Jonathan Fields

Turning Purpose into Your Superpower.

In this conversation...

We explore the inherited ambitions that we carry without even realizing it, why the latter is the wrong model for a life well-lived, and what purpose looks like when you stop waiting to find it.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Goodbye Project.

And I want to start at the very beginning with Tom.

We'll jump in there right after this short break.

I have been following your work for quite a while.

I'm always fascinated to hear your take your lens on how to investigate big transitional moments in life.

I want to take a step back in time, though, because you have lived with an awareness of your own mortality since your mid-teens.

So, you know, this is probably a longer term exploration for you than it is for so many others.

Can you take us back there and share a bit of the story about how this awareness dropped into your life?

Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting.

Like this thing that was set in motion for you at 16 years old, getting you to look at the world a little bit differently, but also ask a different set of questions and also just be very acquainted with your own mortality from the earliest days, even in your mind saying, okay, I'm doing a bit of research.

The over-under, as you described it, or the potential, like the quote, average endpoint is 37 years old.

So like, you're almost like you're working towards, it's almost like somebody has told you like, this is one, and I'm going to work backwards from there.

And then we fast forward to the pandemic, when now millions of people are becoming, you know, like, just deeply viscerally acquainted with their own mortality.

It's almost like, well, you've had decades of training in living in that space already.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

You know, at the same time, again, sort of just bring us back to those teen years.

It sounds like you're living almost like these two different trajectories.