If you had 2 years to make the next 20 amazing, what would you do?

Wake-Up Call #21

Photo: Eric Michael Pearson

This was never supposed to be a thing…

I’ve been secretly working on a new project for the last 10 months.

Never intended it to be public. This was just for me.

It started with a turning point that led to a question.

Last fall, I turned 58.

I’m not a mathy person, but even I could figure out that’s only two years from 60.

Forty didn’t do much for me. Fifty made me a bit more introspective. Sixty is looming differently. Not in a heavy or scary way. In fact, it’s the opposite. An opportune and curious way.

I’m not someone who ever thinks about retiring.

I like work. Not every element, or every second. No one does. But on the whole, I love to invest myself in things I care about, things that call to me.

Effort, having a trajectory, being used for a purpose, getting lost in flow, playing with ideas and people I love just feels good.

Why would I ever want to stop that?

In the parlance of the Sparketypes®, I’m a Maker. I make ideas manifest. Always have, always will. Most of the time, when I’m doing it in the right way, I’ve enjoyed it.

But, when I turned 58, I looked at my life and wondered…

When 60 comes, do I want to be focusing on what I’m focusing on? Feeling what I’m feeling? Making what I’m making? Creating with and for the same people and communities?

I also realized I couldn’t explore these questions in a vacuum.

At a certain point, often later in life, the illusion of compartmentalization cedes to the truth of integration. Everything affects everything.

I broadened the exploration.

What do I want my health to look like, my physical and mental states to be? And, my relationships with family, chosen family, community, place, space, me, and spirit?

I began to see this two year window between 58 and 60 as a beautiful micro-season, and wondered how to use it well. To answer these questions. To set up the next season of work, love, and life, as much as I’ll be given, to feel more of the way I want to feel. And to do so in a way I could see myself sustaining, God-willing, into my 80s.

This all distilled into a Guiding Question…

What might I learn, do, or build in the next two years that would center the 20 that follow around simplicity, significance, and joy?

My Guiding Question began to take the lead in nearly everything I was doing.

I started calling it my 2x20 (two-by-twenty), running micro-experiments designed to answer pieces of the question.

Some things I knew.

Making, for example, will always be a primary way I fill my Contribution Bucket.

But…

• How do I continue to pull on the thread of creation in a way that brings less complexity, and more simplicity?

• How do I create things, books, experiences or anything else focused more around meaning, and significance?

• How do I pursue not only my 2x20, but also the 20 years that follow with joy remaining central to the experience?

• And, how do I make this about not just work, but life?

Slowly, I began to create structure around my 2x20.

Strategies, guardrails, tools, processes. All held loosely, but still there. Ways to figure out what to try, how to think about each experiment, and what to choose and when.

I’ve been acutely aware of the passing of time in a way that’s never been a part of prior projects. Actually, that’s not entirely true. In the past, time constraints were there, but most often tied to money or external expectations. I had X dollars in the bank, and I knew that’d last for Y months, so the project had to work before I ran out of money. Or I had a deliverable or outcome to meet that others were relying on.

This is different.

Money is no longer the core metric, nor a sense of obligation to others. That’s not what the two years are tied to. It’s simply about an enduring desire to use my time well.

I keep coming back that mantra, planted forever in my heart and head on 9/11.

We’re made no promises.

Two years is short-enough to see and feel the vision of what I’m birthing.

It’s created a certain generative tension that fuels me. Lit a fire under my ass to make things happen. To not while away the time.

It’s also long enough to know that what will emerge from this project is real, to make big things happen. Deep learning, growth, transformation, clarity, unfolding, and creation.

Whenever I feel like I’ve learned enough, I’ll begin to shift from “learn, do” mode into “build” mode. To give ideas and realizations shape and form, and then step more fully into the early part of that next 20-year vision.

Similarly, the 20 year window is a nod to what my next season of work might stretch into.

But, there’s another reason for it.

I have no idea if what I explore and begin to create over the next two years will keep me engaged for another 5, 12, 17 or 20 years. But, I’ve found that, if I use 20 years as my guiding metric, it changes the possibilities I consider, and decisions I make in a profound way.

There’s a certain forcing function to 20 years.

For a potential experiment to get a yes during this two year window, I need to at least believe in a reasonable possibility of it staying alive in my heart and mind for the next 20 years.

On the days I don’t bullshit myself (rare, just me?), most thing don’t come close to meeting that criteria. And, that’s okay.

It allows me to let go of a lot of potential experiences and relationships, clearing the deck for others that, at least in my mind, hold the potential for 20 years of simplicity, significance, and joy. It has completed changed the way I add things to, and take things off of my life’s plate.

I’ve run some amazing experiments, and gathered a ton of insights already.

Some have been big wins, others outright, months-long flops, most have split the difference. I don’t particularly care, as long as I’m doing and learning. Eventually this will inform the building part.

A few weeks in, I shared my 2x20 with my wife. More recently I opened up to a few friends about it, ones who are in similar moments of their careers and lives. They leaned in, wanted to know more. Tell me everything, they’d say.

Then, one asked, “have you written or spoken about this publicly? I think a lot of people would be interested in what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how.”

My 2x20 been such a me thing, I hadn’t considered making it a we thing.

Then, I thought about the handful of friends I’d revealed it to, and how fiercely interested they were, wanting to know every detail. Especially what parts of life I was focusing on, how I was doing it, what experiments I’d been running, and what I’d been learning, doing, and discovering.

It seems so many of us were in this liminal space.

We’ve also all begun thinking about the next season, what we truly wanted from it, and for it. What parts do we want to take with us, which would we prefer to leave behind, and what new experiences, adventures, feelings, and qualities would we love to invite into our lives moving forward?

So, I decided to accept that one friend’s invitation, and “go a little bit public.”

Especially after realizing a simple fact.

You don’t have to be 58 to feel what I’m feeling. To look into the future and know you’re appreciative for where you’ve been, grateful for and enjoying the life you’re now living and, still, curious and excited about a future the creation of which lies, at least in part, in your heart, hands, and vision of what could be.

It’s less about age, and more about the season you’re in, and the season you want to bring into existence. Twenty-eight, 37, 44, 63, it doesn’t really matter. It’s about the energy that gets created, the generative tension, and sense of possibility that becomes a part of everything you do.

And, now that this reveal has become obscenely long, lets bring it home.

It’s not my intention to live my 2x20 in a fully-public way. I want ensure my own journey and values stay centered, and do not want anything to tug into into any kind of performative space.

Still, here’s what I’ve decided to do…

I thought it might be fun, and hopefully, helpful to share more about the basic concept behind my 2x20, how I’ve structured it, and what concepts, tools, strategies I’ve brought into it. Even things as core as how and why I landed on “simplicity, significance, and joy” as the defining qualities, and how you might explore your own words.

So, two things:

• 2x20 podcast deep-dive - I recorded a full-length podcast episode on the 2x20 concept that just aired on the Good Life Project podcast. It goes into far more detail than this post can humanely go, sharing more about the 2x20 structure, guidelines, experiments, and “method” for lack of a better word.
  
  You can listen on your fave podcast app. Or just hit play below…

• Monthly-ish 2x20 Status Reports - Every month-or-so through November 2025 (when I transition from my 2 into my 20), I’ll post a new 2x20 Status Report, sharing what I’ve been doing and learning, what’s working and not, and what I’ve started to lean into and build as the countdown to the next 20 nears.

If you’d love to ride along, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the monthly updates. And, if you want more detail about how I’m setting up my 2x20 and why, check out the podcast, it’ll take you way deeper into not just what’s behind it, but how I’m thinking about the different elements.

Now, for today’s wake-up call…

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Wake-Up Call #21

Let’s start with one, critical element of the 2x20 Guiding question - your defining qualities.

Think big and long. Take a 20 year perspective.

What three words would you love to represent your life’s “defining qualities” over the next 20 years?

Consider your next season of work, life, relationships, contribution, connection, and vitality. What overarching feelings would you like to inhabit, not just in a passing way, but as the overarching or enduring texture and context for everything you do?

For me, it’s simplicity, significance, and joy. I go much deeper into what I mean by each of those words on the podcast.

Noodle on it. And, as always, if you’re inclined, write about it. Then, share in the comments.

What are the three defining qualities you’d like to center, and why?

With a whole lotta love and gratitude,

Jonathan