabricating my next blockbuster question” land.

When you check out, people know. And the possibility of sublime moments and deep connections evaporates.

If you’re going to develop one transformative skill, make it sustained-attention or presence.

It will trump the benefits of nearly any other ability.

With gratitude,

Jonathan

+++

“I moved to Portland to find community, a home… To settle down,” I spoke softly.

She looked at me with big eyes.

“Now I have to choose between Portland, and the thing that Portland represented, which is what I actually wanted.”

Like many 20-somethings of my generation, I have consciously designed most facets of my life. I chose self-employment to provide me with freedom and a sense of contribution, I chose a broad theme for my business over a niche in order to express my multipotentiality, I gave real thought to the friends in my life, to how I wanted my day to look, to how I wanted to feel, and to where I wanted to live.

How lucky we are to live in a time and place where this is possible, and to be privileged enough to enjoy this freedom.

I’ve been very deliberate about designing my life ever since realizing that I could. But what happens when the universe that you trust, that has been so good to you, decides to impose some of its own conditions? Do you stick with your original plan or do you shift, maybe giving up some of that autonomy you hold so dear? (In this case, moving to a new city with the person you love.)

There is one thing that makes decisions like these easier; it’s knowing what it is that you are truly seeking, behind the specific city or the specific career or goal. What do these things that you are striving for represent?

Do you really want to be a film director, or is it that you love working with big teams and seeing a creative vision come to life? If so, you could probably get the same feelings from being the leader of a nonprofit organization or the conductor of an orchestra. I’m not saying that you should pursue these avenues instead, but it’s worth knowing.

Is programming really what you love to do? Or is it the problem solving, the attention to detail, the service, the feeling of solitary work, of a deep flow state that you get when you are coding? Maybe these feelings could also be achieved in other ways too.

I see it everywhere. We confuse the specific form that our goals take for the goals themselves. We become wrapped up in one medium, and think that because we use paint to express our ideas we are a painter or that because we use legal doctrines to help people navigate the system, we are a lawyer. We become tied to, and thus defined by one role. We don’t see that it is empowering others that we seek, or inspiring a particular feeling or connecting with another human being. We don’t see the Why behind what we do.

There is danger in becoming attached to the specific and not knowing what your goals represent or why you love what you love. The danger is that your industry might die or you might become bored with a particular medium/job, and then lose your whole sense of identity.

When you dream about the sort of life you want to create, do just that: dream about the SORT of life, and know that the specifics are just potential forms that this dream may take. For example, instead of saying “I want to spend my mornings writing,” say “I want to spend my mornings doing something creative that allows me to connect with my core,” (if that’s what writing does for you). This might mean writing, but it could also take the form of gardening or yoga or countless other activities. Defining things more broadly allows you to grow and stay open to new opportunities.

When you find yourself being drawn to a particular field or project, ask yourself why. What about this area is exciting to you? How is it like past endeavors you’ve been involved with? What sort of feelings and experiences do you get from engaging with it?

Understanding the currents that run through your passions is the secret to making the right decisions when life changes suddenly. If you know what you are looking for behind the specific medium or job or location, you’ll have a basis for assessing opportunities and knowing if they are right for you.

How has understanding what draws you to your interests helped you make better decisions?

+++

Emilie Wapnick works with multipotentialites to help them build lives and businesses around ALL of their interests. She is the troublemaker behind Puttylike.com. Her work has been featured in The Financial Times and Lifehacker.

Much as I love to connect, I’m in deep creation and pre-launch mode…aka “email is largely dead to me” mode through the end of Jan 2013 as I work to breath life into new adventures for the year ahead.

So, it’ll likely take a while before I can respond. I appreciate your patience. If this is genuinely an urgent matter, please call…

I turned that email off, but I’m thinking about turning it back on for the duration of 2013. I’m also considering expanding that ethic beyond email and into the way I commit my time, money and energy for the next 11 months.

Here’s why…

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a vast amounts of time in connection-mode, being fairly ubquitous across social media and attending and speaking at a lot of conferences and events.

My driving purpose was not knowledge, but rather people. I wanted to find and build relationships with people I just love to be around, I could help, and who could help me. All the better if all three categories folded into one, which they often have.

Connection is valid reason to invest energy and it’s been hugely valuable both in my ability to build my businesses, brand and impact and be in a position to help a lot of people do what they’re here to do. Plus, the friendships and colleagues I’ve come to know have added immeasurably to my life, regardless of professional potential.

Problem is, there’s an opportunity cost to hyper-connection mode; education and creation stall.

As last year unfolded, I started to notice something. I was losing my beginner’s mind. I had become less of a student and creator and more of a connector.

For some people, that’s fine. Not me. I’m at my happiest when I’m learning and creating. And even though, from the outside-in, there seemed to be a large volume of creation going on over the last year, truth is, I was holding on for dear life a good part of the time. Living and creating reactively with the time I had left over after connecting. That didn’t work for me.

So as I entered 2013, I decided to shift gears. To make this the year of immersive learning and creation and dial back on connection.

I bowed out of both attending and speaking at a number of events that had been regulars, but were largely about connection (which, again, I love), but didn’t also hold substantial opportunity for intensive learning. I still have a few connection-driven events on the calendar, but far less than I’ve had the prior few years.

I’ve rebuilt my calendar to compress weekly connection time. Instead of scattering it across the week, Monday is my connection day, with either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon designated as my connection overflow window. I’ve needed time to honor prior commitments, but by the end of February, this will be my nearly-inviolable schedule.

On the social side, I’ve begun “batching,” too. With rare exception, anything that happens outside my designated connection days will happen in an intimate group. So, if people are coming into town or friends want to gather, we’ll designate three or four nights or weekend mornings a month to gather where we can all play and rotate and smile and laugh and hug and eat and drink and relax. Outside these windows, it ’s  all about education, creation, vitality and family.

Implementing these shifts has immediately freed up time to go deeper on my education than I’ve gone in years.

I committed to a private workshop with Stanford Professor B.J. Fogg, a leading researcher in “captology” or the marraige of technology and psychology to trigger and sustain behavior change and facilitate mass adoption (okay, you figured me out, planning to take over the world with digital love). I’ve become part of a group of 140 people who have inside access to the strategies and test data from a digital publisher who’s known to be on the cutting-edge of information marketing.

I committed to attend a 3-day conference on the intersection of Eastern philosophy, mindfulness and Buddhism with entrepreneurship, business growth and global impact. I’m not speaking which, to be honest, feels a little weird to me. I’m not used to being at events purely to absorb. But I’m also excited about the shift. And there will be more investment of time, money and energy in carving out more opportunities that elevate education and creation over connection.

I look at it as a natural cycle. You need to be out in the world to build the relationships that make life rich, allow you to serve and also help get the word out when you’ve done something worth sharing.

But if you’re always in connection mode, you cut so deeply into your ability to learn and create that you’re not able to birth ideas, products, services, experiences and movements that matter enough for people to want to share them.

You lose the ability to create on a level that allows you say “look, I did this,” have jaws drop and send people running to share what you’ve created in an expanding ripple of self-motivated evangelism.

One last thing – isn’t connection important for knowledge and creation?

Yes and no. At least for me. I benefit immensely from the exchange of ideas, insights and critique that allow me to learn more and create better. But, I also tend to get a lot more out of those exchanges AFTER I’ve already spent a lot of time in my own head, in the classroom, in workshops, in nature, at peace, in my own largely solitary creation process.

That may not be how your process works, but that’s how it works for me.

So, what about you? What’s been your primary operating mode?

Connection, creation or education? Is it working for you?

And if not, what are you going to do about it?

Share your thoughts below…

Yeah, that thing. Your art. The one that’s so closely-aligned with the fiber of your being that it’d really hurt if people didn’t like it.

Well, what if you took a different approach? What if, like Taylor Guitars founder, Bob Taylor, you committed to making more bad stuff in the name of getting to the good stuff faster? What if, gulp, instead of iterating from junk to genius in the shadows, you did it in full view of the world?

What if, in fact, you announced to the world, “I’m going to learn something new, and I’m going to share it with you every day. And right now, I’m really bad at it, because I’m just beginning, so it’s supposed to be that way. But, I’m still going to show up, to practice, to create every single day and, no matter how good or bad it is, I’m going to share it with you. Because that’s how I’m going to go from crap to craft and I need to be accountable to you to ensure I am prolific enough to get there as fast as possible.”

What do you think might happen?

Yes, at first, you may well freak out. But, here’s the thing. We all suck in the beginning. We’re SUPPOSED to suck (with the rare exception of that freakish apriori artist savant friend we all love to hate to love).

The thing that gets us from there to “Sweet Mother of God, YOU made that?!” is practice. Beginner’s mind. Being massively prolific, even if what we create on any given day is really, really bad. That, and having the vision of where we want to get to, the will to do the work, the faith that our efforts will yield progress and the sense of humor needed to forgive ourselves and be vulnerable along the way.

My guest on Good Life Project this week, artist, illustrator and author, Lisa Congdon, is an amazing example of the power of this approach.

Lisa had developed a mad-passion for curating intimate collections of stuff and she sensed there was an artform behind it. So, in 2010, she announced to the world – aka the interwebs – that she was going to create, photograph and post one collection a day. The early days saw some fumbling as she figured things out, but she got better and better at finding, curating, positioning and photographing the collections over time. She’d made a commitment to share a collection a day for a year, so the world was her accountability partner. And, day-by-day, it also became her fan base.

That project then turned into a successful book. And, by the way, one of the most popular collection was a roundup of baby doll hands.

Lisa took 2011 off, but then mounted a new quest in 2012. She wanted to learn how to hand-letter, more specifically, she wanted to learn how to write calligraphy. So, she announced that she’d create one hand-lettered work a day and share it online. Again, she knew the only way to get better was to do a ton of work, one a day, and have thousands of people online hold her accountable to that goal.

By the end of the first month, she came to learn she hated calligraphy. BUT, she also began to create her own hand-lettering form. She was having a blast and starting to get really good, hand-lettering quotes, mixing it with illustrations. It took months of daily practice, but that’s the point.

When it comes to bridging the gap between ick and art, volume matters. Click to tweet

By the end of 2012, her hand-lettering had gotten really good and she’d developed a style that was all her own. And along with that came a second book deal, featuring her hand-lettering illustrations.

And, here’s the really cool back story…Lisa came to art later in life. She never identified as an artist as a kid. Which is yet another reason her story is so inspiring. Because there are so many people out there who’ve buried their creative Jones because they either believe it’s too late or they’ll never be good enough.

Watch Lisa’s episode now:

She’s incredibly generous with her story, her wisdom, and her journey. If you’d rather listen to the mp3, just head on over to GoodLifeProject.com, sign up for updates and you’ll get instant access to the mp3 vault.

And, once you’re done, start making bad stuff every day. Announce your intention to the world and share it along the way. Because that’s the fastest path to the good stuff.

With gratitude,

Jonathan

Now these conversations were a bit different than most. They happened in small, interior offices, often caked with decades of paint over cinderblock. Under the din of fluorescent lights and the click-clack of a court reporter, witnesses would come to bare their souls under the veil of secrecy.

Our invited guests were people about whom we were informally or sometimes formally “inquiring” and, if they had any smarts, even the ones who were innocent came with counsel.

Our job was to get to the truth. Fierce preparation, laser-focused listening and responsive questioning were the main tools of our craft. You couldn’t get to where we needed to get without all three.

But, one of the things I learned early on was the first item was the one you had to walk away from to allow the second two to work their magic.

One day, I ended up alongside a young enforcement attorney to whom I’d been assigned at the last minute. We’d taken a flight to Chicago to take testimony from the CEO of a public company. As I’d learn on the plane, she’d prepared for more than a month. Wonderful, I thought, this should be an easy day for me.

Two hours later, we sat in the confined box of a room. My colleague sat down opposite the witness and counsel, I to her side. She then proceded to whip out a monster 3-inch black binder that had been collated, coded, tabbed and annotated. An ode to OCD embodied. Fantastic I thought, not a stone left unturned.

On the record, came the call, and we were off. To which the black binder fell open…and the verbatim reading began.

Hello, I heard my colleague say, I’m So-and-So from the SEC, today we’ll be blah blah blah. Great, all the standard required language out of the way. Good that she read it, so we don’t have any weaknesses on the standard warnings.

What lovely weather we’re having in Chicago, she then shared. Huh? It was freezing cold and hailing. The next 15 minutes elicited the usual identification, job, background stuff. Then it was time to dive into the juicy part. Who did what, when, how, why and to whom.

But, something was off…

My colleague began asking questions, directly, word-for-word from the giant black ode-to-OCD binder. I glance at opposing counsel, who’s now chuckling. Realizing he had a newb sitting across, he dropped his shields, raised his copy of the Trib and allowed his client to ramble.

Minutes in, the witness dropped a bomb. My colleauge didn’t even notice. She’d become so wed to the script she prepared, she stopped actually listening and responding the moment we went on the record. I let it ride to see if maybe I was wrong and she’d planned to circle back. Didn’t happen.

Twenty minutes later, bomb number two. And, just like before, my colleague danced past it.

Off the record, I announced, letting the court reporter and other side know we’d be stepping out for a moment.

May I see your binder? I asked my colleague outside earshot. She offered it. Now, here’s a piece of paper, I said, please write down the 5 most important things you’d like to know about. She did. Now write down a single question to start the conversation around each point. Done.

Okay, I said, let’s go back into the room. Great, she replied, my binder please?

No.

No?!

No.

Take the piece of paper, ask the first question…then listen like you’ve never listened before.

Waves of panic. Anxiety. But off we went.

It was a bit of a rough start. But what began as a disaster turned into a brilliant, illuminating conversation. The truth was had.

So, why do you care?

Because preparation, intense study is important. But it’s equally important to release yourself from the rigid framework of that preparation when it comes time to dance. To go off-script. To listen like you’ve never listened before. To watch like your eyesight depended on catching every last flicker of light. And to respond not to what you’ve prepped for, but what’s in front of you.

Because that’s where the magic happens. When release yourself from the blinders of what you think will happen into the reality of what is happening. Then live into that.

Or, like Charlie Parker once said…

“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”

Curious, have you ever surrendered to the moment in this way?

If so, what happened?

See so clearly the possibility beyond the haze.

Breath it in. Live it out.

Long enough for its essence to bind your DNA.

It becomes you. A vein opens.

Then you transmit.

Pure. Unadulterated. Jazz.

You cannot create change in others.

Until you embody the truth you seek to inspire.

Transcendent. Tethers on the dock.

Even then, you don’t deem.

You feel. You live.

You channel.

You radiate light.

You hold the door open.

We fly. You and I.

I’m constantly on the hunt for people and conversations that expand my lens and lead me to grow. And, every once in a while, I put them together and share them with you. Here are 7 videos that’ll give you a thing or two to think about this weekend…

1. Jerry Colonna on Good Life Project™ – Yeah, yeah, I know it’s from GLP. But Jerry’s extraordinary storytelling, wisdom and deeply-centered energy drew me in and left me thinking for days.

2. Scott Dinsmore – Scott’s TEDx just went live today, he definitely makes you think about the choices you make in pursuing your career and offer some great insights to guide you and get you to ask different questions.

3. Ashima Shiraishi – Ashima is a 10 year old girl who hit Hueco Tanks, TX in March, 2012 and climbed some of the hardest bouldering routes in the world. Did I mention she’s…10?!?! Her focus and drive to work seemingly impossible routes until she owns them makes me want to try harder!

4. David Foster Wallace – Shared this moving 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech. Sadly he passed not too long after, giving an ominous backdrop to much of what he offered in this talk.

5. Trinity Orchestra – This entirely student-run orchestra premieres full orchestral performance of “Time” and “Breathe (Reprise)” from Pink Floyd’s iconic album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ performed in Christ Church Cathedral. I’m not usually a fan of remakes of classics, but this was pretty inspiring.

6. Kyle Maynard – Kyle has virtually no arms and no legs. Yet he took on the 19,000 foot Kilimanjaro peak in Africa, while carrying the ashes of a fallen soldier up the mountain. Makes you reconsider complaining about anything you’re facing right now.

7. Richard Feynman – Legendary Nobel Prize-winning physicist and teacher, Feynman spins stories about science and life, from the beauty of nature to particle physics.

If you’ve enjoyed this collection, feel free to share it with friends!

With gratitude,

Jonathan

Within the first few minutes, it became clear that she wasn’t just new to me, she was new to the practice of yoga. Problem was, this was not a beginner class. And I was known for a teaching style that was, well, just a wee bit demanding.

But there she was, unabashedly stumbling, fumbling, flailing, twisting, stretching and working her body, mind and breath. I kept a close eye on her. At first, out of a concern for her safety. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t doing anything that might injure her (or anyone she might fall on). But, over the next 90-minutes, my protective eye turned to one of awe.

Not because of her physical ability, but rather her absolute comfort with who she was and who she was not. Her willingness to try anything. In front of anyone. Her seeming total comfort with being vulnerable to judgment in the front row of a hot, sweaty sea of far more experienced and agile bodies.

The next day, she returned. And the next. And the next. She became a regular at the studio, eventually completed yoga teacher training with us and began to bring not just her vastly improved physical practice, but her infectious sense of wonder, exploration and utter lack of judgment to her students.

Because she was willing to make a ton of mistakes, to do poses, breath and focus publicly and “badly” (whether that’s even possible is a whole other conversation), she found her way to doing it all beautifully that much faster. And, along the way, she developed the compassion for others along the same quest that allowed her to be that much more compelling as a teacher.

Funny thing is, this experience came rushing back to me while reviewing the final edit of this week’s Good Life Project™.

My guest is live-illustrator, filmmaker, writer and “attention-span for hire,” Flash Rosenberg. On any given day, you can find Flash in her studio writing a story to present on the legendary Moth stage, scripting, illustrating and filming a book trailer or live-illustrating an event.

Flash’s curiosity about the world, about people, what makes them tick and her willingness to not only do things badly, but ask whether there’s even such a thing as bad, led me to want to go out into the world and make more stuff. It reminded me how absolutely important reconnecting with the beginner’s mind is for anyone looking to see the world anew and create from that place of wonder.

Come along for a funky, cool, ecclectic journey as Flash and I dive into the world of creativity, extreme left-brain thinking, storytelling, art, writing and how to put it all together to craft an extraordinary, ever-evolving, joyful career.

Here’s the link to the show. Enjoy>>>

With gratitude,

Jonathan

I don’t believe in writer’s block. Nor thinkers block, entrepreneur’s block, musician’s block, sculptor’s block, painter’s block, architect’s block, coder’s block, designer’s block. You get the idea.

With rare exception, your best stuff never comes from the dogged pursuit of a quest in a vacuum. It comes from space and life. Living and connecting so deeply that what’s inside simply must come out.

Next time you find yourself out of ideas. Stop trying to get ideas. Step away. Make art in another arena. Run. Jump. Hug. Play. Talk until 5am. Travel. Laugh uncontrollably. Weep relentlessly. Love deeply. Then come back. And do your art.

Charlie Parker said it best…

“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art…” Click to tweet

Now, go live a litte.

What say YOU on this issue?

Personal development author, columnist, speaker and creative savant, Karen Salmansohn, has a great one…

“Self-help for people who wouldn’t be caught dead doing self-help.”

Not only does this tell you what she does, it immediately polarizes a tribe and it addresses the single biggest knee-jerk response from the people who need the most help, but don’t want to own it themselves and absolutely don’t want others seeing them read any of that “foofy-ass, self-help mumbo jumbo!”

Underneath this branding statement, though, you’ll find an incredibly insightful, edgy and smart author, multi-space creative, entrepreneur and a real fighter. Someone who doesn’t listen to other peoples’ (or entire industry’s) limiting proclamations.

When the old guard says “no,” she says “just watch me!”

The publishing industry didn’t “get” the type of hyper-stylized books she wanted to create. So, she collaborated with a team of designers to craft them herself. Once publishers saw the actual finished designs, they started tripping over themselves to buy the books. Now, Karen has more than 1,000,000 books in print. And plenty more on the way.

Seeing the handwriting on the Facebook wall, she started blending her genius at inspirational one-liners with moving images to create digital posters that exploded her Facebook following and led to a new book, Instant Happy, that features her posters.

And, as a mom, she started to explore the idea of turning her posters into thematic curricula as a way to get into the heads of kids without the standard “oh look, the grown up are spouting junk again” response. Her first educational poster campaign focuses on anti-bullying and it’s already being adopted by school-districts.

And, still, Karen’s just getting rolling.

In this week’s Good Life Project, we go behind the curtain in Karen’s amazing journey. We find out what it’s like to be madly inspired to create, to write, to design, to speak, to build an empire that helps millions of people who publicly proclaim an aversion to being helped. And so much more.

Click here now to watch the episode now>>>

With gratitude,

Jonathan