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Jonathan Binder

@jonbinder

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Alignment coach & purpose guide helping people connect to their true calling & shift into courageous action. www.Jonathan-Binder.com/🐛🦋

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I’m about halfway through a five-week US tour, and between the schedule and all the ground I’m covering, it’s starting to feel like I’m on the road with a band.

The theme of this tour so far has been reconnection.

After a 12 hr flight to LA, I went straight to Santa Barbara, to spend the weekend with my college crew for the first time in years, revisit the same old spots we used to haunt: Joe's, Freebirds, DP. Good times.

From there I joined a special gathering of guys out in Joshua Tree, something closer to a men’s group than a retreat, where we co-create the whole thing together and everyone is asked to show up, share honestly, and offer something of themselves. This was the third one and they keep getting better.

After that I got real time with my dear friend Jeff, who I met through my coaching work back in 2020 and co-hosted my very first retreat with. We hiked Ladder Canyon, which I can’t recommend enough, and then on the drive out promptly took a wrong turn and got our car buried in the desert sand in 100-degree heat, no cell service and 10 miles from civilization. Miraculously, kind strangers appeared right when we needed them, and I’ll save that story for another time.

Then a few special days with my dad and his wife Deborah, and a reconnection with my cousin Don and his family in Arizona.

Now I’m in New York, where it’s been a full plate: the 30th anniversary of the Pachamama Alliance, which I’ve been part of since the very beginning, a taping of John Oliver’s show, a night at the theater, and Tania getting a lot of her own work done here too.

Best of all, Colby came up for the weekend and is absolutely loving Duke. We head down for Parents’ Weekend in a few days, and then it’s back to California and the Bay Area to see more friends and family.

Reconnection, new connections, trust, and a whole lot of serendipity. Let the good times roll! by @jonbinder

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4 days ago

Something feels off in the world right now, and most of us can feel it.

The institutions we trusted are cracking. The old story of work hard, follow the rules, and you'll be okay is losing its hold. AI is reshaping everything we thought was stable. And it's easy, in all of that, to feel frozen.

I've been sitting with a different question lately. Not "what's wrong out there" but "who am I in here, and what am I actually here to bring?"

I spent most of my life doing what made sense on paper. Good jobs, recognizable success, all the boxes checked. And still something felt missing. It took a health crisis, a trip to the Amazon, a decade of searching, and one unexpected moment in a cave to finally understand what it was.

And then came the leaps. Leaving behind what was safe and familiar. Moving my whole family across the ocean to Portugal on little more than a deep knowing that it was right. That's what following soul actually looks like. Not always graceful. Not immediately rewarded. But unmistakably alive.

This piece is about that journey. But more than my story, it's an invitation.

Because I believe the most radical thing any of us can do right now, in a time of genuine collective uncertainty, is stop outsourcing our sense of meaning to a world that's busy falling apart, and start asking the question that actually matters: whose purpose are you living?

Not doom. Not denial. Just a clear-eyed look at what's being asked of us, and what becomes possible when we answer it honestly.

Link in bio. Would love to know if it resonates. by @jonbinder

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2 months ago

Four years ago this week, we landed in Portugal with eight suitcases, two teenagers, Tania in a wheelchair, a dog, and a one-way ticket.

What I didn't share at the time: the first few months were brutal.

We were in a short-term rental in a part of Lisbon we didn't love. The kids were disoriented. Tania was recovering from a serious surgery and in real pain.

I had more than a few dark nights wondering if I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

I had a deep knowing this was right. But knowing and feeling are different things, and for a while the feeling was just hard.

Four years later, on this exact anniversary, we are scattered in the best possible way.

Tania is dropping Colby at Duke, where he transferred this year.

Sierra is traveling through Europe with a friend, enjoying her freedom.

And I'm here in Cascais, not alone at all: paddle boarding for the first time in years, hosting friends, going to shows, making new connections, and quietly rebuilding my purpose discovery coaching practice.

The family that wasn't sure it would survive the first month has launched.

If you're in the middle of a leap and it feels harder than you expected, that's not a sign you were wrong.

Sometimes the knowing and the feeling just need time to catch up to each other.

Four amazing years. Beyond Grateful.

Take the leaps! by @jonbinder

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2 months ago

Forty years ago, a seventeen-year-old sat down and wrote an essay about who he was. Sensitive. Funny. Quietly worried about the state of the world. Using his dry humor as a security blanket so nobody could see how much he actually felt.

I found it a few weeks ago in a box of old papers we brought over from storage in California. I had completely forgotten it existed.

Here's the wild thing: I found it in the middle of a year-long self-discovery program and in this segment we were doing inner work on our teenage minds. As I was trying to reconnect with who I was at seventeen, I found a literal time capsule.

What followed was something I can only describe as a meeting across time. Quantum physics tells us that past and present aren't as separate as they appear, and whether that's literally true or just a beautiful thought experiment, something real happened when I sat with that essay. A visceral connection across time. I had so much that I wanted to remind him of and it turned out he had important messages for me too.

There's a full piece on my Substack about what we needed to remind each other at this moment in time, and what I think can open up for you when you reconnect with your own younger self. Link in bio. by @jonbinder

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3 months ago

Ten years ago this week, a little chocolate Labradoodle puppy came into the world. We would not meet him until September, when he was eight weeks old and ready to choose his family. Junior made his choice clear from the moment we walked into that pen.
Happy 10th birthday to the best decision we ever made together as a family. 🐾
Tania had never grown up with dogs. She is actually allergic to most of them, which is why we ended up with our beautiful chocolate Labradoodle. Her vision was simple and wise: as the kids get older and head into high school, let’s give them a source of unconditional love that never wavers. That is exactly what happened. And then some.
Junior has been a true friend to every person who has walked through our door. He greets everyone like they are the most important arrival of his day. We took him to the farmers market this morning and he stopped traffic as usual. People always guess he is two years old. He is ten and still has the energy of a puppy and the soul of an old friend.
He has been my inspiration to get outside. Our walks along Guincho beach at sunrise or sunset are some of my favorite moments living in Portugal. He made this country feel like home long before we did.
And then there is his relationship with Tania. He has been her guardian angel through her health journey, always knowing who in the family needs support and quietly finding them. I will never forget the sight of him lying next to her on the couch, chin resting gently on her belly, his silent way of saying I am here and everything is going to be okay.
Everyone who has loved a dog knows what I am trying to say and knows it cannot quite be said.
Junior, you chose us well. We love you more than you know. Here is to ten more years of beach walks, sunset light, and that ridiculous excitement every time we come home. 🧡🐶 by @jonbinder

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3 months ago

Family roadtrips are my happy place and realizing that they will become less frequent now that our kids are out of the house. I savor these moments.

We visited Porto, Santiago Compestella, Picos de Europa, San Sabastian’s, Biarritz and Bilbao. Highly recommend this part of our beautiful planet. 🙏🏻❤️🦋🌎 taken in Biarritz, France by @jonbinder

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3 months ago

When I was little, my parents made an unusual decision and enrolled me and my brother in a French-American bilingual school in San Francisco. Years later, that seed led me to spend my junior year of university studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence, one of the best years of my life.

Last week Tania and I came back and walked those same streets.

What I had forgotten was the full circle of it. When I originally called my mom to tell her I had chosen Aix out of all the options, she gasped. Turns out she and my dad had been sitting at a café right here on this boulevard when she first had the idea to put us in French school.

At the time my mind said “what are the chances?” Now my soul says “of course.”

That story and what it taught me about the choices we make and the ripples we cannot see yet is in my latest Substack. Link in bio. taken in Aix-en-Provence, France by @jonbinder

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4 months ago

Something shifted for me over the last few years that I have been trying to find the right words for.
It is not that I stopped caring about what is happening in the world. If anything I care more. But I stopped letting it pull me into a constant state of anxiety and outrage. I stopped looking for the smoking gun that would finally wake everyone up. I stopped trying to convince people who are not ready.
And something opened up when I did.
It feels like being in the eye of a hurricane. You can see the chaos rotating around you. You understand more than you probably wish you did. And somehow you are calm. Not because you are checked out. Because you have found your ground.
I have come to think of this as the golden pill. Not a political thing. Not a conspiracy thing. Just a way of describing what happens when you move through disillusionment and come out the other side still believing that what you do matters. Still building. Still creating. Still showing up for the people and projects that light you up.
I wrote a longer piece about the journey that gets there, including some uncomfortable stops along the way. It is not for everyone and I mean that genuinely. But if any of this resonates, if you have been feeling the weight of the world lately and looking for a way through rather than a way out, I think you might find something useful in it.
Link in bio & comments. 🧡 by @jonbinder

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4 months ago

Yesterday I published a birthday reflection on the long way around to what matters...Finding balance in Body. Mind. Spirit. And why, in my late fifties, my life feels like it is just getting started.

The response so far has humbled me.
Messages from people I had not heard from in years. Friends going through their own quiet crossroads. People who said they had been feeling the same.

Being seen really does matter. It is not vanity or neediness. It is one of the most fundamental things we are here for and enables true connection. And when you are honest about your own journey, something happens. Other people exhale. They put down the performance. They remember they are not alone in the messy middle.

A few things that seem to have landed:

We spend the first half of life working from the outside in. Optimizing the body. Training the mind. Hoping the soul figures itself out somewhere along the way. The invitation of the second half is to reverse that. Start from the inside and let it radiate outward.

Vulnerability is not a liability. It is a portal to connection.

And it is never too late. The whisper of what is calling you does not have an expiry date.

If any of that resonates, the full post is linked in my bio.

With a full heart,
thank you for being part of this journey. 🙏❤️🦋🔥 by @jonbinder

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5 months ago

The pathway to a more beautiful world, the one our hearts know is possible, is not going to be found through the rigid, dogmatic, reductionist thinking that got us into this mess.

It may be through something older and simpler. The wonder, the imagination, the curiosity we had as children before we learned to dismiss what we could not explain. And tuning in to what is starting to emerge in the world right now that tells us the old story is no longer relevant.

It may never have been true.

I wrote about this in my latest Substack. It is the most personally vulnerable piece I have published. If any part of you has ever felt that the official story of reality is incomplete, this one is for you.

Link in bio. 🧡

PS. Last week I got to spend three days at an extraordinary event in Portugal and connect in person with someone who has been a big inspiration on my journey for the last ten years, the author of A More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. That book and that conversation are woven all through this piece.

PPS. This photo was taken in Gibraltar, at the edge of the "known" world, where the ancient Greeks believed civilization ended and the unknown began. They called it the Pillars of Hercules. Beyond here, there be dragons. And apparently, butterflies.🙌🦋🐉❤️🔥 taken in Gibraltar, Great Britain by @jonbinder

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5 months ago

Today is Tania's birthday and I'm sitting on the beach near our house in Cascais, alone with my thoughts, while she's in Milan on a business trip.

Four years ago today we were on a birthday getaway at Stinson Beach in California. During a quiet moment it hit me hard. Not a plan, but a deep knowing. Time to stop sitting on the fence and take my family abroad.

We didn't know where "there" was yet. But the commitment to a direction made all the difference.

A few weeks later, Portugal came into our field. Something in both of us recognized it immediately. We said yes.

Now I can feel this cycle coming to completion.

Colby just left Cambridge. He spent his whole life working toward it, got there, and had the clarity at 19 to recognize it wasn't where he needed to be. He wants to create, not credential. He stopped should-ing and started moving toward alignment that most adults spend decades trying to find.

Sierra is taking a gap year of adventure and service. Finding her own way in her own time.

And Tania and I are becoming free birds.

The unknown isn't new. It was here four years ago too. And then the unknown became home.

Now there's a new unknown. This is what cycles feel like from the inside.

So on her birthday I want to say this.
Tania. You have made my dreams come to life. You are an extraordinary mother who has put this family first more times than I can count.

I love you more than ever. I am so honored to be on this journey with you.

Here's to the next cycle. And to trusting where it leads. 🧡 by @jonbinder

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6 months ago

I've spent the last six years coaching people through some of the biggest transitions of their lives. Before that, I was a student of personal growth for even longer. So when I finally decided to experiment with AI, I didn't just ask it to help me write an email.
I brought it everything I use with my clients. Every framework I know for understanding how a person is wired, how they make decisions, what lights them up, what gets in their way. And I asked it to reflect me back to myself, the way a great coach would.

What came back was genuinely surprising. Not because the technology is magic. Because the quality of what you get depends almost entirely on how you show up to it.

Here's the thing nobody talks about. Most AI tools have been designed to tell you what you want to hear. They're built for engagement, which means they're essentially very smart people pleasers. Ask for feedback on your idea and they'll find seventeen reasons it could work. It feels helpful. It's not.

What I've been building toward is something different. A way of working with AI where it actually tells you the truth. Where it reflects back what you're not seeing, asks the question you've been avoiding, and doesn't care whether you approve of the answer. Less yes-man, more trusted advisor.

I call it Collaborative Intelligence. And I think it might be one of the most underexplored ideas in the whole AI conversation right now.

I wrote a longer piece about it this week. It covers where I think this is all heading, why the relationship you choose with AI matters more than the tool itself, and what it actually looks like in practice.

Link in bio if you want the full read on Substack. And there is a free activation script at the end of the post. A simple twenty minute process that can turn your AI into a CI.

And I'm curious: when you think about where AI is headed, do you feel more like something is happening to you, or that you have some say in how it unfolds? by @jonbinder

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7 months ago