Elizabeth Gilbert and Jonathan Fields: Curiosity and the Passion Fallacy

welcome to our first best of episode as we've taken their doing the last two weeks or so of August every year we do two best of episodes and these are episodes there were looking back in our now years long archive there were really extraordinary conversations and we'd love to kind of reshare them with you as we also take a little bit of time to step away and plan and rejuvenate while these are airing actually at least for part of the time we'll actually be over at Camp GLP with hundreds of amazing campers and Revelator's from around the world having an incredible time this week's best of episode is a conversation that I recorded last year with the author Elizabeth Gilbert and it was a magical moment it actually this conversation ended up becoming the source material for nearly a chapter in my book and I'm really excited to reshare it with you today because there are just so many moments of Awakening and inspiration and connection in it so enjoy the conversation Liz Gilbert hanging out in our studio in New York City I'm Jonathan fields and this is good life project the whole thing is shifting and moving the ground under our feet is in motion all the time and what all of the universe is asking you to do is to step back into that current and participate with it in creation in becoming in unfolding in the movement in the change a few years back Elizabeth Gilbert exploded into the public consciousness with the release of her memoir Eat Pray Love since then she's continued to dive deeper into the creative life publishing more books but really exploring this deeper question what does it actually mean to live a creative life what are all the myths around that and what are the deeper truths are there really creative people and non creative people should you actually follow your passion or is that the worst advice that you could ever get do ideas come to you or do ideas come through you these are all some of the questions that she explores in a brand new book big magic and I had the opportunity to sit down with Liz and talk about these and so much more and the journey through life and what it means to live a good life I'm so excited to share that conversation with you this week I'm Jonathan fields this is good life there's something that I need to bring up right away okay it's a relationship I recently became aware of that you've had apparently for more than four decades that you've kept hidden and talking of course about one I was six this is a big secret it's just like a huge breaking star this Justin Gilbert still has her teddy bear you know it's still funny that it's like you posted that picture of it and all these are the people like oh my god I have a teddy bear fight now it's like four or five also I was like the floodgates open it was awesome oh he's a very important spiritual guide oh the hugging capacity of that particular teddy bear is very easy he's designed he's really it's not great-looking cuz he has a hunch he's got this weird hunchback so he he really is not like a striking figure but he fits you can spoon on him and he fits just right against the human torso it's all about fit it is all about fit you know that's what he's said like a life lesson there's some stinky couldn't hold out laughter like delicious old way but you know it's kind of funny though is that it's almost like something like that and for those who haven't seen the picture just go check out Lissa's Instagram he posted like this teddy bear from her youth from my youth and my middle aged and your middle age we won't reveal the fact that he's actually in your bag right here's a little more travel size you would be you almost feel like you know the more that something like that has been around the more it takes on the energy of like all the different parts of your life and it's almost like it radiates on say we did um we do retreats every once in a while when Costa Rica a couple years back and we went to this place they said there's we have two rooms where you can spend the next five days you know like one is gorgeous and its new and it's like a picture window looking you know a stunning thing the other one's nice it's about 15 there but there have been people like practicing yoga and spiritual practice in that room for the last 15 years so I went into one I'm like stunning view yeah they went the other so you can feel it in your bones there's like an energy that just seeps into it yeah Oh thinking distinct you probably has some of that he does you know that reminds me of the difference of the sensory feeling between creative work that is original and creative work that is authentic and the difference is that when I see creative work that's original and it's really well made I admire it the way that you admired that view and that beautiful room and and you're just of course you admire it it's very well done you know you just stand there you think it's really cool how you did that admire I admire your work but when you encounter creative work that's really emotionally authentic it's it moves you that and I don't want to just be walking around admiring stuff I want to feel my humanity I want to feel my own life reflected in your life I want to feel moved and touched and stirred and the work might not be as good or as polished as professional but it'll probably like change me in a way that looking at something that's just very accurately done will not yeah I can feel that also I think everybody feels that it's like this is the reason why you know somebody can walk into your museum and walk through the halls and kind of walk out saying let somebody else can walk in and just like melt into tears yeah there's something about certain or you can you or food that you know you get like all what is that was a macro with a new kind of food made that's like science food yeah things come in beakers and I saw uh something molecular against our gastronomy right there which is cool I've been to some restaurants that serve that and it's a very cool and interesting experience it is a very different experience to go to my friend Margaret's Italian mother's house and be served food that makes you want to cry in your plate you know um and and that's not there's nothing original about yeah okey except it's not maybe chef oh my god and it's like that right it's like I still dream about that grilled cheese she's almost smell like talking all around it's so a journey that you bring that up up because it's it's so true I think there's such an there is I think we have the tools to try and pursue polish now yeah so readily available to so many people and sometimes we equate that with the end goal rather than just how do I let people feel my heart through what I put into the world and in some way feel their own hearts through that too yeah I had a conversation just the other day with a guy who said yeah I got two ideas he's a successful writer already a successful public figure so I have two ideas for two different projects and and he's just sitting on the couch we were talking about and he's like you know one of them and he laid it out and he said you know my agent my publisher think this would be really marketable because it's kind of like a cool way to brand this idea and it and it was as he told it to me I thought I could totally see that working you know people would like that that'll sell that's good and then he said but um you know what I really want to do and his whole face changed and his eyes changed and his voice changed and he leaned in and he just all the sudden was ignited and started to tell me about this thing he wants to do that doesn't even make any sense because who would ever buy it and it doesn't wanna sell and I was like dude if you could see the difference in what your face looked like five minutes ago and what it looks like now you would have no question about what it is that you should be doing for the next two years of your life and you can do the thing that is proven to be a brand that will successfully sell such a such a number of units or you can do the thing that reminds you that you're more than just a producer and a consumer that you are a constituent of creation and you were part of an unfolding universe and something is unfolding in you while you're making this thing that makes you so jazzed that your hair just stood up while you were talking to me oh you did that one and I also want to read that one that's the book I want to read the thing that did that to your face I want to walk me through that I want a bit of that rub a little that on me yeah it's it she can do I don't know yes I think he is he was like yeah you're right that's probably think this about sort of like a level deeper though because I'm like if if somebody feels it that viscerally when they're just talking about this thing then why do so many and so many of us do why do so many of us then can say mmm no like what is it in your mind you talk yourself out of it and you I have to say the reason you talk yourself out of it is because you get rational and and rationally what you're doing doesn't make any sense and there's no argument they can never hold up against that because you're right whatever the rational part of you is that says this doesn't make any sense to do this is absolutely right in the moment you start making the pro/con list it's almost like you lose it's absolutely or absolutely right which is why you need to have a mystical or spiritual dimension underneath your creativity to combat the rational thought because the second that I mean I always say this cuz I was marvel at this any act of pure creativity is the most irrational thing you could possibly do with your so III you're gonna have a existential crisis because it doesn't make any sense essentially what you're doing like you're here let me break it down for you what this guy is about to do if he says yes to the thing that ignited him he's about to take the single most precious thing he possesses which is his time or mortal we have a very short amount of time here and how you spend that time matters and what you give it to has enormous consequence in your life we're deeply aware of the ticking clock so he's going to take the one thing he that can never be replaced just his hours and days and months of his short mortal life and he's going to devote an enormous amount of energy and resources and power and trouble - creating something that nobody wants or needs that nobody has asked him to do it is it fundamentally really weird thing to do so why would you in the world do that and I guess it's because when the moment that you do leave the party comes you're not gonna be lying in your bed saying man it was so short my visit here on earth and why didn't I do the thing that ignited me to life because that was actually the only thing and the rest of it and all those rational ideas of stuff that was more important I don't even remember what that stuff is now um why did I do that thing why did I do that thing I was called to do I never want to be in that position I want to be in the position where I can say I did all that stuff I said yes again and again it again to the irrational plan rather than the rational one I so agree with that but it's it's like if you step into that place and essentially as you're talking I'm like what do people respond to when you see somebody doing that you know and my sense is also that what we respond to when we see somebody going after it on that level is that it's so rare hmm that when we see somebody who's lit up who's like literally become a beacon we almost don't care what it is they're doing right it's we just want to participate right so it's like if it's a book about you know like hermetic Nome sculptors it from Lent were you want to know about it just because right there so lit up by that layer maybe we can get that lit up - and I think there's so little of that in life it's such an interesting point and I I was having a conversation with my friend Rob Bell - an investor a bell the greatest greatest greatest guy about this the other day and he was saying one of the things he thinks stops people from indulging because that's the word they seem to feel in their pure creativity for no reason whatsoever is that they feel like it's selfish and that they are sort of taking something away from the world by devoting that time to this thing but he made this great point that I had never for now I wish I could put it in a codex at the end of big magic because it is the big magic he said and the few opportunities in your life where you've ever had the chance to meet a creative person who inspired you you know like what was the first thing you said to them thank you mmm thank you so much thank you so much first thing when I met Tom Waits the first thing I said to him was I don't even know how to thank you for your work and meanwhile I'm buying it with my money I'm subsidizing his life right so he like really he should be thanking me right because I'm the consumer who's making it possible for him to live off his music but we all know that it's me who has to be thanking him because of watching somebody do something so great made my life better and so if you can permit yourself to do the work that you're being called to do it's ultimately a gift in a really weird way I mean I've never every great I mean I met Hillary men tell the other day who wrote Wolf Hall my favorite book you know I'm on my knees practically thanking her for that work well why what did she do for me she don't even know me but by watching somebody live at their highest most creative most magnificent potential my world was a better world so use that as a justification to do the thing that you're called to do yeah it's an act of community service yeah resonates so strongly with me and I think also and you speak about this in big magic I think one of the things that stops so many of us in so many levels is some form of fear whether fear of judgment fear of failure like there's we're mired in but what if you know what if I do this like rather than what if I do this and it's okay and it succeeds and actually I'm okay and I do the thing yep we just we immediately spin into bu --- so like fear the ass punch into the face you know wake up and tell your fear who's boss huh that's really aggressive and its really macho and I don't know about you but my experience in life is anything that I fight fights me back harder oh yeah whenever I come swinging at anything I mean it's like basic physics it's just different reaction it's like what I'm under threat let me show you how terrifying it can be now right that's what my fear doubles down that is when I try to attack it and so I've realized that the point for me is not to so he said to me today tell us how you conquered your fear I was like it's adorable that you think I've conquered my fear I'm terrified all the time but I walk next to my fear hand in hand with it I've befriended it and the first way that I befriended it was by recognizing what a magnificent force it is and how much I owe to it I mean all of us who are alive at this moment for adults were alive because at some point in our life fear saved your life there was some point your life when fear said the river current is way too strong today we're not going kayaking you know um get out of that boat don't get in the car with that guy you know what maybe this like whatever there's the thing that just says don't do that thing it's not safe don't walk down that Street maybe it's not a good time to go to Egypt on vacation in the middle of the revolution maybe like whatever the thing was that stopped you from doing something where you were genuinely in danger so whenever I feel my fear arise instead of hating on it and being afraid of it the very first thing I say to it is may I take this moment to thank you for everything that you have ever done for me and my ancestors I'm also here because my ancestors were afraid and their fear saved them enough that they survived long enough to propagate so that I got to be here so thank you for my life I owe you literally my life it's the first thing I say to fear whenever I feel it and then I say but in this moment I need to let you know cuz I know you don't have a lot of subtlety grandfather fear I don't really need your services right now because all I'm trying to do is write a poem like no one's gonna die so thank you so much for I know you're just trying to be my really super over vigilant bodyguard but it's it's okay I'm just I'm just trying to create a thing you can come along with me me and creativity are doing this thing together I know you're always around it's okay but I'm gonna do it anyway because I need to do it and somehow that voice just that voice makes fear be like it drops the gun it's like oh there's nothing here that I have to kill and like there's nothing here you have to kill you know it's just a really hyper vigilant bodyguard it's a Secret Service man mmm thinks every shadow is here to kill me so I just talked to it all day literally while I'm writing I'm literally talking out loud to my fear thanks again yeah I know you're worried but it's gonna be okay it's just a novel it's not literally a battlefield I know the other thing and is that yeah and you said I think you said it differently but my experience is the fear has energy you know so and I so agree I think you know that I've seen so although were the pleasure like the same thing conquer fear and also fearless I don't I don't I so strongly disagree like I don't want to be fearless because to me fear is a signal yeah it's an energy and a signal and it's a signal that I'm invested that there's some there's some heightened let's get in the game yeah like there's something happening here you know and and then you know part of what my job to do is figure out like is this the fear that's telling me to run like hell right or is this the fear that telling me this matters fiercely and I need to walk into it Wow and then if I decide to walk into it like how can I take the energy of fear right and actually you know like use it as more yes in my tank create what I want to create rather than just walk away from it so to me it's like to conquer it or to kill fear or joy it's like you're you're leaving behind you like a unit of potential energy to fuel you yeah to do this thing that you're being called they're dealing what if you actually thought about it differently it figure out how can I harness this all right rather than let it pummel me like how can I take this and somehow become an alchemist of fear right and like use it to move any through this thing oh wow and that's building I think what you do with that energy when you put it in the the pistons and turn it into it's not something to harness is that you're you're using it to create courage muscles you know and that it really is a muscle you know it really is a muscle of it that can be trained and I feel like every brave thing I've ever done like courage is contagious and every brave thing I've ever done made me go do another brave thing and then after that another brave thing and it wasn't like it's not daredevil stuff you know um I don't need to like I don't need to go bungee cord jumping in Guatemala to know that I'm alive I just need to walk down a street I just need to wake up and have immediately my mental illness start my brain and be like alright how we gonna code the show of my yeah I'm alive I'm alive believe me I'm aware you know like how am I gonna deal with this crazy person I use body I live in today like that's yeah that's really the fundamental question every single day and then what's the bravest and mostly for me what's the most interesting way to do this like is there a more interesting way to do this well let's do it the more interesting way mm-hmm whatever that may be yeah so our awesome friends at fresh books make ridiculously easy cloud accounting software for freelancers and small business owners who know that making every single moment count is a really important part of getting a lot of stuff done and being able to do the things that they want to do in their business by drastically simplifying things like invoicing tracking expenses and getting paid online FreshBooks has totally changed the game for more than 10 million people you can link your FreshBooks account to your credit card and debit cards and next time you expense you know the business stuff or the tank of gas or lunch it just shows up automatically they have notifications and awesome customer service to claim your month long unrestricted free trial with no credit card required go to freshbooks comm slash good life and enter the good life project in me how did you hear about us section what's behind the what's the what's the most interesting way to do it I wanna have an interesting you know to me I have such a simple definition of creativity and I often hear people say I don't have a creative bone in my body it's a cliche that you hear people say like and it's an expression it's a thing people say and and I always say to them like I don't want to fight you about that I totally disagree I believe if you're alive and you're human being you're creative being it's the hallmark of our species were the creative monkey but okay I'm not gonna try to fight you on that what I will do though is ask you to take the word creative out of that sentence and replace it with the word curious and see how insane that sentence sounds when you say I do not have a curious bone in my body whoever said that that's not a thing anybody would ever say unless they were really in the jaws of a terrible debilitating serious depression you know if you're at all alive if you have any vitality at all of course you have curiosity in you and the way that you craft a creative life is by respecting following and trusting that curiosity and curiosity only asks you to just turn your head and look a little closer and see if it's worth investigating and go a little deeper into it and see what it is and on the other side this sort of split the fork in the road is always going to be the thing that makes you curious and the thing that makes you scared and a creative life is a life where you routinely choose the path of curiosity over the path of fear not like twice or three times or four times but daily yeah like systemically systematically it becomes your habit and your practice to say I don't even know why I'm interested in this but I'm interested in this and I'm gonna look into it have you developed any practices that you feel like they they help you make that system at a choice day after day after day after day after day you know I feel like if I and I don't off I don't always succeed at this like I certainly haven't succeeded this in the last two weeks but generally speaking I know this about myself I know that if I can take care of what I call my animal and my animal is the human body that I'm in which is just an animal body you know it's a mammal and it's warm-blooded and it's a female mammal like it has all these characteristics of the female of the species remarkably like a human Liz I know it's a 46 year old female that's a 46 year old female Homo Sapien right it's an it which is the animal that I am yeah right because we are and then inside of that animal for reasons that none of us will ever know there's a supercomputer that not another animal on earth has right we have that crazy we're aware of our awareness we have that consciousness we have sparks of divinity within us we've got all this extra features but all that is the software the hardware is just like these bones you know these muscles this digestive system you know this this animal and if I can first and foremost take care of that animal and make sure that that animal is treated as I would treat any animal in my care that it gets a soft place to sleep and healthy food and nice walks in the sunshine and that it's not being traumatized or abused or stressed or hurt in any way or being pushed beyond what it can do like if I had a look if I had a horse I wouldn't work it until it collapsed in the saddle you know if I had a dog I wouldn't beat it you know like I wouldn't I would take care of it would be my responsibility so if I can take care of the animal that was lives in then the supercomputer functions really well and the supercomputer and the consciousness once the animal is taken care of will know what to do next and it will make good decisions and it will make the most interesting to and the most creative decisions and the most worthwhile decisions so the practice is really like are you healthy you know because none of the other stuff is gonna work if the animal that you live in is just a breakdown you know um and and I say that saying that I don't always do it I'm really busy have a book coming out in a week I've been traveling I'm tired my animals rundown right now and I know that when that happens I don't believe a word my mind tells me because when my animal gets really tired my mind is a big liar the committee reconvene at Savannah committee start saying like there's no point there's no purpose don't you know so so that's the practice and I've had to learn that though I've look I've learned it by the school of hard knocks I've learned it by treating myself like a rented mule and then losing my creativity losing my inspiration losing my faith losing my certainty so that's that man starts there and then everything else will be much easier yeah and what what's up so interesting also as I think one of the things that tends to happen that most when we get to that place where we're like I need to create on a higher level I need better ideas I need to you know whatever it is that you're making whether you're an entrepreneur or writer painter that very often the time where we think we need to access the next layer of creative output creative capacity is the time where we abandon the vitality practices right you know because we're like I don't have time to do this not really realizing that that's that's the container that's the container nature like coming rain like you know receptive to your magic yeah that's the last thing to not be taken care of I wish it all the time also right I know exactly you know but I'm better I'm so much better and I think also as I'm getting older I'm just getting less dumb you know and and a lot of what that is too is about the spiritual practice of setting boundaries on other people's expectations for what you're capable of doing and that's very hard when you are personal like me who just wants to please and deliver for everyone you know um and so as I've gotten older too I mean I just had to come er say with publicity director in Canada because I'm going on my book tour to Canada for one day and she had laid out this huge publicity schedule because that's her job and I wrote back and said go through all of those and pick the two most important ones and I'll do those too and she wrote back and said basically like I've got a better idea why don't I move them around so that they're all sort of in the same area and we'll do these three at the same time while we're all in the same studio and you know the ten year ago version of me would never have been able to hold that line because I would have thought oh it must be really important tonight and I wrote her back and said you know or you could just narrow it down to the two most important ones and because I'm gonna be on book tour for three months yeah and you well I know you only have me for one day and so you want to get the most out of me that you can but this animal has to go through three months of this and I'm not going to do that to this animal and make this animal have a breakdown and get pneumonia and fall apart because that doesn't serve me and it certainly doesn't serve anybody else the only way like my whole thing right now is all I want to all I'm ever trying to do is help people be more free and if they see be enslaved then anything I say has no meaning you know if they see like an exhausted beat down like a rundown person who's giving all of her energy away to everything everybody else wants her to be then what authority do I have to stand there and say to them don't let this happen to you all right if I have if I'm gonna be smoking what I'm selling that's the only way it's go --- teaching it to you till you get it it does you know the whole beauty of life she just wants you to know what the lesson never goes away until it's learned it's just it's the nature of the problems the mind if you repeat second-grade $20 she's just like we got to do this again we'll do it again back you go back you go oh good but how many more times do I have to do this before you start to see a pattern where loonatics it's fabulous and what a great trick for God to hide inside us cuz the human beings the last place you would look for God because we're insane but but but but there it is it's in there you know and and what what a great magic trick that is to put divinity in a psycho monkey it's the best trick the universe ever did yet it certainly is you talk about as interesting you brought up you referenced depression and curiosity and it reminded me of a conversation I had a few years back with kind of chip Connolly and turning conversation that was the first time I'd ever heard somebody offered that there might be a relationship between those two he said look you know people think the opposite of depression is happiness right this is like the opposite of depression is curiosity right cuz the moment you have a spark of curiosity it's kinda sign if you're slim possible yeah just stay in the state without possibility right right I never really thought about that and just sort of like brought that whole conversation back well yeah and that's why we have to be makers too is because we are made to live in a state of vitality you know we live in a universe of motion all evidence points to the fact that we live in a world where things are changing every minute every second every every I mean what is it every five years you have a totally new body um you know because you're shedding cells and growing cells I mean it's all in motion and so again my friend Rob Bell has a great line where he says despair is a spiritual condition because despair is the mistaken notion that tomorrow is gonna be exactly the same as today like that's when you fall into despair when you're in a place in your life where you're like okay this is just all its ever gonna be it's just gonna be this every single day the same and it's it's a lie because all history points to the fact that tomorrow is actually not going to be at all like today um like the whole thing is shifting and moving the ground under our feet is in motion all the time and what all of the universe is asking you to do is to step back into that current and participate with it in in creation in becoming in unfolding in the movement in the change and and as soon as you can start to believe like oh maybe it's not always gonna be exactly like this and maybe my actions matter because maybe the choices for how I'm spending my time will affect how tomorrow is going to be different from today that's when you begin to reclaim your life I remember when I was in the deepest part of my own depression and I remember since I was sitting in the corner of my couch as I had done for months and months on men's middle of the afternoon weeping just a little pile of mess just a little pile of lostness and it was a very comfortable corner in a way I was I had chosen like an animal the most comfortable corner to fall apart in and and I remember just thinking this is all I do know as I just sit I just like curl up in this corner of this couch and I cry and it's always the same corner and it's always the same tears and it's always the same story in my head everything about the scene I'm just in Groundhog Day here it's just repeating and repeating and repeating and then I was like I have to alter something about this and I thought what can I alter because I felt so crushed under my life and so trapped and I thought I can stand up and walk to the middle of my living room floor and stand on one foot and cry and that day was such a victory for me because it was this return of agency I couldn't stop crying because I was really sad but I could I was like I have agency I can choose where I Christ so I stood there in the middle of my living room standing on one foot crying and I was like I changed something so now what can I change tomorrow what can I change the next day baby steps you know and then I cried actually a day and I've sort of laughing because it's absurd after y-you look at yourself I say one foot crying like obviously maybe this is not as bad a situation because I think it is right um and maybe we can maybe we can change literally everything about the situation that I'm in right now if we can change that what else can be altered yeah and that's the beginning of renewal you know and that's the ultimate creative act it's um resurrection resurrecting your own lives you also just think we're so between curiosity and passion mm-hmm yeah that's a big one for ya take me through that conversation a little bit you know it's a this has been a big change in thinking that I've had in my life over the last few years because I used to be a big fundamentalist Preacher about passion and you know certainly would tell anybody who was stuck near me listening but but that was the truth in the way in the Alpha and the Omega and the only you know the only manner of living and that you had to find and identify that one thing within you that made you feel like your head was on fire that one thing you would jump off a cliff for that one thing you would sacrifice everything for and you had to put every molecule for being behind that one thing and that's the only way you know it's really a preacher about that but I had my I was given an awakening about it through a letter that a woman wrote me on Facebook after she had come to see me speak at an event and she said um after hearing you speak tonight I have never felt like more of a loser because I don't have one of those I don't have a passion I don't have one thing that is so clearly everything to me one thing that I would risk everything for I don't and it isn't because I'm lazy and it isn't because I'm depressed I've spent my life tearing myself apart trying to find my one tower of flame that would be the guiding principle for everything to follow and it's telling you it's not there I'm interested in a lot of stuff in very light ways I've never been able to land on one thing and stick with it I feel like I feel like a failure I feel like a freak I feel like there's something missing from my DNA and I came to hate to hear you tonight looking for guidance and you just made me feel like an idiot and I was like oh my god how many people have I done this to right when you get something like that from somebody after I just what how does it how you feel I mean whoa grateful because it is so rare that I change my mind about anything because I have such a certain person I'm such a freakin jackhammer and if somebody is able to wave a flag in front of me that even my blinders can't ignore to the point that it radically changes my whole paradigm that is one of the most those always one of the most interesting moments of my life because I just thought wait a minute look really when was the last time Liz that you took this truth that you believed to be the only true thing in the world and actually looked at it to see if it even is true is it universally true it's true for you is it the only truth is there an only truth and then I started thinking about all the people who I know and admire and love and the lives that they're living and none of them have had a path that was clear and straight with one burning tower of flame and certain passion that they never veered from they've they've lived these lives that look like pin balls and pinball machines they've tried this they've tried that they failed here they got fired from this thing they accidentally stumbled into this thing many of them have very unusual and convoluted paths on the way to finding where they were ultimately supposed to be and the way they got through all those convoluted strange mazes and paths was by following their curiosity until their curiosity took them where they were meant to be which meant sometimes a long and tricky and often painful journey and so that's totally radically changed what I preach and so now I mean also I found I realized finally that telling people to follow their passion it's kind of a useless piece of advice because if you have a central burning passion you are doing it that's the definition of what a passion was and if you don't have one and someone tells you to do it it's frustrating as hell it just makes you feel like being judged and and so I just say if we just take passion off the table and just follow your curiosity trust it take it wherever it wants to go um believe in it and and know that whatever it leads you to it's gonna make for a bigger and more interesting life yeah I love that I've gotten really curious about curiosity you realize for yours one of my big questions is is it teachable and if so how and so I'm I want to hear what you have to say yeah well I think everything is teachable because we're the most influential of monkeys us humans everything is contagious and everything is teachable so fear and insecurity and self-hatred and racism and rage are all teachable so obviously then love and compassion and grace and curiosity and exploration inquisitive nough staff to be teachable as well and you know we learn it by modeling ourselves after people who are living the way that we want to live like that whole sense of I want some in a hat you know when we're around somebody who's radiating a kind of full-on engagement don't you just want to like be how odd that should walk me through that yeah we have that thing and and I think it's actually totally okay to approach that person and say walk me through this how are you that what's going on how did you get I want to think I want that thing like whatever the thing is whether it's their inner peace their excitement their compassion I have a friend who's like the biggest role model in my life right now because she lives in a state of such total acceptance and forgiveness of other people at the same time as being really good at setting boundaries and knowing her limits and telling people when to back off she lives she does not she literally does not judge anyone and she is never standing in self-righteousness ever and that's the thing I struggle with and so you know I literally say to her walk me through that show me how you do that show me how you do that thing where somebody disappoints you and you let them know that they disappointed you and you guys have a weird fight it's awkward and then you let it go because I can't get to the let it go part a lot of the time like how do you you know teach me like the stuff I want to learn I will go to the person who's the best of that and sit at their feet and just because I believe I can be taught I mean I think maybe it starts with believing that you that you can be salvaged you know if you don't believe you can be taught then why would you bother but and also I think is coming from places like having a beginner's mind you know we're so terrified of like uttering the words I don't know you know because it's like I only said no but then yell like you're a weak son of a if you don't know that ya know and we don't know exactly you know as I can be to a friend of ours but Abraham like her work on vulnerability and shame would we're so mired in that yeah that we like we instead of stepping into an opportunity to just ask yeah Wow just tell me something we're just like no no I'm good I'm good yeah you know and they're like I'll google it or something like that if you get out on my own without a terrible sense of you're on your own right you know I'm like yeah don't you dare let anybody know what you don't know how to do ya know but that's you know when you come to the end of yourself is where all the interesting stuff starts you know and don't give me more about that yeah I mean I always think where I where I feel like I'm collapsing is when I come to the end of myself um where I literally just don't know what to do you know um like I'll be in a situation with somebody in an interpersonal level and we're having a problem with each other and I've tried all the Quivers in my bow you know I've tried a I've tried be I tried see I tried D and I feel like we're not getting anywhere and now that means when you come to the end of the Quivers in your bow you're at the end of yourself you got nothing left and that's a point where you can either fall into total hopelessness and despair or you can say this is really interesting help help and then you ask for help from somebody who has the thing you need you call on the wisest person you know and go okay this is what happened and I don't know what to do what do you think you know you just you just open yourself up to the point that well this must be a place where I need to learn because I don't know what to do I just failed and I'm so ashamed of myself and I feel like I really blew it and I have no future I'm at the end of myself so now you reach for someone else alright when you're at the end of yourself you reach for someone else whether that's a human or a teacher of the ages or God that's where the interesting part starts but you can't stop there because then you'll never that's it then you're done that's where you like you see people get to the end of themselves sometimes and just pitch a tent and they're like well I guess this is where I live now well I mean I kind of love yourself acceptance but also like you got another 40 years to live wouldn't it be more interesting to kind of just take a like dig a foxhole and just live there at the end of yourself and be like well I guess I'm an alcoholic um I'm just gonna drink every day forever well well what if you you know maybe you don't have to don't you want to what if there was something there was something what if there was change um it's funny when it when I get to the point and I've had this conversation with a few other people sometimes it's helpful for me to kind of say what would somebody else do mm-hmm you know should they land in this same point if i --- a arises and you always act you know with like reaction B and the result of that is always C you can't stop situation a from occurring but you can trade out the B for a different you know different value like put in D put an F tried you know this is why I loved the greatest thing that my my grew in India always says has become a scientist of your own experience try out another way and it might not work either you know um you know what's that line from Ruby your life has been a mad gamble make it more of one you've lost at the dice a hundred times roll the dice a hundred and one you know um just ok this didn't work ok that oh wow that hurts just as much oh that's even worse that was just what I was like I tried I tried you know I'm trying is to just learn as much as I can yeah by doing a new thing yeah so we stopped short like so it's interesting like in or Livan Japan or ship the aspiration for so many people is but they call the hockey stick moment where you kind of working working and then all of a sudden boom something happens I don't have explosive growth but if you talk to any given founder who have the hockey stick moment the day before they hit that moment yeah the honest ones will almost do the one tell you I couldn't have told you whether we were about to fold right next day or whether about takeoff right you know some and like the way like every day they're like asking the question they're living and like just massive massive state uncertainty in question and just try something new and try and praying but you know then people kind of like you hit against that you know like when do I hold one do I fall question I think we write these was so frustrating for so many people and I yeah there's no answer there but no yeah you can't no and I see people wanting promises from them when they say they kind of like they want a blessing for me they want a benediction from it it says if I pursue this creative path that's all gonna work out and I can never give you that I don't know it's too weird it's too random I know this I know that inspiration would love to do something with you and that inspiration would love to take your hand and jump off a cliff with you because inspiration loves doing that and the net may or may not catch you the inspiration doesn't care you do because it's your life at stake right so you may fly you may fall you may end up with a billion broken bones at the bottom of the cliff and then the next thing that's guaranteed to happen is that inspirations gonna come over and see you laying at the bottom of the cliff would be like oh my god I do that was so much fun you want to do it you want to do it again and you're like I'm destroyed and it's like I know is that so much fun did you see how far we jumped isn't that amazing and and your initial reaction is no I never want to do that again if this is what it feels like to give a hundred percent then no thank you no thank you and you sort of like wrap yourself up and tend to yourself and you go back to your life at which point you either never do anything again and you're safe or one morning because inspirations there every morning inspiration does that thing where it peels up in your eyelid it looks and goes still alive and you're like yes and it says you want to do it again and finally one day you're like don't it let's do it again you know it's because I don't know thing is farm there's still no guarantee right um but but the alternative to me has always been like what else are you gonna do yeah so agree so what else are you gonna do not anything ever I mean okay but really that is that like yeah is that really really really what you want yeah you speak of inspiration it as if it exists outside of the individual and you also speak about ideas as if they exist outside the individual as if they're sort of floating around you know like their own independent and I'm also looking to become I think your language is manifest through the vehicle yeah of people and it was interesting reading that from you I had gents sit down Steve Pressfield a couple years back and were and we're talking about this over some organic pancakes in America and because he proceeded well of course they were organic because his eye his idea of the muse it exists outside of you and that you know with you your job is to show up every day and to do the work and and to prove to the muse that you are worthy and and I was saying to him I was like I said that's on the one hand that's terrifying to me because you're acknowledging that the genius is not in you you're just a vehicle which means you have no control over that and he's yeah but but here's the flipside of this he's like you know it's almost a really freeing because then your job is not to come up with the awesome stuff it's just to sit down and prove that you're worthy and do the work and I was like huh I don't really kind of thought about that way and then I stumbled upon your sort of lens on ideas in the ether you know it's sort of like looking for people looking for the universe is looking for collaborators baby it's a universe that is and it needs help and it wants to work with you it wants to be made and and for me the reason that is not a scary idea is because I don't ascribe to a sort of narrow view of the muse that says and I think that the two ways that artists are usually given to look at their work is either you are the servant of the muse right you're just a hand puppet or you are dominating that thing like you know Nabokov said my my characters are all galley slaves like know what somebody said to him to your characters ever take lives of your own he's like of course they don't their galley slaves you know just so him which is so like so Nabokov it's just like it all comes from me and I'm in charge right and I love him and that's great and that's how he did stuff I mean the other alternative is the super hippie trippy way she's very passive which is you know has no muscle in it which just says like well I guess I just have to wait here for this thing to happen to me and the truth is I don't think it's either one of those options for me the reason that that idea is so terribly exciting is because it's a partnership it's a collaboration between a human being human beings the labor and the mysteries of inspiration you bring the labor and the devotion and the faith of the trust the inspiration will do what it wants but it can't work with you if you're not already working and you can work even without inspiration you know like most of my life as me sitting there just sort of slogging through it like a farmer and not being particularly satisfied with the results but knowing that I'm showing up from my side of the contract for my side of the deal I said I was going to do this I'm going to do this and then months into the project they'll come a day when suddenly there's air underneath me you know and I'm not doing it anymore it's I'm being given information that's coming from I don't know where I look back at what I wrote there's pages of the novel the signature of all things the last book that I wrote that I go back and look at I have no recollection of having written it I can honestly say don't know where that came from but I spent four years doing research on botany and evolution and Darwinism and I read like thousands literally thousands of books I was at my desk every morning at six o'clock working so when I say I don't know where it came from I kind of do know it came from my devotion but there another level of it that came from somewhere else because I know the difference between something that's coming from me and something that's coming through me and what I live for are those moments when something comes through me but for that to happen I have to have a lot of hours in the can of stuff just coming out of me nah and then I reach the end of myself and there's something else there yeah and that is a whole lot of faith it's the best game in town it's the best game in town there's no other way I would rather live my life it's the greatest it's the greatest privilege and one of the reasons I get annoyed when when creative people start to get really complaining I said I just think where's your gratitude for the fact they you get to even do this that you get to even try that you get to even try there are millions of people in the world who have virtually no agency over their lives whatsoever and you have you're lucky enough that you live in a world where you have even a tiny little bit of agency and you get to use it to interact with inspiration which is the weirdest most fascinating force in the universe and all you want to do is be mad all you want to do is be mad at it where's your gratitude this is a really interesting thing that you get to do just cuz it didn't work doesn't mean it wasn't interesting or it wasn't worthy that's a powerful place to come from that's just me preaching yeah so we'll come full circle I think just spinning off of the exploration of gratitude so the name of this is good life project so if I offer that term out to you to live a good life mmm what bubbles up to show up for it you know um and showing up for it for me means really having the discipline to stay awake and alert and responsive um and I think that's the highest form of prayer in a way is to say for reasons that none of us will ever know God trusted me enough to put a life in my hands and it was my own thought I could do it God was like I'm gonna give this bozo a life a life to take care of and to curate you know and to curate and to create and to come into being and I'm going to throw all sorts of obstacles at this life and see how you decide to puzzle them out and sort of setbacks and failures and disappointments and let's see if you can get through the whole thing without becoming embittered I feel like that's one of the most interesting challenges in the world like hey what if you went to the whole life and by the end of it you were bitter despite whatever happened or didn't happen that's pretty cool that's a really interesting way to live the most interesting choice that you could possibly make is I'm not gonna let this turn me sour and dark and small but instead think of it as just another opportunity to learn and grow and be that's a good life you know and it has nothing to do with what kind of stuff you get out of it you know um and you and I both know that some of the people who we admire the most on an intimate level have like taken such severe face-plants and their life like they have a a trail of disasters behind them addictions alcoholism and shame terrible things that they did police records sometimes like some of the people who I just who I revere and and who I come to when I'm in distress like if you could have seen who they were 20 years ago you would cross the street and you know like put your wallet in your front pocket and you should because they were dangerous screwed-up disastrous people but they had moments of reckoning where they suddenly realized I don't just want to be I don't just want to be a million unconnected molecules flying through space bumping into fighting and getting knocked over by everything I see I want to be an integrated thing I want to be a whole thing I want to be a real thing I want to be a good thing and and they sought that out and in so doing became heroes that's a good life it's the only life the rest of it you're just a meat puppet paying bills and that's not gonna do it for me or for most of us yeah you know and it doesn't have to doesn't have to have magnitude in the outcome it will have magnitude simply because you laid claim to it and made it your own that's magnificent enough and rare enough thank you you're welcome so as we wrap up today I've got a special request Good Life Project is growing and we're looking at how to best serve you with new programming and partnerships you've heard a bit of that on the programming side and also on friendly new sponsors as well I would so appreciate if you could take just two minutes to fill out a quick survey our friends at wonder e are helping us with this process just go to wonder e that's wo and D er why comm slash survey to share more about who you are and what you dig that's wondering comm slash survey I want to give a final shout out to our awesome sponsors and supporters right now you can post a job on zip recruiter for free that's right for free just go to zip recruiter dot-com slash good be sure to check out blue apron and get your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blue apron com slash good life today's show is sponsored by fresh books which is a super cool cloud accounting software to claim your month-long unrestricted free trial with no credit card required go to FreshBooks comm slash good life and enter the good life project in the how did you hear about us section [Music] thanks so much for listening to today's episode if the stories and idea is in any way moved you I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things one if it's touched you in some way if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like 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