What makes America a land that attracts millions of entrepreneurs to innovate and build some of the world's most disruptive brands? Most of us who've immigrated here, cannot deny how it rewards true passion and give you a platform to turn a far fetched dream into reality.
This episode dives into the mindset of a successful American entrepreneur- Craig Hatoff and his path to living by the principles of AWE & applying disruptive innovation theory to all accepts of life along with building some of the most prolific businesses.
He looks at the world and fosters innovation through his Disruptor Foundation.
An amazing dinner table story teller, Craig Hatoff, is a man of multiple interests, passion and an insatiable curiosity that led him to disrupt, galvanize and innovate multiple fields over the decades. He’s known as a pioneer in commercial mortgage securitization, he co-founded one of the largest real estate investment management-NYSE listed company Capital Trust, a former trustee of NYC school construction Authority, Chairman of Turtle Pond- a children’s publishing & entertainment company that illuminate resilience and emotional learning. He authored a NYT best selling children’s book.
An investor, mentor and also teaches courses on entrepreneurship and innovation. He’s famously known as one of the three Co-Founders of TriBeCa Film Festival that was started to revive downtown NY after 9/11 crisis.
We discuss his early experience of disruptive innovation, and meeting his collaborator -the father of Disruptive Innovation strategy with whom he started the Disruptors Foundation, along with Rabbi Irwin Kula.
Reader's Digest being a source of inspiration not only for me in India but also for Craig's father who stated NY's first discounted toy store.
How to cultivate an open mind that fosters innovation.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Welcome to this powerfulcontainer of infinite
possibilities to a highest stateof awareness.
Join me.
Should we shut that tie as weuncover the pathways to the
world's most illuminatedleaders, Seacoast creators.
And perhaps even some saints
SRI (00:32):
Welcome.
Today's episode a habit.
Meet Craig Hatkoff, who is aco-founder of Tribeca film
festival.
He's in a waiter of disrupt as aword along with one of the most
prolific, business puristClayton Christiansen.
He's a children's book author.
(00:53):
also an artist.
he started as a real estateinvestor.
When I met Craig, it was througha dinner party.
Interestingly, you got to knowNino magazine mentions Craig
Hatkoff as one of the dinnerYes.
You would want to be sittingnext to, and I did a table
because he is just an all aroundwonderful storyteller.
(01:16):
Thank you so much, Craig, howare you doing today and where am
I finding you?
Craig (01:20):
I am speaking to you from my apartment over on the East
side, close to the East river.
And, um, I guess, can I say Namastay
SRI (01:29):
As long as he can say properly,
Craig (01:35):
Perfect.
thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to have ourconversation.
SRI (01:39):
I'd love us to dive into a story.
I remember in my childhood,Vito's digest was my connection
to the Western world with joyand love.
And I remember reading thesestories that automatically made
me wow, these kinds of peopleexist.
And I would love to hear yourstory of what went on when your
(02:01):
father read an article on Vito'sdigest He changed his
professional trajectory andimpact that made on you.
Craig (02:09):
A very, very interesting way to open.
And it's it, it brings back lotof, memories, a lot of emotion,
positive emotion.
And my father was a veryinteresting self-made man with
very few.
Frills.
He was a no-frills kind ofperson.
And when right around 1953,1954, I was born in 1954, but he
(02:34):
read an article on the conceptof discount retailing in
reader's digest, which was verynew.
And if you remember some of thenames that entered the discount
sector, there's always SearsRoebuck and the catalogs, the
stores, the Macy's, but theywere not in the discount
business, but it was people likeEJA Corvettes, two guys.
(02:58):
And it was really the beginningof what today we call big box
retail.
And my father's idea was to gointo the toy segment and there
really was no discount toy,concept at that point in time.
And while, sometimes I willoften say never let the facts
get in the way of a good story.
Uh, some of this is.
(03:19):
What I'll call the origin storythat we do the best we can to
assemble the mosaic tiles.
But the way I understand thestory is, as I was, being born,
he was launching as best.
We know the first discount toystore in America.
And to a certain extent, I justread an article recently from
(03:40):
some local journalist I grew upin the Albany Schenectady and
Troy area, and a localjournalist was writing a story,
how Dwayne's toil and the nameof the business was really the
first big box, model of the bigbox retailing concept.
Which is we had taken over anold firehouse, which was 20,000
(04:00):
square feet.
Now most stores back then were,two to 3000 square feet.
And it was stocked from floor toceiling.
Loosely assembled, very, serveyourself, but the prices were
20% lower than any place else.
You could find the toys.
And so in his own way, my fatherwas quite an inspiration on me
(04:23):
and he, we may come back andtalk a little bit about
disruptive innovation anddisruptive innovation theory.
And my relationship with clayChristensen, the Harvard
business school professor who'sfather of the theory.
But looking back while we didnot have the language back in
the fifties and the sixties, Itreally was.
(04:44):
My father was really adisruptor.
He, intuitively without thelanguage, without, a theory, but
he made things simpler, cheaper,or more accessible, and it was
not the perfect shoppingexperience.
It was sort of no frillsservice.
But the prices could be beat andit was sort of classic
disruption.
And that's one of the thingsclay talks about in his works is
(05:06):
the concept of discountretailing.
Not knowing about my backgroundand my father's background is,
who knew that my father was a,in his own way, part of the
evolution of a disruptiveinnovation and the retailing
segment.
And so my father had a greatimpact on me it was always.
we always try to fix everythingourselves.
(05:27):
So the hot water heater wentdown.
God forbid we should call aplumber.
We would go down there and tryand fix it ourselves.
It was a leak in the swimmingpool.
We try and find the leakourselves.
So it was very much in thatspirit that, I guess as someone
says, how did you get to bedisruptive?
I guess I said, I was born thisway.
And it comes from my, myfather's DNA.
SRI (05:46):
My parents keep saying it has to run in your DNA.
Otherwise you cannot be abusiness person.
And I keep telling them, andbecause I don't come from a
family of business people, andI'm an entrepreneur in a foreign
country.
So I'm like, just watch me.
That is also a disruption to me.
I truly do believe that afamilies laid the foundation and
(06:08):
how we take that as a jumpingpoint to get to our destiny.
Now, with that, I would love tounderstand.
You've had such beautiful phasesof your life?
what would you call as your mainidentity?
Do you now, when you look back,is there any specific thing that
you call that, this is who I am?
Craig (06:29):
Very interesting question.
I would respond in the followingmanner that I don't have any
overarching identity today.
One of the most difficultquestions, if you open up
sitting next to me at a businessparty, or then cocktail party or
dinner party, when someone says,what do you do?
It is such a loaded question forme.
It's, you know, where do I beginand who am I sitting with?
(06:50):
But I've had the good fortune.
And I'll tell you how I wasinspired by it in a minute, but
I had the good fortune to be inmany different kinds of.
Fields domains, businesses,interests.
And I would describe my primaryidentity as not a single
identity, but I refer to it asmultiple fluid identities so it
(07:14):
depends on where I am, who I'msitting next to, but I've been
involved in, you know, in aserious way in the world of
banking and the world of realestate but I've also been in the
music business in the children'sbook business.
Didn't know much about the filmfestival business when we got
started.
And so, and then innovation forthe last 20 years, actually,
(07:34):
since I met clay Christensenbecame in a funny way, the
closest connective tissue for myidentity, whatever I'm involved
in, whatever, whether it'smusic, art business, what's the
connective tissue through thislens of disruptive innovation.
so I'm kind of like a chameleonand the one common thread is,
(07:56):
people said, what, you know,what is your primary skill?
I would say.
Yeah, it's all about thenarratives and storytelling.
And act to me is that's how wechange the world is not through
fact and analytics.
It's really through story, thepower of stories.
And that goes all the way backto sitting around a campfire in
prehistoric times cavepaintings.
(08:19):
It's all about the stories.
SRI (08:20):
You bring in the Sutton kind of energy and Southern kind
of lightness to every projectthat you work and you elevate
everything, your boards ofmultiple nonprofits and
organizations.
You have this innovationbackground and, you come from an
prolific family as well.
You've got, innovators allaround you, your children, who
(08:41):
you co-authored with yourbrother in law as well and your
sisters.
And you look at your life andthe macro level.
And if you had to say, what wasyour purpose and what was that
one ingredient that helped youfuel all of this?
What do you think that would be?
Craig (08:57):
So I know purpose is a tricky question for me.
You know, my purpose at thisstage in my life is to try and
help others fulfill some oftheir passions, just given I do
a lot of mentoring.
And I'd say the onecharacteristic that really
drives me is almost aninsatiable curiosity.
(09:21):
And if you said to me, what wasthe, uh, inflection point in
your life where you became sointerested in everything I'd
have to say it was really goesall back.
It goes all the way back to whenGoogle was invented.
All of a sudden the entireuniverse, all the information
was available and probably oneof the greatest, actually almost
(09:41):
an invention.
was this concept of thehyperlink where when you're
eating something and there's ahyperlink, it just click on it.
And it takes you to anotherpathway in your journey of
reading an article.
So if I'm reading an article andit's got a lot of interesting
hyperlinks, I can be, could takeme two days to read the article
because I love going down thesesort of pathway, not necessarily
(10:04):
the, you know, the path mosttaken, but I love the side.
The side roads, some of themtend to be somewhat, sometimes a
dead end, but connecting thedots is really, I was born to
connect that's.
My purpose is to connect dotsand try and bring meaning.
To almost everything that I doand that's meaning to me.
And if I can share some of theseexperiences, just a little bit
(10:25):
of my career path, that'sperfectly fine for me, but and
some of the things, sound trite,but trite works.
There's a reason we have thesesayings, the destination is not
the purpose.
The purpose is the journey andwhat you learn along the way.
And I really, the problem withthe destination is once you get
there, then what do you do?
So the journey and have multiplejourneys and watching how they
(10:49):
start connecting.
And that to me is sort of thefuel, the grist for the mill
that really drives me.
So it's almost some people getthe adrenaline rush from playing
video games or diving out ofplanes or whatever it might be.
I kind of get the adrenalinerush, connecting dots and say,
ah, wow, isn't that interesting?
I never knew that.
(11:09):
So to me, it's a process ofcuriosity and discovery and you
must keep an open mind.
The second you close your mind,the charm, the awe, the
enchantment disappears.
SRI (11:20):
Not many people are like, it's great to say yes, I need to
keep an open mind, but not manypeople are actually open.
So I would love to dig into thisaspect of your personality.
What is having an open mind?
What is that curiosity?
How did you manage to never losethat?
The power to grow up in thisworld, and still be in that all,
(11:43):
childlike wonder of not lettingoutside world get to it.
Craig (11:48):
So maybe the best way to understand that is I met clay
Christensen about 20 years ago.
And at the same time I met an, Imay secular Jew who has a very,
very spiritual, but I'm more of,I'd say six days a week, I'm
either atheist or agnostic andI'm seventh day.
(12:09):
It all depends on how veryspiritual moments, which week
SRI (12:15):
in this week are we in this spiritual week or
Craig (12:19):
last couple of weeks have been very spiritual, very
spiritual.
You know, so while I'm notreligious, I'm spiritual, but my
primary partner now, clayChristensen has passed away, I
guess in February.
And my primary partner for thelast 20 years, separate apart
from clay in the beginning.
And then the three of us joinedtogether is an eighth generation
(12:41):
rabbi Irwin Kula, who when I hadchildren was a, I wouldn't call
it an intervention, but wastrying to, encourage me to be a
slightly more ritualistic,attend services, be a little bit
more religious and, embrace allthe holidays.
And for whatever reason, itwasn't really working for me.
And one of the fundamentaltenants of, innovation is what
(13:04):
job are you trying to get done?
And the job is.
Really for, finding meaning andenchantment in almost everything
that's there and something's notworking and not getting the job
done, don't stick with it.
And so when the rabbi, we jokearound, he said, listen, you're,
you don't need it to go tosynagogue.
Or if you go, you don't have tostay for four hours.
(13:24):
I always found, you know, highholidays, very challenging for
me and they just weren'tworking.
And he said, you haven't moreJewish sensibilities.
The most of the truly Jewishpeople.
I know.
And I said that can't possiblybe, so I think the spiritual
it's a continuum, but when youread about our founding fathers,
(13:44):
not withstanding a lot of theJudeo Christian threads that are
woven throughout all of ourimportant documents, in God we
trust, most of them,particularly Thomas Jefferson.
Was a deist, which is, he didnot believe in God in the sky.
It was more, God is a force.
And I heard something a whileago, Buckminster fuller, who was
(14:06):
one of the most innovativethinkers and intellectual minds
that we've ever had saidsomething that stuck with me.
He said, God is a verb.
And that's a very insightfulthing that kind of reflects how
I view the world.
It's not necessarily a man inthe sky, but there could be, how
would I know?
And that's what I mean aboutkeeping an open mind, but I look
(14:26):
back at all of the wisdomtraditions and whether it's the
Galean dialectic, which is a lotof fancy words, but assume, you
know, nothing.
And when it really the two keyvirtues, one is humility where I
assume whatever it is, I reallythink I might be wrong.
And that's a very interestinginsight to keeping an open mind.
(14:47):
I actually have a series of,I'll call them exercises that
help you develop cultivate thesevirtues.
And the other is clearlyempathy.
And without empathy we're as acivilization the future's not
very bright, but we're seeing somany things going on today.
You know, particularly in viewof COVID and black lives matter
(15:08):
where it invites us to truly tryand step into the other person's
shoes, understanding you cannever have that experience, but
it's a very interesting way tokeep an open mind.
And so if you're curious and youwant to understand how and why
someone's thinking a certainway, rather than demonizing them
saying, can you help meunderstand how you kind of came
to this position and not beingjudgemental?
(15:30):
so that to me is theopen-mindedness, that enables
you to, a different kind ofjourney.
If you think, you know,everything one you're certainly
wrong.
That's the only thing I can tellyou with certainty is if you
think, you know, everything,you're definitely wrong.
And if you kind of have thiscuriosity, it's amazing how you
can rearrange these mosaic tilesand have a set of experiences
(15:50):
that help you navigate throughthe world.
So whether it's a great quotefrom someone, an illustration, a
piece of art, these are thingsthat help us.
These are the tools.
These are in the toolkit.
SRI (16:00):
So did you have a toolkit through the years to help you
stay in that, the humility orwhat would you call it?
The state that you like to be
Craig (16:09):
in a state of wonder and then chaplain concern.
And if you can find somethingpositive and even the most awful
things, I mean, if you take alook at the first amendment,
it's not there to protect whatI'll call civilized speech.
It's there really to protect themost heinous speech, which in
(16:29):
today's world, we're goingthrough a whole new dimension.
You can't even haveconversations in today's world,
but you have to listen and youhave to listen really carefully.
That's a deep rooted wisdomtradition.
but I'd say a lot of this camethe toolkit, the rabbi, and I
started working on it about 20years ago.
it's a set of exercises thatvery simple things that will
(16:49):
help you pass through and keepin mind just when you think, you
know something, for sure, justremember you might be wrong and
you can depend the image tothat.
It's very helpful.
One of the Greek said the onlything that I know is I know
nothing, and that's a veryinteresting invitation to have a
different kind of journey, asopposed to, traveling to the
world, thinking, you know,everything because arrogance is
(17:10):
the end of civilizations andthat we know.
So you bris, arrogance don't fitin well for, the development of
either the individual orsociety.
SRI (17:19):
I think that's a great segue into talking about your,
work that you did with ClaytonChristiansen on what is
innovation and how you appliedit to creating other businesses
foundations that you've started?
Craig (17:32):
So I was invited to meet clay Christensen.
I did not know who he was.
This is going back to literally1999, the year 2000.
And I was working on a startupinvolving children's publishing
that one of the students wasworking on empty my nephew.
And when clay read the paperthat, my nephew, John Patricof
had submitted, he got a noteback and said, this is really
(17:55):
interesting.
Do you think I could meet theentrepreneur involved now?
I didn't know who clay was.
I didn't know anything aboutdisruptive innovation.
But important Harvard businessschool professor invites you to
come sit down.
It sounded like one of thoseinteresting experiences that I
want to put into my portfolio oflife experiences.
And so I went up to Boston.
I think it was the summer of2000.
Walked into an empty school wasnot in session.
(18:17):
but we met at, Harvard businessschool offices where clay was,
we walked into a classroom andhe had a whiteboard and a
marker.
And he laid out his theory ofthis, of disruptive innovation,
which was completely blew mymind.
And within 45 minutes, my entireworld was turned upside down.
Everything I thought I knew, Irealized wasn't the case and it
was in total paradox.
(18:38):
And in a nutshell, the theory ismost great companies.
That we would consider the bestmanagement teams tend to take
perfectly good products and makethem better and better stronger,
more powerful, and moreexpensive, basically in search
of profits and that the paradoxof disruptive innovation, it's
literally the two guys in agarage.
(18:59):
So think Steve jobs, Steve actthink of bill Gates and Paul
Allen, two guys in a garagestart off with a pretty lousy
product.
It's kind of inexpensive.
It was sort of cobbled togetherand it wasn't very powerful, but
it was very simple to use.
And the real key is it wasn'tterribly good, but it was good
(19:20):
enough.
And so the fundamental question,you always have to ask yourself
in innovation theory,particularly disruptive
innovation theory is what job amI trying to get?
And if it gets the job done, Andit costs a fraction of the
premiere product or service outthere.
That's the one that's going toput the incumbent out of
business.
So you might remember EasternKodak, where are they today as
(19:42):
opposed to an Instagram?
Eastern Kodak didn't thinkdigital photography was going to
be good enough for the consumeras it turned out.
And what we've seen evolving isInstagram and digital
photography.
Lend themselves to a new kind ofstorytelling.
So pick the PDO when it startedwasn't, you know, it was kind of
scoffed at, by the we'll call itthe elite, the intelligence of
(20:03):
the academic community the bestof class.
The Holy grail was encyclopediaBritannica.
And what we were able to predictwith Clay's theory is if you try
to buy it encyclopediaBritannica today, the only place
you'll find it is on eBay, theystopped making it.
And we compete, interestinglyenough, The more you use it, the
more people that use it, thebetter it gets, as opposed to
(20:24):
encyclopedia Britannica, youread it.
What have you, something changesyou have to wait for the next
edition to come out.
So with PD, it was a classicdisruptive innovation.
Digital photography was theclassic disruptive innovation.
The MP3 file for music.
When the industry, we used tohave the big five ANR, names
that they control the entiremusic industry.
(20:44):
And when the music industryheard about the MP3 file might
remember something calledNapster, just turned out to be
illegal.
So master didn't quite make it.
But Steve jobs heard about, theMP3 file.
And he went to the recordindustry and said, I'm, I think
we should partner together.
And the future is about MP3files.
(21:05):
You're wrong about it's not goodenough.
And they kind of dismissed them.
And needless to say the musicindustry has probably had as
much fundamental, almost seismicchanges because they did not
understand that the MP3 file,particularly in Napster's case,
it was good enough because itwas free.
It doesn't have to be great.
It was free.
And so these are the classiccases of disruption.
(21:26):
It is you start at the low endof the curve and you don't make
it overly complicated or overlyaccessible.
You go for a much largeraudience.
Who's not even currently yourcustomer or your consumer.
So that was sort of thefundamental lesson of disruptive
innovation.
And that we started applyinginto certain areas that weren't
really about.
We'll call them utilityproducts.
(21:48):
Like there's not a lot ofidentity wrapped up in an MP3
file.
I don't really care whether it'san MP3 file from.
Apple or Amazon or wherever itmight be.
when you get into things thattouch your identity, it's a
whole different way of lookingat innovation.
And that was sort of our mainwork with clay was looking how
identity impacts, fundamentalchange and serious change in the
(22:09):
world.
So you typically products,they're fine.
But when you talk to some aboutwho the doctor is, your kid's
teacher, your religion, thenwe're talking about people's
worldviews and belief systems.
And so that's the theory.
We are focused on, with claimuntil he passed away.
And now the rabbi and I continuewith down this road.
So it's a different way oflooking at innovation.
SRI (22:28):
And you've had been working on innovation, disrupting the
spiritual world as well with therabbi, with the current
scenario, with the culvert.
And there are so manydisruptions happening in the way
we connect with each other andour personal lives, the way we
live, maybe shop the way wework, the way we date every
single thing.
What advice would you have forthe innovators, the
(22:50):
entrepreneurs, where they needto look according to you?
Craig (22:54):
I think been through, in my business career, depending on
how you want to count, but about14 major crises, financial
crises, and sometimes likeSeptember 11th was the different
kind of crisis, but none of themcompare to what we're seeing
with COVID.
And, Tribeca was formed to tryand help get people back on the
streets.
(23:14):
and we launched in may of 2002,when we decided to watch it,
there were no theaters, therewere no venues.
We had no sponsors, we had nofilms, but there was a purpose,
some Tribeca born out of apurpose to help rebuild the
community and get people to comeout.
It wasn't necessarily about howgreat are the films.
It's the fact that there arefilms that people can go see and
(23:34):
then talk about afterwards.
And that was really sort of the,the mission of Tribeca.
It wasn't to be, you know, theworld's greatest film festival,
meaning film specifically, itwas as much about the audience
and the community as it wasabout the filmmakers.
So we brought those two piecestogether.
It had a big psychologicalimpact on lower Manhattan, cause
not much else had happened.
(23:55):
No, it's not that we were great.
There just wasn't anything elsegoing on
SRI (23:58):
and then you use that to keep re innovating based on what
happened.
What was the current scenarioand what was needed?
Is that what you did like riseup to the occasion?
Craig (24:08):
I was always looking at Tribeca through the lens of
disruptive innovation.
I don't think anybody else was.
but I had had this relationshipwith clay and, you know, Tribeca
was starting early on in myrelationship with clay.
And so for example, we didn'treally have theaters.
So the innovation that we cameup with was to put a big screens
on the piers and we kind ofcreated drivers.
(24:31):
you can't really drive onto apier, but we had general motors
as our, as our main sponsor.
And they would bring in theirvintage cars and you'd say the
outdoor driving experience.
Isn't so much about what's onthe screen.
It's that communal experience,which is different than sitting
in a dark theater.
This isn't a big open space.
And if you look happening inCOVID, one of the hottest trends
(24:52):
is everything is now moving backto drivers.
If you look at all the articlesabout drive-ins, they're doing
art shows on dry in drive-ins,they're doing concerts, but a
drive in wasn't a perfectcinematic experience, but it was
more about the experience ofbeing in a place with your
family being outdoors and verydifferent experience.
And so that would be a classicexample of the kinds of
(25:15):
innovations that we're seeingduring COVID.
this is, you know, I call COVID,I call it the triple helix.
We have a health crisis thatmorphed into an economic crisis
that then has precipitated inview of all the things we've
seen, we now have a social slashpolitical crisis, going on as
well.
So it's a thrice as opposed totwice, as opposed to one
(25:37):
problem, September 11th wasabout terrorism and getting
people back on the streets.
We don't have an exit plan.
I think this is really, reallydifferent.
but as you say, virtually everykind of interaction.
Whether they're it's retailing,dating, entertainment,
telemedicine everything's beingreinvented.
And so you're going to see a lotof disruption from our classic
(25:58):
forms of business models intothese new business models.
So we're at an inflection point.
And while it's seems very darkand ominous and existential, we
will make it through thequestion is how much pain, how
much damage.
And on the other side, amazingthings will come out of this
SRI (26:15):
do you have any particular points for someone who is in
that inflection point where theyare rising up to create those
products to create thosedisruptive companies?
I know you've worked withhundreds of disruptors with a
disruptive foundation.
What would you say, like interms of advice or perhaps a
tool set that you could giveright now to someone who's in
(26:38):
that middle of coming emergingthrough the kiosk to provide the
solution.
Craig (26:42):
So say that this is the, uh, once in a generation, you
know, people kind of refer tothe, you know, the great
influenza of 1918 things thatcould never happen in normal
times, whether, because ofinstitutional structures, power
arrangements, and in fact, Theresistances in time of crisis
(27:03):
collapse.
I mean, you see all of a suddenat the FDA, something that would
normally take years and yearsand years, I'm working on one
project with a very disruptiveinnovation.
So healthcare innovation, theyhave something called the, I
believe it's called theemergency use application, an
EUA where they'll fast trackapproval from the FDA that
normally would never happenunless you're in the middle of a
(27:24):
crisis.
And so the resistance is tothese new ideas are at an all
time low and enormous amounts.
Just look at telemedicine.
That would be resisted when youdon't have a choice.
Telemedicine works very well.
So you're not going to go to thedoctor at all.
And the doctors are getting usedto it, but most, and there's a
whole host of, political,economic issues on liability on
(27:48):
it.
It's very complicated stuff, butwhen you're in a crisis, I have
one of my quotes is nothingfocuses the mind, like a hanging
it's a, it's actually SamuelJohnson, where when you don't
have any choices, it's easy tomake decisions.
So, you know, it's nothing, Ithink it's actually, it's that
focusing of the mind where Iknow in normal times, this isn't
(28:09):
how we would do it.
but in a moment of crisis, thisis where great innovation takes
place.
So my advice would be.
This is your time don't wasteit.
SRI (28:18):
Mm mm.
So I follow you on Instagram andFacebook and you started putting
these pictures of the moststunning skyline of the empire
state, and I believe it's fromyour home.
You've been taking pictureinspired from Monday the
haystack.
Correct.
So tell me you have thisentrepreneur and finance brain
(28:40):
and create a brain.
And this is almost like you'rewanting to merge these two sides
of you bringing art andtechnology and creativity and
putting it on line.
How did this come about duringCOVID?
Craig (28:53):
Well, it came about because, I fortunately have
amazing views of the empirestate building, which has always
been one of my favorite views.
And, you know, one says, well,if you take a picture of the
empire state building, how manypictures is going to take of the
empire state building?
And the answer says, Oh, aftertwo or three, one would think it
gets a little bit, a little bitboring.
(29:13):
And you know, I've seen thatbefore, but it's, it's very
interesting that what got mesort of into this was when they
started the 7:00 PM salute.
And when I opened my windows, Ihappened to have a terrorist
where I take a lot of thepictures from at 7:00 PM.
you would hear the sirens andyou'd hear the cheers
celebrating and honoring thefirst responders.
(29:35):
And so every night at 7:00 PM, Iwould go out just to listen.
And I just started at first Iwas doing night shots of the
empire state building.
But that gets a little bit, youknow, it's a different color,
but the night shots are a littledifferently.
But what I discovered was thesunsets and then ultimately
sunrises looking at the Eastriver are so different.
I probably have done close to200 photographs.
(29:58):
No two are the same.
I have like a very small devotedfollowing who kind of, enjoy
seeing these, these photographs.
But what really inspired meafter I started off with the
7:00 PM salute, I'm an avid mycuriosity, and trying to connect
certain things up I'm that Idon't consider myself an artist.
(30:18):
You might, some people might sayyou're borderline, you seem to
have artistic, tendencies orattributes, but I love history
and connecting the dots.
And I came across somethingwhich was, Claude Monet in the
1890s.
At a sort of seminal moment inthe whole history of modern art
moved to, a, basically a countryhouse that was on some farmland.
(30:40):
And he started doing a series of25 paintings of the same
objects, which were twohaystacks and every day, and
well, he worked on it for twoyears for 20.
So, but he would paint everyday.
And what he concluded was thisamazing, I guess I'm going to
call it insight or the epiphanythat art had traditionally been
(31:01):
about the object,representational, art portraits,
you know, still lives.
And it was veryrepresentational.
And so this is significantlybefore Picasso.
So we're talking to the 1890sand what he concluded was the
object really wasn't.
The essence of his paintings, itwas the color, it was the
texture.
(31:22):
It was the time of day.
And one of these amazingreflections.
And you couldn't, unless someonetold you they were haystacks,
you wouldn't even know they werehaystacks.
And what happened, which I foundto be fascinating.
It is, I believe it was, I thinkit was just before, or just
after 1900, the artist I guesshe was at the time living in
Russia, Vasili Konwinski went toan exhibition and he saw one of
(31:45):
Monet's haystacks and he didn'teven know how to respond.
So he's looking at the somewhatwhat we might call
impressionistic.
painting about two haystacks on,gorgeous colors and lighting.
And the, the shadows were, very,very captivating, but he was
incredibly jarred and upset anddisoriented that there was no
(32:06):
object.
And you wrote about this and hesaid, I'm almost angry, but
there's something about, and hedidn't even know until he read
the catalog after he'd seen it,that they were actually
haystacks.
And then he, when he realized itwas haystacks, it completely
changed his entire artisticsensibility.
And he realized the object isnot really the important part.
(32:27):
It's a feeling and what's theemotion.
And so you kind of look atwhether we do a lot with
Picasso, not about the art is agreat art.
It's, what's the insight.
Whether it's great art or not,it can be a kid's piece of art
that gives you an insight.
So connecting these dots reallybecomes, as I said, early on,
that's my version of anadrenaline rush.
SRI (32:46):
I wanted to just dive into that story of your number one
best-selling children's book wasabout a hippo.
It was a real life story abouttwo animals, You wrote that with
your daughter after the tsunamiand the story was circulated a
lot it was about showingresilience and how two very
different species depended oneach other and developed a
beautiful friendship that Iwould love for us to talk about
(33:09):
how.
If animals are able to do it,where in that point in our
history where we're looking atso much a polarities, so much of
differences of color, religion,and where you're coming from
countries and your point ofview, if believe in God or not
politics, w what can be learned,how can we be like those
(33:30):
animals?
Craig (33:31):
Well, the children's books that we've done, there is
a theme it's young animals indistress, or experiencing a
trauma.
They're all, non-fiction,they're all photographs.
Most of them tend to be veryfamous stories that are already
out there.
Owen and we saw a picture in thenewspaper of a 130 year old
(33:51):
tortoise that was bigger than,you know, it's a 600 pound
hippo, but a 700 pound tortoise.
and we saw pictures of themsnuggling together.
And that's all we saw.
And we, because we were curiousand I'd written some other
children's books with my olderdaughter, my younger daughter,
my version was, she said, daddy,can we do our book about own
music?
we just said, let's see if wecan figure out how to do it.
(34:12):
And we picked up the phone, weconnected with the, the people
in, Kenya.
And the next thing, you know,we, you know, we did this
children's book that became, uh,quite a bit of an unexpected,
phenomenal, because the O and Mis they lived together for two
years.
when we saw the first probably,you know, they're together for a
couple of days.
That would be a lot.
but we also, we watched the bookof be t-shirts of the two of
them.
(34:32):
It's an adorable picture.
I mean, it's probably in theanimal odd couple animal
kingdom, probably one of themost famous pictures of these
two, the odd couple of gettingalong and the t-shirt had the
picture of them snuggling.
And just said, if they can getalong dot, dot dot, and it
raises the question, if they canget one, why can't we?
And I think the power to makethese kinds of changes, doesn't
(34:55):
come from a mandate top-down itcomes from sort of the local,
the parochial, hundreds, andhundreds of stories like this
really help with start changing.
these narratives are the onlything that really help us make
these Epic changes.
It's not by, dictate or, youknow, by Fiat it's really when
people have their minds openedand this element we call it.
(35:16):
We only do books that meet, wecall it the principle.
There's the goosebump test andthe off principle.
And if we see a story and wedon't get goosebumps, not
interested, didn't pass thegoosebump test.
And if.
The all principal stands for allwonder and then championed.
And so does it meet the allprinciple and pass the goosebump
(35:40):
test?
That's how we sort of select ourbooks.
SRI (35:42):
I love that.
I think I'm probably gonna startusing that the, our principal
and Goosby I'm good.
Every time I have a goosebump,like this is it, this is what
Craig (35:50):
we follow, you know?
This is kind of an interestingconnection, you know, and I am
very spiritual, I'm culturallyvery Jewish.
It's just not the services forwhatever reason.
As I said, I said to the rabbit,you know, most of the famous
Jewish music tends to be done inminor chords.
And I'm just sort of more of amajor chord.
(36:11):
You know, a little bit more.
I like bagpipes, Gregorianchants and minor chords.
Just, I don't know.
I can't put my finger on it.
But I'd say to him, I've gone tosynagogue for, you know, 40
years.
I never got goosebumps and I seea picture of a hippo and a
tortoise in the newspaper.
I got goosebumps.
So that became the practice.
(36:32):
When you have invitation, andpermission to adopt your own
rituals, that's where it getsinteresting.
And I encourage everybody andit's very complicated.
I mean, when you look attradition, we look at tradition
in general, these dogmas creeds,rituals practices, they're very
ingrained.
And so the second you don'tadhere to it.
It creates conflict, butliberate yourself you'd say,
(36:56):
well, okay, I'm on my own pathand the other wasn't working for
me and this does, so that's whatI'm going to follow.
There's a lot
SRI (37:03):
of fear and letting go of the rituals of darkness that
give a sense of security.
Um, Oh, to be able to, I mean,you were lucky to have such
close relationship with therabbi who gave you permission to
adopt something else because asa young child was born into
religion or anything, uh, thatyour family follows and you want
(37:24):
to be a divergence of it, ittakes a lot for you to get away
from your tribe because that'sour fight and flight, the tribal
mentality.
Right.
And, and the idea of jumpingaway and taking your own
rituals, that maybe that is whatthe hero's journey is, right?
Like that is like being able tobe emancipated from the
documents as you were born at tocreate some, With that I would
(37:47):
love for us to get into my lastquestion.
how in your practice do you sayhello to Nirvana?
And if you have a practice you'dlove to share with us.
We'd love that.
And what does it mean
Craig (38:01):
to you?
Wow.
When I've been in reader.
And one of the things I alsohaven't been a chronic insomniac
for about 30 years.
And so one of the things that Istarted doing 30 years ago was
when I couldn't sleep, you don'twant to pick up a Tom Clancy
novel and get sort of sucked inand you'll be up all night.
(38:23):
You know, you don't want a pageTurner.
so I started reading interestingbooks on quantum physics, and
these were East meets Westversions, dancing, wooly
masters.
There's a whole host of thesebooks that kind of make
comparisons between the world ofmysticism and belief and the
world of quantum physics.
Now.
You don't have to know any math,it requires zero math.
(38:44):
But if you really start tounderstand what you can't
possibly understand aboutquantum physics, because it
makes no sense.
And so when you know, justenough and how small the
universe is at the smallestdimension and how epically
infinite it is at the largestdimension, you know, our journey
on this planet is, not even ablip.
(39:06):
I've had a very interestinglife.
I don't feel like I've missedanything.
I'm not planning on goinganywhere anytime soon.
You know, if for no otherreasons, I've got my two
daughters that or my pride andjoy and I want to be around for
a long time.
But when you think about.
there is a downside to strictadherence to science, and
there's a great book by StevenPinker is called enlightenment
now, and that we've disconnectedthe emotional from the
(39:30):
scientific.
And as much as we think we knowabout science, we really know
very little, I mean, we know onetruly in the 1% of what's really
happening in the universe.
So you sort of say, I have nobad memories from before I was
born.
I'm not presuming I don't haveany bad memories after.
And you know, if time isn'tinfinite, what does that mean?
Do we have multiple paralleluniverses?
(39:50):
well you read the science andcertainly sounds that way.
And so if you know, just enoughto spark your curiosity.
It's any, what do you have?
I feel like I kind of justexpression, what do you, I'm not
afraid of dying.
I just don't want to be therewhen it happens.
And so you kind of songs about,you know, it's yeah.
(40:11):
I want to go into my sleep.
you know, and it's, if you havean open mindset, we know so
little and the in Shannonreturns when you can
acknowledge.
So there is an arrogance toscience.
I mean, if you look at paradigmshifts, it was all about Epic
changes in our prescriptions ofreality.
And, you know, we know like theperfect examples the paradigm
shift, we thought we've,descended from Adam and Eve then
(40:33):
maybe, maybe we did, or at leastin a metaphysical sense.
I've looked into microscope andit's not obvious to me that
evolution is a fact It's stillcalled the theory of evolution
that doesn't mean I am a bigbeliever in, intelligent design,
but I certainly have an openmind listening to someone
because religion and science arecompletely different modalities.
(40:53):
Religion is based on faith ofthings.
You can never prove that's thewhole point.
Science is about things that youcan prove until another model
comes in that the existingmodel, if you look at Kapernick
aneurysm a good hundred years tobe even partially accepted from
Copernicus to Galileo and thenanother.
A hundred years to improve it.
So I think if you have that kindof all wonder and enchantment,
(41:15):
it's just another part of thejourney.
I can be scared to death or cansay, had a good run here.
you know, feels like I flippedthe odometer a couple of times
along the way.
it's part of the journey.
And so there's a, not a, amorbid fascination saying,
listen, if we didn't die life,wouldn't be very interesting.
Death is what gives life meaningotherwise, what would it be?
SRI (41:34):
So that's so if you had to say, you had a practice to get
to that state of your maximumcreation point for yourself.
Craig (41:43):
You know, it's funny.
It just comes back to It's notabout the words, it's about the
effect and the feeling It doeschange.
And I have had the great fortunethrough the awards and through
the foundation to meet what'scalled 500 of the most, not the
most famous, not the mostpowerful richest, but 500 of the
most interesting people that Ican possibly imagine.
(42:04):
And there's probably another 5million, 50 million or 5 billion
out there.
If it's us, as opposed to me, Iwant to meet them all.
I will ever be able to meet themall, but I want to meet as many
as I can.
And that's the whole sentimentof us versus, you know, it's
whether, you know, the notionof, or or even the Shamar is
really about, we are allinterdependent and we're all
(42:27):
connected.
that works for me.
So I don't have any plans tochange, what I do on a daily
basis, but, uh, every day isanother, another it's like, I
think I'll close with theEinstein quote.
I'm a, I'm a big Einstein fan.
And he said you can live life asthough nothing is a miracle.
Or everything is a miracle.
And I prefer the latter.
SRI (42:47):
Well that I would like to thank you for making this
happen.
Such a beautiful miracle andconnecting all the dots for us
And hello, Nirvana.
Craig (42:57):
Okay.
Much stay.
And with that, we come to anend.
Please follow us on Instagram athello Nirvana world.
Like share, subscribe and leavea review wherever you get your
podcasts.
Thank you for your valuablepresence.
Goodwill goodbye and vishing youhello nirvana
Welcome to this powerfulcontainer of infinite
possibilities to a highest stateof awareness.
Join me.
Should we shut that tie as weuncover the pathways to the
world's most illuminatedleaders, Seacoast creators.
And perhaps even some saints
SRI (00:32):
Welcome.
Today's episode a habit.
Meet Craig Hatkoff, who is aco-founder of Tribeca film
festival.
He's in a waiter of disrupt as aword along with one of the most
prolific, business puristClayton Christiansen.
He's a children's book author.
(00:53):
also an artist.
he started as a real estateinvestor.
When I met Craig, it was througha dinner party.
Interestingly, you got to knowNino magazine mentions Craig
Hatkoff as one of the dinnerYes.
You would want to be sittingnext to, and I did a table
because he is just an all aroundwonderful storyteller.
(01:16):
Thank you so much, Craig, howare you doing today and where am
I finding you?
Craig (01:20):
I am speaking to you from my apartment over on the East
side, close to the East river.
And, um, I guess, can I say Namastay
SRI (01:29):
As long as he can say properly,
Craig (01:35):
Perfect.
thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to have ourconversation.
SRI (01:39):
I'd love us to dive into a story.
I remember in my childhood,Vito's digest was my connection
to the Western world with joyand love.
And I remember reading thesestories that automatically made
me wow, these kinds of peopleexist.
And I would love to hear yourstory of what went on when your
(02:01):
father read an article on Vito'sdigest He changed his
professional trajectory andimpact that made on you.
Craig (02:09):
A very, very interesting way to open.
And it's it, it brings back lotof, memories, a lot of emotion,
positive emotion.
And my father was a veryinteresting self-made man with
very few.
Frills.
He was a no-frills kind ofperson.
And when right around 1953,1954, I was born in 1954, but he
(02:34):
read an article on the conceptof discount retailing in
reader's digest, which was verynew.
And if you remember some of thenames that entered the discount
sector, there's always SearsRoebuck and the catalogs, the
stores, the Macy's, but theywere not in the discount
business, but it was people likeEJA Corvettes, two guys.
(02:58):
And it was really the beginningof what today we call big box
retail.
And my father's idea was to gointo the toy segment and there
really was no discount toy,concept at that point in time.
And while, sometimes I willoften say never let the facts
get in the way of a good story.
Uh, some of this is.
(03:19):
What I'll call the origin storythat we do the best we can to
assemble the mosaic tiles.
But the way I understand thestory is, as I was, being born,
he was launching as best.
We know the first discount toystore in America.
And to a certain extent, I justread an article recently from
(03:40):
some local journalist I grew upin the Albany Schenectady and
Troy area, and a localjournalist was writing a story,
how Dwayne's toil and the nameof the business was really the
first big box, model of the bigbox retailing concept.
Which is we had taken over anold firehouse, which was 20,000
(04:00):
square feet.
Now most stores back then were,two to 3000 square feet.
And it was stocked from floor toceiling.
Loosely assembled, very, serveyourself, but the prices were
20% lower than any place else.
You could find the toys.
And so in his own way, my fatherwas quite an inspiration on me
(04:23):
and he, we may come back andtalk a little bit about
disruptive innovation anddisruptive innovation theory.
And my relationship with clayChristensen, the Harvard
business school professor who'sfather of the theory.
But looking back while we didnot have the language back in
the fifties and the sixties, Itreally was.
(04:44):
My father was really adisruptor.
He, intuitively without thelanguage, without, a theory, but
he made things simpler, cheaper,or more accessible, and it was
not the perfect shoppingexperience.
It was sort of no frillsservice.
But the prices could be beat andit was sort of classic
disruption.
And that's one of the thingsclay talks about in his works is
(05:06):
the concept of discountretailing.
Not knowing about my backgroundand my father's background is,
who knew that my father was a,in his own way, part of the
evolution of a disruptiveinnovation and the retailing
segment.
And so my father had a greatimpact on me it was always.
we always try to fix everythingourselves.
(05:27):
So the hot water heater wentdown.
God forbid we should call aplumber.
We would go down there and tryand fix it ourselves.
It was a leak in the swimmingpool.
We try and find the leakourselves.
So it was very much in thatspirit that, I guess as someone
says, how did you get to bedisruptive?
I guess I said, I was born thisway.
And it comes from my, myfather's DNA.
SRI (05:46):
My parents keep saying it has to run in your DNA.
Otherwise you cannot be abusiness person.
And I keep telling them, andbecause I don't come from a
family of business people, andI'm an entrepreneur in a foreign
country.
So I'm like, just watch me.
That is also a disruption to me.
I truly do believe that afamilies laid the foundation and
(06:08):
how we take that as a jumpingpoint to get to our destiny.
Now, with that, I would love tounderstand.
You've had such beautiful phasesof your life?
what would you call as your mainidentity?
Do you now, when you look back,is there any specific thing that
you call that, this is who I am?
Craig (06:29):
Very interesting question.
I would respond in the followingmanner that I don't have any
overarching identity today.
One of the most difficultquestions, if you open up
sitting next to me at a businessparty, or then cocktail party or
dinner party, when someone says,what do you do?
It is such a loaded question forme.
It's, you know, where do I beginand who am I sitting with?
(06:50):
But I've had the good fortune.
And I'll tell you how I wasinspired by it in a minute, but
I had the good fortune to be inmany different kinds of.
Fields domains, businesses,interests.
And I would describe my primaryidentity as not a single
identity, but I refer to it asmultiple fluid identities so it
(07:14):
depends on where I am, who I'msitting next to, but I've been
involved in, you know, in aserious way in the world of
banking and the world of realestate but I've also been in the
music business in the children'sbook business.
Didn't know much about the filmfestival business when we got
started.
And so, and then innovation forthe last 20 years, actually,
(07:34):
since I met clay Christensenbecame in a funny way, the
closest connective tissue for myidentity, whatever I'm involved
in, whatever, whether it'smusic, art business, what's the
connective tissue through thislens of disruptive innovation.
so I'm kind of like a chameleonand the one common thread is,
(07:56):
people said, what, you know,what is your primary skill?
I would say.
Yeah, it's all about thenarratives and storytelling.
And act to me is that's how wechange the world is not through
fact and analytics.
It's really through story, thepower of stories.
And that goes all the way backto sitting around a campfire in
prehistoric times cavepaintings.
(08:19):
It's all about the stories.
SRI (08:20):
You bring in the Sutton kind of energy and Southern kind
of lightness to every projectthat you work and you elevate
everything, your boards ofmultiple nonprofits and
organizations.
You have this innovationbackground and, you come from an
prolific family as well.
You've got, innovators allaround you, your children, who
(08:41):
you co-authored with yourbrother in law as well and your
sisters.
And you look at your life andthe macro level.
And if you had to say, what wasyour purpose and what was that
one ingredient that helped youfuel all of this?
What do you think that would be?
Craig (08:57):
So I know purpose is a tricky question for me.
You know, my purpose at thisstage in my life is to try and
help others fulfill some oftheir passions, just given I do
a lot of mentoring.
And I'd say the onecharacteristic that really
drives me is almost aninsatiable curiosity.
(09:21):
And if you said to me, what wasthe, uh, inflection point in
your life where you became sointerested in everything I'd
have to say it was really goesall back.
It goes all the way back to whenGoogle was invented.
All of a sudden the entireuniverse, all the information
was available and probably oneof the greatest, actually almost
(09:41):
an invention.
was this concept of thehyperlink where when you're
eating something and there's ahyperlink, it just click on it.
And it takes you to anotherpathway in your journey of
reading an article.
So if I'm reading an article andit's got a lot of interesting
hyperlinks, I can be, could takeme two days to read the article
because I love going down thesesort of pathway, not necessarily
(10:04):
the, you know, the path mosttaken, but I love the side.
The side roads, some of themtend to be somewhat, sometimes a
dead end, but connecting thedots is really, I was born to
connect that's.
My purpose is to connect dotsand try and bring meaning.
To almost everything that I doand that's meaning to me.
And if I can share some of theseexperiences, just a little bit
(10:25):
of my career path, that'sperfectly fine for me, but and
some of the things, sound trite,but trite works.
There's a reason we have thesesayings, the destination is not
the purpose.
The purpose is the journey andwhat you learn along the way.
And I really, the problem withthe destination is once you get
there, then what do you do?
So the journey and have multiplejourneys and watching how they
(10:49):
start connecting.
And that to me is sort of thefuel, the grist for the mill
that really drives me.
So it's almost some people getthe adrenaline rush from playing
video games or diving out ofplanes or whatever it might be.
I kind of get the adrenalinerush, connecting dots and say,
ah, wow, isn't that interesting?
I never knew that.
(11:09):
So to me, it's a process ofcuriosity and discovery and you
must keep an open mind.
The second you close your mind,the charm, the awe, the
enchantment disappears.
SRI (11:20):
Not many people are like, it's great to say yes, I need to
keep an open mind, but not manypeople are actually open.
So I would love to dig into thisaspect of your personality.
What is having an open mind?
What is that curiosity?
How did you manage to never losethat?
The power to grow up in thisworld, and still be in that all,
(11:43):
childlike wonder of not lettingoutside world get to it.
Craig (11:48):
So maybe the best way to understand that is I met clay
Christensen about 20 years ago.
And at the same time I met an, Imay secular Jew who has a very,
very spiritual, but I'm more of,I'd say six days a week, I'm
either atheist or agnostic andI'm seventh day.
(12:09):
It all depends on how veryspiritual moments, which week
SRI (12:15):
in this week are we in this spiritual week or
Craig (12:19):
last couple of weeks have been very spiritual, very
spiritual.
You know, so while I'm notreligious, I'm spiritual, but my
primary partner now, clayChristensen has passed away, I
guess in February.
And my primary partner for thelast 20 years, separate apart
from clay in the beginning.
And then the three of us joinedtogether is an eighth generation
(12:41):
rabbi Irwin Kula, who when I hadchildren was a, I wouldn't call
it an intervention, but wastrying to, encourage me to be a
slightly more ritualistic,attend services, be a little bit
more religious and, embrace allthe holidays.
And for whatever reason, itwasn't really working for me.
And one of the fundamentaltenants of, innovation is what
(13:04):
job are you trying to get done?
And the job is.
Really for, finding meaning andenchantment in almost everything
that's there and something's notworking and not getting the job
done, don't stick with it.
And so when the rabbi, we jokearound, he said, listen, you're,
you don't need it to go tosynagogue.
Or if you go, you don't have tostay for four hours.
(13:24):
I always found, you know, highholidays, very challenging for
me and they just weren'tworking.
And he said, you haven't moreJewish sensibilities.
The most of the truly Jewishpeople.
I know.
And I said that can't possiblybe, so I think the spiritual
it's a continuum, but when youread about our founding fathers,
(13:44):
not withstanding a lot of theJudeo Christian threads that are
woven throughout all of ourimportant documents, in God we
trust, most of them,particularly Thomas Jefferson.
Was a deist, which is, he didnot believe in God in the sky.
It was more, God is a force.
And I heard something a whileago, Buckminster fuller, who was
(14:06):
one of the most innovativethinkers and intellectual minds
that we've ever had saidsomething that stuck with me.
He said, God is a verb.
And that's a very insightfulthing that kind of reflects how
I view the world.
It's not necessarily a man inthe sky, but there could be, how
would I know?
And that's what I mean aboutkeeping an open mind, but I look
(14:26):
back at all of the wisdomtraditions and whether it's the
Galean dialectic, which is a lotof fancy words, but assume, you
know, nothing.
And when it really the two keyvirtues, one is humility where I
assume whatever it is, I reallythink I might be wrong.
And that's a very interestinginsight to keeping an open mind.
(14:47):
I actually have a series of,I'll call them exercises that
help you develop cultivate thesevirtues.
And the other is clearlyempathy.
And without empathy we're as acivilization the future's not
very bright, but we're seeing somany things going on today.
You know, particularly in viewof COVID and black lives matter
(15:08):
where it invites us to truly tryand step into the other person's
shoes, understanding you cannever have that experience, but
it's a very interesting way tokeep an open mind.
And so if you're curious and youwant to understand how and why
someone's thinking a certainway, rather than demonizing them
saying, can you help meunderstand how you kind of came
to this position and not beingjudgemental?
(15:30):
so that to me is theopen-mindedness, that enables
you to, a different kind ofjourney.
If you think, you know,everything one you're certainly
wrong.
That's the only thing I can tellyou with certainty is if you
think, you know, everything,you're definitely wrong.
And if you kind of have thiscuriosity, it's amazing how you
can rearrange these mosaic tilesand have a set of experiences
(15:50):
that help you navigate throughthe world.
So whether it's a great quotefrom someone, an illustration, a
piece of art, these are thingsthat help us.
These are the tools.
These are in the toolkit.
SRI (16:00):
So did you have a toolkit through the years to help you
stay in that, the humility orwhat would you call it?
The state that you like to be
Craig (16:09):
in a state of wonder and then chaplain concern.
And if you can find somethingpositive and even the most awful
things, I mean, if you take alook at the first amendment,
it's not there to protect whatI'll call civilized speech.
It's there really to protect themost heinous speech, which in
(16:29):
today's world, we're goingthrough a whole new dimension.
You can't even haveconversations in today's world,
but you have to listen and youhave to listen really carefully.
That's a deep rooted wisdomtradition.
but I'd say a lot of this camethe toolkit, the rabbi, and I
started working on it about 20years ago.
it's a set of exercises thatvery simple things that will
(16:49):
help you pass through and keepin mind just when you think, you
know something, for sure, justremember you might be wrong and
you can depend the image tothat.
It's very helpful.
One of the Greek said the onlything that I know is I know
nothing, and that's a veryinteresting invitation to have a
different kind of journey, asopposed to, traveling to the
world, thinking, you know,everything because arrogance is
(17:10):
the end of civilizations andthat we know.
So you bris, arrogance don't fitin well for, the development of
either the individual orsociety.
SRI (17:19):
I think that's a great segue into talking about your,
work that you did with ClaytonChristiansen on what is
innovation and how you appliedit to creating other businesses
foundations that you've started?
Craig (17:32):
So I was invited to meet clay Christensen.
I did not know who he was.
This is going back to literally1999, the year 2000.
And I was working on a startupinvolving children's publishing
that one of the students wasworking on empty my nephew.
And when clay read the paperthat, my nephew, John Patricof
had submitted, he got a noteback and said, this is really
(17:55):
interesting.
Do you think I could meet theentrepreneur involved now?
I didn't know who clay was.
I didn't know anything aboutdisruptive innovation.
But important Harvard businessschool professor invites you to
come sit down.
It sounded like one of thoseinteresting experiences that I
want to put into my portfolio oflife experiences.
And so I went up to Boston.
I think it was the summer of2000.
Walked into an empty school wasnot in session.
(18:17):
but we met at, Harvard businessschool offices where clay was,
we walked into a classroom andhe had a whiteboard and a
marker.
And he laid out his theory ofthis, of disruptive innovation,
which was completely blew mymind.
And within 45 minutes, my entireworld was turned upside down.
Everything I thought I knew, Irealized wasn't the case and it
was in total paradox.
(18:38):
And in a nutshell, the theory ismost great companies.
That we would consider the bestmanagement teams tend to take
perfectly good products and makethem better and better stronger,
more powerful, and moreexpensive, basically in search
of profits and that the paradoxof disruptive innovation, it's
literally the two guys in agarage.
(18:59):
So think Steve jobs, Steve actthink of bill Gates and Paul
Allen, two guys in a garagestart off with a pretty lousy
product.
It's kind of inexpensive.
It was sort of cobbled togetherand it wasn't very powerful, but
it was very simple to use.
And the real key is it wasn'tterribly good, but it was good
(19:20):
enough.
And so the fundamental question,you always have to ask yourself
in innovation theory,particularly disruptive
innovation theory is what job amI trying to get?
And if it gets the job done, Andit costs a fraction of the
premiere product or service outthere.
That's the one that's going toput the incumbent out of
business.
So you might remember EasternKodak, where are they today as
(19:42):
opposed to an Instagram?
Eastern Kodak didn't thinkdigital photography was going to
be good enough for the consumeras it turned out.
And what we've seen evolving isInstagram and digital
photography.
Lend themselves to a new kind ofstorytelling.
So pick the PDO when it startedwasn't, you know, it was kind of
scoffed at, by the we'll call itthe elite, the intelligence of
(20:03):
the academic community the bestof class.
The Holy grail was encyclopediaBritannica.
And what we were able to predictwith Clay's theory is if you try
to buy it encyclopediaBritannica today, the only place
you'll find it is on eBay, theystopped making it.
And we compete, interestinglyenough, The more you use it, the
more people that use it, thebetter it gets, as opposed to
(20:24):
encyclopedia Britannica, youread it.
What have you, something changesyou have to wait for the next
edition to come out.
So with PD, it was a classicdisruptive innovation.
Digital photography was theclassic disruptive innovation.
The MP3 file for music.
When the industry, we used tohave the big five ANR, names
that they control the entiremusic industry.
(20:44):
And when the music industryheard about the MP3 file might
remember something calledNapster, just turned out to be
illegal.
So master didn't quite make it.
But Steve jobs heard about, theMP3 file.
And he went to the recordindustry and said, I'm, I think
we should partner together.
And the future is about MP3files.
(21:05):
You're wrong about it's not goodenough.
And they kind of dismissed them.
And needless to say the musicindustry has probably had as
much fundamental, almost seismicchanges because they did not
understand that the MP3 file,particularly in Napster's case,
it was good enough because itwas free.
It doesn't have to be great.
It was free.
And so these are the classiccases of disruption.
(21:26):
It is you start at the low endof the curve and you don't make
it overly complicated or overlyaccessible.
You go for a much largeraudience.
Who's not even currently yourcustomer or your consumer.
So that was sort of thefundamental lesson of disruptive
innovation.
And that we started applyinginto certain areas that weren't
really about.
We'll call them utilityproducts.
(21:48):
Like there's not a lot ofidentity wrapped up in an MP3
file.
I don't really care whether it'san MP3 file from.
Apple or Amazon or wherever itmight be.
when you get into things thattouch your identity, it's a
whole different way of lookingat innovation.
And that was sort of our mainwork with clay was looking how
identity impacts, fundamentalchange and serious change in the
(22:09):
world.
So you typically products,they're fine.
But when you talk to some aboutwho the doctor is, your kid's
teacher, your religion, thenwe're talking about people's
worldviews and belief systems.
And so that's the theory.
We are focused on, with claimuntil he passed away.
And now the rabbi and I continuewith down this road.
So it's a different way oflooking at innovation.
SRI (22:28):
And you've had been working on innovation, disrupting the
spiritual world as well with therabbi, with the current
scenario, with the culvert.
And there are so manydisruptions happening in the way
we connect with each other andour personal lives, the way we
live, maybe shop the way wework, the way we date every
single thing.
What advice would you have forthe innovators, the
(22:50):
entrepreneurs, where they needto look according to you?
Craig (22:54):
I think been through, in my business career, depending on
how you want to count, but about14 major crises, financial
crises, and sometimes likeSeptember 11th was the different
kind of crisis, but none of themcompare to what we're seeing
with COVID.
And, Tribeca was formed to tryand help get people back on the
streets.
(23:14):
and we launched in may of 2002,when we decided to watch it,
there were no theaters, therewere no venues.
We had no sponsors, we had nofilms, but there was a purpose,
some Tribeca born out of apurpose to help rebuild the
community and get people to comeout.
It wasn't necessarily about howgreat are the films.
It's the fact that there arefilms that people can go see and
(23:34):
then talk about afterwards.
And that was really sort of the,the mission of Tribeca.
It wasn't to be, you know, theworld's greatest film festival,
meaning film specifically, itwas as much about the audience
and the community as it wasabout the filmmakers.
So we brought those two piecestogether.
It had a big psychologicalimpact on lower Manhattan, cause
not much else had happened.
(23:55):
No, it's not that we were great.
There just wasn't anything elsegoing on
SRI (23:58):
and then you use that to keep re innovating based on what
happened.
What was the current scenarioand what was needed?
Is that what you did like riseup to the occasion?
Craig (24:08):
I was always looking at Tribeca through the lens of
disruptive innovation.
I don't think anybody else was.
but I had had this relationshipwith clay and, you know, Tribeca
was starting early on in myrelationship with clay.
And so for example, we didn'treally have theaters.
So the innovation that we cameup with was to put a big screens
on the piers and we kind ofcreated drivers.
(24:31):
you can't really drive onto apier, but we had general motors
as our, as our main sponsor.
And they would bring in theirvintage cars and you'd say the
outdoor driving experience.
Isn't so much about what's onthe screen.
It's that communal experience,which is different than sitting
in a dark theater.
This isn't a big open space.
And if you look happening inCOVID, one of the hottest trends
(24:52):
is everything is now moving backto drivers.
If you look at all the articlesabout drive-ins, they're doing
art shows on dry in drive-ins,they're doing concerts, but a
drive in wasn't a perfectcinematic experience, but it was
more about the experience ofbeing in a place with your
family being outdoors and verydifferent experience.
And so that would be a classicexample of the kinds of
(25:15):
innovations that we're seeingduring COVID.
this is, you know, I call COVID,I call it the triple helix.
We have a health crisis thatmorphed into an economic crisis
that then has precipitated inview of all the things we've
seen, we now have a social slashpolitical crisis, going on as
well.
So it's a thrice as opposed totwice, as opposed to one
(25:37):
problem, September 11th wasabout terrorism and getting
people back on the streets.
We don't have an exit plan.
I think this is really, reallydifferent.
but as you say, virtually everykind of interaction.
Whether they're it's retailing,dating, entertainment,
telemedicine everything's beingreinvented.
And so you're going to see a lotof disruption from our classic
(25:58):
forms of business models intothese new business models.
So we're at an inflection point.
And while it's seems very darkand ominous and existential, we
will make it through thequestion is how much pain, how
much damage.
And on the other side, amazingthings will come out of this
SRI (26:15):
do you have any particular points for someone who is in
that inflection point where theyare rising up to create those
products to create thosedisruptive companies?
I know you've worked withhundreds of disruptors with a
disruptive foundation.
What would you say, like interms of advice or perhaps a
tool set that you could giveright now to someone who's in
(26:38):
that middle of coming emergingthrough the kiosk to provide the
solution.
Craig (26:42):
So say that this is the, uh, once in a generation, you
know, people kind of refer tothe, you know, the great
influenza of 1918 things thatcould never happen in normal
times, whether, because ofinstitutional structures, power
arrangements, and in fact, Theresistances in time of crisis
(27:03):
collapse.
I mean, you see all of a suddenat the FDA, something that would
normally take years and yearsand years, I'm working on one
project with a very disruptiveinnovation.
So healthcare innovation, theyhave something called the, I
believe it's called theemergency use application, an
EUA where they'll fast trackapproval from the FDA that
normally would never happenunless you're in the middle of a
(27:24):
crisis.
And so the resistance is tothese new ideas are at an all
time low and enormous amounts.
Just look at telemedicine.
That would be resisted when youdon't have a choice.
Telemedicine works very well.
So you're not going to go to thedoctor at all.
And the doctors are getting usedto it, but most, and there's a
whole host of, political,economic issues on liability on
(27:48):
it.
It's very complicated stuff, butwhen you're in a crisis, I have
one of my quotes is nothingfocuses the mind, like a hanging
it's a, it's actually SamuelJohnson, where when you don't
have any choices, it's easy tomake decisions.
So, you know, it's nothing, Ithink it's actually, it's that
focusing of the mind where Iknow in normal times, this isn't
(28:09):
how we would do it.
but in a moment of crisis, thisis where great innovation takes
place.
So my advice would be.
This is your time don't wasteit.
SRI (28:18):
Mm mm.
So I follow you on Instagram andFacebook and you started putting
these pictures of the moststunning skyline of the empire
state, and I believe it's fromyour home.
You've been taking pictureinspired from Monday the
haystack.
Correct.
So tell me you have thisentrepreneur and finance brain
(28:40):
and create a brain.
And this is almost like you'rewanting to merge these two sides
of you bringing art andtechnology and creativity and
putting it on line.
How did this come about duringCOVID?
Craig (28:53):
Well, it came about because, I fortunately have
amazing views of the empirestate building, which has always
been one of my favorite views.
And, you know, one says, well,if you take a picture of the
empire state building, how manypictures is going to take of the
empire state building?
And the answer says, Oh, aftertwo or three, one would think it
gets a little bit, a little bitboring.
(29:13):
And you know, I've seen thatbefore, but it's, it's very
interesting that what got mesort of into this was when they
started the 7:00 PM salute.
And when I opened my windows, Ihappened to have a terrorist
where I take a lot of thepictures from at 7:00 PM.
you would hear the sirens andyou'd hear the cheers
celebrating and honoring thefirst responders.
(29:35):
And so every night at 7:00 PM, Iwould go out just to listen.
And I just started at first Iwas doing night shots of the
empire state building.
But that gets a little bit, youknow, it's a different color,
but the night shots are a littledifferently.
But what I discovered was thesunsets and then ultimately
sunrises looking at the Eastriver are so different.
I probably have done close to200 photographs.
(29:58):
No two are the same.
I have like a very small devotedfollowing who kind of, enjoy
seeing these, these photographs.
But what really inspired meafter I started off with the
7:00 PM salute, I'm an avid mycuriosity, and trying to connect
certain things up I'm that Idon't consider myself an artist.
(30:18):
You might, some people might sayyou're borderline, you seem to
have artistic, tendencies orattributes, but I love history
and connecting the dots.
And I came across somethingwhich was, Claude Monet in the
1890s.
At a sort of seminal moment inthe whole history of modern art
moved to, a, basically a countryhouse that was on some farmland.
(30:40):
And he started doing a series of25 paintings of the same
objects, which were twohaystacks and every day, and
well, he worked on it for twoyears for 20.
So, but he would paint everyday.
And what he concluded was thisamazing, I guess I'm going to
call it insight or the epiphanythat art had traditionally been
(31:01):
about the object,representational, art portraits,
you know, still lives.
And it was veryrepresentational.
And so this is significantlybefore Picasso.
So we're talking to the 1890sand what he concluded was the
object really wasn't.
The essence of his paintings, itwas the color, it was the
texture.
(31:22):
It was the time of day.
And one of these amazingreflections.
And you couldn't, unless someonetold you they were haystacks,
you wouldn't even know they werehaystacks.
And what happened, which I foundto be fascinating.
It is, I believe it was, I thinkit was just before, or just
after 1900, the artist I guesshe was at the time living in
Russia, Vasili Konwinski went toan exhibition and he saw one of
(31:45):
Monet's haystacks and he didn'teven know how to respond.
So he's looking at the somewhatwhat we might call
impressionistic.
painting about two haystacks on,gorgeous colors and lighting.
And the, the shadows were, very,very captivating, but he was
incredibly jarred and upset anddisoriented that there was no
(32:06):
object.
And you wrote about this and hesaid, I'm almost angry, but
there's something about, and hedidn't even know until he read
the catalog after he'd seen it,that they were actually
haystacks.
And then he, when he realized itwas haystacks, it completely
changed his entire artisticsensibility.
And he realized the object isnot really the important part.
(32:27):
It's a feeling and what's theemotion.
And so you kind of look atwhether we do a lot with
Picasso, not about the art is agreat art.
It's, what's the insight.
Whether it's great art or not,it can be a kid's piece of art
that gives you an insight.
So connecting these dots reallybecomes, as I said, early on,
that's my version of anadrenaline rush.
SRI (32:46):
I wanted to just dive into that story of your number one
best-selling children's book wasabout a hippo.
It was a real life story abouttwo animals, You wrote that with
your daughter after the tsunamiand the story was circulated a
lot it was about showingresilience and how two very
different species depended oneach other and developed a
beautiful friendship that Iwould love for us to talk about
(33:09):
how.
If animals are able to do it,where in that point in our
history where we're looking atso much a polarities, so much of
differences of color, religion,and where you're coming from
countries and your point ofview, if believe in God or not
politics, w what can be learned,how can we be like those
(33:30):
animals?
Craig (33:31):
Well, the children's books that we've done, there is
a theme it's young animals indistress, or experiencing a
trauma.
They're all, non-fiction,they're all photographs.
Most of them tend to be veryfamous stories that are already
out there.
Owen and we saw a picture in thenewspaper of a 130 year old
(33:51):
tortoise that was bigger than,you know, it's a 600 pound
hippo, but a 700 pound tortoise.
and we saw pictures of themsnuggling together.
And that's all we saw.
And we, because we were curiousand I'd written some other
children's books with my olderdaughter, my younger daughter,
my version was, she said, daddy,can we do our book about own
music?
we just said, let's see if wecan figure out how to do it.
(34:12):
And we picked up the phone, weconnected with the, the people
in, Kenya.
And the next thing, you know,we, you know, we did this
children's book that became, uh,quite a bit of an unexpected,
phenomenal, because the O and Mis they lived together for two
years.
when we saw the first probably,you know, they're together for a
couple of days.
That would be a lot.
but we also, we watched the bookof be t-shirts of the two of
them.
(34:32):
It's an adorable picture.
I mean, it's probably in theanimal odd couple animal
kingdom, probably one of themost famous pictures of these
two, the odd couple of gettingalong and the t-shirt had the
picture of them snuggling.
And just said, if they can getalong dot, dot dot, and it
raises the question, if they canget one, why can't we?
And I think the power to makethese kinds of changes, doesn't
(34:55):
come from a mandate top-down itcomes from sort of the local,
the parochial, hundreds, andhundreds of stories like this
really help with start changing.
these narratives are the onlything that really help us make
these Epic changes.
It's not by, dictate or, youknow, by Fiat it's really when
people have their minds openedand this element we call it.
(35:16):
We only do books that meet, wecall it the principle.
There's the goosebump test andthe off principle.
And if we see a story and wedon't get goosebumps, not
interested, didn't pass thegoosebump test.
And if.
The all principal stands for allwonder and then championed.
And so does it meet the allprinciple and pass the goosebump
(35:40):
test?
That's how we sort of select ourbooks.
SRI (35:42):
I love that.
I think I'm probably gonna startusing that the, our principal
and Goosby I'm good.
Every time I have a goosebump,like this is it, this is what
Craig (35:50):
we follow, you know?
This is kind of an interestingconnection, you know, and I am
very spiritual, I'm culturallyvery Jewish.
It's just not the services forwhatever reason.
As I said, I said to the rabbit,you know, most of the famous
Jewish music tends to be done inminor chords.
And I'm just sort of more of amajor chord.
(36:11):
You know, a little bit more.
I like bagpipes, Gregorianchants and minor chords.
Just, I don't know.
I can't put my finger on it.
But I'd say to him, I've gone tosynagogue for, you know, 40
years.
I never got goosebumps and I seea picture of a hippo and a
tortoise in the newspaper.
I got goosebumps.
So that became the practice.
(36:32):
When you have invitation, andpermission to adopt your own
rituals, that's where it getsinteresting.
And I encourage everybody andit's very complicated.
I mean, when you look attradition, we look at tradition
in general, these dogmas creeds,rituals practices, they're very
ingrained.
And so the second you don'tadhere to it.
It creates conflict, butliberate yourself you'd say,
(36:56):
well, okay, I'm on my own pathand the other wasn't working for
me and this does, so that's whatI'm going to follow.
There's a lot
SRI (37:03):
of fear and letting go of the rituals of darkness that
give a sense of security.
Um, Oh, to be able to, I mean,you were lucky to have such
close relationship with therabbi who gave you permission to
adopt something else because asa young child was born into
religion or anything, uh, thatyour family follows and you want
(37:24):
to be a divergence of it, ittakes a lot for you to get away
from your tribe because that'sour fight and flight, the tribal
mentality.
Right.
And, and the idea of jumpingaway and taking your own
rituals, that maybe that is whatthe hero's journey is, right?
Like that is like being able tobe emancipated from the
documents as you were born at tocreate some, With that I would
(37:47):
love for us to get into my lastquestion.
how in your practice do you sayhello to Nirvana?
And if you have a practice you'dlove to share with us.
We'd love that.
And what does it mean
Craig (38:01):
to you?
Wow.
When I've been in reader.
And one of the things I alsohaven't been a chronic insomniac
for about 30 years.
And so one of the things that Istarted doing 30 years ago was
when I couldn't sleep, you don'twant to pick up a Tom Clancy
novel and get sort of sucked inand you'll be up all night.
(38:23):
You know, you don't want a pageTurner.
so I started reading interestingbooks on quantum physics, and
these were East meets Westversions, dancing, wooly
masters.
There's a whole host of thesebooks that kind of make
comparisons between the world ofmysticism and belief and the
world of quantum physics.
Now.
You don't have to know any math,it requires zero math.
(38:44):
But if you really start tounderstand what you can't
possibly understand aboutquantum physics, because it
makes no sense.
And so when you know, justenough and how small the
universe is at the smallestdimension and how epically
infinite it is at the largestdimension, you know, our journey
on this planet is, not even ablip.
(39:06):
I've had a very interestinglife.
I don't feel like I've missedanything.
I'm not planning on goinganywhere anytime soon.
You know, if for no otherreasons, I've got my two
daughters that or my pride andjoy and I want to be around for
a long time.
But when you think about.
there is a downside to strictadherence to science, and
there's a great book by StevenPinker is called enlightenment
now, and that we've disconnectedthe emotional from the
(39:30):
scientific.
And as much as we think we knowabout science, we really know
very little, I mean, we know onetruly in the 1% of what's really
happening in the universe.
So you sort of say, I have nobad memories from before I was
born.
I'm not presuming I don't haveany bad memories after.
And you know, if time isn'tinfinite, what does that mean?
Do we have multiple paralleluniverses?
(39:50):
well you read the science andcertainly sounds that way.
And so if you know, just enoughto spark your curiosity.
It's any, what do you have?
I feel like I kind of justexpression, what do you, I'm not
afraid of dying.
I just don't want to be therewhen it happens.
And so you kind of songs about,you know, it's yeah.
(40:11):
I want to go into my sleep.
you know, and it's, if you havean open mindset, we know so
little and the in Shannonreturns when you can
acknowledge.
So there is an arrogance toscience.
I mean, if you look at paradigmshifts, it was all about Epic
changes in our prescriptions ofreality.
And, you know, we know like theperfect examples the paradigm
shift, we thought we've,descended from Adam and Eve then
(40:33):
maybe, maybe we did, or at leastin a metaphysical sense.
I've looked into microscope andit's not obvious to me that
evolution is a fact It's stillcalled the theory of evolution
that doesn't mean I am a bigbeliever in, intelligent design,
but I certainly have an openmind listening to someone
because religion and science arecompletely different modalities.
(40:53):
Religion is based on faith ofthings.
You can never prove that's thewhole point.
Science is about things that youcan prove until another model
comes in that the existingmodel, if you look at Kapernick
aneurysm a good hundred years tobe even partially accepted from
Copernicus to Galileo and thenanother.
A hundred years to improve it.
So I think if you have that kindof all wonder and enchantment,
(41:15):
it's just another part of thejourney.
I can be scared to death or cansay, had a good run here.
you know, feels like I flippedthe odometer a couple of times
along the way.
it's part of the journey.
And so there's a, not a, amorbid fascination saying,
listen, if we didn't die life,wouldn't be very interesting.
Death is what gives life meaningotherwise, what would it be?
SRI (41:34):
So that's so if you had to say, you had a practice to get
to that state of your maximumcreation point for yourself.
Craig (41:43):
You know, it's funny.
It just comes back to It's notabout the words, it's about the
effect and the feeling It doeschange.
And I have had the great fortunethrough the awards and through
the foundation to meet what'scalled 500 of the most, not the
most famous, not the mostpowerful richest, but 500 of the
most interesting people that Ican possibly imagine.
(42:04):
And there's probably another 5million, 50 million or 5 billion
out there.
If it's us, as opposed to me, Iwant to meet them all.
I will ever be able to meet themall, but I want to meet as many
as I can.
And that's the whole sentimentof us versus, you know, it's
whether, you know, the notionof, or or even the Shamar is
really about, we are allinterdependent and we're all
(42:27):
connected.
that works for me.
So I don't have any plans tochange, what I do on a daily
basis, but, uh, every day isanother, another it's like, I
think I'll close with theEinstein quote.
I'm a, I'm a big Einstein fan.
And he said you can live life asthough nothing is a miracle.
Or everything is a miracle.
And I prefer the latter.
SRI (42:47):
Well that I would like to thank you for making this
happen.
Such a beautiful miracle andconnecting all the dots for us
And hello, Nirvana.
Craig (42:57):
Okay.
Much stay.
And with that, we come to anend.
Please follow us on Instagram athello Nirvana world.
Like share, subscribe and leavea review wherever you get your
podcasts.
Thank you for your valuablepresence.
Goodwill goodbye and vishing youhello nirvana
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!