Category: Series 1

Now, Jonathan invites you to do something few people ever do — make an informed, rational choice whether to continue bobbing about in the cold, rapid, turbulent waters that steal your attention, time, and energy, constantly swimming against currents that carry you in directions you didn’t consciously choose… or to swim off in a different direction to warmer, more placid waters that take far less effort and afford far greater ease of being.

The choice Jonathan offers is seldom made because few people are aware there’s even a choice to be made. We don’t realize we’re “wet” — that there is an alternative way of being that releases us from the grip of the parental, societal, and cultural messages that shape our perceptions, beliefs, and expectations — the undercurrents of our life’s decisions — the reasons we do what we do.

In this episode, Jonathan posits that, not by changing ourselves — who we genuinely are — but, instead, by seeing the flaws in our foundational perceptions, beliefs, and expectations — the water we swim in — we liberate ourselves from the limiting, self-defeating perceptions: that we can control what we cannot, that happiness is about having versus creating and giving, and that essential love comes from external sources.

Encouraging a way of being he refers to as AAAlignment, Jonathan introduces his concept of Adeptability accomplished by:

• Accepting — embracing reality as it is rather than as we wish it to be
• Allowing — understanding and accepting the natural flow of life and not inappropriately interfering
• Adapting — flexibly and capably responding to changed circumstances and creating serendipity

This final Series One episode sets the table for Series Two: You Don’t Have to Be Einstein, guiding listeners toward Accepting by illuminating our relationship with our Universe and differentiating what we do and don’t control, what we can influence, and what we must simply allow and align with to enjoy a life of greater ease and fulfillment.

Having previously addressed the biological and psychological links to our struggles and dissatisfactions, Jonathan reveals how our cultural environment — the “water” we’re all swimming in — has become toxic, and how it actually exploits our humanity, both multiplying and magnifying our personal challenges and our societal ills.

Episode 3 dives into the contaminated cultural waters our Mind swims in from birth. Providing a sobering inventory of our collective symptoms — skyrocketing mental health issues, physical disease, addiction, isolation, and societal breakdown — Jonathan connects the dots, revealing that these interlaced maladies stem from the same sources: fundamentally, how we are parented, socialized, and educated.

He then relates how these early messages are exploited by an economically motivated, performance and comparison-driven culture designed to keep us always dissatisfied, always wanting “more” (something he then insightfully points out isn’t possible to have!).

Drawing first upon a love story and later on his experience with a development project in Ethiopia, and reminding us throughout of our adaptable nature, Jonathan underscores that the solution to our personal and societal woes is not to change ourselves — as we are so often (and profitably) encouraged to do — but, rather, to change our environment — the water we swim in. He asserts that doing so begins with awareness of: our human nature and cultural environment and of an alternative to the way we have been programmed to live — all of which he delivers through the All We Need to Know podcast. That alternative is the focus of Episode 4.

What if some of the very things that make us human — our survival-focused brain, our adaptability, and our need to belong — are also what make modern life so difficult? Jonathan takes note of the fundamental mismatch between our ancient wiring and our modern world, discusses human nature and needs, and the role of our mind in meeting those needs in the face of what he calls The Human Predicament.

This second episode delves deeper into the biological, cultural, and psychological programming introduced in Episode 0, exploring how our survival-oriented brain creates the very angst, friction, and struggle we seek to avoid. Jonathan explains that our central nervous system is essentially running stone age software in a modern world, leading to chronic stress, competing agendas, and the nagging feeling that nothing is ever enough.

Along the way, he introduces listeners to the human Mind — our inner travel guide, the interpreter of our experiences, and the party responsible for getting our needs met in the midst of a culture that thrives on making sure we persistently want and in a physical world that couldn’t care less about what we want.

Reaching all the way back to a lesson he learned in fourth grade and then forward to such modern-day topics as neuroplasticity and epigenomics, Jonathan illustrates how our hard-wired predisposition to adapt makes us so susceptible to being programmed to never be satisfied.

Through relatable examples and scientific insights, Jonathan shows how understanding ourselves — human nature — and the environments in which we live, is the key to an extraordinary life — a life of greater ease and meaning.

It’s not about fixing ourselves — we’re not broken. We simply need to be “read-in” — to compassionately recognize our humanity, appreciate how our cultural environment exploits it, and to open our Mind to embracing versus resisting these realities.

If you don’t know why you do what you do, then who’s really making your life’s decisions? Jonathan introduces The Four Essential Questions and applies the Wisdom of Why to reveal how, for most of us, the honest answer is that our programming unconsciously shapes every choice we make.

Building on Episode Zero’s attention-getting insights about our programming, Episode One dives into the practical impact: how can we make authentic decisions when we don’t even realize what’s influencing our choices? Jonathan uses a thought-provoking metaphor to fluidly illustrate how cultural conditioning operates beneath the surface of our conscious awareness.

In this episode he poses The Four Essential Questions alluded to in Episode Zero:

• Who are you?
• What do you want?
• Why do you want it?
• How will you get it?

He demonstrates how most people can’t answer these questions authentically because they’ve never examined the beliefs, assumptions, and cultural programming that underlie them.

This episode introduces his Wisdom of Why methodology — a practice for getting at root causes rather than symptoms, authentic motivations rather than programmed responses, and for insightfully answering the ultimate question: Why do I do what I do?

That answer, he asserts, is what makes the difference between authoring our own extraordinary life story versus having it scripted for us.