Fulfillment Equation

Season 2 Kick-off

We're back! Welcome to Season 2 of the Fulfillment Equation! The first season was centred around the creation and practice of your unique fulfillment equation. This season is all about building and following along with your own personal strategy. These two pieces work hand in hand. The personal strategy sets the direction and the unique equation keeps you on track. Learn more in this kick-off episode for all of the great conversations that follow in Season 2!

Erin and Josh on Season 1 Reflections

In this special episode, Josh joins me as we come full circle to wrap up Season 1! We reflect on the highlights of the season and I share my biggest learning from the entire Fulfillment Equation podcast experience. We also cover my favourite nuggets from each guest in the series. It's incredible to look back and see how much ground was covered in the first 26 episodes!
Wondering what you can expect in Season 2? There's a sneak peak at the end of this episode. Here's a hint...get ready to dream together!

Erin on Making It A Habit (Unique Equation: Step 6)

This episode covers the last step (Making it a Habit) in the Unique Equation process for maximizing joy in daily living. You've already built your own unique equation, cultivated a daily practice, learned how to flex your week, and engaged in valuable analysis and adjustment. So what does all of this look like long-term?
The simple answer is that if you are disciplined in building a practice around your fulfillment equation for any decent length of time, you will discover that it actually becomes an ingrained habit! 
Here we dig into how daily habits turn into lifelong fulfillment and better understand what parts of the daily practice can become ingrained. Also covered is when to switch off "autopilot" and when to check in on the underlying architecture of your equation.
(Note: Listeners will want to check out Steps 1-5 of Your Unique Equation before listening to this episode.)

Manish Raizada and Erin on Food, Family and Friendship

My conversation with Manish continues in this Part 2 episode. Together, we discuss some of the challenges of raising kids these days and Manish shares the two best pieces of advice he received that changed the way he approaches parenting. We then take our time building Manish's equation, which is fantastic because it produces many interesting and insightful discussions around how to put family first, how to set up boundaries around work, why nature is so central to our wellbeing and how food can be a source of creativity and connection.
Manish also talks about the importance of social connection. He totally wows me when he explains how he calculated his future time with a close friend and realized it wasn't nearly enough. As he said to his friend, "If I only get to see you once or twice a year, that is a cosmic rip-off". It's amazing how our priorities can become so clear when we zoom out to a perspective that highlights how short life really is.
In the end, we summarize Manish's equation: 35f + 5W + 3e +4ns + 14fd + (→1)s

Manish Raizada and Erin on Uncovering Your Purpose

Wouldn't it be incredible to have a purpose as heroic as that of Manish Raizada? "To reduce the suffering of young people in terms of food, and to empower them in terms of their careers". Dr. Raizada's work is directly helping to reduce world hunger, and in his spare time he has helped to mentor hundreds of students. However, the reality is that the world would be a boring place if we all had exactly the same purpose. We each have our own unique purpose and that is our gift to the world. Manish describes, "If you put humanity together, it's a beautiful three-dimensional, colourful painting and everyone has a specific piece to contribute that enriches all of us".
But how do you uncover your purpose? Manish discusses many of the probing questions he's found successful in helping people discover their unique gift. He challenges us to look for the thread in our answers and remarks that we can often trace that thread back to our 5-year old self. In his experience, this life-changing reflection takes very little time at all! How incredible would it have been to do some of this thinking at the age of 17? But it's never too late.
Lots more to come in Part 2, including building Manish's unique equation.

Sarah McComb-Turbitt and Erin on Blending Science, Art and Entrepreneurship

In this episode, I get the chance to talk with Sarah McComb-Turbitt about her transition from scientist to artist, what she’s learned along her journey and the specific steps she takes to create her amazing artwork.
One theme that comes out in our conversation is finding balance in healthy tensions. These are often the tensions we’re leveraging in our own fulfillment equation practice. For example, balancing the drive to be productive with the mindset of staying present, or balancing deliberate planning with being flexible.
Sarah shares an experience that taught her how to move away from a state of perfectionism in her approach to painting and set some boundaries around time. We also cover topics related to entrepreneurship and motherhood.
Finally, together we build Sarah's equation: 25p + 10b + 14na + 14k + 2f + 3fr + 25s.

Tom Benson and Erin on Playing More and Fearing Less

Get ready for some major "ah-ha" moments! My guest this week is the absolutely incredible Tom Benson. Tom has led a breathtaking life of adventure, while all the while knowing exactly what fear is. He teaches us not to be “fearless”, but rather to simply Fear Less. In our conversation, we also dig into understanding play, why it's important and how the opportunities for play show up in daily living. We explore mindfulness and meditation. We cover nature and solitude. And we tease apart passion and purpose. So many great learnings!
We end the episode by building Tom's equation: 14s + 18mi + 20p + 40c + 10g.

Erin and Josh on Texas and Eastern US Travel

Want a great way to lengthen out your summer? Head south! This episode covers our 2-month "life travel" adventure from Ontario to Texas and back through the Eastern US. In it, my husband Josh and I do a rapid fire walk-through of our favourite places to go, things to see and yummy eats from each location on our trip in order to give you ideas and inspiration for your own travels. We also share the lessons learned from this trip that helped to shape how we design our future life travel adventures. This episode of the podcast is a complement to the travel blogs posted on the Fulfillment Equation website.

Erin on Analysis & Adjustment (Unique Equation: Step 5)

Now that you're using your equation, what insights can you get from it? This episode outlines Step 5 of the Unique Equation process, describing how you can look for trends that will help you learn and evolve as you strive to maximize joy in daily living. Included in this episode are tons of tips and examples on how you can keep getting better at using your equation as a tool in nurturing your own fulfillment.
(Note: Listeners will want to check out Steps 1-4 of Your Unique Equation before listening to this episode).

Jaclyn Desforges and Erin on Creativity, Writing and Inviting Quiet

Get ready to take a deep dive into the Fulfillment Foundation “the importance of creativity and solitude”! In this episode, I’m talking to award-winning author and poet, Jaclyn Desforges. We discuss how the path to creativity involves overcoming the fear of not being good enough. Jaclyn describes how the experience of becoming a mom helped with that: "I was too tired to be afraid". 
We explore Jaclyn's complex relationship with writing and she shares helpful tips for fostering your own creativity. Then we dig into why quiet is such a necessary ingredient for fulfillment.      
Finally, together we build Jaclyn's equation: 6wr + 16b + 7wa + 1.5wo + 2by + 11p + 2d + 7r.  
Hear how Jaclyn sets an intention to evolve her equation over time: 6wr → 12wr, 16b → 8b, 2by → 7by