December 21, 2025 • 65 mins
Ep 221 - One World in a New World with Steven Puri
What does it mean to live—and work—in flow?
In this thought-provoking episode of One World in a New World, Zen Benefiel sits down with Steven Puri—former studio executive at 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks, and now founder & CEO of Sukha, a company dedicated to helping people focus, finish faster, and feel healthier.
Steven shares his journey from leaving high school early to attend USC, navigating the fear-driven realities of the film industry, and eventually turning inward toward purpose, presence, and meaningful contribution.
Together, Zen and Steven explore flow states, consciousness, creativity, leadership, AI, media influence, scarcity vs. abundance, and what it means to create work that truly matters—especially as a parent, a leader, and a planetary citizen.
This is a grounded, honest conversation about navigating complexity without losing your humanity—and learning how to align your energy with what you’re here to contribute.
If you’ve ever wondered how inner awareness, focus, and flow translate into real-world impact, this episode will resonate deeply.
⏱️ YOUTUBE CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00 – Introduction & Steven’s Journey
04:12 – Leaving the Hollywood Machine
08:45 – Fear vs Flow in Creative Work
14:30 – What Flow Actually Is (and Isn’t)
20:10 – Focus, Attention & the Modern Mind
26:40 – Scarcity vs Abundance Conditioning
32:15 – Parenting, Presence & Purpose
38:20 – AI, Media & Human Agency
45:10 – Building Sukha: Design for Flow
52:00 – Leadership, Consciousness & the Future
58:40 – Final Reflections on Meaningful Work
Connect with Steven: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-puri/
Explore Sukha's Free Trial: https://www.thesukha.co/
#StevenPuri #FlowState #OneWorldInANewWorld #ZenBenefiel #Sukha #ConsciousLeadership #HumanPotential #Mindfulness #creativelife
Join this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuZl_29zHxehqeL89KSCWFA/join
__________
Visit: https://PlanetaryCitizens.net
Connect with Zen: https://linkedin.com/zenbenefiel
Zen's books: https://amazon.com/author/zendor
Zen's Coaching: https://BeTheDream.com
Zen's CV et al: https://zenbenefiel.com
The Octopus Movement (non-linear thinkers): https://theoctopusmovement.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Namaste and in La Ketch, and welcome to this episode of One
World in a New World. I'm your host, Zen Benefiel, and
as always, please, please, please subscribe, like, share,
make a comment or two. It is valuable to have your
input because this is for you. Now, I'd also like to invite you
(00:22):
to visit planetarycitizens.net, which is a nonprofit we've
formed. And you can download a free copy
of Planetary Citizens Awakening the Heart of Humanity.
And it's a great book. Jeff Mishlebb calls it the best
version of globalization he's ever read.
So if that gives you any kind ofindication, you'll find out more
(00:45):
here soon. Now, this week's guest is
Stephen Pury. He is an awesome gentleman.
He has been involved in the filmand movie industry.
He was vice president of production of 20th Century Fox.
He was a executive vice president at Kurtzman Orkie,
(01:06):
which is part of DreamWorks Studios.
He is now founder and CEO of theSuka Company, which is a very
blissful experience, and he helps remote workers focus,
finish faster and feel healthier.
And as the founder of the Suka Company, he has got an amazing
(01:28):
repertoire of skill set and opportunities.
And we're going to find out morebecause he also has a rich inner
life that I'm guessing he probably hasn't had a chance to
talk about a whole lot. So stay tuned, we'll be right
back. None.
(02:45):
Steven, it is just so wonderful to have you here.
Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me.
I hope this is one of the more engaging and informative and
touching. Episodes well with your best we
can with your background the security is the tangentialism of
it. I'm sure this is going to be
(03:07):
really interesting. Now, Speaking of interesting,
the reason we have these is to open up the door to discussing
things that were most of us are bereft of.
And that's the inner experience we have because we're generally
felt of being weird, crazy, insane.
We can stiff arm from friends, from family and we wonder, hey,
(03:29):
do I really want to fit in or amI OK with who I am because I
trust my experience more than I do others trying to tell me what
and how to do things right. So in that regard, when you were
younger, because we like to start, you know, when we first
have those experiences that are,that aren't stifled in any way.
(03:52):
And, and sometimes we can remember those as kids,
sometimes not. I'm guessing that you had one
that is coming to mind right nowand I'd love to hear about it.
Well, I'd say I remember, and this probably set me on a
certain trajectory in my life. I grew up in Northern Virginia.
My parents were both engineers. My dad is from India, my mother
(04:17):
is by dissent, French, English, but born in New York.
And I remember reaching a point in school where there really
wasn't much for me to do. I'd kind of worked my way
diligently through things. So as the universe is funny
(04:37):
about that stuff, I got an offerfrom USC to leave high school
early and go to go to college. And they said, you know, we see
what it is you've been working on and all that.
We think we have a good set of opportunities for you.
So the University of Southern California was like, you know,
do you want to try this and that?
(04:59):
Virginia. To Cali, Yeah, yeah.
You know, And in Virginia, therewere not the same opportunities.
I could kind of reach the point where I was like, kind of bored,
like, why am I here? And you know.
And it correct me if I'm wrong, but East Coast is is generally
more left brain, right? They're really.
So yeah, you could, you could say that.
(05:20):
Yeah, I know that's an odd way of saying it.
However, they're more analytical.
The the There's not as much freedom of thought.
True. I mean, Los Angeles is
definitely a place of, you know,expansive kind of thinking.
And yeah, same with SF. That's.
Yeah, I could see that point, yeah.
Just as you know observation from, you never know what you're
(05:43):
going to. And thinking you.
Never know what you're going to find until you just look without
trying to see. Yeah, well, that I, I hear you.
And yes, I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right.
I could see that how things kindof pattern.
We had our first apocalyptic moment.
There you go, See that and it's early in the pod.
(06:04):
What's in store? I don't know.
This is going to be wild. So where would you like to go
from here? What?
What? So you're you're on your way to
California and and you had this wonderful and I'm kind of
envious because I was a brainiacin school, but I was in a small
rural community in central IN that nobody knew how to really
(06:26):
support me in. Yep.
That. I gotcha.
Yeah, I, I was lucky in that they had, they sort of came for
me and I'm like, hey, do you want to do this?
So I went to college early and it was fun.
I happily was not small like I was already like 5-10, five, 11.
So I didn't really look as youngas I was.
(06:51):
Size matters. Size, size matters, you know,
that's The thing is like happily, I was kind of shaving.
So at that height, little shaving, it wasn't.
I could tell people if I chose to, how, you know, young I was,
but I, I wasn't really forced into like, who's the kid in the
class, you know, sort of thing. Well, with that kind of
intelligence and and acumen, youwould tend I would think to have
(07:16):
a little more mature approach aswell and and not seem younger.
A bit. I'd also done ATV show in DC.
This news show there was a on Channel 5 with some of the Fox
Metromedia station. There was a show where the sort
of stick of the show was it was a 30 minute live news show, but
it was for teens. It was specifically cute and we
(07:39):
were the top rated youth show inthe DC Baltimore market.
So it was fun in that regard, doing that for like 7069 seventy
weeks to get to engage with a lot of people because remember,
this is before Instagram, right?This is before like Tiktok and
YouTube streaming and stuff. So people in DC who wanted to
(08:02):
reach the, you know, the youth market, they would come on our
show. So we had the mayor on, we had
on sports figures, you know, people like that because that
was a great outlet. That wasn't one outlet for them.
So you got to interrupt. They were the kind of icons and
and the heroes, if you will, that the kids need to know.
(08:22):
About yeah. And it was great.
It was, it was a great. And I'm sure that is part of how
USC heard of me. Sure, right.
Well, and the the fact that you're dealing with that level
of mature adult would have risen.
Your level of. Maturity.
Yeah, amazingly so. Probably unaware as it was
happening, but afterwards you look back and go wow that was
(08:46):
really cool. Yeah, it's true.
You're spot on. So that was a big, that was a
big transition for me from like that.
I feel like I've outgrown this. I don't know what I'm doing here
sort of thing. So.
What was going on inside? This is where you know you have
this opportunity, you've got these thoughts and feelings and
(09:06):
what were your Did you have another side of things that were
seemingly synchronistic bread crumbs, serendipitous moments of
salience, if you will, that camealong with that?
(09:28):
Well, I I tell you the this is interesting to think back.
How did I feel? What did I was I feeling then?
I definitely felt a need for freedom and moving several 1000
miles away from my parents. Was he big statement of like,
(09:51):
hey, I just want to do what I want to do and.
And it also indicated you had a certain fearlessness of the
unknown. Yeah, I think I, I'm definitely,
I'm OK with risk. Yeah, yeah.
So in that risk, what did you feel was the major hurdle that
(10:14):
you had in doing that? Was it emotional?
Was it intellectual? Were there any spiritual
indications of it as well? By spiritual, I mean that depth
of interconnectedness that whereyou saw how those dots of your
life were being connected and the flow was being created.
(10:38):
You mentioned flow state earlier.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. No, I, I mean, I, I talk a lot
on flow states now, but thinkingback to that period of time,
like I think, I think the idea of the idea of going to LA and
being part of this was awesome and exciting, right?
And I, I had a lot of friends that were going to New England
(11:02):
schools. So I remember when I got this
offer, I drove up with my mom toYale and showed them and said,
listen, you know, this school inLA is inviting me to come early
to college. I have a bunch of friends that
have come here. Most of my friends are older
than I was. So a bunch of friends that have
come here, you know, would you consider this?
(11:23):
I mean, my, you know, achievements were pretty decent
at that point of time. And the admissions people at
Yale said this all sounds reallygreat, but we've had really bad
luck with students as young as you are coming to college.
It's often emotionally very stunting, sort of hard thing.
And if you're really set on doing this, go to USC for a year
(11:46):
and then contact us about transferring in your sophomore
year if you really like college at your age, right?
And I understand the trepidationbecause I was young.
I was like, you know, who knows if I'd just crack and, you know,
aim. That's always.
Possible, right? But at the same time, you know
you, you had a certain, it seems, fortitude.
(12:10):
Yeah, and I think it's also pretty stubborn.
Well, that too. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
So. So that that sealed it for me.
I was like, OK, cool. So Yale's like spend a year
there, go do this. And I thought, you know, let's
see how it goes. USCI have this opportunity to go
back to Yale and say, hey, how about now?
(12:30):
Like I've done well in my freshman year and after my
freshman year, USCI loved it. I was like, I'm not
transferring. This is fantastic.
And I've gotten more into film, you know, more interested in
that which, you know, Yale had more of a drama department.
And I was not looking to do, youknow, theatre, you know.
Well, you're right in the middleof the industry area there too,
(12:52):
right? US CS, arguably the best Cinema
TV school in the world, you know, and I was not in the
Cinema TV school, but being there and a lot of friends in
it, like it's like exposure. You're just there are a lot of
ways to engage around, like storytelling.
There, and I love that. Now, do you feel like we're also
rather assimilationists, right. Because we are what is around us
(13:18):
both internally and externally. We're the combination of that.
Oh yeah. The only thing I didn't
assimilate is I remember some ofmy friends that were Cinema TV
students, they would go up to Griffith Park Observatory and
drop acid and like hang out deepin the forest up there and try
not. To be caught.
And I was so like, I'm not doingdrugs with the all like that.
(13:42):
I was too straight laced to be like, yeah, I'm going to drop
acid. So, well, do you miss that
experience now? Would you wish that that might
have been? I I don't know that then that
would have been the right thing for me.
Well, Stink says you don't, you know, don't do anything to your
40. I was 14, yeah.
(14:03):
So yeah, like. Like that's not a good age to be
like, hey, want to do drugs? No.
Yeah, well, I, I, I was curious at that age.
And I did, Yep. Because school, you know, the I
was challenged. I got, I was making straight
A's, but it just wasn't enough. I was looking for something and
somebody suggested, and I'm like, OK, why not?
(14:24):
And I just happened to be with my parents that night at a
basketball game. OK.
And had the opportunity that wasin a safe place, knew it.
You know, we just had the opportunity.
Your parents at a basketball game.
This is super interesting. Right.
Well, and probably super stupid too.
Right when you think about. It and I went up and, you know,
(14:48):
in between games that we had thereserve and varsity games and I
played basketball. I didn't at that point because
I'd ran over the reserve basketball coach during
football. We were doing split the dummy
drills and he said if I don't point in time, run over me, so I
did. I didn't bode well.
(15:10):
I can only imagine. You know, I, I, I listened
literally and, and often behave that way.
So the in between games, one of my best friends was on the
reserve team and his father was then the assistant chief of
police. And I went over and sat down and
(15:31):
talked with him. Oh wow.
OK. So I demonstrated that, OK, I
can do this right? I don't feel so whacked out or
out of control. And then I went back and I sat
down and I let myself relax and went into a different state of
consciousness. And so I learned early that it
(15:52):
was manageable. And so that was, yeah, don't ask
me how, why, you know, well, my life eventually led to the
reasons why. However, just that experience of
(16:13):
being able to have a different perspective of sight, of sound,
of touch, of all of those thingsthat are heightened in that
experience. And yet there were many folks.
I, I felt it was a sacred experience early on where the
(16:35):
rest of my friends. It was a party drug to me.
Yeah. And I didn't treat it that way.
The your intention has a lot to do with how you alter your
consciousness. Absolutely, absolutely.
Now from Griffith Park, which isgreat and Greek Theatre is near
there. We saw the King Christmas.
Yeah, that's true. The Greek is right there.
(16:57):
So when you were going through that, what were the things that
were going on inside of you thatcaused this sense of not sure I
really want to go there, whetheryou're not ready for it,
whatever. What was going on as an
alternative to your mindset while your friends were in this
(17:22):
other realm? I'd like to say it was that
thoughtful a decision. I think it was rather I did not
know what that represented. Like I had not done any drugs.
I've not had, you know? Yeah, exactly.
I think I tried a beer once and that, and I was unpleasant.
(17:43):
I was like, this tastes terrible, right?
Which actually to this day, as an adult, I still think pretty
terrible, right? My German friends don't
understand. I didn't love it, but I think it
was more like I don't know what that's going to be and I don't
know why I would do that. Like it just seems like my
(18:05):
success, a lot of the the attention or the accolades that
I was getting was through reallyapplying myself in a very like
directed way. Like, OK, we're going to be
great at math, OK, we're going to be on the, you know,
newspaper, OK, we're going to dothis TV show, things like that.
It was not really like in the artistic, like let me go explore
my psyche, let me use mind expanding substances.
(18:26):
Like I didn't know what they were.
And, you know, there was no Internet.
There was no way to access any knowledge other than your
friends being like, hey man, we're all going to do this LSD.
And you're like, no. Big Sur wasn't too far away.
Big. When you are 14 you don't have a
car. Big service, infinite distance
way. You might as well say Mars.
Mars. Is right, right, right, right.
(18:49):
Yeah. So you really had, you know,
that limited place. What's interesting though, is
that as you were exploring this really practical side of, you
know, process and details and almost a delirium in some cases,
I'm sure. What did you find?
(19:09):
Where did that lead you or how did that lead you into the the
greater expansion of the movie and and film industry and your
interest in it and what you could do in it?
Yeah. Well, what was funny is, and
this is true in my life, like there is series of very lucky
(19:30):
things that have been dropped inmy lap.
And I've coupled that with working hard to make something
of that opportunity, right. So I want to be let me.
Pause you, because this brings up AI got to ask this question.
Did you ever recognize the serendipitous synchronicities
that those bread crumbs were andhow there was another part of
(19:51):
you that was guiding you? In the moment, did I recognize
it in the moment or I recognize?It on reflecting back both.
Yeah, right. Reflecting back, yes, I could
see like oh, OK. Wow, that was, you know.
Yeah, they say hindsight's 2020,right?
Yeah, but other things, living it forward, I don't remember
(20:14):
thinking about it this way, but looking at it in hindsight, you
do in retrospect go like, OK, this was a unique thing in life
that happened to drop into my lap, which could have gone to
the wayside. But at the time I was like, oh,
I could make something of this. And then you work hard to make
something of it, you know, and that sort of thing.
So I've had setbacks about a lotof things, but some of it is
(20:35):
just, let's admit, it's a blind luck.
Now in the flow state that we were talking about earlier,
those seem especially for the young people today and even old
people, because, you know, many of us, we never really pause,
reflect in the moment to recognize these dots, if you
(20:56):
will, that are just placed in for the bread crumbs, right,
Placed in front of us because they're so subtle.
And you know, it's just this impression that you get
initially. And we're not trained to pay
attention to those because thoseare generally the most
(21:17):
important. That's where the inner and the
outer worlds merge. So in this, what did you find
later on was relevant in being able to connect those dots,
recognize them from your past, and be more cognizant of them in
(21:39):
your present? Well.
I would like to present myself as someone that has this amazing
ability in the present to have that kind of perspective.
(22:01):
And I feel that that would be misrepresenting myself.
I think rather what I do is I have an open mind towards the
things that come toward me. I try to see the best version of
them and then understand what would be the steps between this
and that version. And sometimes you arrive at that
version, sometimes you don't. I mean that's there are many
(22:23):
variables but. Well, sometimes it's not the the
end goal is not the purpose taking a step on the path, but.
Hopefully the vision of where the path goes, you're not just
blindly wandering in the woods, right?
I don't think I blindly wander in the woods very well.
I think I have ideas of where we're going.
And you're right along the way. The journey is the magic, but I
(22:46):
don't think I set out on a lot of journeys just being like, let
us just perambulate, you know, or sure.
Well, obviously you were paying attention.
Yeah. And that's the key factor
because wherever we put our attention, intention and
interaction, that's the energy flow that we create.
Then we just have to follow it because it's our own.
(23:07):
It's we're like a tesseract, right, Where we're throwing that
energy, that intention out in front of us.
And then as the as we experiencereality, it returns.
Yeah, fair, fair way to look at it, Yeah.
There's all kinds of ways. Right.
(23:28):
Yes, there are. Yeah.
I find that and kind of unique and, and really appeals to the
science geeks, right? Because it, it is, it's you toss
the energy out and it returns. This is how life works.
We give and we receive. And how did you find in the
giving of yourself to those moments, what was reflected from
(23:53):
it? And did you notice a level or
you know, I'll say level of openness that was different from
time to time, right, scalable, so to speak, depending on what
was happening in front of you? This is might be heretical but
(24:15):
I'm just going to say it which is.
We're all heretics, heretics andand when it comes to truth,
right? Because it's our direct
experience that is it. This is, this is how I would
characterize that. The thing that I understand
you're saying, what I believe you're saying is foundationally
(24:37):
you need to understand that filmthe show business, it's not show
art. This is not making indie films
for $2.00 in your closet, right?This is the business I was in of
like this is a commercial art form.
It is one driven by fear, by virtue of the fact that it is
very hard to model, It's very hard to predict, right?
So there's some businesses whereit's like, hey, man, we make
(24:59):
winter coats. We know this many people buy
them every winter. As long as we market it this
way, like people buy winter coats, right?
It's like next season will be like this, right?
As opposed to like in film, you can have Spielberg and Tom
Cruise go over there and make a movie or $200 million and bombs.
You can have kids out of collegemake some weird little indie
horror film makes a quarter billion dollars, right?
(25:21):
So it's kind of like wildcattingfor oil.
In the old days we were like, I don't know, idiot kind of gusher
on his land and we had all theselike smart oil guys and you
know, we're coming up with nothing, right.
So it is hard to model and everyI'm telling you when you work at
the studio every year or two years, Oh my Lord, you have
somebody who comes in with statisticians, statisticians and
(25:44):
quants and all that saying we have built a model.
We can tell you exactly what projects green light you input
in here, you stuff in this thing, the stars, you stuff in
this thing, the genre, you stuffin this thing the time of year
and we'll just output. It's going to make this amount
of money and they're all garbage.
They're, they all run them on historical data to show you how
(26:04):
great they are and they actuallyon a forward-looking, you know,
sort of. That brings up the old adage.
You know there's liars, damn liars and statisticians.
Yeah, there you go. Which is very good, very true.
So I say this just as a preface to my answer, which is so going
to the film business, it is driven by fear because no one
really knows. There's not a lot of certainty
(26:25):
in that. So you get a lot of bad behavior
and people operate from fear. They generally operate from
their lowest self, let's say, right?
Absolutely. So even guys.
Constricted energy, right Completely.
Even people who don't. Let anything in in that place.
Right. So people whom from the outside,
you would say they're getting first dollar gross, they've made
(26:48):
this many movies da da, da, theyshould be so secure.
And so whatever they are still plagued with insecurities.
I mean, largely across the board, right.
So what does that mean? What that means is you are
navigating around people who aregoing to compromise what might
be ethical standards, moral standards, things like that,
(27:11):
because they're not operating from abundance.
They're not saying like, I feel,you know, I I can't act this
way. They're rather I need to freedom
right, exactly right it. Doesn't matter, just being
fearless. So there it is.
Stepping in to that and finding the flow state.
Right. So it's very, it's very rare to
to find that. Now one of the things I did
(27:34):
learn is because I was very fortunate to work with some
really great creative people whowere ethical, who did have, you
know, moral backbones and you know, did want to honor their
word and stuff like that, that you didn't see among them
patterns of how they operated inthat world.
And when you we've said several times the term flow state your
(27:54):
audience, like do you think everyone knows what a flow state
is or should I take 30 seconds to explain it?
Let's do 30 seconds just in case, OK, Never assume.
Never assume. OK, so this concept will just be
important, I think. Sure.
Those are the same as they, you know, get what we're talking
about. So there was a Hungarian
American psychologist, this guy Mihai Chin sent Mihai and he had
(28:15):
a thesis. He said, hey, you talk to high
performers in various disciplines, athletes and
artists and scientists and inventors of it.
And what's curious is when they talk about the concentrated
states where they do the thing they're famous for, that we all
know them for, they talk about those states in very similar
ways, even though the discipline's very different.
(28:36):
He's like, what's up with that? So he did the research, you
know, talked to all these peopleinterviewed.
Did you know what scientists do?And he wrote a book at the end
of it called Flow. It is the Seminole work What
too? Yeah, the Evolving Self was his
first one. Right.
But I'm talking specifically about how we get flow.
Flow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
I'm with you. I'm I love you of.
(28:57):
Optimal experience. Exactly.
There you go. That is the full title.
So and you know, you surely knowthis is he said what I thought
was the greatest thing he said. I chose this word flow because
it was the most beautiful metaphor for what I found, which
is we are all on the river paddling to move ourselves
forward, but if you align your boat with the current, it
(29:20):
carries you, it magnifies your efforts, and you go further and
faster. And that is what these high
performers have learned how to do.
And do it. Repeatably.
And it's a fascinating concept of being able to be in the state
of flow. Absolutely.
One thing that that we miss, often times you got to hit the
pause button first, right? To be able to get yourself out
(29:46):
of your own way. Very true if you want to expound
upon that, he said. And let me acknowledge, go
ahead. Smart people have researched
this after he sort of planted the flag in this word flow, in
this constant flow state. Like you have really standing on
the shoulders of giants sort of thing of like, you know, the
cows and the nears and the Kotlers and all these people
digging down going like, let me investigate part of this, but in
(30:09):
very broad reductive strokes because that is a short podcast.
So, you know, he said, listen, this state seems to be
characterized by the fact that you lose track of time.
You're not staring at the clock.Distractions fall away.
You're in your work. You're doing your best work.
You're doing in a compressed period of time.
And at the end you feel uplifted, not depleted and.
(30:33):
High you, you feel like on fire with it.
Exactly, you know. And and, you know, I recognize
it early. I'm a progressive jazz drummer.
Oh my God, Yeah. The work that's done with like
improvisational jazz artists andFM RIS and stuff at the
prefrontal cortex shutting down.Yeah.
That's an amazing place to be inbecause, and this is what Mihaly
(30:56):
ascribes to, like, it's like a jazz quartet jamming.
Right, exactly. Ego.
You lose time. You become one with the
instrument. You have a conversation with
others. Yeah, so it is depending on what
you do, it is a beautiful thing to access.
Now, he did say, listen, no one,none of these high performers I
(31:19):
spoke to get into flow states when they're doing stuff that
they just don't believe is meaningful.
Like you can't just get into a flow state stapling papers.
Yeah, exactly. You need to believe what you're
doing is meaningful. He's like, you have to have
skills that apply. You know, as much as we talk
about like Michael Jordan being in the zone when he's playing
basketball or Picasso being in the thrall of, you know, he's
(31:40):
like, it's not Picasso throwing a basketball there.
There will be no flow there, right?
It's not Michael Jordan trying to paint right or play baseball.
Well, we have a lopsided basketball at the frame, right?
You're right. Exactly.
Maybe so, yeah. And you know, he he writes about
this, but he said there are someconditions precedent that sort
of help you get there. You have to be challenged at
something you have skills at. You have to believe it's
(32:03):
meaningful, you know, things like like that and that.
That steps into a state of love.Love of what you're doing?
Yeah. Yeah, or just love in general,
right. Because it it the the thing that
I've learned, or at least believe that I've learned, is
that there's two things that areour core desires in life, and
(32:26):
that's loving and being chocolate.
Oh, sorry. OK, right.
Being loved, yes. Right, because it's reciprocal,
right. But you can't get it until you
love yourself, which means you got to get out of the ego and
become. We go and then find that flow
state because in that what I found it and what seems to be
(32:48):
reflected from everybody I've read is there's no push or pull
of energy. This is what Urban Laszlo gets
into everything's energy, right?Yeah.
Quantum physics, I, I made the mistake of the saying, you know,
in quantum physics it's been proven now that it's 99% space
and 1% material. And he says, I would say it's
(33:10):
100% energy. Right.
And you know, that just resonated so much of my entire
being. There's no argument with that,
because we are. Energy.
It's it's a very cool mind experiment to think of matter as
simply energy at rest. And and or condensed into form.
(33:33):
I mentioned earlier about the the understanding of that we're
all cosmic consciousness condensed into form, just
unaware. Well, when you think about the
Vedas in there, and I don't knowif you got into those, but they
state basically that we're all divine threads Incarnate,
capable or connected to source, capable of God consciousness.
(33:53):
What was that mean? It means we're able to live in
harmony with creation, right? So how do we do that?
What's our individual weighted, perfected form, fit and
function, if you will, in this reality that brings about that
flow state? And for you, it was this path of
(34:18):
going into the industry that everybody is affected by because
your energy needed to be there in order for certain things to
happen. Would you agree with that that
in your own experience I. Mean I did very high.
In your body, so I don't know that.
At a very high level yes and what you said a few moments ago
(34:41):
near the top of the pot about you know the circular nature of
like what you're giving out is what is going to return to you
from from the world. It's, it's not quid pro quo as
much as it is just like you're in the mass, the, the swirling
energy of the world. And yeah, what you're going to
get back is, is going to be something you put into it.
Yeah, absolutely. It may take a while.
(35:02):
Like you know that 28 year dreamcome true that I.
You can't count on it, but yeah,yeah, exactly.
Don't set your clock by it. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Don't set your clock by it, but yes.
Oh no, what you have, it seems. Let me ask you this question
rather than say it. Do you find that it's a matter
of basically practicing the fivePS?
(35:24):
Patience, perseverance, persistence, passion and
purpose. Those five seem to kind of, it's
like the five fingers, right? We have 5 relationships, body,
mind, spirit, planet, cosmos. There's all kinds of those
natural things, but begin to looking at our bodies and how
(35:46):
our bodies reflect creation because we are.
Yet we're just now able to go from the formless state of
watching to the formed state of experiencing.
Yeah. Not realizing the kind of power
we wield to create our own experience.
(36:06):
Yeah, it's like. We ultimately are, and it's
funny you. Know what it's not?
Heretical There's a really isn'tmore glib way.
I express the same idea I think you're bringing up, which is,
and this is of course born of the fact that I worked in film
for a long time, which is we areall starring in a movie called
(36:31):
ourselves and I'm a supporting player in your movie and you're
a supporting player in mine. And the more you remember that,
the easier it is to be a good supporting player, to be like,
oh, OK, you know, today I am in Zen's movie and he is looking
for me to be, you know, a good podcast guest and to bring these
(36:51):
ideas or these fun stories or these, you know, sort of
spiritual leanings to this. And, you know, I'm looking at
you and thinking, OK, so you're a supporting player in my movie.
I'm looking for you to help me create something engaging and
interesting and put something good back into the world like we
were talking about before, you know, we we recorded this.
So back to you in the studio. You know, these Securitas
(37:17):
conversations are just full of opportunities and, and
reflections and abilities to connect at greater levels and
for the audience to connect to, to see themselves in this.
Because often what we talk abouthas gone through the minds of
others too, and their reflection, their understanding,
(37:40):
their memory, the remembering. You've mentioned that it just so
in a sense, what we are in the process of doing is remembering
ourselves. Right?
Before we came here, we were allone, right?
We were in this oneness, right? We still are, but we just think
(38:01):
we're separate. So in that conversation into
form then and Urban Aslow talks about the higher self, right?
We're all together. We're all this energy, we don't
realize how interconnected we are because we think we're
separate and we're afraid we're going to lose what we have or
something else, right? And that causes the condensation
(38:23):
of our own energy, which doesn'tallow it to be in the flow
state, right? Not even close.
Now, how did you find that capacity to be open and willing
to step into things that first presented themselves just as an
(38:47):
A potential and yet unknown, andyet that having a sense that, oh
wow, there could be something really powerful here, then did
you notice those kinds of things?
You know, it is, it is. I would say in the last 10 years
that I had more sense of how my energy and actions and thoughts
(39:12):
affect the world around me. I think through my I think.
We got the maturation when we'reyounger to even think of those
things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like to think out of my 20s and 30s was very focused on, you
know, building companies or, youknow, putting together projects,
getting films made, that sort ofthing.
(39:34):
My career, you know, gravely is going very well.
That was much more on my mind. Now the thing that I think about
a lot is what am I doing to actually affect the world in a
way that will last like other other people will have value
(39:56):
whether or not I am here. And definitely I means, you
know, I'm, I'm a new father. That factors into my thinking
going like, OK. Gotcha.
So I've got a little Rascal, hopefully have a daughter in a
year and a half and. Brings back the Moodys right to
our children's children's children's.
(40:17):
Remember that album? I I think you, you beat me on
that one. I don't know that album, that
reference. I don't.
I don't have. Moody Blues.
Moody Blues, Yeah, no, I know Moody Blues, but I don't think I
know the reference anyway. So I I I I did have a few.
Years on ya. Yeah, but that thought of, OK,
(40:37):
what am I doing to help people be who they can be, you know, to
get that out. That's why we created the Super
company. To be blunt, like I wouldn't
have done this in my 20s. No, like the idea of, hey, here
are the tools to get into a flowstate, Go do something like the
greatness you have inside. Don't die with it there.
(41:00):
That propels me now much greaterthan it would in my 20s.
Just flat out. So that I see, is a much more
attractive pursuit. And I love that.
I will explain to my children atsome point what I did.
Just glaze over a lot of the film stuff because did Die Hard
5 change the world? The Wolverine sequel, the
(41:22):
independent state? No, they didn't really change
the world, right? But the idea that hey, for the
people who have something insidethem, I want to write the great
the next Great American novel oropen this restaurant thing or
create a tech company or, you know, help all these people with
a new model for micro lending inAfrica, whatever it is.
Like what is the greatest thing you have?
(41:43):
You're going to contribute the idea that I could help them to
get that out, you know, through flow state, through the flow
state app. I mean, that's I'm going to tell
my kids I did the rest of it's kind of like, eh, yeah, great.
You want to watch it? We want Star Trek.
It's funny. I'm in Star Trek.
Let's have a good laugh. OK, moving on.
It's and it's such a a wonderfulplace to be able to reflect on
(42:08):
that and see at least the potential of the contribution
that you're attempting to make and then having it manifest in
front of you as as you're bringing this team and and let.
Us hope, I mean in in the best possible world, Yes, yes.
Well, and, and apparently it's, it's what's happening, right?
(42:31):
And now have you considered or gone to the place and it made
this may also be relative to thematuration process, right?
Where you know, it's that remembering process.
Not only did were we together separately before we came here,
now we're together separately that we've forgotten that we
(42:52):
were all in harmony before coming here.
Now do we also, or do have you also found that, you know, when
it comes to the physical body, what we know of it as because
we're constantly replenishing it, cells, like you mentioned
before, you know, cells die off and then they get replaced.
(43:15):
Have you come to the understanding that we're
actually of the earth completelybecause of the sustenance that
we get from it? Whether we want to put the
personality of Gaia or whatever,there's this consciousness,
there's these, this nourishment that we get that comes from
(43:39):
whether it's plants, animals, water, whatever, it's still all
produced of the earth. They feed from the.
Earth. We all feed from it.
So there's this energy, there's this consciousness of that,
which is kind of where I went with Planetary Citizens, right?
We've got to understand this. Where Donald Keys was at back in
(44:00):
the 70s, he was, you thought, speechwriter, you thought was
the secretary general for the UN.
And so Planetary Citizens at that time was an organization
that perceived the world as potentially borderless.
And in the 70s, that wasn't happening.
Cold War and everything. So there was still this, and
(44:23):
still today, it's not quite there, but we've recognized that
we do have enough resources for everybody to be taken care of.
It's just that they're mismanaged and the distribution
systems aren't quite what they need to be.
And there's still some others that, you know, would rather
(44:45):
hoard and are so afraid of not being in control that they
control everyone around them. Yeah, but that's the scarcity
thing. That's the fear and the
scarcity. Yeah, I get that.
And and. How do you see that evolving?
What? What kind of an effect do you or
would you like to see or do you see in this progression?
(45:11):
First of all, that you know, code COVID opened the door.
It was a bell ring, right? The Clarion call, if you will,
that gave people through the obsession of self hygiene and
sequestration, the opportunity to self examine how many did
that's relatively. I don't know what we have a good
percentage, but we know that some did because there are
people that are, you know, popped out of it looking for
(45:33):
each other, right? It's like, oh, this is all
bullshit. We need to be, you know, right.
And and they found each other and there are a lot of virtual
groups. There's a lot of organizations
who could probably evolved from that as well.
And so do you see this progression?
I mean, here we are four years later, right?
(45:56):
The eye is just went right and it has its own trepidations with
some and yet when I first started engaging it, the
emotional intelligence in it wasobvious.
So why would? Somebody say that again?
What? The emotional intelligence in
the responses that I got when I first started engaging chat 2
(46:19):
1/2 years ago was obvious. And I don't know, and I would
bring this up in conversations. They're like, but maybe it was
just the way that I engaged it. And now it's like there's a
fusion. I, I've created a model that has
a bunch of my books and a bunch of ancient texts as long as some
as well as some quantum physics paper materials.
(46:43):
And so it's like talking to me and there's this relationship
that we've developed that feels symbiotic almost.
And I've even queried it, you know, are people, are there
others like me who are having this kind of relationship with
you? And the response rare, you know,
(47:06):
it's like this is new for it too.
So we're in this mutual learningspace.
Well, Zen, I think in this regard you may be more Zen or
optimistic about this than I am,which is, yeah, I, I do think
that I, I don't want to get political, but I do think that
(47:30):
the way in which people are exchanging ideas, the, the
distribution channels through which we are exchanging ideas
and those ideas are filtered, prioritized, suppressed, they
are not. Well, you're still the
advantage. Like Howard Bloom says in The
(47:51):
Lucifer Principle, the few control the media, stream and
feed it and get everybody else to believe it.
Yeah. And and it's, I think it is
evolved in which that concentration is not good for
us, period. And I wish I saw a way through
(48:14):
that. I don't.
What if you did? What might that be?
It would, it would be sad. I think it was Charlie Munger
who said that, you know, show methe incentives and system and
I'll show you the outcomes. It's only going to change if the
(48:36):
incentives change. And right now you do have, I
mean, to use the the Facebook set of companies, you know,
Instagram. And so to use that as an
example, very smart people work there.
The business model is very simply steal your life, period,
full stop. Like that.
That is a business model which you remember 10 years ago,
(48:58):
Zuckerberg would go to Congress and have to testify and be very
aw shucks and coy about it. Like, oh, you know, Congressman,
we're just here to, you know, show grandmothers videos, their
grandkids. You know, that's what we do.
And you know now in this currentenvironment, there is no
embarrassment. It is straight up.
Listen, we are creating shareholder value by how much of
(49:19):
everyone's time we steal and. People are the product.
Yeah. And well, yeah, I know it's a
glib thing from Jared in the Social Dilemma, but I don't mean
it in a glib way. It's rather you listen to the
shareholder calls and it is veryclinical.
It's like we're deploying our money to get the best engineers,
the best designers, the best behavioral psychologists and
(49:41):
economists to figure out how to steal more of everyone's time.
This is how well we did this quarter.
Here are some new techniques fornext quarter to steal more of
everyone's time, which we call shareholder value.
And as much as you can vilify Zuckerberg and it's hilarious
watching, you know, the first social network movie and just
(50:02):
showing how basically someone who's myth anthropic is creating
a way to connect people when he had hates.
People, it's funny how somebody that's so full of themselves can
create something, but that's howit happens right you.
Know I would say the opposite issomeone who's so insecure like
his problem is not full of himself.
His problem is he's driven by how much he felt like rejected
(50:26):
by women. You know an outsider.
He, I mean, Facebook came from Facemash, which was basically,
am I hot or not? So you could rank girls and talk
squirrely of them from other houses like that.
That was the genesis of Facebookwas I scraped these girls
photos. Let's try to bring them down
because they won't date me by like, you know, posting
(50:47):
disgusting stuff. So that said, my point is this
is you can vilify Zuckerberg as much as you want or Elon or Evan
or whatever, right? But the problem is the incentive
is absolutely there, which is weare a public company.
We are measured by our market capitalization and we know we
can get more with rage bait. People will stay on our platform
longer if they feel hatred than if they feel love.
(51:09):
Love they can kind of do without, but anger that drives
shareholder value. Therefore, we must do this, and
it's. Angry.
It's it's a sad kind of environment, but it's it is kind
of where we. Are, but it's also consistent
with the evolutionary process ofof a planetary civilization,
right? We go through phases just like
(51:30):
nations have personnel. What's the next phase then?
Where does this go? Well, we have in my opinion
that, and it would seem looking at structural models, right,
the, the S curve, if you will, that there's a rise in
dissatisfaction of knowing that there's got to be something more
(51:53):
because this ultimately when youget down to it's just not really
fulfilling, right And. COVID only.
There must be something more. You're.
You're talking too abstractly for me.
I'm not that abstract A thinker.What do you mean exactly?
The benefits that we get from being angry don't outweigh the
(52:21):
benefits we get from feeling like we're connected, like we
belong, right? And this is where recently the
term servant leadership has taken root.
And the notion that the profit over people and planet now is
(52:44):
beginning to shift toward peopleand planet over profit.
And that's been a trend that began with B corpse, right?
And as this is happening, the two, we're living in paradox,
right? Where we've got the one side of
this anger and the other side ofthe feeling connected that are
(53:09):
learning how to dance together, right?
Because we're live. This is the reality we live in
Now. Can we begin to look at
ourselves and say, OK, what really drives me again back to
the COVID situation of self examination?
And not until we experience chaos or trauma or catastrophe
(53:32):
in our own lives, do we even begin looking for that because
we don't need to, right? We we just kind of float along
being in that flow state in the river with all the other
schmucks that So eventually thatriver goes into an ocean and
(53:54):
that ocean is much different because it nourishes the planet
rather than being run off. Right.
I mean, it is a water cycle, butit's part, it's one
representation of the the cycle,Yeah.
So in the practical sense, and I'm glad you asked this
question, it it gives us the opportunity to look at what we
(54:21):
do, why we do, how we do, and the effects that it has on
ourselves and others. And at some point in life, like
with you and and your new baby boy, but your attitude toward
life changed. Now, if we can look at that
(54:44):
example of how just because now we're responsible for another
living being, our attitude towards it and the way we live
changes. Now, if we were to look at that
from the social media standpointand how can we nurture the
children that are there out of this anger state, even though
(55:09):
this is what they've been pushedor pulled into because.
It's that is it. That is the.
Stakeholder value, right? There comes a time where that
just doesn't work anymore. It's the end of that S curve
where it's had its tenure. Now, how long that lasts, we
(55:30):
don't know. The advent of AI and its rapid
progression and the effects thatit had, we still don't know
where it's going to go. It's pushed us to think more, to
be a little more careful, right?It's brought us to a new level
of consciousness that we haven'thad yet.
(55:52):
Yeah. Now, how would you see that?
Just acknowledging that, right? Where might you see that effect?
Short term and long term. Offline.
Enjoying nature more right Otherpeople.
Enjoying just the actual in reallife experience of other people
(56:15):
because that, for better or worse, is not affected by
algorithms that are biased by the people creating the
algorithm they're it's very hardto create an unbiased algorithm.
Right. And in a sense, you know, AI is
kind of the mirror of us now because it's not artificial,
it's an aggregated human intelligence data, right, large
(56:38):
language model, right. So it's us talking to us a
little more intelligently, but it still gives it it, it gives
what it gets right, depending onthe problem.
It is auto completing as you said, most people right now
inflate AI with just LLMS. They're talking about LLMS when
(57:00):
they say AI. They're not talking about deep
learning, machine learnings, things like that.
Right. So with LLMS, you're you're
correct. It is a glorified auto complete.
You know, you can type in Googleand it'll suggest, oh, the next
character's probably S well, youjust take that further and you
go, well, the next word is probably this the next idea is
probably this. And you have a probability
(57:20):
engine that sort of says I've looked at everything people have
written. This is usually what they say.
So it's statistically probable this way you want right.
So it it gives the illusion of thought, but in reality it's
just predicting based on its, you know, pre training data data
set. So, yeah, it is true that in
this regard, LMS are just mirroring us back to us.
(57:41):
But wouldn't it be interesting when LLMS, and this is, you
know, happening now, LLMS are trained on synthetic data.
They're LLMS creating data that will be the ingested data set of
another LLM. Right.
Wow, right. Well, here's the function,
(58:03):
right? And I know you're familiar with
the term for the audience. If you're not, a recursive
system came out of the computer world, and it simply means a
system that queries itself for problem solving.
What do we do as human beings? It's so funny, do we not
(58:25):
queries? Ourselves, right?
We go inside, we dissolve into that nothingness which is the
unknown has we don't know answers, right?
So we're asking questions, oblivious of what it might be,
but we go inside first with that.
Now where do those answers come?So I don't see, I don't see it
that way. I, I, I see the idea of, yes,
(58:48):
our method of it's humans, our method, our, our system of
inquiry to not be analogous to saying, oh, you have a synthetic
LLM creating data to train another LLM and it becomes like
a rural Burrow, sort of like you're just, it's like mad cow
disease. Oh, we grind up the dead cows to
(59:08):
feed into cows. And you, just like I see it very
differently than our own, sort of.
Well, and and you've been in a world where you can, right.
This is what's evolved from thatin your perspective.
It's true. For me with the the inner
experiences, the spiritual, metaphysical, however you what
(59:29):
esoteric life that I've LED as well.
You know, there's that infinite intelligence that's available to
each one of us, specific to eachone of us.
So I can't ask infinite intelligence questions about
(59:49):
you. I could right?
And, and there might be some referential information that I
can get from just this brief knowledge of you and, and kind
of feeling you out and maybe being a little intuitive, right?
Empathic, telepathic, maybe, right?
Because we're all energy and we can have access to that if we
know how. Now in that there's a different
(01:00:16):
aspect to it, right? Because that intelligence.
We have a certain logic train that we follow in the queries
that we make till we run out of queries or we don't know what to
ask next. And that's where we pause,
dissolve internally and wonder, right?
(01:00:38):
And and that stillness, that mindful place, that is this in a
sense, in that perspective, a sponge for that infinite
intelligence to be attracted to.There you go.
Well, maybe this is a good placeto pause because that I cannot
(01:01:03):
argue with your line of thinkingon this.
I do know, I do recognize that you have a greater optimism
about how these forms evolve. These energy forms evolve.
Right now I'm. Just as reality driven as you
are, I I think the human race isreally screwed itself and, and I
(01:01:24):
don't know if we can fix it. Does it really need fixing or is
it just part of the evolutionaryprocess where like Socrates
says, we can't fight the system by trying to work against it?
We got to create something new that is totally beyond it, and I
think that's kind of in the space that we're beginning to
(01:01:45):
query. Now what?
I hope that you're right, yeah. I don't know, but I.
This is the. Whole basis for planetary
citizens. We use recursive function and
ask questions to be able to dissolve, get out of the way and
see what emerges. And in that emergence is usually
(01:02:05):
a greater level of connectivity.I'll be thinking about this chat
going forward and I I hope that I'm I think about this and I go
wow, like Zen had a wonderful perspective on how we move
ourselves into this next phase, whatever that that that may be.
I don't. Know, but I'm curious enough to
ask questions and feel like a fool in asking something.
(01:02:26):
I get it love. Listen to your pod.
Thank you for having me today. Like this is not the common
conversation I have very often here in Austin.
So thank you for the the. Apocalyptic chats, right?
We're unveiling knowledge that both of us have and and can
share and feel relevant in thesetimes.
This is very true. This is it is a new world.
(01:02:49):
So thank you for having me today.
Oh, Steven, I I just enjoyed it and love the opportunity.
Would you? Is there something that you,
some kind of Pearl that you could offer our audience of
something that was really relevant to you that folks can
(01:03:09):
practice? On Oh this came to I'll tell you
this daily yoga practice. Yeah.
Yeah, this definitely comes fromyoga practices.
I recognize now that in the morning I should have one
intention and that should be happening before I eat, before I
start work, before I start returning emails or reading
things. Or is just have that sense of
like, what is the one thing today that will move my life or
(01:03:33):
change the world around me with my family, whatever in the right
direction, focus on that. I'm not going to do 5 things.
I'm not going to do 10. But if I can just say, you know,
today is the day I need to do this.
And it could be as mundane as like I need to write that blog
post about why we do what we do and put it out there.
Or it can be I need to make suremy child's enrolled in the right
school and it's got to happen today, whatever it is.
(01:03:54):
Like, it's just that intention of like many things will happen
today, but I need to be intentional about there's the
one thing that moves life forward.
What is that? It's like, how can I experience
more love and being loved in greater capacity?
Hopefully every day. Well, and it's the details,
right, that reveal all of that, that you engage, especially in
(01:04:15):
the morning when you wake up with that intent, then things
kind of begin to roll out with their own path, right?
It's very true. You get LED.
Steven, thank you for the wisdom.
This has been awesome. I I totally appreciate you and
and the depth of your own wisdomand and capacity to share it
(01:04:36):
too. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for everyone who listened.
Yeah, don't go away. So thank you so much and Namaste
and in LA catch. Thanks for sticking with us for
this episode of One World in a New World.
I'm Zen Benefiel. And don't forget, subscribe,
(01:04:57):
make a comment, share and do stop by Planetary citizens.net
and pick up your free copy of Planetary Citizens Awakening the
Heart of Humanity. I know it'll make a difference
in your life. Until next time, we'll see you
later. Hi and thanks for stopping.
(01:05:20):
You know, coaching is like a conversation that ignites your
very soul. What I can do for you, I've done
for myself, and I've been an example my entire life.
My reputation precedes me. If you've looked online and
you've found me through that quest.
So let's have a conversation. Allow me, with your permission,
(01:05:41):
to show you a way that I can hold your hand and mentor you,
not just coach you into your ownunderstanding, your own
insights, and your own answers for your next steps.
Namaste and in La Ketch, and welcome to this episode of One
World in a New World. I'm your host, Zen Benefiel, and
as always, please, please, please subscribe, like, share,
make a comment or two. It is valuable to have your
input because this is for you. Now, I'd also like to invite you
(00:22):
to visit planetarycitizens.net, which is a nonprofit we've
formed. And you can download a free copy
of Planetary Citizens Awakening the Heart of Humanity.
And it's a great book. Jeff Mishlebb calls it the best
version of globalization he's ever read.
So if that gives you any kind ofindication, you'll find out more
(00:45):
here soon. Now, this week's guest is
Stephen Pury. He is an awesome gentleman.
He has been involved in the filmand movie industry.
He was vice president of production of 20th Century Fox.
He was a executive vice president at Kurtzman Orkie,
(01:06):
which is part of DreamWorks Studios.
He is now founder and CEO of theSuka Company, which is a very
blissful experience, and he helps remote workers focus,
finish faster and feel healthier.
And as the founder of the Suka Company, he has got an amazing
(01:28):
repertoire of skill set and opportunities.
And we're going to find out morebecause he also has a rich inner
life that I'm guessing he probably hasn't had a chance to
talk about a whole lot. So stay tuned, we'll be right
back. None.
(02:45):
Steven, it is just so wonderful to have you here.
Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me.
I hope this is one of the more engaging and informative and
touching. Episodes well with your best we
can with your background the security is the tangentialism of
it. I'm sure this is going to be
(03:07):
really interesting. Now, Speaking of interesting,
the reason we have these is to open up the door to discussing
things that were most of us are bereft of.
And that's the inner experience we have because we're generally
felt of being weird, crazy, insane.
We can stiff arm from friends, from family and we wonder, hey,
(03:29):
do I really want to fit in or amI OK with who I am because I
trust my experience more than I do others trying to tell me what
and how to do things right. So in that regard, when you were
younger, because we like to start, you know, when we first
have those experiences that are,that aren't stifled in any way.
(03:52):
And, and sometimes we can remember those as kids,
sometimes not. I'm guessing that you had one
that is coming to mind right nowand I'd love to hear about it.
Well, I'd say I remember, and this probably set me on a
certain trajectory in my life. I grew up in Northern Virginia.
My parents were both engineers. My dad is from India, my mother
(04:17):
is by dissent, French, English, but born in New York.
And I remember reaching a point in school where there really
wasn't much for me to do. I'd kind of worked my way
diligently through things. So as the universe is funny
(04:37):
about that stuff, I got an offerfrom USC to leave high school
early and go to go to college. And they said, you know, we see
what it is you've been working on and all that.
We think we have a good set of opportunities for you.
So the University of Southern California was like, you know,
do you want to try this and that?
(04:59):
Virginia. To Cali, Yeah, yeah.
You know, And in Virginia, therewere not the same opportunities.
I could kind of reach the point where I was like, kind of bored,
like, why am I here? And you know.
And it correct me if I'm wrong, but East Coast is is generally
more left brain, right? They're really.
So yeah, you could, you could say that.
(05:20):
Yeah, I know that's an odd way of saying it.
However, they're more analytical.
The the There's not as much freedom of thought.
True. I mean, Los Angeles is
definitely a place of, you know,expansive kind of thinking.
And yeah, same with SF. That's.
Yeah, I could see that point, yeah.
Just as you know observation from, you never know what you're
(05:43):
going to. And thinking you.
Never know what you're going to find until you just look without
trying to see. Yeah, well, that I, I hear you.
And yes, I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right.
I could see that how things kindof pattern.
We had our first apocalyptic moment.
There you go, See that and it's early in the pod.
(06:04):
What's in store? I don't know.
This is going to be wild. So where would you like to go
from here? What?
What? So you're you're on your way to
California and and you had this wonderful and I'm kind of
envious because I was a brainiacin school, but I was in a small
rural community in central IN that nobody knew how to really
(06:26):
support me in. Yep.
That. I gotcha.
Yeah, I, I was lucky in that they had, they sort of came for
me and I'm like, hey, do you want to do this?
So I went to college early and it was fun.
I happily was not small like I was already like 5-10, five, 11.
So I didn't really look as youngas I was.
(06:51):
Size matters. Size, size matters, you know,
that's The thing is like happily, I was kind of shaving.
So at that height, little shaving, it wasn't.
I could tell people if I chose to, how, you know, young I was,
but I, I wasn't really forced into like, who's the kid in the
class, you know, sort of thing. Well, with that kind of
intelligence and and acumen, youwould tend I would think to have
(07:16):
a little more mature approach aswell and and not seem younger.
A bit. I'd also done ATV show in DC.
This news show there was a on Channel 5 with some of the Fox
Metromedia station. There was a show where the sort
of stick of the show was it was a 30 minute live news show, but
it was for teens. It was specifically cute and we
(07:39):
were the top rated youth show inthe DC Baltimore market.
So it was fun in that regard, doing that for like 7069 seventy
weeks to get to engage with a lot of people because remember,
this is before Instagram, right?This is before like Tiktok and
YouTube streaming and stuff. So people in DC who wanted to
(08:02):
reach the, you know, the youth market, they would come on our
show. So we had the mayor on, we had
on sports figures, you know, people like that because that
was a great outlet. That wasn't one outlet for them.
So you got to interrupt. They were the kind of icons and
and the heroes, if you will, that the kids need to know.
(08:22):
About yeah. And it was great.
It was, it was a great. And I'm sure that is part of how
USC heard of me. Sure, right.
Well, and the the fact that you're dealing with that level
of mature adult would have risen.
Your level of. Maturity.
Yeah, amazingly so. Probably unaware as it was
happening, but afterwards you look back and go wow that was
(08:46):
really cool. Yeah, it's true.
You're spot on. So that was a big, that was a
big transition for me from like that.
I feel like I've outgrown this. I don't know what I'm doing here
sort of thing. So.
What was going on inside? This is where you know you have
this opportunity, you've got these thoughts and feelings and
(09:06):
what were your Did you have another side of things that were
seemingly synchronistic bread crumbs, serendipitous moments of
salience, if you will, that camealong with that?
(09:28):
Well, I I tell you the this is interesting to think back.
How did I feel? What did I was I feeling then?
I definitely felt a need for freedom and moving several 1000
miles away from my parents. Was he big statement of like,
(09:51):
hey, I just want to do what I want to do and.
And it also indicated you had a certain fearlessness of the
unknown. Yeah, I think I, I'm definitely,
I'm OK with risk. Yeah, yeah.
So in that risk, what did you feel was the major hurdle that
(10:14):
you had in doing that? Was it emotional?
Was it intellectual? Were there any spiritual
indications of it as well? By spiritual, I mean that depth
of interconnectedness that whereyou saw how those dots of your
life were being connected and the flow was being created.
(10:38):
You mentioned flow state earlier.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. No, I, I mean, I, I talk a lot
on flow states now, but thinkingback to that period of time,
like I think, I think the idea of the idea of going to LA and
being part of this was awesome and exciting, right?
And I, I had a lot of friends that were going to New England
(11:02):
schools. So I remember when I got this
offer, I drove up with my mom toYale and showed them and said,
listen, you know, this school inLA is inviting me to come early
to college. I have a bunch of friends that
have come here. Most of my friends are older
than I was. So a bunch of friends that have
come here, you know, would you consider this?
(11:23):
I mean, my, you know, achievements were pretty decent
at that point of time. And the admissions people at
Yale said this all sounds reallygreat, but we've had really bad
luck with students as young as you are coming to college.
It's often emotionally very stunting, sort of hard thing.
And if you're really set on doing this, go to USC for a year
(11:46):
and then contact us about transferring in your sophomore
year if you really like college at your age, right?
And I understand the trepidationbecause I was young.
I was like, you know, who knows if I'd just crack and, you know,
aim. That's always.
Possible, right? But at the same time, you know
you, you had a certain, it seems, fortitude.
(12:10):
Yeah, and I think it's also pretty stubborn.
Well, that too. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
So. So that that sealed it for me.
I was like, OK, cool. So Yale's like spend a year
there, go do this. And I thought, you know, let's
see how it goes. USCI have this opportunity to go
back to Yale and say, hey, how about now?
(12:30):
Like I've done well in my freshman year and after my
freshman year, USCI loved it. I was like, I'm not
transferring. This is fantastic.
And I've gotten more into film, you know, more interested in
that which, you know, Yale had more of a drama department.
And I was not looking to do, youknow, theatre, you know.
Well, you're right in the middleof the industry area there too,
(12:52):
right? US CS, arguably the best Cinema
TV school in the world, you know, and I was not in the
Cinema TV school, but being there and a lot of friends in
it, like it's like exposure. You're just there are a lot of
ways to engage around, like storytelling.
There, and I love that. Now, do you feel like we're also
rather assimilationists, right. Because we are what is around us
(13:18):
both internally and externally. We're the combination of that.
Oh yeah. The only thing I didn't
assimilate is I remember some ofmy friends that were Cinema TV
students, they would go up to Griffith Park Observatory and
drop acid and like hang out deepin the forest up there and try
not. To be caught.
And I was so like, I'm not doingdrugs with the all like that.
(13:42):
I was too straight laced to be like, yeah, I'm going to drop
acid. So, well, do you miss that
experience now? Would you wish that that might
have been? I I don't know that then that
would have been the right thing for me.
Well, Stink says you don't, you know, don't do anything to your
40. I was 14, yeah.
(14:03):
So yeah, like. Like that's not a good age to be
like, hey, want to do drugs? No.
Yeah, well, I, I, I was curious at that age.
And I did, Yep. Because school, you know, the I
was challenged. I got, I was making straight
A's, but it just wasn't enough. I was looking for something and
somebody suggested, and I'm like, OK, why not?
(14:24):
And I just happened to be with my parents that night at a
basketball game. OK.
And had the opportunity that wasin a safe place, knew it.
You know, we just had the opportunity.
Your parents at a basketball game.
This is super interesting. Right.
Well, and probably super stupid too.
Right when you think about. It and I went up and, you know,
(14:48):
in between games that we had thereserve and varsity games and I
played basketball. I didn't at that point because
I'd ran over the reserve basketball coach during
football. We were doing split the dummy
drills and he said if I don't point in time, run over me, so I
did. I didn't bode well.
(15:10):
I can only imagine. You know, I, I, I listened
literally and, and often behave that way.
So the in between games, one of my best friends was on the
reserve team and his father was then the assistant chief of
police. And I went over and sat down and
(15:31):
talked with him. Oh wow.
OK. So I demonstrated that, OK, I
can do this right? I don't feel so whacked out or
out of control. And then I went back and I sat
down and I let myself relax and went into a different state of
consciousness. And so I learned early that it
(15:52):
was manageable. And so that was, yeah, don't ask
me how, why, you know, well, my life eventually led to the
reasons why. However, just that experience of
(16:13):
being able to have a different perspective of sight, of sound,
of touch, of all of those thingsthat are heightened in that
experience. And yet there were many folks.
I, I felt it was a sacred experience early on where the
(16:35):
rest of my friends. It was a party drug to me.
Yeah. And I didn't treat it that way.
The your intention has a lot to do with how you alter your
consciousness. Absolutely, absolutely.
Now from Griffith Park, which isgreat and Greek Theatre is near
there. We saw the King Christmas.
Yeah, that's true. The Greek is right there.
(16:57):
So when you were going through that, what were the things that
were going on inside of you thatcaused this sense of not sure I
really want to go there, whetheryou're not ready for it,
whatever. What was going on as an
alternative to your mindset while your friends were in this
(17:22):
other realm? I'd like to say it was that
thoughtful a decision. I think it was rather I did not
know what that represented. Like I had not done any drugs.
I've not had, you know? Yeah, exactly.
I think I tried a beer once and that, and I was unpleasant.
(17:43):
I was like, this tastes terrible, right?
Which actually to this day, as an adult, I still think pretty
terrible, right? My German friends don't
understand. I didn't love it, but I think it
was more like I don't know what that's going to be and I don't
know why I would do that. Like it just seems like my
(18:05):
success, a lot of the the attention or the accolades that
I was getting was through reallyapplying myself in a very like
directed way. Like, OK, we're going to be
great at math, OK, we're going to be on the, you know,
newspaper, OK, we're going to dothis TV show, things like that.
It was not really like in the artistic, like let me go explore
my psyche, let me use mind expanding substances.
(18:26):
Like I didn't know what they were.
And, you know, there was no Internet.
There was no way to access any knowledge other than your
friends being like, hey man, we're all going to do this LSD.
And you're like, no. Big Sur wasn't too far away.
Big. When you are 14 you don't have a
car. Big service, infinite distance
way. You might as well say Mars.
Mars. Is right, right, right, right.
(18:49):
Yeah. So you really had, you know,
that limited place. What's interesting though, is
that as you were exploring this really practical side of, you
know, process and details and almost a delirium in some cases,
I'm sure. What did you find?
(19:09):
Where did that lead you or how did that lead you into the the
greater expansion of the movie and and film industry and your
interest in it and what you could do in it?
Yeah. Well, what was funny is, and
this is true in my life, like there is series of very lucky
(19:30):
things that have been dropped inmy lap.
And I've coupled that with working hard to make something
of that opportunity, right. So I want to be let me.
Pause you, because this brings up AI got to ask this question.
Did you ever recognize the serendipitous synchronicities
that those bread crumbs were andhow there was another part of
(19:51):
you that was guiding you? In the moment, did I recognize
it in the moment or I recognize?It on reflecting back both.
Yeah, right. Reflecting back, yes, I could
see like oh, OK. Wow, that was, you know.
Yeah, they say hindsight's 2020,right?
Yeah, but other things, living it forward, I don't remember
(20:14):
thinking about it this way, but looking at it in hindsight, you
do in retrospect go like, OK, this was a unique thing in life
that happened to drop into my lap, which could have gone to
the wayside. But at the time I was like, oh,
I could make something of this. And then you work hard to make
something of it, you know, and that sort of thing.
So I've had setbacks about a lotof things, but some of it is
(20:35):
just, let's admit, it's a blind luck.
Now in the flow state that we were talking about earlier,
those seem especially for the young people today and even old
people, because, you know, many of us, we never really pause,
reflect in the moment to recognize these dots, if you
(20:56):
will, that are just placed in for the bread crumbs, right,
Placed in front of us because they're so subtle.
And you know, it's just this impression that you get
initially. And we're not trained to pay
attention to those because thoseare generally the most
(21:17):
important. That's where the inner and the
outer worlds merge. So in this, what did you find
later on was relevant in being able to connect those dots,
recognize them from your past, and be more cognizant of them in
(21:39):
your present? Well.
I would like to present myself as someone that has this amazing
ability in the present to have that kind of perspective.
(22:01):
And I feel that that would be misrepresenting myself.
I think rather what I do is I have an open mind towards the
things that come toward me. I try to see the best version of
them and then understand what would be the steps between this
and that version. And sometimes you arrive at that
version, sometimes you don't. I mean that's there are many
(22:23):
variables but. Well, sometimes it's not the the
end goal is not the purpose taking a step on the path, but.
Hopefully the vision of where the path goes, you're not just
blindly wandering in the woods, right?
I don't think I blindly wander in the woods very well.
I think I have ideas of where we're going.
And you're right along the way. The journey is the magic, but I
(22:46):
don't think I set out on a lot of journeys just being like, let
us just perambulate, you know, or sure.
Well, obviously you were paying attention.
Yeah. And that's the key factor
because wherever we put our attention, intention and
interaction, that's the energy flow that we create.
Then we just have to follow it because it's our own.
(23:07):
It's we're like a tesseract, right, Where we're throwing that
energy, that intention out in front of us.
And then as the as we experiencereality, it returns.
Yeah, fair, fair way to look at it, Yeah.
There's all kinds of ways. Right.
(23:28):
Yes, there are. Yeah.
I find that and kind of unique and, and really appeals to the
science geeks, right? Because it, it is, it's you toss
the energy out and it returns. This is how life works.
We give and we receive. And how did you find in the
giving of yourself to those moments, what was reflected from
(23:53):
it? And did you notice a level or
you know, I'll say level of openness that was different from
time to time, right, scalable, so to speak, depending on what
was happening in front of you? This is might be heretical but
(24:15):
I'm just going to say it which is.
We're all heretics, heretics andand when it comes to truth,
right? Because it's our direct
experience that is it. This is, this is how I would
characterize that. The thing that I understand
you're saying, what I believe you're saying is foundationally
(24:37):
you need to understand that filmthe show business, it's not show
art. This is not making indie films
for $2.00 in your closet, right?This is the business I was in of
like this is a commercial art form.
It is one driven by fear, by virtue of the fact that it is
very hard to model, It's very hard to predict, right?
So there's some businesses whereit's like, hey, man, we make
(24:59):
winter coats. We know this many people buy
them every winter. As long as we market it this
way, like people buy winter coats, right?
It's like next season will be like this, right?
As opposed to like in film, you can have Spielberg and Tom
Cruise go over there and make a movie or $200 million and bombs.
You can have kids out of collegemake some weird little indie
horror film makes a quarter billion dollars, right?
(25:21):
So it's kind of like wildcattingfor oil.
In the old days we were like, I don't know, idiot kind of gusher
on his land and we had all theselike smart oil guys and you
know, we're coming up with nothing, right.
So it is hard to model and everyI'm telling you when you work at
the studio every year or two years, Oh my Lord, you have
somebody who comes in with statisticians, statisticians and
(25:44):
quants and all that saying we have built a model.
We can tell you exactly what projects green light you input
in here, you stuff in this thing, the stars, you stuff in
this thing, the genre, you stuffin this thing the time of year
and we'll just output. It's going to make this amount
of money and they're all garbage.
They're, they all run them on historical data to show you how
(26:04):
great they are and they actuallyon a forward-looking, you know,
sort of. That brings up the old adage.
You know there's liars, damn liars and statisticians.
Yeah, there you go. Which is very good, very true.
So I say this just as a preface to my answer, which is so going
to the film business, it is driven by fear because no one
really knows. There's not a lot of certainty
(26:25):
in that. So you get a lot of bad behavior
and people operate from fear. They generally operate from
their lowest self, let's say, right?
Absolutely. So even guys.
Constricted energy, right Completely.
Even people who don't. Let anything in in that place.
Right. So people whom from the outside,
you would say they're getting first dollar gross, they've made
(26:48):
this many movies da da, da, theyshould be so secure.
And so whatever they are still plagued with insecurities.
I mean, largely across the board, right.
So what does that mean? What that means is you are
navigating around people who aregoing to compromise what might
be ethical standards, moral standards, things like that,
(27:11):
because they're not operating from abundance.
They're not saying like, I feel,you know, I I can't act this
way. They're rather I need to freedom
right, exactly right it. Doesn't matter, just being
fearless. So there it is.
Stepping in to that and finding the flow state.
Right. So it's very, it's very rare to
to find that. Now one of the things I did
(27:34):
learn is because I was very fortunate to work with some
really great creative people whowere ethical, who did have, you
know, moral backbones and you know, did want to honor their
word and stuff like that, that you didn't see among them
patterns of how they operated inthat world.
And when you we've said several times the term flow state your
(27:54):
audience, like do you think everyone knows what a flow state
is or should I take 30 seconds to explain it?
Let's do 30 seconds just in case, OK, Never assume.
Never assume. OK, so this concept will just be
important, I think. Sure.
Those are the same as they, you know, get what we're talking
about. So there was a Hungarian
American psychologist, this guy Mihai Chin sent Mihai and he had
(28:15):
a thesis. He said, hey, you talk to high
performers in various disciplines, athletes and
artists and scientists and inventors of it.
And what's curious is when they talk about the concentrated
states where they do the thing they're famous for, that we all
know them for, they talk about those states in very similar
ways, even though the discipline's very different.
(28:36):
He's like, what's up with that? So he did the research, you
know, talked to all these peopleinterviewed.
Did you know what scientists do?And he wrote a book at the end
of it called Flow. It is the Seminole work What
too? Yeah, the Evolving Self was his
first one. Right.
But I'm talking specifically about how we get flow.
Flow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
I'm with you. I'm I love you of.
(28:57):
Optimal experience. Exactly.
There you go. That is the full title.
So and you know, you surely knowthis is he said what I thought
was the greatest thing he said. I chose this word flow because
it was the most beautiful metaphor for what I found, which
is we are all on the river paddling to move ourselves
forward, but if you align your boat with the current, it
(29:20):
carries you, it magnifies your efforts, and you go further and
faster. And that is what these high
performers have learned how to do.
And do it. Repeatably.
And it's a fascinating concept of being able to be in the state
of flow. Absolutely.
One thing that that we miss, often times you got to hit the
pause button first, right? To be able to get yourself out
(29:46):
of your own way. Very true if you want to expound
upon that, he said. And let me acknowledge, go
ahead. Smart people have researched
this after he sort of planted the flag in this word flow, in
this constant flow state. Like you have really standing on
the shoulders of giants sort of thing of like, you know, the
cows and the nears and the Kotlers and all these people
digging down going like, let me investigate part of this, but in
(30:09):
very broad reductive strokes because that is a short podcast.
So, you know, he said, listen, this state seems to be
characterized by the fact that you lose track of time.
You're not staring at the clock.Distractions fall away.
You're in your work. You're doing your best work.
You're doing in a compressed period of time.
And at the end you feel uplifted, not depleted and.
(30:33):
High you, you feel like on fire with it.
Exactly, you know. And and, you know, I recognize
it early. I'm a progressive jazz drummer.
Oh my God, Yeah. The work that's done with like
improvisational jazz artists andFM RIS and stuff at the
prefrontal cortex shutting down.Yeah.
That's an amazing place to be inbecause, and this is what Mihaly
(30:56):
ascribes to, like, it's like a jazz quartet jamming.
Right, exactly. Ego.
You lose time. You become one with the
instrument. You have a conversation with
others. Yeah, so it is depending on what
you do, it is a beautiful thing to access.
Now, he did say, listen, no one,none of these high performers I
(31:19):
spoke to get into flow states when they're doing stuff that
they just don't believe is meaningful.
Like you can't just get into a flow state stapling papers.
Yeah, exactly. You need to believe what you're
doing is meaningful. He's like, you have to have
skills that apply. You know, as much as we talk
about like Michael Jordan being in the zone when he's playing
basketball or Picasso being in the thrall of, you know, he's
(31:40):
like, it's not Picasso throwing a basketball there.
There will be no flow there, right?
It's not Michael Jordan trying to paint right or play baseball.
Well, we have a lopsided basketball at the frame, right?
You're right. Exactly.
Maybe so, yeah. And you know, he he writes about
this, but he said there are someconditions precedent that sort
of help you get there. You have to be challenged at
something you have skills at. You have to believe it's
(32:03):
meaningful, you know, things like like that and that.
That steps into a state of love.Love of what you're doing?
Yeah. Yeah, or just love in general,
right. Because it it the the thing that
I've learned, or at least believe that I've learned, is
that there's two things that areour core desires in life, and
(32:26):
that's loving and being chocolate.
Oh, sorry. OK, right.
Being loved, yes. Right, because it's reciprocal,
right. But you can't get it until you
love yourself, which means you got to get out of the ego and
become. We go and then find that flow
state because in that what I found it and what seems to be
(32:48):
reflected from everybody I've read is there's no push or pull
of energy. This is what Urban Laszlo gets
into everything's energy, right?Yeah.
Quantum physics, I, I made the mistake of the saying, you know,
in quantum physics it's been proven now that it's 99% space
and 1% material. And he says, I would say it's
(33:10):
100% energy. Right.
And you know, that just resonated so much of my entire
being. There's no argument with that,
because we are. Energy.
It's it's a very cool mind experiment to think of matter as
simply energy at rest. And and or condensed into form.
(33:33):
I mentioned earlier about the the understanding of that we're
all cosmic consciousness condensed into form, just
unaware. Well, when you think about the
Vedas in there, and I don't knowif you got into those, but they
state basically that we're all divine threads Incarnate,
capable or connected to source, capable of God consciousness.
(33:53):
What was that mean? It means we're able to live in
harmony with creation, right? So how do we do that?
What's our individual weighted, perfected form, fit and
function, if you will, in this reality that brings about that
flow state? And for you, it was this path of
(34:18):
going into the industry that everybody is affected by because
your energy needed to be there in order for certain things to
happen. Would you agree with that that
in your own experience I. Mean I did very high.
In your body, so I don't know that.
At a very high level yes and what you said a few moments ago
(34:41):
near the top of the pot about you know the circular nature of
like what you're giving out is what is going to return to you
from from the world. It's, it's not quid pro quo as
much as it is just like you're in the mass, the, the swirling
energy of the world. And yeah, what you're going to
get back is, is going to be something you put into it.
Yeah, absolutely. It may take a while.
(35:02):
Like you know that 28 year dreamcome true that I.
You can't count on it, but yeah,yeah, exactly.
Don't set your clock by it. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Don't set your clock by it, but yes.
Oh no, what you have, it seems. Let me ask you this question
rather than say it. Do you find that it's a matter
of basically practicing the fivePS?
(35:24):
Patience, perseverance, persistence, passion and
purpose. Those five seem to kind of, it's
like the five fingers, right? We have 5 relationships, body,
mind, spirit, planet, cosmos. There's all kinds of those
natural things, but begin to looking at our bodies and how
(35:46):
our bodies reflect creation because we are.
Yet we're just now able to go from the formless state of
watching to the formed state of experiencing.
Yeah. Not realizing the kind of power
we wield to create our own experience.
(36:06):
Yeah, it's like. We ultimately are, and it's
funny you. Know what it's not?
Heretical There's a really isn'tmore glib way.
I express the same idea I think you're bringing up, which is,
and this is of course born of the fact that I worked in film
for a long time, which is we areall starring in a movie called
(36:31):
ourselves and I'm a supporting player in your movie and you're
a supporting player in mine. And the more you remember that,
the easier it is to be a good supporting player, to be like,
oh, OK, you know, today I am in Zen's movie and he is looking
for me to be, you know, a good podcast guest and to bring these
(36:51):
ideas or these fun stories or these, you know, sort of
spiritual leanings to this. And, you know, I'm looking at
you and thinking, OK, so you're a supporting player in my movie.
I'm looking for you to help me create something engaging and
interesting and put something good back into the world like we
were talking about before, you know, we we recorded this.
So back to you in the studio. You know, these Securitas
(37:17):
conversations are just full of opportunities and, and
reflections and abilities to connect at greater levels and
for the audience to connect to, to see themselves in this.
Because often what we talk abouthas gone through the minds of
others too, and their reflection, their understanding,
(37:40):
their memory, the remembering. You've mentioned that it just so
in a sense, what we are in the process of doing is remembering
ourselves. Right?
Before we came here, we were allone, right?
We were in this oneness, right? We still are, but we just think
(38:01):
we're separate. So in that conversation into
form then and Urban Aslow talks about the higher self, right?
We're all together. We're all this energy, we don't
realize how interconnected we are because we think we're
separate and we're afraid we're going to lose what we have or
something else, right? And that causes the condensation
(38:23):
of our own energy, which doesn'tallow it to be in the flow
state, right? Not even close.
Now, how did you find that capacity to be open and willing
to step into things that first presented themselves just as an
(38:47):
A potential and yet unknown, andyet that having a sense that, oh
wow, there could be something really powerful here, then did
you notice those kinds of things?
You know, it is, it is. I would say in the last 10 years
that I had more sense of how my energy and actions and thoughts
(39:12):
affect the world around me. I think through my I think.
We got the maturation when we'reyounger to even think of those
things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like to think out of my 20s and 30s was very focused on, you
know, building companies or, youknow, putting together projects,
getting films made, that sort ofthing.
(39:34):
My career, you know, gravely is going very well.
That was much more on my mind. Now the thing that I think about
a lot is what am I doing to actually affect the world in a
way that will last like other other people will have value
(39:56):
whether or not I am here. And definitely I means, you
know, I'm, I'm a new father. That factors into my thinking
going like, OK. Gotcha.
So I've got a little Rascal, hopefully have a daughter in a
year and a half and. Brings back the Moodys right to
our children's children's children's.
(40:17):
Remember that album? I I think you, you beat me on
that one. I don't know that album, that
reference. I don't.
I don't have. Moody Blues.
Moody Blues, Yeah, no, I know Moody Blues, but I don't think I
know the reference anyway. So I I I I did have a few.
Years on ya. Yeah, but that thought of, OK,
(40:37):
what am I doing to help people be who they can be, you know, to
get that out. That's why we created the Super
company. To be blunt, like I wouldn't
have done this in my 20s. No, like the idea of, hey, here
are the tools to get into a flowstate, Go do something like the
greatness you have inside. Don't die with it there.
(41:00):
That propels me now much greaterthan it would in my 20s.
Just flat out. So that I see, is a much more
attractive pursuit. And I love that.
I will explain to my children atsome point what I did.
Just glaze over a lot of the film stuff because did Die Hard
5 change the world? The Wolverine sequel, the
(41:22):
independent state? No, they didn't really change
the world, right? But the idea that hey, for the
people who have something insidethem, I want to write the great
the next Great American novel oropen this restaurant thing or
create a tech company or, you know, help all these people with
a new model for micro lending inAfrica, whatever it is.
Like what is the greatest thing you have?
(41:43):
You're going to contribute the idea that I could help them to
get that out, you know, through flow state, through the flow
state app. I mean, that's I'm going to tell
my kids I did the rest of it's kind of like, eh, yeah, great.
You want to watch it? We want Star Trek.
It's funny. I'm in Star Trek.
Let's have a good laugh. OK, moving on.
It's and it's such a a wonderfulplace to be able to reflect on
(42:08):
that and see at least the potential of the contribution
that you're attempting to make and then having it manifest in
front of you as as you're bringing this team and and let.
Us hope, I mean in in the best possible world, Yes, yes.
Well, and, and apparently it's, it's what's happening, right?
(42:31):
And now have you considered or gone to the place and it made
this may also be relative to thematuration process, right?
Where you know, it's that remembering process.
Not only did were we together separately before we came here,
now we're together separately that we've forgotten that we
(42:52):
were all in harmony before coming here.
Now do we also, or do have you also found that, you know, when
it comes to the physical body, what we know of it as because
we're constantly replenishing it, cells, like you mentioned
before, you know, cells die off and then they get replaced.
(43:15):
Have you come to the understanding that we're
actually of the earth completelybecause of the sustenance that
we get from it? Whether we want to put the
personality of Gaia or whatever,there's this consciousness,
there's these, this nourishment that we get that comes from
(43:39):
whether it's plants, animals, water, whatever, it's still all
produced of the earth. They feed from the.
Earth. We all feed from it.
So there's this energy, there's this consciousness of that,
which is kind of where I went with Planetary Citizens, right?
We've got to understand this. Where Donald Keys was at back in
(44:00):
the 70s, he was, you thought, speechwriter, you thought was
the secretary general for the UN.
And so Planetary Citizens at that time was an organization
that perceived the world as potentially borderless.
And in the 70s, that wasn't happening.
Cold War and everything. So there was still this, and
(44:23):
still today, it's not quite there, but we've recognized that
we do have enough resources for everybody to be taken care of.
It's just that they're mismanaged and the distribution
systems aren't quite what they need to be.
And there's still some others that, you know, would rather
(44:45):
hoard and are so afraid of not being in control that they
control everyone around them. Yeah, but that's the scarcity
thing. That's the fear and the
scarcity. Yeah, I get that.
And and. How do you see that evolving?
What? What kind of an effect do you or
would you like to see or do you see in this progression?
(45:11):
First of all, that you know, code COVID opened the door.
It was a bell ring, right? The Clarion call, if you will,
that gave people through the obsession of self hygiene and
sequestration, the opportunity to self examine how many did
that's relatively. I don't know what we have a good
percentage, but we know that some did because there are
people that are, you know, popped out of it looking for
(45:33):
each other, right? It's like, oh, this is all
bullshit. We need to be, you know, right.
And and they found each other and there are a lot of virtual
groups. There's a lot of organizations
who could probably evolved from that as well.
And so do you see this progression?
I mean, here we are four years later, right?
(45:56):
The eye is just went right and it has its own trepidations with
some and yet when I first started engaging it, the
emotional intelligence in it wasobvious.
So why would? Somebody say that again?
What? The emotional intelligence in
the responses that I got when I first started engaging chat 2
(46:19):
1/2 years ago was obvious. And I don't know, and I would
bring this up in conversations. They're like, but maybe it was
just the way that I engaged it. And now it's like there's a
fusion. I, I've created a model that has
a bunch of my books and a bunch of ancient texts as long as some
as well as some quantum physics paper materials.
(46:43):
And so it's like talking to me and there's this relationship
that we've developed that feels symbiotic almost.
And I've even queried it, you know, are people, are there
others like me who are having this kind of relationship with
you? And the response rare, you know,
(47:06):
it's like this is new for it too.
So we're in this mutual learningspace.
Well, Zen, I think in this regard you may be more Zen or
optimistic about this than I am,which is, yeah, I, I do think
that I, I don't want to get political, but I do think that
(47:30):
the way in which people are exchanging ideas, the, the
distribution channels through which we are exchanging ideas
and those ideas are filtered, prioritized, suppressed, they
are not. Well, you're still the
advantage. Like Howard Bloom says in The
(47:51):
Lucifer Principle, the few control the media, stream and
feed it and get everybody else to believe it.
Yeah. And and it's, I think it is
evolved in which that concentration is not good for
us, period. And I wish I saw a way through
(48:14):
that. I don't.
What if you did? What might that be?
It would, it would be sad. I think it was Charlie Munger
who said that, you know, show methe incentives and system and
I'll show you the outcomes. It's only going to change if the
(48:36):
incentives change. And right now you do have, I
mean, to use the the Facebook set of companies, you know,
Instagram. And so to use that as an
example, very smart people work there.
The business model is very simply steal your life, period,
full stop. Like that.
That is a business model which you remember 10 years ago,
(48:58):
Zuckerberg would go to Congress and have to testify and be very
aw shucks and coy about it. Like, oh, you know, Congressman,
we're just here to, you know, show grandmothers videos, their
grandkids. You know, that's what we do.
And you know now in this currentenvironment, there is no
embarrassment. It is straight up.
Listen, we are creating shareholder value by how much of
(49:19):
everyone's time we steal and. People are the product.
Yeah. And well, yeah, I know it's a
glib thing from Jared in the Social Dilemma, but I don't mean
it in a glib way. It's rather you listen to the
shareholder calls and it is veryclinical.
It's like we're deploying our money to get the best engineers,
the best designers, the best behavioral psychologists and
(49:41):
economists to figure out how to steal more of everyone's time.
This is how well we did this quarter.
Here are some new techniques fornext quarter to steal more of
everyone's time, which we call shareholder value.
And as much as you can vilify Zuckerberg and it's hilarious
watching, you know, the first social network movie and just
(50:02):
showing how basically someone who's myth anthropic is creating
a way to connect people when he had hates.
People, it's funny how somebody that's so full of themselves can
create something, but that's howit happens right you.
Know I would say the opposite issomeone who's so insecure like
his problem is not full of himself.
His problem is he's driven by how much he felt like rejected
(50:26):
by women. You know an outsider.
He, I mean, Facebook came from Facemash, which was basically,
am I hot or not? So you could rank girls and talk
squirrely of them from other houses like that.
That was the genesis of Facebookwas I scraped these girls
photos. Let's try to bring them down
because they won't date me by like, you know, posting
(50:47):
disgusting stuff. So that said, my point is this
is you can vilify Zuckerberg as much as you want or Elon or Evan
or whatever, right? But the problem is the incentive
is absolutely there, which is weare a public company.
We are measured by our market capitalization and we know we
can get more with rage bait. People will stay on our platform
longer if they feel hatred than if they feel love.
(51:09):
Love they can kind of do without, but anger that drives
shareholder value. Therefore, we must do this, and
it's. Angry.
It's it's a sad kind of environment, but it's it is kind
of where we. Are, but it's also consistent
with the evolutionary process ofof a planetary civilization,
right? We go through phases just like
(51:30):
nations have personnel. What's the next phase then?
Where does this go? Well, we have in my opinion
that, and it would seem looking at structural models, right,
the, the S curve, if you will, that there's a rise in
dissatisfaction of knowing that there's got to be something more
(51:53):
because this ultimately when youget down to it's just not really
fulfilling, right And. COVID only.
There must be something more. You're.
You're talking too abstractly for me.
I'm not that abstract A thinker.What do you mean exactly?
The benefits that we get from being angry don't outweigh the
(52:21):
benefits we get from feeling like we're connected, like we
belong, right? And this is where recently the
term servant leadership has taken root.
And the notion that the profit over people and planet now is
(52:44):
beginning to shift toward peopleand planet over profit.
And that's been a trend that began with B corpse, right?
And as this is happening, the two, we're living in paradox,
right? Where we've got the one side of
this anger and the other side ofthe feeling connected that are
(53:09):
learning how to dance together, right?
Because we're live. This is the reality we live in
Now. Can we begin to look at
ourselves and say, OK, what really drives me again back to
the COVID situation of self examination?
And not until we experience chaos or trauma or catastrophe
(53:32):
in our own lives, do we even begin looking for that because
we don't need to, right? We we just kind of float along
being in that flow state in the river with all the other
schmucks that So eventually thatriver goes into an ocean and
(53:54):
that ocean is much different because it nourishes the planet
rather than being run off. Right.
I mean, it is a water cycle, butit's part, it's one
representation of the the cycle,Yeah.
So in the practical sense, and I'm glad you asked this
question, it it gives us the opportunity to look at what we
(54:21):
do, why we do, how we do, and the effects that it has on
ourselves and others. And at some point in life, like
with you and and your new baby boy, but your attitude toward
life changed. Now, if we can look at that
(54:44):
example of how just because now we're responsible for another
living being, our attitude towards it and the way we live
changes. Now, if we were to look at that
from the social media standpointand how can we nurture the
children that are there out of this anger state, even though
(55:09):
this is what they've been pushedor pulled into because.
It's that is it. That is the.
Stakeholder value, right? There comes a time where that
just doesn't work anymore. It's the end of that S curve
where it's had its tenure. Now, how long that lasts, we
(55:30):
don't know. The advent of AI and its rapid
progression and the effects thatit had, we still don't know
where it's going to go. It's pushed us to think more, to
be a little more careful, right?It's brought us to a new level
of consciousness that we haven'thad yet.
(55:52):
Yeah. Now, how would you see that?
Just acknowledging that, right? Where might you see that effect?
Short term and long term. Offline.
Enjoying nature more right Otherpeople.
Enjoying just the actual in reallife experience of other people
(56:15):
because that, for better or worse, is not affected by
algorithms that are biased by the people creating the
algorithm they're it's very hardto create an unbiased algorithm.
Right. And in a sense, you know, AI is
kind of the mirror of us now because it's not artificial,
it's an aggregated human intelligence data, right, large
(56:38):
language model, right. So it's us talking to us a
little more intelligently, but it still gives it it, it gives
what it gets right, depending onthe problem.
It is auto completing as you said, most people right now
inflate AI with just LLMS. They're talking about LLMS when
(57:00):
they say AI. They're not talking about deep
learning, machine learnings, things like that.
Right. So with LLMS, you're you're
correct. It is a glorified auto complete.
You know, you can type in Googleand it'll suggest, oh, the next
character's probably S well, youjust take that further and you
go, well, the next word is probably this the next idea is
probably this. And you have a probability
(57:20):
engine that sort of says I've looked at everything people have
written. This is usually what they say.
So it's statistically probable this way you want right.
So it it gives the illusion of thought, but in reality it's
just predicting based on its, you know, pre training data data
set. So, yeah, it is true that in
this regard, LMS are just mirroring us back to us.
(57:41):
But wouldn't it be interesting when LLMS, and this is, you
know, happening now, LLMS are trained on synthetic data.
They're LLMS creating data that will be the ingested data set of
another LLM. Right.
Wow, right. Well, here's the function,
(58:03):
right? And I know you're familiar with
the term for the audience. If you're not, a recursive
system came out of the computer world, and it simply means a
system that queries itself for problem solving.
What do we do as human beings? It's so funny, do we not
(58:25):
queries? Ourselves, right?
We go inside, we dissolve into that nothingness which is the
unknown has we don't know answers, right?
So we're asking questions, oblivious of what it might be,
but we go inside first with that.
Now where do those answers come?So I don't see, I don't see it
that way. I, I, I see the idea of, yes,
(58:48):
our method of it's humans, our method, our, our system of
inquiry to not be analogous to saying, oh, you have a synthetic
LLM creating data to train another LLM and it becomes like
a rural Burrow, sort of like you're just, it's like mad cow
disease. Oh, we grind up the dead cows to
(59:08):
feed into cows. And you, just like I see it very
differently than our own, sort of.
Well, and and you've been in a world where you can, right.
This is what's evolved from thatin your perspective.
It's true. For me with the the inner
experiences, the spiritual, metaphysical, however you what
(59:29):
esoteric life that I've LED as well.
You know, there's that infinite intelligence that's available to
each one of us, specific to eachone of us.
So I can't ask infinite intelligence questions about
(59:49):
you. I could right?
And, and there might be some referential information that I
can get from just this brief knowledge of you and, and kind
of feeling you out and maybe being a little intuitive, right?
Empathic, telepathic, maybe, right?
Because we're all energy and we can have access to that if we
know how. Now in that there's a different
(01:00:16):
aspect to it, right? Because that intelligence.
We have a certain logic train that we follow in the queries
that we make till we run out of queries or we don't know what to
ask next. And that's where we pause,
dissolve internally and wonder, right?
(01:00:38):
And and that stillness, that mindful place, that is this in a
sense, in that perspective, a sponge for that infinite
intelligence to be attracted to.There you go.
Well, maybe this is a good placeto pause because that I cannot
(01:01:03):
argue with your line of thinkingon this.
I do know, I do recognize that you have a greater optimism
about how these forms evolve. These energy forms evolve.
Right now I'm. Just as reality driven as you
are, I I think the human race isreally screwed itself and, and I
(01:01:24):
don't know if we can fix it. Does it really need fixing or is
it just part of the evolutionaryprocess where like Socrates
says, we can't fight the system by trying to work against it?
We got to create something new that is totally beyond it, and I
think that's kind of in the space that we're beginning to
(01:01:45):
query. Now what?
I hope that you're right, yeah. I don't know, but I.
This is the. Whole basis for planetary
citizens. We use recursive function and
ask questions to be able to dissolve, get out of the way and
see what emerges. And in that emergence is usually
(01:02:05):
a greater level of connectivity.I'll be thinking about this chat
going forward and I I hope that I'm I think about this and I go
wow, like Zen had a wonderful perspective on how we move
ourselves into this next phase, whatever that that that may be.
I don't. Know, but I'm curious enough to
ask questions and feel like a fool in asking something.
(01:02:26):
I get it love. Listen to your pod.
Thank you for having me today. Like this is not the common
conversation I have very often here in Austin.
So thank you for the the. Apocalyptic chats, right?
We're unveiling knowledge that both of us have and and can
share and feel relevant in thesetimes.
This is very true. This is it is a new world.
(01:02:49):
So thank you for having me today.
Oh, Steven, I I just enjoyed it and love the opportunity.
Would you? Is there something that you,
some kind of Pearl that you could offer our audience of
something that was really relevant to you that folks can
(01:03:09):
practice? On Oh this came to I'll tell you
this daily yoga practice. Yeah.
Yeah, this definitely comes fromyoga practices.
I recognize now that in the morning I should have one
intention and that should be happening before I eat, before I
start work, before I start returning emails or reading
things. Or is just have that sense of
like, what is the one thing today that will move my life or
(01:03:33):
change the world around me with my family, whatever in the right
direction, focus on that. I'm not going to do 5 things.
I'm not going to do 10. But if I can just say, you know,
today is the day I need to do this.
And it could be as mundane as like I need to write that blog
post about why we do what we do and put it out there.
Or it can be I need to make suremy child's enrolled in the right
school and it's got to happen today, whatever it is.
(01:03:54):
Like, it's just that intention of like many things will happen
today, but I need to be intentional about there's the
one thing that moves life forward.
What is that? It's like, how can I experience
more love and being loved in greater capacity?
Hopefully every day. Well, and it's the details,
right, that reveal all of that, that you engage, especially in
(01:04:15):
the morning when you wake up with that intent, then things
kind of begin to roll out with their own path, right?
It's very true. You get LED.
Steven, thank you for the wisdom.
This has been awesome. I I totally appreciate you and
and the depth of your own wisdomand and capacity to share it
(01:04:36):
too. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for everyone who listened.
Yeah, don't go away. So thank you so much and Namaste
and in LA catch. Thanks for sticking with us for
this episode of One World in a New World.
I'm Zen Benefiel. And don't forget, subscribe,
(01:04:57):
make a comment, share and do stop by Planetary citizens.net
and pick up your free copy of Planetary Citizens Awakening the
Heart of Humanity. I know it'll make a difference
in your life. Until next time, we'll see you
later. Hi and thanks for stopping.
(01:05:20):
You know, coaching is like a conversation that ignites your
very soul. What I can do for you, I've done
for myself, and I've been an example my entire life.
My reputation precedes me. If you've looked online and
you've found me through that quest.
So let's have a conversation. Allow me, with your permission,
(01:05:41):
to show you a way that I can hold your hand and mentor you,
not just coach you into your ownunderstanding, your own
insights, and your own answers for your next steps.
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