jonathan fields : The Art of Non-Conformity

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How to Live a Good Life: A Recipe for Compassion and Meaning

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you've probably heard me mention Jonathan Fields. He's been a good friend of many years and we've been part of many events together, from speaking at SXSW in Austin to all six (!) WDS's from 2011-2016 in Portland. I've probably learned more from him than anyone else in the world of publishing and community building—and I know a lot of people!

His new book is out today, and it's great. Instead of asking for his life story or what we can learn in this book, I wanted to ask him three simple questions: why this message, why this book, and why now?

Life

“You’ve got to be unapologetically you.”: Jonathan Fields at WDS

Next month we’ll release the first round of tickets for WDS 2017, a week-long gathering of creative, remarkable people—taking place next summer in beautiful Portland, Oregon.

But first, we’re rolling out a series of speaker videos from the 2016 event. To start us off, here's a video from our opening speaker, Jonathan Fields. A New York City dad, husband, entrepreneur and author, he founded mission-driven media and education venture, Good Life Project®, where he and his team lead a global community in the quest to live more meaningful, connected, and vital lives.

Life

Closing the Books: A Lesson in Letting Go

Jonathan Fields sent me this short audio story as an example for recording my own 5-10 minute one. I intended to listen to a minute or two and then go off to write whatever I was going to say. But I was intrigued by the promise... so I kept listening!

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Living With Gratitude in a Modern Age

Jonathan Fields is one of the most generous people I know. He is always helping me and many others. I try to help him in return but the ratio is at least 4:1 in his favor.

In this post he explains something he’s done for a while:

While I do have a standard sig-file that gets added to my emails automatically, I type the words “With gratitude” by hand. Slowly, with intention, owning a sense of genuine gratitude as I type. In doing so, it becomes a mini-meditation. A momentary honoring. An opportunity to acknowledge gratitude dozens of times each day. And, strangely enough, when I do this, it makes me feel different. I know, weird.

It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it does take conscious time.

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The Top 7 Interviews from Good Life Project

Online interviews are a dime a dozen… except when they’re done amazingly well. Jonathan Fields decided to rise to the challenge of producing thoughtful, in-depth features on interesting people. He’s kept at it for more than three years and is still going strong. I asked him why he started Good Life Project, otherwise known as GLP. Here’s…

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Start With Something To Say

A while back I was sitting in a room with Jonathan Fields, a fellow author and good friend. At the front of the staging area, a publishing executive was talking about the state of the industry.

Does anyone have any questions?

Someone had a question, and a good one: "If I want to write a book, what's the first thing I should do?"

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Life

Fear and Permission

When you speak at a Carnegie Mellon University event with Fearless as the theme, you've got a couple things to consider. One: it's TedX! It's Carnegie Mellon! Yikes. Intimidating audience of extremely smart people with high expectations. But two: since the event is about overcoming fear, no one will be surprised when you admit to your own fears ...