78 : Living and Working Mindfully with Jonathan Reynolds

 Welcome to the mindful fire podcast a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional, using the tools of mindfulness envisioning and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Coelho and I'm so glad you're here. 

Each episode of the mindful fire podcast explores these three tools through teachings, guided meditations and inspiring interviews with people actually living them to craft a life they love. 

At its core, mindful fire is about creating more awareness and choice in your life. 

Mindfulness helps you develop self-awareness to know yourself better. And what's most important to you by practicing a kind curious awareness. 

Envisioning is all about choosing to think big about your life and putting the power of your predicting brain to work, to create the life you dream of. 

And financial independence brings awareness and choice to your financial life. Empowering you to make your vision a reality by getting your money sorted out and ultimately making work optional. 

 And here's the best part. 

You don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision. 

Mindful FIRE is about using these tools to craft that life now on the path to financial independence and beyond. 

Adam Coelho: If you're ready to start your mindful fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide. 

Adam Coelho: And just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. 

Adam Coelho: Again. You can download it for mindfulFIRE.org/start 

Let's jump into today's episode. 

On today's episode of the podcast, I'm joined by my new friend, Jonathan Reynolds. Jonathan Reynolds is the founder and CEO of mindful life mindful work, Inc. A San Francisco based leadership development company, providing services that address the intersection of self-awareness and team performance. 

Since 1997, Jonathan has trained extensively in the discipline of mindfulness and his work with leaders emphasizes simple and practical ways to improve performance efficiency and workplace cultures by integrating mindfulness sensibilities. 

 In this conversation, Jonathan and I explore what it means to live and work mindfully. 

And I have to say it was one of my favorite episodes to not only record, but also to edit. And I listened to it a few more times so I know it's going to have a lot of value for you, and I'm really excited to share it. 

And with that, Jonathan, welcome to the mindful fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Thanks for having me, Adam. It's great to be here. 

Adam Coelho: So I'd love to have you start by sharing with the audience a little bit about who you are, your journey and what you're up to in the world.

Jonathan Reynolds: Great. Yeah, my name's Jonathan ReynoldsIn the nineties, I had an experience like I think many people have after they graduated from college, I was depressed.

Jonathan Reynolds: I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. 

Jonathan Reynolds: And so what happened there is then I started to get curious and I started to do things like meditation and yoga practice. And that was really the beginning of my mindfulness practice. And very early on, I would say a year or two after I'd begun practicing, I knew that I wanted to share it.

Jonathan Reynolds: I wanted to share the benefits that I had experienced. So I started to do very informal coaching things like life coaching, relationship, coaching, even spiritual coaching or practice coaching. I didn't know what coaching was at the time. I just wanted to be useful. So I wasn't even calling it coaching.

Jonathan Reynolds: And then over time, my practice evolved, and I wanted to scale sort of my impact and my sphere of influence and my financial return. And started. So I trained to be a therapist at a certain stage. And for about the last 12 years, I've been doing executive leadership coaching in the corporate space.

Jonathan Reynolds: During that time I also recognized that I was one and I wanted to have even more impact. So either you build products or you build teams. And so I started to gather people. I started to gather people that had complimentary services that were related, but distinct. And in the beginning it was more like a consortium.

Jonathan Reynolds: It was more like a collective. And then slowly over time we codified and became more formal. And about four years ago, we formed mindful life, mindful work into a C corporation, and now we offer assessments, coaching consulting, and trainings. and so it's been a very organic evolution. And we're still very lean.

Jonathan Reynolds: We have very low overhead. We're very nimble. I guess we're these days it's agile. so that's sort how I got into it. My own practice grew in, I like to visualize concentric circles and we're always looking at the next concentric circle. How do we scale impact? How do we grow as a company and how do we help make the world a better place?

Jonathan Reynolds: That's ultimately the end game. And we've chosen to do that in sort of the business sphere.

Very good. Thank you for that. And couple questions come to mind first. 

Adam Coelho: You mentioned you think about your practice in concentric circles. I found that interesting. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that means? 

Jonathan Reynolds: There years ago? I had and a very informal practice.

Jonathan Reynolds: I like acronyms. I like alliteration. I like things that are simple to remember. And so I had something that was personal professional people. I had said my three PS and so personal was my individual practice. And so I reserve a time or a duration each day where I'm alone and I really am doing sometimes that's, reading sometimes that's meditation.

Jonathan Reynolds: Sometimes that's yoga it most days, it's all. and so that's the inner sort of ripple. And then as this thing ripples out then I have my family and my community my culture, my world. And again, that's sort of the spiritual piece perhaps, but then that also is echoed in sort of impact while I have my team and then the client base and then prospective clients.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so I view it like that as that if the core isn't strong if the core isn't nourished and resourced, then the ripple isn't going to actually have maximum. Length or distance or impact. And so I've always viewed it as that, that I am, a prime mover of my life. And if I'm not the prime mover, I'm not making deliberate choices or not planning that seed intentionally and as deep as possible, then my impact is curtailed necessarily and indirect for proportion to the depth, to which I planted that seed.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so I've put a lot of focus on planting that seed.

Adam Coelho: Gotcha. So it sounds like the planting of the seed is really the focus on taking care of your own personal practice. So you can show up in your life to then have that impact on the expanding circles, around, your family, Your community, the society, and so on and so forth.

Adam Coelho: So the focus is making sure that the core is strong, which means that your practice is strong. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Is that right? Yeah, I think it's essential. I think without that, especially like over a duration, like COVID I really have a lot of compassion and feel a lot of empathy for folks that didn't necessarily have a personal practice.

Jonathan Reynolds: Because my life changed. I found practice in my early twenties. Everybody has some practice and the question is first of all, was that practice chosen deliberately and consciously, and then does it actually serve them on the deepest possible levels that they needed to function?

Jonathan Reynolds: And so over a period, like COVID where we were locked in. The practice was essential for keeping my sanity for staying grounded, for managing shifting environments, changing policies, changing rules and coming home to that ground, that baseline. I think is essential for both recharging, but also to have something reliable. And it's not reliable because it's always the same. It's always changing, but it's reliable because it's there in some continuity or some consistent way. and I think that's really important because there's gonna be great days. There's gonna be terrible days. What is the same about those two?

Jonathan Reynolds: If we have some sort of a practice, then we have the same, if we don't, we're at the whim of the rollercoaster. And so I think it's, essential to have a practice and I love all the reports and all the information coming out on leaders, meditating and things like. You'll find that most leaders, it might be formal meditation.

Jonathan Reynolds: It might not, but they have some practice that helps ground them. Whether it's a walk with a dog in nature at 5:00 AM every day, or there's something like that in pretty much all of their lives. And I think it is essential if we wanna be a leader of ourself. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. No, that makes a ton of sense. I appreciate you going into that a little bit more.

Adam Coelho: Yeah. For me personally, I can tell the difference when I'm having that consistent practice and when I'm not, and I've heard the analogy and you hinted at it. It's like coming home. It's having that home base where you can come and yeah. It's not gonna be the same every day.

Adam Coelho: Sometimes mine might be all over the place. Sometimes it might be calm, but it's that same place that you can come to. And, I've been realizing that I need to make it a little bit more formal. I've had times in my life where I had a strong morning routine and that was exactly what you were describing.

Adam Coelho: It's like, okay. A really nice way to start today since my son was born, he's now three. So it's been a while. I haven't exactly had that. So I've been fitting it in around that. And I'm finding, I was just thinking this last night that like not having a plan or not having a consistency in the routine, especially around practice or journaling another mindful practice.

It doesn't work as well. Right. I don't have that strong foundation on which to build the day. And I'm craving that again. So this is a nice reminder to, to go and do that. 

Jonathan Reynolds: I can relate when my son was born, the same thing happened. Formal practice time was obliterated. It was shattered and the line between formal and informal dissolve.

Jonathan Reynolds: And in some ways that was a gift. It's like, oh, when I was rocking my son, I did like a G gun routine, cuz that was the only time I was gonna get into my lower body in the day, like when I was trying to get him to nap time. And so all sorts of things, sometimes I had to get up at 3:00 AM to meditate because that was the time that was available.

Jonathan Reynolds: And I think it's really important to have sort of a plan, but then also not to hold it too rigidly because Some days don't have the energy to practice formally. And sometimes a practice is taking a bath and it can be that. And so again, I think the conscious intention and the deliberate choice is the piece but I also agree with what you're saying.

Jonathan Reynolds: At some point there has to be some grid or framework by which to say this is the baseline. Because that trains us, that teaches us and it is a training. It's not like, oh, because I get up at 5:00 AM every day and meditate. When I'm in a difficult situation, I'm gonna meditate, but that's a training for the rest of life.

Jonathan Reynolds: Right?

Adam Coelho: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Adam Coelho: you mentioned at the beginning, you found this practice when you were a little bit depressed after college and it sounds like it helped you. To move forward and to bring more mindfulness into your work and your interactions with others.

Adam Coelho: And so I know that's a lot of the work that you do now. And for people who maybe don't have a regular practice or are just curious, what are the benefits of practicing mindfulness and showing up with more mindfulness in your Workday and with your colleagues? 

Jonathan Reynolds: Well, In short, I think it makes us more responsive more available to input and then more in control as far as choice.

Jonathan Reynolds: I've seen a lot of definitions of mindfulness or being mindful. And for me, there's a piece that I think is missing from a lot of those definitions and that's the sustained attention. Anybody can be awake and aware for an instant. That's really great, but continuity is the end game or part of the process that I think is really important to develop is over time.

Jonathan Reynolds: Can you build it? So it's smooth across experiences in a way that is non disruptive and and the impacts of that are infinitely reaching? I, but again, I think it, it makes us more conscious of our choices. It gives us a space to make those choices in difficult situations.

Jonathan Reynolds: But it also makes us more relational. I Really mindful life mindful work in our team. We're really relationship experts. More than like any sort of business savvy. We have that and people have that experience. But the, I think our impact is because we're sensitive to things like psychological safety to differing perspectives.

Jonathan Reynolds: And to how this actually plays out in a workplace culture and in systemic thinking because that's where things get complex is it's one thing when you're relating to yourself. It's another thing when you're relating to one other person, what about when you're relating to 15,000 people?how does that actually get managed and played out in a way that both honors the differences, but then also aligns to a common goal or a mission that a company may have.

Jonathan Reynolds: And I think my mindfulness serves really well on all those fronts. Because again, There's a certain practice or certain result from practice that we take things less personally, there's a little less ego involved. And because of that, we're really more interested in finding out what's useful and helpful.

Jonathan Reynolds: So there's a pragmatic or a pragmatism about mindful practice that I think is again just totally invaluable. Can't be understated. Can't always be quantified. That's one of the difficult things for the rational line, they want numbers and like how much impact there's some data coming out, of course around that.

Jonathan Reynolds: But I think in the feeling tone and like most of it's anecdotal at this point, most of it's oh, we did this thing. And now two years later, we can see that, attrition is way down and that people are happier and we're getting less terrible Yelp reviews or whatever the case may be.

Jonathan Reynolds: A lot of that sort of is gonna take time and is more longitudinal in nature. but it's really it's all pervasive. And I can say that in my own life, it's just, it's changed my body physically. Like it's changed my relationships.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's changed how I care for the environment. it's changed how I leverage my value in business situations and how I negotiate. All of those things have been impacted and impacted.

Jonathan Reynolds: Yeah. 

Adam Coelho: There's a lot there. I like that. Negotiating one that's definitely put a pin in that. One thing that you said there really stood out to me and that we take things less personally and the way I think about it is that we're creating a little bit of space between the stimulus and the response, right?

Adam Coelho: Like the famous quote that attributed to Victor Frankel between stimulus and response. There's the space in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth in our freedom. And for me, that's what it all comes back to.

It's subtle, but it's really important that when we practice mindfulness, we start to see our experience a little bit more objectively. We're not as in it. And we have that space to see how, like, there's that thought again, I don't need to believe that thought. for me, that's been a lot of the benefit at work, right?

Adam Coelho: I used to get really caught up in these stories about, I can't believe it's going this way. We're having another reorg and this and that, and trying to make things happen and running into walls. But the more I started to observe my own thoughts and my own feelings both on the cushion, but also in real time, the more I was able to say, like detach myself a little bit from that, and that just led to more ease and.

Adam Coelho: Just ability to do the job and not be, bringing all this extra stuff with me that, that gets really heavy after a time. And so I think that's a really powerful thing that you called 

Jonathan Reynolds: out there. I think it's essential. And I think part of what you're naming is acceptance, right?

Jonathan Reynolds: When we see clearly we can accept and the fear around acceptance is often if I accept it, it means I'm not working to change it. I've let it be as it is, but no, We need to accept what's true in order to work effectively. Within whatever the rules of that situation are. and I think mindfulness gives us, like you said, and I think you hit the nail on the head, that space to be non-reactive and to really deliberately choose.

Jonathan Reynolds: There's a saying in psychotherapeutic circles that the reason your family can push your buttons is because they're the ones that installed them. And so what happens is in a system like a. Things arise and nobody's doing it deliberately or maliciously, but a hand moves and it pushes a button on your shoulder.

Jonathan Reynolds: And that's just how it works every time they say that word, the button gets pushed and you do the thing. and I think the moment that we pause the moment that we say I'm gonna practice non-reactivity and it might be not scratching an itch when you're meditating, it might be pausing just for a moment and taking three deep breaths, like mom used to say, it's those gaps that let us then say, okay, I've sorta let the wave of intensity flow through now.

Jonathan Reynolds: What. Do I still wanna do the thing and often we can't help ourselves. Of course, like it takes time to disengage. But it's a practice if you pause one moment and then the next time you pause two moments, you have that many more moments to potentially choose otherwise. And otherwise we are in a deterministic world where, it's just billiard balls and we wanna be in a world where there's free choice.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so mindfulness is a vehicle to help cultivate that for sure. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. it's so true. they installed the buttons, right? they pushed the buttons cuz they install the buttons. it never fails. It really, doesn't. And I notice myself doing that with my son as well. It's like, where did I learn these things?And the strategies that I have, I joke it's like basically bribes, lies, and threats. That's what I, those are my strategies. So I need some better ones. They just don't work, and but I notice myself going to them again and again, and it makes such a difference when I can catch myself. And it's also, I went to a retreat a couple years ago with John Kazin and I was like, it was right before my son was born and I was like, it was another one of those, Everything aligned. And it just worked out perfectly, cuz I didn't think I was gonna be able to go, but it all worked out. And I was saying that in the public forum to everyone and I was saying I was gonna have a kid and he's like, oh wow. you got yourself a little Zen teacher, because they are, gonna expose Everything you think, but haven't really fully learned yet. And it's just such the case. It's like, I know that I want to create space between the stimulus and the response. Having said that it's easier said than done, right when it's the end of the day and it's bath time and he's not getting out or he's not getting in.

Adam Coelho: And he's completely ignoring me, the other dad was like, uhoh like, I could feel it, I could feel it coming up and it was just like, oh, 

Jonathan Reynolds: geez. But yeah. Yeah. There's another funny cartoon from when I was setting psychotherapy where a dad and his son are wrestling in the bathtub and he says, you're only making it more difficult on your future therapist.

Jonathan Reynolds: And and just two book recommendations. One is by John Katz, Zin. I'm forgetting the title, but it's about raising a conscious family. We've actually used their dinner prayer for the last 14 years in our family. Oh, and then there's one by tick, not H I think it's called joyfully together. And one of the recommendations in there is around having a breathing room and it's for the parents because the kids aren't having trouble being kids.

Jonathan Reynolds: They're good at being kids. The parents need the time out because we're the ones that need the break and to reenter they have no trouble being children. That's true 

that's the thing I try to remember is like, he's just doing what he's doing, right? No,he's testing boundaries, he's pushing the boundaries and all of that.

Adam Coelho: And then also it's just like hilarious how I'm just like seeing myself in him. Like I behave like as a 34 year old adult. Kind of Like him , it's absurd when I see it. So it gives me a little bit more compassion for him. 

Adam Coelho: one thing you mentioned is that mindfulness is really helpful in negotiating and knowing your value when you go into conversations with potential clients, I assume.

Adam Coelho: So can you talk a little bit more about mindfulness role there and 

Jonathan Reynolds: how it helps? I think self-awareness helps in almost every situation. I sometimes I like metaphors. So the metaphor of self-awareness like water, it pours into every vessel. It pours into every situation. It doesn't discriminate on the shape or the size it pours in.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so in negotiations, it too pours in. And so sometimes when I'm doing individual client work, which we still do some of at mindful life mindful work it's Like, how do you know? Let's say you have a number, let's say the number a hundred. Let's not even put a dollar, like you want the number out 100.

Jonathan Reynolds: How do you know you don't want 1 0 1 or 99? Like, it's one thing to say, oh, I obviously don't want 50 or 150, but how do you know when it really gets fine? The only way to know is to check in with yourself and to feel what feels right. Given all of the circumstances and how you're relating to the other and what feels fair to them as well.

Jonathan Reynolds: Sometimes I'll use the example of when you go to a restaurant, how do you know what you wanna order? How do you know you're in the mood for a light salad or a big, heavy roasted chicken? Like how do you know? You might look at prices. You might look at which one, the picture looks better, but the final decision is based on mood and feeling what you're in the mood for.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so the same is partly true in negotiation, you know, your financial situation, what you need to make it worth your while. Whether negotiating a client contract or negotiating a personal salary. Like knowing that, and again, the part of its mind, part of its cognitive thinking and like, okay, this is what I need based on my budget.

Jonathan Reynolds: But part of it is what is my worth? What is my value? What feels good? What would excite me? Like why take one 20 when it's just gonna be satisfactory? When you can push a little bit to get 1 35 and you'll actually do a better job, cuz you'll be excited about 1 35 

Jonathan Reynolds: and I'm not talking in thousands. I'm not talking in anything.

Jonathan Reynolds: Cuz I don't wanna give the impression that anybody should go be going for anything specific. But how do you know that? And one person, 1 35 is like winning the lottery and another person, 1 35 is failure. Like why is that true? It's the same number. And so each one of us has to do that internal inquiry of what feels right for me given this stage of my life and this relationship and the resources and all of the things that are coming into factor.

Jonathan Reynolds: Only by being aware of a feeling based something. Can we actually know, like, no, I can't go below that because then I'm gonna be a resentful employee or I'm gonna not deliver on the work in some excited, inspired way because it's too low. I of cut off, my nose despite my face. I don't really know what that saying means, but I'm sure it applies.

Jonathan Reynolds: and so that's, you 

Adam Coelho: need all of it. You need the nose and the face. Yeah. I don't know. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Yeah. You need it. All right. And how do you know that? How do you know what, it really boils down to how do you know that you need that? You can say, I need 1 35.

Jonathan Reynolds: Why, how do you know that? Oh, that's the industry standard? That's a cop out. That can be a starting place, but at some point you gotta go in and think. Where do I measure up in the industry standard and what feels fair and what given all the other projects or, so for instance, sometimes with my individual coaching fees, they're higher than other coaches.

Jonathan Reynolds: Why are they higher? Part of the reason is cuz I want to have less clients and give more energy to each individual client. And sometimes I'll even have that conversation with clients. I'll say the reason you're paying more is because you want me to show up at 110% every time, not depleted, cuz I have twice as many clients as I have.

Jonathan Reynolds: You should know that you should know that process and that evaluation, it really is a mindful inquiry took place. And that's where these numbers come from. So I can show up fully for you. And so you can really blow it out of the water and not just have a so, so coach. So anyway I don't know if that answers your question, but I think we're speaking the same language, of course, that the more that you're self aware, the more that all your choices become more informed and what to ask for, the difference between a need and a want.

Adam Coelho: Yeah. it's funny that we're talking about this because I had this same experience I mentioned before we started recording that I recently had my first paid external workshop. And I struggled with this, I really struggled with, what do I ask for, what do I ask for? And there was a lot of fear, right? There was a lot of fear. There was a lot of really fear around like, am I asking too much? I. And what if they say no? I tried to get information around like what their budget was. And there was really no budget.

Adam Coelho: And so I didn't have much to go on and I found myself procrastinating, like, just like, no, I'll figure that out tomorrow. Like, oh, take out the trash. Okay, sure. I'll take out the trash. Yeah. Anything to not think about this but, ultimately I did what you're saying is I checked in and I, asked, like, What do I think this is worth? And would I feel excited about diving into this and bringing my absolute best? And ultimately I asked for a number and they came, they said, oh, our budget's actually lower than that. And we ended up on a number, which was ultimately the number that I wanted, so I asked for a little bit more expecting that we would negotiate a little bit and ended up right where I would have wanted, but I also found myself and I often find myself doing this, which is looking out, looking outside of myself, for the answer. So I'd ask a bunch of other people, know, I'm in the inner MBA program.

Adam Coelho: And I asked several people in the inner MBA. I asked this other woman who leads these type of workshops. And so I looked outside of myself. I asked a bunch of people and the number they came with was actually lower. Than what I ended up getting. And I realized like, I just, wasn't excited about that.

Adam Coelho: And I knew I was gonna put a lot of work into this and really give it my all for many reasons. But if I would've asked for that, they would've still negotiated and I would end up like way far away from what I ultimately was really excited about and happy to do this for. So 

Jonathan Reynolds: I think it's so important.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's also an assertion of value. I think it's really important if you wanna be taken seriously, you gotta negotiate a little bit. It's you want it to work out. So both sides are happy and yet if you're just willing to do it for anything, then then that's a problem too. We acquired a company that was charging something for a specific service, a mindfulness based service, and they had some very big clients, some multinational, huge companies.

Jonathan Reynolds: And when we acquired this client list, we circled back. And the first thing we did with all these clients is say, what do you think about the price that you were charged for the services? And almost all of them said, we've never paid anything less than 20 times what they were charging for these sorts of services.

Jonathan Reynolds: And of course, that's part of what brought the company to us was they, it wasn't financially stable or viable. and I think it's really important that you assert your value and of course you have to be ready to not get what you want. You have to be ready to walk away if you need to. it's a little bit about, of course win, win.

Jonathan Reynolds: But not at any cost, it has to be rightness a fit and only through a mindfulness practice. Can you really check in and say, oh, this was gonna be a rockstar project. I'm willing to take it for a little bit less just to build relationship or no, this was gonna be some real heavy lifting. I'm glad I didn't get it at that price because that was my bottom.

Jonathan Reynolds: And I knew it was gonna be very difficult engagement and maybe not even nurturing or, exciting. And so all of that factors into is this thing alive, what number brings it alive. and again, like we've said, like checking in, oh, this is the number that brings it alive for me. And you can't fake that.

Jonathan Reynolds: You can't say, okay, I'll take half and hope. Just hope for the future. When does that future come? It hopefully arrives in the present moment. I've just met so many mindfulness practitioners that say, oh, win someday. Which day like, if you've said that for more than three or four years, you've been saying it too much.

Adam Coelho: Yeah,

Adam Coelho: it's very real. 

Adam Coelho: I imagine a lot of people, especially in this mindfulness space and this type of work really just are afraid to ask for what they deserve or what they know they need. That's why a lot of people aren't able to do this full time is because they just aren't able to ask for what they need.

Adam Coelho: And in my situation I really wanted to do it. So I would've probably done it for free, although. I knew I couldn't do that. I knew that it was a lot of work. I couldn't do it. I had to drive four hours there, four hours back. I had to take off work, like I knew that it wasn't viable to do it like that, but it's like, part of me is like, oh, I just want to do it.

Adam Coelho: I just wanna get this first one under my belt. So on and so forth. that's why I kept putting it off. It's like, I wanted to just be like, ah, just get them to say yes, and but then the more I listened to what I needed to be really excited about it right?

 it's not like this is something that I've never done. Just cuz I hadn't done it externally. Doesn't mean I'm. Have hour, hundreds of hours doing this. And so you really have to think about what your worth is 

Jonathan Reynolds: in that. Well, And I think it's important in professional engagements.

Jonathan Reynolds: The money is what keeps the relationship clean. They're paying for some service and some outcome, and you are delivering the outcome. And if the money isn't there, like in a friendship, Then you sort of owe somebody emotionally like, oh, they listen to my story when I had a really hard time and now they're having a hard time.

Jonathan Reynolds: So I'm their friend, so I'll do it. But in a professional relationship of course it's humans, but at the same time, it's the money that keeps the engagement clean and flowing. And if the money's not right then resentment builds in either on one side or the other. and that's where the dollar amount is super important.

Adam Coelho: Yeah. It makes it clear. It makes it very clear. I'm gonna do these things. You're gonna pay me X dollars and we're both gonna deliver. And when we deliver everyone's happy and if it falls short, we know exactly where it was.

Adam Coelho: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Okay. Yeah. That's great. The last thing I'll say is, when you were talking about, how it feels and checking in. My initial thought was if somebody asked me how'd you come up with that number?

Adam Coelho: It feels weird to say I checked in and I feel that feels right. But At the same time, when you were talking about how you explain to your coaching clients, that yeah, your rate might be a little bit higher, but you do that so that you can have fewer clients so that you can focus more on each client.

Adam Coelho: That's a totally valid and reasonable way of approaching it and explaining it. So I imagine there are other ways that in different context, you can explain that where it's not like, I just put my finger in the air and felt the wind and, that's what I came up with.

Adam Coelho: You know what I mean? 

Jonathan Reynolds: There's a whole metric for instance, for the business for mindful life mindful work, we have a breakdown of where the money goes when the check comes in there's percentages that go to the delivery. There's percentages that go to the organism of the business there's percentages that go to the finder or the seller of the work.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so that all happens so that all gets factored into what the number's going to be. Because again, we don't wanna be on the hour. We wanna be on the outcome. We wanna, we wanna match the outcome to the scale of the problem or the solution. And so I think it's really important in those conversations to have those things, but also to learn how to language and to articulate the value, what is the value?

Jonathan Reynolds: And I don't love the management consulting verbiage or model necessarily, but, what's the cost of not doing this work. what does success look like? What is in the way of that and getting really clear like, oh, can we put a dollar amount on this problem? And sometimes that informs.

Jonathan Reynolds: What the fee is, maybe you've heard the 10% rule. Like if you find a million dollar problem, you can charge a hundred thousand dollars to fix it. It should be worth a company to pay 10% to find a problem. And a million dollar problem is not a big problem. It could be one senior employee leaving and the cost that it takes to interview and, get the next person in place sort of thing.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's, for a big company, a million dollars is nothing. As far as the problem, it could be a hundred million problem easily. And so I think that's one metric that we sometimes look at. But then again it's around the languaging. Oh, I've got three people that are gonna be dedicated to this for probably six months.

Jonathan Reynolds: What so there can be some of that build out. But the other piece around sort of individual work, cuz individual work doesn't have sort of those fallbacks around pricing used to say this funny thing, and I haven't said it in a while, but like, you're paying me to be in your corner for the duration of our work.

Jonathan Reynolds: Some days I might not think about you at all, but some days I might think about you for seven hours. our situation might be in my mind, in the shower, like it, like it might, it pervades my life because once I'm in your corner, I'm in your corner and it's not like an attorney that builds you for every minute.

Jonathan Reynolds: They're not like I'm not keeping track. You're paying for the outcome. You're not paying for my time, because if you actually were paying for my time, you'd probably be paying a lot more. And and it would be difficult to quantify and track and it would be a pain in the butt for everybody. But I think all of these things need to be articulated.

 for instance, with an individual client, let's say, this is the problem. Is it worth $45,000 to be done with that problem? Or to never have to wonder again, if you're in the right direction of your career. ever now, not that it won't change and that you won't modify, but to have the tools that you never have to wonder if you checked in or not.

Jonathan Reynolds: Is that worth $45,000? Most higher level executives would say of course, if I don't have to worry about that for the next 15 or 20 years, definitely that's a great investment. And so it's also speaking that language. A lot of people come to service as individuals and they only see it as an expense.

Jonathan Reynolds: If you're buying a car, it's an expense. If you're buying a house, that's an investment and you wanna be investing your money. You don't wanna be all expenses all the time. And and so part of it's that shifting and thinking, you're investing in yourself when you're an individual seeking coaching and the same should be true at the macro scale in the system of a company.

Jonathan Reynolds: And that's what they're looking they're a little more rigid or rigorous around making sure they're making investments. but that languaging has to be there because you're gonna pay $45,000 for phone calls. That's a silly thing to pay $45,000 for, but it's not a silly thing to pay $45,000 for the outcome that you wanna work towards.

Jonathan Reynolds: That's a really good investment. And so languaging around that I think is really important because and at every intersection you're doing that. Everything's in negotiation, I'm negotiating with you right now, Adam, around the content and who gets, equal air time. And all of that is always happening and yet we can't be aware of it unless we're mindful.

Adam Coelho: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What you were saying about, if, once you're in somebody's corner, their problem is on your mind, right? They are on your mind. That's how I found it with this, right? it's not the 90 minutes I gave the workshop. It's not even the several hours or whatever it was that it took me to make the workshop and to make the deck and to plan the timing.

 it's just from the time I'd said, yeah, let's do this. I'm thinking about that. all the time, day and night, it's in my mind, it's, I'm working on it consciously and unconsciously. So articulating that, I think makes a ton of sense.

Adam Coelho: One thing that you have spoken about a number of times in this conversation is problems and outcomes.

Adam Coelho: Is it fair to say that when you engage with a potential client. You do some discovery to identify those things. I'd love to understand a little bit about, how you think about problems and outcomes. 

Jonathan Reynolds: It depends on the engagement of course, but it also depends on the scale of the engagement.

Jonathan Reynolds: Very different for individuals. The way I tend to work is more around vision and priorities. Again, a concentric circle model is whatever is built, should be built around the individual, cuz they're the one who has to execute on it. And if it's built to fit them like a glove, meaning that their vision is big enough that it both excites them, but also terrifies them a little bit because they've never dreamed that big.

 then they're more likely to act on it. If somebody's not acting or low motivation, it usually isn't about some trick to get them motivated on something they're not interested in. They're not genuinely not interested in the thing. So let's modify that. And so a lot of the work with individuals around vision priorities, mapping skills to priorities and vision.

Jonathan Reynolds: And then it works out really nice, cuz they're actually aligned with what they're executing on and then execution becomes a lot easier. So that's the individual piece? 

Adam Coelho: So it sounds like a lot of your work that you do with the individuals starts with what is your vision or do you, you help them identify that or maybe they have some idea and you help them refine it.

Adam Coelho: Is that where it starts and then everything flows from. 

Adam Coelho: there 

Jonathan Reynolds: Yeah. And then, ultimately we wanna get to executing on managing this and manifesting it. And a lot of that is around networking and relationship building and talking to people and sharing because many people, I think don't like networking, cuz they feel like they're always asking for something.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so I actually do something I call networking without asking and it's really about networking via that value. Never, you never have to ask for anything, you should just be sharing your vision and what you care about. And then when there's alignment, the conversation continues when there's not alignment.

Jonathan Reynolds: You cordially thank each other and then move on. and so again I see relationships as the whole driver of all of this. It's part of the way we connected. We had this, mindful commonality. We didn't know why we were talking the first time we talked, but Hey, let's talk about this thing we seem to just both be interested in, and then a seed gets planted. But if we don't know what our seed is, it's really hard to plant a seed that we don't know that we have. or the other metaphor I use. It's like walking through the woods at night with a candle. If you say, Hey, I don't know the path.

Jonathan Reynolds: I can't see the whole path. Then you never do anything. But if you say, Hey, I see two or three steps because of the candle. Let's step forward. The candle moves with us and we see the next two or three steps. The candle is your vision. And so the vision keeps changing. It burns down and gets brighter or dimmer, but you have this vision and that's what helps you walk through darkness and figure it out.

Jonathan Reynolds: Very cool. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah I think a lot about envisioning and you mentioned manifesting, I dunno why I put in quotes, but I'm very big into that. And I have, I've talked a lot on the podcast about envisioning both how I've done it in my own life and how I wanted to, and then ultimately did create a workshop within Google about that.

Adam Coelho: And that's the work I did with, for this organization. I've envisioned leading this envisioning workshop at the company. Like it's so meta, it gets so meta real quick. But yeah, maybe do you have an example of like how you either have done this for yourself, or maybe an example of how a client maybe had a certain vision and you help them clarify that and then move forward.

Adam Coelho: If there's one that comes to mind, I think it would really help bring it home. Cause I think a lot of people 

Jonathan Reynolds: can benefit from this. Yeah. Two things that I'll say about it first, I'll say the basic structure. It's just like writing a short story. A vision by definition is visual. So when you close your eyes and picture your ideal situation, are you on a mountaintop?

Jonathan Reynolds: Are you in an office building? Are you with 10 people? Are you with 10,000 people? Are you all alone? So I have people go through what, where, when, why, who how much the question was of any good short story and get clear on what that might start to look like. And that's a starting point. It's very similar to what I did for myself in my twenties.

Jonathan Reynolds: I was living in Madison, Wisconsin. I went to India to go to the Maha Kumba I think it was in 2001. And I got clear on what sort of place do I wanna live next? I wanted water. I wanted a lot of people practicing mindfulness. I wanted to not have to own a car. So I had my list. I had about 15 things.

Jonathan Reynolds: I wanted a certain temperature. I wanted Mediterranean climate. By the time I got my list, there was maybe one place in the Southeast. And then there was San Diego or San Francisco or LA, like it, it just whittled things down. It got really clear that if I was gonna see in the United States, I also was considering, Melbourne and maybe Amsterdam, although a little gray.

Jonathan Reynolds: And and so once I whittled it down, I was like, oh, I'm going to San Francisco. I had a friend living in San Francisco. I went and slept on his couch for two months. and again, it got really clear once I said, these are my priorities, where are these things all happening? So that's, I think it's really helpful.

Jonathan Reynolds: I think part of the visioning is also a practice of valuing because when we say these things are important to me, we're also saying. some of these might be deal breakers. If I don't get them, I'm not moving to that city. Wow. I really love Boston, but the winters, Boston is my second favorite city in some respects, but I didn't wanna be back in the winters.

Jonathan Reynolds: I grew up in Wisconsin. And so again, that was a deal breaker. And so I, I think it's really important when we get clear on what we want and what we need to be totally fulfilled. then there's this non compromising, this that I think is healthy. Like, no, these are the things I need.

Adam Coelho: And it sounds like you can do that and probably should do that with various aspects of your life, right? Maybe the, where you wanna live, how you wanna live the work you want to do the relationships you want to have. I assume that this could apply and probably should apply to all of those. Is 

Jonathan Reynolds: that true?

Jonathan Reynolds: Yeah. Everywhere. I think that life is about. Iterating and revising and that there's spring cleaning for the physical items in the house, but there's also spring cleaning for the mind and for alignment and for making room for growth and change. So for instance, another metaphor that I use comes from Hinduism.

Jonathan Reynolds: Hinduism has what they call the metaphor of the forest, and whenever we're ready to grow, it's the next stage of our life. And it's scary because we don't know this new forest and we're supposed to go into this new forest, but it's scary because it's forests are dark. Yes, they're enchanting and romantic, but they're also frightening.

Jonathan Reynolds: And we don't wanna go in. So what most folks try to do is they try to get the friends in their current tribe, interested in, Hey, let's go check out this thing. But the problem is each person is ready on their own scale and they might be ready for different forests. So when we go into this forest, we have to go in alone.

Jonathan Reynolds: And the thing is it's got space and size. So people are going in from different directions that we don't know about, and there's already, the new tribe is already in there. And so when we go in there, the new tribe is ready to welcome us for me in my twenties, the forest of yoga, it was scary, but there were people already doing it that said welcome in the forest of meditation was a different forest in the forest yoga.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so then that was scary. And oh, those people were nice too. And some of them had been there for decades. And so I think this is all really important. The other thing that I think is important is when I started doing that sort of growth, I felt bad for my previous tribes. I felt like I was abandoning them or doing something not nice to them in some way.

Jonathan Reynolds: And the important thing to keep in mind is you're not disrespecting them. You're not saying what they're doing is wrong. You're just saying, oh, that force is for that thing. I grew up in Wisconsin. I grew up drinking cheap beer and I don't look down on any of the, my friends that are still in that space and still living the lives that we lived in high school when I want that I can go be with them and do that.

Jonathan Reynolds: And I do that sometimes. And it's really important that when we expand in again, concentric circles, I don't really normally use that metaphor, but it's been good so far to us. But so when you expand in concentric circles, you don't leave the inner circle or the previous circle behind you just add on.

Jonathan Reynolds: And it's both and all the way. And so I think that's really important because I think a lot of people feel like, oh, if I'm gonna honor my current friendships, I can't grow beyond them. Yes, you can. And you can still come back to them. And sometimes those people grow in the same direction, sometimes different directions sometimes not at all.

Jonathan Reynolds: And you come back and it's the same and that's comforting. Anyway, I hopefully that answers or address. Yeah, definitely. 

Adam Coelho: Definitely. 

Adam Coelho: So let's talk now about going into an organization, that, as I mentioned to you a big a hypothesis I have is that I want to build a business in this space of, offering mindfulness slash envisioning slash whatever type of workshops or services to companies.

Adam Coelho: So I'm curious as to, what does that process look like for approaching a new client? Sounds like a lot of it is based on relationships, and getting back to what we were talking about before is problems and outcomes. And I guess to sum it up,what does it look like coming to a new potential client and starting the conversation and how does it flow from 

Jonathan Reynolds: there?

We're looking for decision makers that either have their own mindful practice or are at least mindful, friendly, or mindfulness friendly. And it can immediately be part of the conversation.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's also important that mindful life mindful work. Isn't a mindfulness company. In fact, we didn't even offer mindfulness proper until a couple of years ago. And I think that was part of the value positioning. So even though mindfulness has become an accepted word, I think we've been very careful around.

Jonathan Reynolds: We're not mindfulness and we're also not even wellness we're we tend to go through the L and D door through learning and development. We really wanna be a part of a high level business conversation at whatever level can be there. And sometimes we go through HR, but mostly L and D. So I, I think that's important to mention because it does inform how we come in.

So again, it's about finding the right individual to have the conversation with. And so a lot of metric goes into that. A lot of research, a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, a lot of relationship building. So the ground is already pretty fertile. By the time we have our first call often the first call a lot of my career has been built around networking and just having phone calls.

Jonathan Reynolds: I've probably had 6,000 phone calls in the last 15 years average of about 10 a week. And so a lot of relationship building, some of those people become clients, some become friends, some become colleagues, some become nothing that, but they all include learning. And so I think taking that approach has been very useful very time consuming and very rewarding and So the initial phone call is usually a discovery phone call.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's usually to whatever the degree the prospect feels comfortable to share it's really an information gathering like what's going on. What are your challenges? Is it mostly with leadership, mostly with personnel combination of the two usually. Is it cultural, is it business decisions? Is it internal facing?

Jonathan Reynolds: Is it client facing? Just getting clear on what's happening here. So lots of questions, no solutions, just good listening and information gathering. Then we go, we have a three call series. So second call then is a solutions call based on what we heard. We proposed some of our services that might map onto addressing some of these challenges.

Jonathan Reynolds: And then we debrief around, we create a document and we debrief the document. Okay. Now we're in solutions. And then they say, oh we've got this much budget. Can we get everything? Or what can we get? And then that's the third call, then there's a proposal. Okay. You said your budget was 130 and you can get ABC, but you can't get all the way to Z year, whatever.

 and so think having that standard structure or having a structure for us is really useful because it does a few things. One is it lets them know, we know what we're doing. Without having a formal structure, it can be like, oh, I had a really nice call.

Jonathan Reynolds: They sound like they can help. Mindful life mindful work since we've become a C corporation has gotten a lot more respect and a lot more high level clients and calls than we ever had when I was an individual coach. And I think partly it's just because businesses wanna do business with other businesses and Because they know there's a safety, they know there's like insurance and there's, there's things behind the delivery.

Jonathan Reynolds: They know if somebody gets sick, there's 10 more that can fill in, all these sorts of things are really important when you're writing big checks. And so the whole body of the company is a negotiating process, but also in the service of sales. And so that's generally though we have a three call process and then, at some point a decision is made.

And so the initial assessment really is, the bigger part of the problem in leadership or is it in personnel? Where do they see the problem? Are they seeing the problem clearly or based on what we've gathered so far?

Jonathan Reynolds: Do we see it completely different? Part of our value and I think a big part of our value is in seeing what they don't see. and so we wanna honor what they see, but we also wanna bring something that's very valuable that they may not see. And conveying that and again, we, you gotta honor what the client wants, but then you have to also honor what you see. and that takes a lot of good communication. And most of our services ideally are ongoing because. Change happens. Behavioral change happens because of ongoing implementation and practice. We've all had a great training. Everybody was high fiving, and then three weeks later, it didn't do a damn thing, because if there's not practice, you don't eat once and say, oh good, I'm healthy for the next decade.

Jonathan Reynolds: You don't meditate or workout once and say, I'm set. No, these are it's. It's like flossing and brushing your teeth. It's regular hygiene. And so the same thing with a company, if they're not willing to implement in an ongoing way, success becomes really difficult. And ultimately they're not paying for content.

Jonathan Reynolds: We're more of a process based organization. We're a transformational organization. If you really want change, it's going to, the good stuff is gonna be in the process, not in some content. And so all of that has to get conveyed. And then the compassion piece and the empathy piece and the mindful piece.

Jonathan Reynolds: I think part of the reason why mindful life mindful work has been successful is our clients can feel that on the phone, they can feel the awareness, they can feel the nonjudgmental, they can feel the openness to really finding a solution that works together. That it's not like we don't offer products that have set prices.

Jonathan Reynolds: We come in and have a conversation and then we have this body of stuff. It could be useful and let's have a conversation about what you think is good idea. And we, what we think is a good idea and let's figure it out together. So I, think that piece is very relational. I've talked to lots of prospects that they say, oh, we just thought you were gonna tell us what to do.

Jonathan Reynolds: And some companies like that, we tend not to work with the ones that just completely want to be told what to do. We wanna, co-develop something unique together. That's really, we've got a big engagement in an APAC division of a multinational right now. We're gonna build this thing up together because we want it to actually work for you.

Adam Coelho: . Yeah. And that's one of the questions that came up for me as you were explaining that is there like a menu of services or is it more bespoke or is it a combination of both once you identify the 

Jonathan Reynolds: needs? 

Jonathan Reynolds: It's both. We have a general menu, if there's really no interest in the three call process then we might send the menu.

Jonathan Reynolds: But the menu's just high level these are the basic areas. Hopefully the menu gets us to a conversation and then we can say, okay, let's get rid of the menu or, oh, you really want that one thing on the menu? Let's include that and build around that. our really our favorite thing is to have somebody ask for something we don't have, but that needs to be mindfully designed and informed.

and to co-design that uniquely for that company. And then sometimes that thing then gets a generic version translated onto the menu, and then we offer it to other companies. But it's different every time. 

Adam Coelho: Got it. Okay. Yeah. And, stepping back to the beginning of the process, I know this is, one of your kind major skills is networking, and getting on calls with people. I've had 6,000 calls in 15 years, it's a lot of calls, 10 calls a week, what is the context of the call?I imagine you have people that you're looking to approach, cuz you've identified them as mindful open potential partners. How do you then, broach that conversation and cultivate that relationship and propose a call.

Adam Coelho: I know you did it with me, so like it, like, it's very seamless, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, cuz I think that's 

Jonathan Reynolds: critical. Yeah. Usually there's some alignment, so there's a search on LinkedIn for instance, for a certain demographic and an alignment. And and then there's a connection request.

Jonathan Reynolds: And then, so at every stage there's also an implicit vetting of openness. If we don't have any reason to connect other than we both have mindful on our profile and the person hits connect, that's already an implicit mindfulness that they're open to the possibility that there might be value there.

Jonathan Reynolds: The person that doesn't hit connect, that's a natural weeding out their suspect. Some strange guy connected with them and they don't know the reason. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's a natural, oh, I'm open to the unknown here. And at every stage it's that, at some point there's a circle back and there's an approach email, Hey, you wanna have a call?

Jonathan Reynolds: It's a little more elaborate than that, but not much. and then there's another, who's willing to have a call without knowing why that's, you and I had a call and we didn't really know why we were having a call. And so you displayed to me your openness and I displayed to you my openness.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so that's another natural vetting that they're open to not knowing why we're having a call and in the work world, of course that's. So why would anybody have a call? why would 6,000 people have calls? I guess people do 

Adam Coelho: it. in my mind, I'm like, who would do that?

Adam Coelho: But then I did it and you did it. And 6,000 other people did it. So like, people do it. 

Jonathan Reynolds: And I think you have to have a compelling profile. You have to convey value in everything that you do, cuz people are gonna do their homework. They're not just gonna click yes. Randomly . And so all of that sort of mounts, a case of both openness and value and then the call and so sometimes people will very explicitly say, oh, is this a sales call?

Jonathan Reynolds: And yeah, I'll say yes. And some people will say, okay, fine. Let's have it. Or they'll say, no, I don't wanna be on a sales call. Sometimes people will say, some clarify some say, oh I'm not really interested in anything that you do. And so let's not have a call or, oh, I'm interested, but I'm only interested in as an individual.

Jonathan Reynolds: I can't speak for my company, so people reply and some people just say, yeah, let's have a call. And those ones I go into not knowing. And I sort of have my perfect version of the call. I have a vision for how I want the call to go. But I have to let go of that completely most times and really find out what the call has to offer as far as value.

Jonathan Reynolds: Sometimes we get partners that wanna resell our services. Again, who knows where it's gonna go, it's about building the relationships with the individuals, and then it's not about targeting their company because what if they leave their company and go to another company? If I have the relationship I don't lose when they leave, I go with them.

 I'm not attached to the company. And if we already worked for the company that they're at and they leave, everybody who's a service provider has had these experiences you deliver for one company, they leave, go to another company you deliver. Now you got two company relationships.

Jonathan Reynolds: Yeah. From one person. It's a good thing, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And so againIt's very organic. It's what I wanna be doing anyway. It's this podcast it's , it's interpersonal meditation. I ultimately ended up where I am because I wanna meditate all day long. Either on my own informal practice or in informal practice talking about the value of mindfulness and mind things.

Jonathan Reynolds: . And so because that's what gives me juice mm-hmm and so all of those calls, that's my juice. Like that's the opportunities to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, let's do this all day long every day. That's what I like to do. 

Adam Coelho: I love it. I love it. That's what keeps me going with the podcast as well.

I'm all about creating opportunity through connection and there's no better way than having a conversation and certainly in a podcast setting that's a really good way to do that. So it's been great for that. 

Jonathan Reynolds: It's great. It's why I started my networking events.

Jonathan Reynolds: If I can talk to one person at a time. What if I can talk to 300 people at a time? like, yeah. Again it's, everything comes out of that touching in of personal practice. And then how do I wanna live based on whatever those deepest values that are touched are, how do I wanna express those and live those in a way that's not always looking to get somewhere, but is somewhere I wanna be here.

Jonathan Reynolds: If I don't wanna be here, I just click leave. 

Adam Coelho: sure you can. Yeah. 

Adam Coelho: Okay, Jonathan, let's switch gears now into what I call the mindful fire. Final four. The first question is. about envisioning. We talked about the importance of letting your vision guide you. And I mentioned, I have had many examples of when I have a clear vision things, just start opening for me, the lights all turn green. And I just head down that path. I'd love to hear an experience you have of how having a clear vision allowed you to move forward in your life.

Jonathan Reynolds: Very early on in my practice days in my early twenties I was trying to make sense of reality and my experience and embeddedness in reality, I studied biology undergraduate, and so I was interested in systems and carrying capacity and environments and those sorts of things. And I was trying to figure this out in some cognitive way trying to make peace with being a young man in the world.

 and it was maddening. it was overwhelming. And so at some point, I don't know if I had started practicing yet. I don't think that I had, I decided that wouldn't it be great to find one thing that answered all things wouldn't find, a, like an Einstein theory of relativity find the one thing that sort of applies to everything.

 and I went looking for that and I think I found it and I think the world is slowly waking up to knowing that thing has that capacity. So that's really my suggestion. And again, Even deeper than mindful or mindfulness. The through line of my life since that time has been, simplicity has been create things simple and live simply.

 and a lot of the complexity that seems to MI so many folks starts to just dissolve and fade away. it doesn't happen overnight, but I knew very early on one of the books I read at that time was Walden by Thoreau. and I, it was really inspiring. It was really inspiring and I didn't wanna live like that, but I wanted, that felt sense.

Jonathan Reynolds: Freedom of simplicity. And so that's how I addressed it. Got 

Adam Coelho: it. That's very interesting. Yeah. Simplicity is key, but I I find it easier said than my, I feel like my life is expanding to some degree, but I'm trying to keep it simple. 

Adam Coelho: So the second question is what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Jonathan Reynolds: there's three ways to build wealth. Traditionally the market real estate and owning a small business. Those are the three cornerstones to building wealth. And of course there's many more. Now those are traditional. Now there's things like cryptocurrencies and things like this that I don't really understand, but but those are the three traditional ones and something that my father said to me very early in my life, which was the power of compound interest.

Jonathan Reynolds: And it's so obvious and so easy, but if nobody ever tells you about it, and the whole idea is time is on your side when you're young, especially if you invest $5,000 when you're 18 years old and you invest. $40,000 when you're 40 years old, the 5,000 is gonna be worth way more, cuz it's got the power of compound interest and time.

Jonathan Reynolds: And so again, that's something that if your family didn't teach you or you didn't study economics you don't know that. And it's hard news to get when you're later in life. Create an investment fund for your newborn baby. Because that's the greatest thing you can do for them financially.

Jonathan Reynolds: Of course there's much more important things that you can do for them as a parent, but financially, put $5,000 in the bank when they're one year old and just leave it alone. 

Adam Coelho: Great advice. Great advice. And yeah, I I've done the 5 29 plan, but I think more and more I'm thinking about doing that, just putting some money in letting it and just like a investment account in their name and let letting it ride cuz you're absolutely right.

Adam Coelho: Time is on your side. All right. 

Adam Coelho: And the third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and 

Jonathan Reynolds: or mindfulness? 

Jonathan Reynolds: So when I have clients that wanna start a mindfulness practice, a formal practice I usually have them start with as little time as possible.

Jonathan Reynolds: And it is a joke, right? Like, or they take it as a joke, I'll say can you meditate for a minute in the morning? And a minute before you go to bed and they laugh and like, okay, that's funny. But then I said, can you do it every day for a year? And then it's not funny. Like then it's like, oh, this is actually about a practice and a commitment to the practice.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's not about how long you can meditate in any one sit. And I think that's really important. And then almost always what happens when we do this is they sneak extra time. They wanna show me that they can do longer than what we agreed to. And so they come back and they're very proud to say that they did it for 10 minutes bef when they got up in 10 minutes at night, what almost always happens then is they continue to increase it until they can't satisfy the time because life gets busy and then they skip a day and then they judge themselves for skipping a day.

Jonathan Reynolds: And then they judge themselves for skipping day too, because they're judging themselves and then they come back and they say, I gave it up. I'm no good at this. I'm just never gonna get this. Because their ego has made it an achievement game of how long they can do it. And so the recommendation is pick a low amount of time, do it for three to six months minimum, and you can do five minutes.

Jonathan Reynolds: You don't have to do one minute, but whatever time you commit, get ready to commit for the first three to six months and then let the practice extend itself. And that's difficult because is it the head talking or the heart talking so really touch in. And if it's really time. To extend the time, then you'll know it you'll feel it in your full body, not just in your head, if your head's just making decisions.

Jonathan Reynolds: It's probably not informed by the deeper practice. So that's my suggestion. Start out with a low amount of time. The other thing that can be very helpful is find a group to do it with the support of a community. Just like having a workout, buddy, there's an accountability factor in having a group.

Jonathan Reynolds: So maybe find a group, even if it's just a group of two you and your spouse or you and your child, or somebody close to you, a good friend that, that helps support an early practice as well. Great 

Adam Coelho: advice. Yeah, that, that first piece is certainly advice that I give, it's about consistency, not about how much you do in any one session.

Adam Coelho: So I really like that that advice. 

Adam Coelho: If you're listening to this, you can join our community meditation and you can sign up for that at mindfulfire.org/meditate 

Adam Coelho: So Jonathan, the final question is how can people connect with you online and learn more about your services?

Adam Coelho: And also just what you're up to. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Thank you, Adam. Yeah the most available place is at the website www dot mindful life, mindful work.com. We're also all over social media. So whatever platform you're on our locus of social media or sort of our hub is LinkedIn. So you're welcome to find and follow us there.

Jonathan Reynolds: We'll have events, we have networking events for individuals.I'll be speaking on a panel at a new conference called the future is mindful conference and yeah. we're pretty easy to find mindful life mindful work.com. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Mindful Life. Mindful Work also hosts the Mindful Professionals Network, which is an online community for professionals that want to have conversations around living and working mindfully, uh, on the platform. We have classes, events, networking events, uh, and discussions. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Each professional can create their own profile, and so it's a great place to just be in ongoing conversations around living and working mindfully.

Adam Coelho: Very good. Jonathan, I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Adam Coelho: Thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. 

Jonathan Reynolds: Thank you so much, Adam. It's been apleasure. 

Adam Coelho: Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the mindful fire podcast.

If you enjoy today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this, this just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. 

Adam Coelho: If you're ready to start your mindful fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide. 

Adam Coelho: And just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. 

Adam Coelho: Again. You can download it for mindfulFIRE.org/start 

Thanks again. And I'll catch you next time on the mindful fire podcast.