Steven Puri shares his journey from Hollywood exec to tech founder, revealing how failure, focus, and flow states power reinvention. In this episode we discuss:
- How transferable skills led him from Die Hard to startups
- Why failure is a critical part of reinvention
- How to create intentional, productive workdays
- The surprising story behind naming his company, Sukha
Show Guest
Steven Puri is the Founder and CEO of The Sukha Company, a focus and productivity app designed to support a healthier work life. A former newscaster, software engineer, and Hollywood executive behind Independence Day, Die Hard, and Star Trek, Steven blends creative vision with tech innovation to help people do their best work. Check out the Sukha app and get 20% off for life with the code REFRESH20
Show Notes:
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Jill Griffin, host of The Career Refresh, delivers expert guidance on workplace challenges and career transitions. Jill leverages her experience working for the world's top brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Hilton Hotels, and Martha Stewart to address leadership, burnout, team dynamics, and the 4Ps (perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, and personalities).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, this is Jill Griffin, the host of the
Career Refresh podcast, and I amreally glad you're here today
because I have a treat for youthe Career Refresh.
We are going to talk aboutcareer strategy, navigating your
career, reinventing your careerand transferable skills today
All things that everyone istalking about.
So this might be a good time tograb a pen or get that notes
(00:20):
app ready, because my guest isgoing to be sharing his
experience and I know a lot ofit will be actionable for you.
Stephen Puri is the founder andCEO of the Suka Company, and
its mission is to help millionsof people find their focus,
achieve more and to have ahealthy work life, and I know we
(00:43):
all want that.
So with that, I welcome Steven.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh boy, this is going to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Of course.
All right, friend, take usthrough a little bit more detail
about your bio on a high level,cause I know everyone's going
to want to hear more about whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, here's the fun reason to listen to this episode
for those who are in their caror at home or at the gym is I
have an unconventional path thatrelates to things Jill has
talked about in the past, whichis I started out in my teens as
a code monkey.
Both parents were engineers soI knew how to code.
I am going to school in LosAngeles and while I was there a
lot of friends were in cinema TVbecause it's Los Angeles.
(01:23):
I was there, a lot of friendswere in cinema TV because it's
Los Angeles.
So I was there when film wentdigital and I happened to be,
luckily, at that intersectionwhere I could talk to an
engineer, I could talk to acreative, and I ended up
producing digital effects for abunch of movies, like the
computer generated effectsmovies when that was a
relatively new thing.
So we won the Academy Award forthe visual effects on
(01:45):
Independence Day which Iproduced.
The digital effects Worked withCameron, finn Schur, woody
Allen, spielberg, a whole bunchof people, val Gibson.
We did Braveheart like a ton ofstuff, super fun, and that led
me to want to make a big careertransition then into producing
films, not just being a techsort of engineering guy, but
actually being a studioexecutive.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, it's such an amazing story to hear how you've
continually used yourtransferable skills.
So again, I want everyone to belistening for that, but
continue.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Sorry to interrupt, Let us just say lucky things
have fallen in my lap and Ithink what I've done is just
trying to make a lot of them.
It's like recognizing luck andthen going, okay, how do I work
hard and make this something?
So when I decided to make thattransition to being a studio
executive, learned a differentset of skills, different lexicon
, different network, built thatand then ended up a few years
(02:36):
later executive vice presidentat DreamWorks for Kurtzman Orsi,
who were the writers ofTransformers and Star Trek and a
bunch of fantastic guys, andVice President Fox, where I ran
the Die Hard franchise, theWolverine franchise, a bunch of
the action movies there.
As you can tell, it did a lotof action summer movies.
And then I had a moment where Iwas like I'm not sure when I
(02:58):
wake up, be like 40, 50, 60years old, being the guy making
Die Hard 9, where you're like,hey, kids, daddy's going to make
Die Hard 9 to pay for yourcollege.
So I went back to the thing thatI knew and I transitioned my
career again into engineering,into tech.
I was like you know what?
Let me find some problems thatI can solve that I think I'm
suited to solve that.
Have tech solutions and let'sgo build some startups.
(03:22):
So in my career I've both donethe film thing.
I've also raised about $21million of venture capital.
I've had one successful exit,which was awesome, and two
failures which were painful butinstructive, and I'm happy to
talk about all of that.
I've really come to a place inmy life where there are some
things that I've learned throughthese different experiences
about how to be intentional andmindful in your work and
(03:43):
navigate this, and that here wego, yeah okay.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So you've talked a lot about using those
transferable skills.
You didn't use that word, thatwas the word I use.
And then moving into the nextthing and there's been a lot of
talk about that s curve andwhether it's disruption of
business or innovation ofbusiness or innovation or
reinvention of yourself, it isan S curve and for anyone, if
you just picture the letter S,there's the start, which is hard
(04:08):
and like you need to get thatflywheel moving and you're like
really stretching to get itmoving.
Then you're in that middle,which might be bumpy but you're
scaling and you're starting toget momentum.
And then you get to mastery.
And if you're like many of us,when you get to mastery it feels
good for a while.
But when you start to findyourself not necessarily
learning things anymore oryou're not in a meeting where
(04:29):
your palms are sweaty and you'reexcited anymore because you're
in mastery, you start.
Most of us then start to figureout we might be in the same job
, we might be in the same title,we might not be moving house in
any way, but then we find howdo we start the bottom of our S
curve again?
What do we need to learn?
(04:51):
But your career, I think isreally interesting, because you
started with technology andengineering, took it to other
places and then I'm guessing,when you started to feel that
level of mastery is when youwent back to say now how do I
take everything I've learned andbring it back through
engineering and technology?
Do I have that right, or is it-?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You have that right.
I'll add one little bit ofcolor to that, which is it was
no kidding, die Hard 5, therewas a thing that just convinced
me like my film career was over,where, when I was at DreamWorks
for four years, it's the laststudio run by a filmmaker and
when I was there it was Stevenand Stacey running it.
It was definitely a sense of gohome tonight and make your
(05:26):
projects 1% better.
Working at Fox, which is NewsCorp, the style really comes
from the top.
The style comes from Rupert andChase.
At the time it was more go hometonight and see if you can make
your projects 1% cheaper.
When we got to a point on DieHard 5 where I was like the
heart of why you make this movieis gone, I was like this is a
(05:47):
business and I give great creditto my boss, the chairman, with
whom I did not get along, but Iwas like he does not treat this
as show art, it's called showbusiness and he very proudly,
you know mashed together theAlien and Predator franchises.
It was like I was the guy whothought of Alien versus Predator
franchises.
It was like I was the guy whothought of Alien versus Predator
.
Okay, that is for him anaccolade.
(06:07):
For me it would be like am Igoing to look back on my
deathbed and go man, I did somegreat genre mashups.
Remember we took like piratesand dancing and made that pirate
dancing movie.
That was brilliant, right, andthat for me was really impetus
of like what am I doing with mylife?
Because, as you know, when youget wealthy, you just no amount
(06:29):
of money can buy more time.
It's one thing you can have thebest food, you can have the
best massage, you got the bestvacation but you can't buy more
time.
And I was like I am now wastingmy time here making like a
diehard movie that doesn'tdeserve to be made, and I'll
make a diehard six if I stay andit doesn't deserve to be made.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right.
So really interesting andintrospective.
So it was wanting to makesomething 1% better creatively
versus 1% cheaper, right?
That's what I'm hearing you say.
And then the second thing youmentioned.
Well, so I think it's also justto call out you had been
working long enough at aparticular salary, long enough
(07:09):
that you also had the privilegethen to be able to say let me
pause and look at thisdifferently, or how do I want to
contribute?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
privileges of fantastic word and I'm very
grateful that you know I havehad a lot of luck in my life and
also worked very hard.
Where I am not wrestling with,where does the next meal come
from, right?
Right, yeah, and the parentsboth wrestled with that.
I would say that drives me.
My parents worked very hard tomake sure I would not understand
what their life was like whenthey were young.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
And again, I say that not Imean no one, like I said, no one
handed you anything you workedfor.
But I say that just forsomebody who might be listening
to this and say, but I don'thave six months savings to be
able to restart or rethink.
So I want to keep thatperspective as we go through
this and see how we can?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I did not early in my career.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hadmultiple roommates to make it
work, and there's a lot of funstories that come out of that
New York City apartment with astudio apartment and there's
still a wall down the center.
I had a roommate just after USCin Hollywood and our apartment
(08:14):
manager.
One day we found out she was astripper by night.
We're like this seems like yeah, this is that building where
our manager's also a stripper.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, making coin, there you go Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Making cash man, yeah , making coin.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
There you go, okay, so, in addition to knowing that
you had the savings, so therewas risk reputationally, there
was risk for your own intellectand your own innovation and
probably your own feeling ofself-worth, and those are real
things that are gonna show up ina career.
What else did you think aboutin order to say how do I take
this and bring it back intotechnology?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Okay, this is a great story of a stupid mistake that
I made and hopefully I'velearned from right.
So I mentioned to you I had onesuccessful exit.
So in my twenties I got alongvery well when we did
Independence Day with thedirector and producer of the
movie, right?
So there I am, like 24, 25years old, and we decided to
start a company together to dovisual effects.
(09:09):
Raised $15 million, which isnot incredibly hard when your
film just won an Academy Awardfor visual effects, right?
So we did that Exited a coupleof years later Daswerk, a big
German conglomerate good, analoghere would be like Liberty
Media.
They bought us out and, as onethinks, in their 20s gosh, I'm
(09:29):
really smart, I'm really good atthis, I've sold a company, I'm
invincible, I'm good looking Allthe stupid things you think
when you're in your 20s, right?
So then when I made thedecision to leave Fox which is
mutual with my boss, even thoughthey kept me there an extra
year just to run out my contractI was like we both know I'm
leaving after this contract whenI went and said, oh well,
(09:50):
what's the other thing?
I know how to do.
Well, I know engineering.
Let me go see how I can applythat in this new world of
startups, which has become verypopular by the 2010s.
My first company failed right,and some of the things that were
painful and failures, the way Icaptured them is when I reached
(10:11):
the moment of I have to go backto my investors, who invested
about 3.1 million into thisright and have the shameful
conversation.
I use that reference to yourBrene Brown recent episode right
, but the picture I painted ofwhat we're going to build.
We are not going to get there.
We've tried everything I canthink of, and raising more money
would be in bad faith becausethere's not something new to try
.
It's a blue didn't get thereright.
(10:33):
We got to about 60,000 monthlyactives.
We need hundreds of thousandsto raise a series of right, so
we're going to pull the plugrather than go forward and waste
more money.
Horrible conversation, maybebecause everyone I knew in film
was watching.
You left a job as a seniorexecutive at a motion picture
studio.
There are like 30 of those jobson earth.
(10:53):
You left one to go do thisstartup thing right, and this is
now over 10 years ago when itwasn't quite as cool as it is
now and I just felt like I wouldgo to the dry cleaners and I
bumped into someone who was likehow's your company going?
I'm like I'm going to shut itdown.
I failed, right, it was awful,but I did capture that.
I did sit in a chair at myhouse with a pad of paper and I
wrote down while the wounds arebleeding.
What did I learn?
(11:14):
Not a year later, when you'relike oh, it wasn't that bad and
life goes on.
No, right now, when I feel likean abject failure.
What are the things I wouldtell myself two years ago?
Do you recall?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
any of those things to share with them.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
No, Are you kidding?
I have a piece of paper righthere.
Those are gold.
This is my Bible.
I think we repeat our mistakesunless we are very intentional,
and a lot of what I wanted toshare with you today is about
intention and mindfulness andhow to get the most out of your
day right.
But to bring this to aconclusion, the number one thing
on that piece of paper waslisten, and it was a very, very
(11:48):
powerful thought for me abouthow how close am I to the people
with the problem that I'msolving, that I'm listening to
them, not projecting onto themwhat I think they want.
Right, and that has guided meto success with my current
company.
But, man, I had a painfullesson there and, like you said,
there was a lot of.
I can't believe I was a studioexecutive and now I have a
(12:09):
failed company and I feel like afailure.
You know and also learned, aswe discussed, people don't think
about you as much as you thinkthey think about you, so it's
like it's sort of passed withtime.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know, yeah, but it's, but it still sings and it
still sings it absolutely stillsings.
So I think for any of ourlongtime listeners, you know I
always say with frequency toevaluate yourself.
I have evaluated myself everyFriday afternoon for about 25
years what worked this week,what didn't work this week, what
(12:43):
would I do, definitely nextweek?
And that is based on myperformance and client meetings,
my pitching, my sales, myeverything I'm doing.
I'm looking at and closest tothe experience that you can do,
that which is what you said.
You sat down and you did it theclosest to the experience out
(13:09):
of a big presentation and youfeel really shaky.
But it's important to captureequally what worked and what
didn't work, because we do havea negative bias and our brain is
, if we don't feel that great,our brain is going to go to all
the reasons why something didn'twork.
But there was also somesuccesses, I have to imagine, in
that, even though it ultimatelywas a failure, if you think
today was there a success thatyou can share that you would
reapply and scale with.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh sure, there is no way I would understand the
modern world of angel andventure institutional investing
if I hadn't done that startupout of Fox right.
So, yes, I define it as afailure, because I raise money
from people with the vision ofwe're going to build these
pyramids.
Ultimately, we did not buildthe pyramids.
We got the money for right.
But along the way a lot ofpeople came and worked for me,
(13:54):
went on and launched theircareers and are now successful
in tech.
I personally have taken thoselessons to launch my current
company.
The things that I saw therereally became the foundation of
the super company.
I was like, oh man, the thingwe get to solve is helping
people really use their day well.
And those were all wins thatcame from that.
But what I meant is I'venoticed that over time you start
(14:17):
to have those rose coloredglasses and if you really want
to capture the lessons, youcan't wait six months or a year
to say, like, what did I do?
It's like capture them now.
And I keep those two sheets ofpaper with my two failed
companies because I know I havea predilection.
I have some predisposition tomake those mistakes.
Unless I correct it, I'm goingto.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think the other thing you said about having two
failed companies is importantfor people to realize that we
often hear about or publicizethe success, whether that's the
bio, the LinkedIn profile, thenetworking we're doing.
I mean I say all the time Ifail more than I succeed,
because I try something newevery single time or every
(14:59):
single day.
I'm always trying.
My successes are huge.
There's a lot of failure and,like I will say with honesty, at
you know, my mid twenties or myearly thirties, failure was
shame, failure was oh my God.
But now I'm just sort of like,come at me, bro, like next next,
(15:21):
exactly it's like okay.
I tried, I tried.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Michael Jordan has a great, great quote which I am
going to mangle, but he's likeno one ever talks about the 27
times I had a game winning shotand I missed it.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know, I was like he did amazing things, but there
were a lot of shots he missedRight, and I think also you know
I'm speaking from a US Americanculture, so I would love to
hear from listeners as thisapplies in your cultures
globally.
So I would love to hear fromlisteners as this applies in
your cultures globally.
But in school, as we're growingup, failure is being held
behind, is repeating, is maybediscipline or punishing, and
(15:59):
we're in a system where failureis not ever looked at
differently and then we carrythat lens all through our
schooling.
Then we get out into our firstjobs and the same thing again I
get it, someone's got a, youknow, money and, uh, an effort
involved.
So failure can also mean thosethings.
But it's when you understand.
(16:20):
I think what silicon valley andthe tech companies have taught
us is that how do we, likeyou're saying, look at, yeah, it
was a failure, we're not goingto gloss over it.
There's still learning here thatcan be applied, and I know my
years working with Microsoft ina strategy and innovation role.
(16:41):
They first taught me about whatthey call the wallow and I was
like, well, that just soundsdepressing.
What's the wallow?
And after every launch and Idon't mean, I mean every launch,
whether it's, like you know,1.0, 1.2 or 2.1, right, like
every single launch, they have awallow and they sit in there
(17:03):
and they have a very systematicway of looking at success,
failure and learnings and I waslike, oh, this is a step change,
like this is a new way of justalso appreciating that like
people still need to bemotivated, they need to feel the
morale, they need to feel like,yeah, okay, we didn't win, but
there's good here and it's notjust all failure, and I think
(17:25):
that that's something that ifpeople can take away even
anybody who's a parent in the,in the learning of your
children- I mean, you do notknow, Jill, I'm going to become
a dad in November.
I didn't know that.
Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And you just touched on something that, lauren, I
talk about, which is when ourchild will have failures.
When they do that, the thing Iwant to train myself to ask,
like you said, is well, what didyou learn?
Not, you know, like, oh God,you got to do better next time.
It's not that feeling of like,oh, I'm down on you, you should
(18:01):
be depressed.
It's rather the thing of like,oh, what a great opportunity.
What did you learn today?
Yeah, yeah, and just make thatthe thing.
It's just, oh, this is a greatlearning Cool.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, and, for full disclosure, I am child free.
However, I have multiplechildren around me, and plenty.
I'm a godmother to many, and Iwas talking with a dear friend
of mine whose son is verysuccessful in sports and is
going division one at thecollege level shortly very
(18:31):
successful in sports and isgoing division one at the
college level shortly and it wasjust sharing how, every time in
a particular game, wheneverthey failed, the coach would
have them on the sidelinesduring the game doing pushups.
I'm like, oh okay, so let'sburn their energy out more, love
the public and caning for them,and do you think that's going
(18:53):
to motivate them anymore?
And then I was like you knowwhat?
Then I started designing in myhead a picture of who this
individual was, and guess what?
I was right, but I think it'sinteresting takeaways around
failure.
All right, I want to get backto you though, but I still think
it's a really important.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Okay, let's get back to me.
This feels great.
Go on.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Let's talk about what you're doing now.
You've mentioned a couple oftimes about being intentional,
how to be productive in your day, so talk about the SUGA company
.
I'd love for you to tell us whythe name.
Dig a little bit into whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay.
So let me start from problemsthat I have, because if anyone
is again driving around home andraise their hand going, yeah, I
get that.
Maybe this is a moreinteresting way to talk about it
, which is, I realized that Iand a lot of people I work with
as I was doing these companiesthat were you can call them
remote distributed hybrid, youknow, but it's not.
We're all sitting here underfluorescent lights five days a
(19:51):
week, eight hours a day, kind ofcopy right.
So it's, you need to bring yourown kind of like structure and
discipline to do something andstuff can sprawl, right.
I found that what needed to getdone today could have taken
eight or 10 hours, could alsohave taken four.
Ooh, okay.
And then you know, you go andyou read the books because a lot
(20:11):
of smart people have writtenabout this.
So when you read Flow by MihalyCsikszentmihalyi, the
Hungarian-American, we can talkabout flow states.
When you read James Clear andCal Newport, whom I got to meet,
and Near, whom I got to meetthese guys, and there is a great
commonality between what theytalk about and write.
And let me be super blunt,there's so much commonality
between what they talk about andwrite, and let me be super
(20:31):
blunt, there's so muchcommonality that, yes, they may
have different lexicons anddifferent acronyms with things,
mnemonics to have you rememberstuff but they really agree upon
the core five or six principlesof how to manage your day and
not have your day get away fromyou.
And that became superinteresting to me.
So when you talk about how didI bring value from what I call
(20:52):
my failures, this was one of thebiggest things where I was like
wow, we could have been moreefficient, I could have been
happier in my day if I'd donethese things.
How do you make one button thatdoes them right?
So, problem one I call it mycold start problem, which is in
the morning tomorrow, 9 am, I'mgoing to get started on X, y, z,
which I have to get done right,but I would find myself
(21:13):
tomorrow morning at like 9.15,still kind of returning emails
from my inbox, going through thenews or something to be
informed or whatever, right.
So 9.30,.
I got rolling and I was likethat's a problem, let's peel
back the onion, okay.
Layer one is, let's call itwhat it is I'm procrastinating.
Okay.
Layer two why?
In my case, overwhelmed, and Iwas like okay why am I?
(21:34):
overwhelmed and it came down totwo things it was I looked at my
task list and it was long.
I was like there's 17 things onhere.
I'm not going to get them alldone.
I don't even know where tobegin.
It's so overwhelming looking atthe number of things, or
something on the list was sowrong as a task so big, it's
like I'm not going to write mybook between now and my 11 am
(21:56):
podcast with Jill.
Why get started?
That's a 14-day, three-monththing and I wrote right.
So that's a goal, that's not atask.
So, with that problem, whichturns into the end of day
frustration, where I would lieto myself, you know what I'm
just going to get up earlytomorrow and before 9 am I'll
finish the stuff from today andthen at 9, I'll start tomorrow's
(22:18):
work.
It's a lie, it's just dominoesthrough the week and I would
find myself reinforcing thisthing of like God, I'm not good
at managing my time, I'm notgoing to get, and I hated that
and every now and then I'd havea win day and be like this feels
great.
Okay, what are the conditionsprecedent that made that a win
day?
So it's simple stuff.
For example and I'm talking nowabout Suka, the platform I
(22:41):
built.
In the morning my smartassistant looks at my task list
with me and just says let'schoose three things, steven,
what are the three priorities?
And then when I work, the other14 are hidden away.
I can't see them and itsuddenly reduces for my ADD,
medically diagnosed.
I don't mean that in acolloquial way, but like I do
have ADD, like I believe I canmultitask, I believe I can get
(23:02):
more things done than I canright, it really reduced the
overwhelm.
Well, I look up, I'm like, ohman, I can get those three done.
Since we did that on ourplatform, our members have a 77%
better chance of finishingthree things than finishing two.
Simply by hiding the stuff, youdon't get overwhelmed.
That's how powerful that thingwas for other people, not just
me.
(23:22):
Which metrics?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
are how I know that.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
The other thing is, if it sees something stupid big,
it's like Stephen, you're notgoing to write your book this
morning.
My smart assistant's like howabout outline chapter three,
because I see in your task listyou finished chapters one and
two.
Outline.
Like you can do that in half anhour.
Let me throw it in as one ofyour three things this morning
and it just makes it moreachievable.
And you know how it is.
It's that positivereinforcement.
(23:45):
We were like horseman a littlebit, like I got my three things
done.
I'm good at this.
I'm excited to do it tomorrowmorning.
And you asked me about how Inamed my company.
I met laura, my wife, in yoga.
Right, I married the girl onthe yoga mat to my left not
kidding, that is a literalexpression, right.
So yoga is a part of our dailylife which she's obviously
struggling with now with herbelly but you know we're doing
(24:07):
prenatal yoga for her On ourhoneymoon.
A couple of years ago we had aworking title for this thing.
We're building, right the flowstate app to help people get
into flow.
Let's talk to the Lord.
We're going to Bali, which is agreat place when you do yoga.
Spend 10 days just hanging outwith your new wife, right.
So on the way there I said toher you know what I want to find
(24:27):
?
The name I want to find likewait, amazon's a great name, but
it doesn't really say likebookstore number four.
You know, like Nike doesn'treally say like shoe store, but
you remember them.
I want to find that mail app.
And Laura, of course, was likeI wish that for you.
I hope your unconscious mindbubbles that up or the universe
helps you find that thing overthe next few days.
So that thing over the next fewdays.
(24:54):
So we got there.
I said I think someone help isdo you mind today if I have a
quick Zoom with like maybe twoor three people that are members
of our community and just askthem what's their favorite thing
?
Maybe that'll be good seedsthat'll bloom over the next week
or two, right?
So she's like I'm going to thepool, enjoy.
I'll see you at dinner.
I know so I did.
I spoke to three people, askedthe usual questions like hey, I
just asked for 10 minutes.
What's your favorite feature?
Why do you use it?
Great.
The third guy when I was goingto the wrap up, like Jill, thank
(25:15):
you so much for your time.
It's eight minutes in.
I'm going to let you go now.
He said, steven, you asked thewrong questions.
And I was like, okay, guy, thatI don't know that well, thank
you for that.
What was the question I shouldhave asked?
He said you should have askedme why I pay you.
And I was like, okay, I mean,it's 30 cents a day, it's not
(25:36):
like a birkin bag every monthyou know like why do you pay me?
he's like I found I have twokinds of days at three o'clock I
could be playing with my kidsthey're two and four or at six
o'clock I'd be down on myself.
I'm like where did the day go?
I'd pay you because my kids arenot between four forever okay
(26:00):
okay, wow, so I go to dinnerwith laura.
I was like I spoke to this dudetoday.
He's more articulate about whatI'm doing than I am and this is
what he said.
She's like that's really good.
So that night we're going tobed brushing our teeth.
She looks at me, she goes.
You know what?
You wanted the universe tospeak to you.
It spoke to you through thatguy.
You know, in yoga we hear pranaand karma and dharma and all
(26:21):
these like sanskrit concepts.
He described sukkah to you.
He described that feeling ofthe self-fulfillment you feel,
the happiness you feel whenyou're in your lane doing the
thing you're good at.
There's your name and I boughtthat domain from bed that night
on my phone when I looked up thehappiness company, the super
company, and I just bought thesuper, kind of like that's what
I'm going to call it.
(26:43):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It's a lovely story, yeah, Of how, of how also.
I think what I would take awayfrom it too is okay, you were in
a place that was beautiful andyou could pause and rest.
But I think what I always takeaway with it is that when we
find ways whether it's throughhobby or other activities that
are not core to our work and wecan find the pause in our day
(27:06):
and maybe it's an hour, maybeit's a walk in a park or on the
beach or someplace where you canget away A lot of times you can
get into that flow statebecause you let your brain just
wander in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Can I tell you a story about exactly what you
said.
So when I was a young punk,right 20 years old, working at
this ad agency in Hollywood, oneof my first transition jobs
into entertainment my job at thetime was for the agency which
did trailers, so studios, warnerBrothers, buena Vista, which
was Disney.
They would send us rough cutsof movies.
(27:39):
This is coming out this summer,it's coming out this fall.
Help us with the trailer, right?
My job was get them in in,assign them to a writer,
producer to write the trailerand would send the draft back to
the studio, right, run by thesetwo guys who are like 20 years
older than I had been doing thisfor ages, very well respected
in the industry, right, greatpromo guys.
One of them, jeff, comes to myoffice and he said to me uh, he
(28:02):
was calling stevie, I don't knowwhy he's like Stevie.
I was like, yeah, he's like youknow Bart.
I was like there's a guy in thevault who delivers tapes named
Bart.
I've met him in the elevator.
I think, yeah, he goes.
You ever get Bart of a trailer,right?
I was like Bart, the guy whodelivers the tapes.
Right, are we talking about thesame part?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He's like yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'm like I haven't.
Jeff, where are you going withthis?
He's like I'm an instinct.
Give him something.
Okay, You're the name on thedoor.
You've been doing this for 20years.
I'm on a question.
Got it Done?
Jeff comes to my office twodays later.
How's Bart doing?
I was like Jeff.
I gave him his first movie.
I gave him a rough cut fromsome beam title at Warner
Brothers.
That's like a month deadline.
I was like I gave him thatthing two nights ago.
(28:43):
I haven't bugged him yet.
I don't want to blow his brainout.
Okay, steve, that's good.
So what else did you give him?
It's like he's never written atrailer before.
I gave him one trailer.
He goes.
Steve, let me teach yousomething about creativity.
It's always about the otherthing he's like listen, if you
give Bart one thing to work on,he's going to stare at that
(29:04):
thing with little beads of sweatcoming down his temples and
he's going to come up with themost obvious B version of a
trailer you have ever seen inyour life.
Because the part of your brainthat does the oh huh chocolate
peanut butter what are thosereally together?
That's not the part you thinkyou're thinking with, so you
have to give him another movieto work on.
That's not the part you thinkyou're thinking with, so you
(29:27):
have to give them another movieto work on.
Can I tell you in my film andtech careers how right I've seen
Jeff Groovin for decades.
What you just said.
There's actually a great bookabout the neuroscience called
the Net and the Butterfly, whichis about the default mode and
the executive mode network,which is why so many people,
including hello, yours truly,right here.
Oh, I had this great idea whenI was showering this morning,
driving, going for a walk, doingthe dishes because your
(29:49):
executive mode network isexecuting some action that you
think you're focused on washingthe dishes, while the back of
your mind, like the baby brain,gets to go oh, I don't know
what's the cell phone taste like?
Tastes, like you know, andthat's incredibly cool.
That was a great insight thathas carried me through so many
fun successes, also with writersin Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I was going to say, I mean, if anyone is writing,
whether personally, or has adream of writing, Stephen King
on writing and I'll also put ina plug yes, the written word,
but the audio book.
He actually is the voice, thenarrator in the audio book and
it's such a fabulous, fabulousbook on writing and it is, it's
really important.
(30:30):
I have a client right now whohas made a decision because of
her lifestyle and things thatshe needs, that she's getting up
at 4am and she is writing fortwo hours every morning before
conversation, children, socialmedia, news, right, she's
creating a sacred and it givesher time that then she goes out
(30:52):
about her does, knows all thethings she needs to achieve, but
that quiet time is reallyimportant to like.
Let the flow happen.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I got another one for you, ron Bass, who wrote, you
know, rain man, my Best Friend'sWedding, all these movies,
right?
This ties into the concept ofchronotype, which you've seen a
lot of smart people write about,right?
So Ron Bass was an attorney whodecided he wanted to be a
screenwriter and he was famousfor this thing which you just
(31:21):
brought up.
In the morning he told hisfamily listen, I can't talk to
you about whether we're havingpancakes.
Did you do your homework?
I can't talk to you, wouldn'ttalk to his wife.
He would get up, go to hisoffice and write for three or
four hours.
Because he said, what Irealized is I can't hear my
characters in my head once Istart talking with you.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It's really.
I mean, I didn't hear it.
I hadn't heard that before, butI have a similar thing where,
again, you know, there's two ofus and a dog in the house.
There's no children, but often,as my husband's prepping for
his day and I'm prepping for myday, we each might have one
earbud in.
That's the way that we say,like one earbud so you can
(32:03):
listen to whatever it is thatyou need to, and I might be
listening to very low-keymeditative music as I'm starting
what I need to do so that I getinto my prime state to then
start writing and creating thatis cool that you use sound that
way, because I'll tell you, it'sone of the things that I
learned in research, which is,it is true, for flow states
which we can talk about ifthat's interesting for your
(32:25):
audience.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
But to get into that flow state, there is a lot of
research on what sort of themost probable music is that will
get you there, which is about60 to 90 beats per minute,
certain signatures, melodic,rhythmic, non-vocal music.
I happen to have a lot offriends who are film composers
with time on their hands so theybring like a thousand hours
(32:45):
with the platform.
Super interesting.
Yes, we all have the friend whogets in their flow state
listening to nineties gangsterrap or death metal.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
They're the outlier.
I mean, I definitely listenedto some Eminem and got into my
flow state Okay, so I'm justsaying there is that.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
But there is that middle of the road thing, so
there are many, obviously,flavors of that.
There's like the whole lo-figenre.
We have three playlists.
Playlists are just lo-fi.
We've got, you know, upbeat,down tempo, a lot of kind of
things like that.
And here's a realization I had,again, just again, listen, one
of the things I'm really tryingto do as I say this as I'm
talking, which is so ironic.
I say this as I'm talking,which is so ironic.
(33:21):
We had a number of people inthe community say you know what
I always associate being focusedwith, like being at this lake
or being by this body of water,whatever.
Can you provide me that?
Coincidentally, one of oursound engineers was in Kathmandu
and came back and said, oh myGod, it rained while I was there
and it just sounded sodelicious.
(33:41):
I recorded two hours of rain inthe Himalayas.
So we're like you know what,let's create a playlist and see
if anyone likes it.
It was just Himalayan dreamrain.
I called it right, it was a hugehit Now sounds of Emerald Lake
in Canada, we have a stream inJapan.
If you want to hear a gurglingbrook, we have Cypress surf, if
you like, hearing the surf hitthe beach.
(34:02):
And it's interesting how, forsome people, that kind of like
rhythm thing is even better thanlistening to what we call
traditionally music music ofnature, you would call it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
I mean.
For me, words can distract me,so sound is better.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
for me Are you listening to Eminem right now?
Be honest for me.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
So I'm listening to Eminem right now, be honest.
But but I also have um.
I have a playlist that I callpump and it's something that I
often give to clients of justmusic that is with words and is.
I don't know what the beats perminute is, but it is words that
are sort of like your psychsong.
Like you got into this you'vegot a presentation, you've got a
job interview, You've got a big, important meeting, right, and
how do you get into state thatway, which often involves
(34:50):
physically moving?
I don't necessarily meanexercise, but like stand up and
listen versus sitting down, andif you're standing, that's it.
It's your state of where you'rephysically at.
So tell a little bit more aboutwhat this app does and, if
anyone's interested, like who'sit?
For?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I know it's about focus, but tell us a little bit
more about that I'll tell you tobe super blunt and I don't
market it this way is it's aflow state app and let me take
like 30 seconds and talk aboutflow states.
For anyone who doesn't know,this is for you.
For those who already know, youcan just nod your head and be
like I feel smart, right?
So Hungarian-Americanpsychologist who's now I
mentioned, mihalyCsikszentmihalyi, had a thesis.
(35:31):
He's like high performers seemto get into these states of
concentration where they dogreat work, they do it
efficiently, the world fallsaway.
I want to study that.
He is ultimately, the person whonamed this.
His seminal book is called Flowand what he said was this he
said I have looked at athleteswho do this.
I have looked at artists, I'velooked at inventors.
(35:53):
It is amazing how there's somuch commonality about how their
minds and their spirits aresort of trained to be like.
Now's the moment where I do thething right and they call it
different things.
I always love that MichaelJordan quote where he calls it
the zone.
He's like when I'm in the zone,it's me and the ball and just
the scoreboard falls away.
The defenders don't exist, thestands aren't there, it's just.
(36:14):
You see him in that momentwhere he's doing incredible
things.
It's just me and the ball.
And there's a Picasso quoteabout I was up all night, I
forgot to pee, I didn't drink orhave dinner.
I think I lost track of time.
But hey, gernika, like what doyou think?
Do you like it?
And that he was like, how do Imake that accessible to people?
(36:38):
And a lot of what I'm trying todo is say, okay, how do I take
the learnings of you know ofbehind and and others, and make
them accessible to people,really available?
So he said you know what?
There are things that they do.
There's a kind of task thatseems to get people in a flow
where you have to have someskills that apply toward it.
So it's not Michael Jordanpainting, it's not Picasso
playing basketball, right,they're not going to get into
flow state, right.
(36:58):
So you have to have skills toapply.
You'd be somewhat challenged,like it's not stapling TPS
reports, even if that's your jobat work, like kind of A right.
So you have to have some abilitythat applies to it, you have to
be somewhat challenged, youhave to believe it's meaningful.
And then there are those tricksthat we offer, just like how do
you time box things, how do youapply music sometimes to help
(37:19):
you get there.
So I say all that to set thetable.
What I firmly believe is, ifyou want to have that three
o'clock, I feel great, I knockthis out and I play with my kids
or go windsurfing.
Whatever you want to do, youcan get there if you're
intentional.
Which brings us back to thevery beginning of when you and I
first met, right, and we talkedabout this for the episode,
(37:41):
which is we made an app that, ifyou have an intention, it's
simply a website.
You just literally open thesuperco, the super company, and
when you hit play, it can putyour computer in.
You know, do not disturb.
If you open a website that'slike YouTube, cnn, you know,
whatever.
There's a smart assistantthat'll nudge you.
Jill, do you really need to bein CNN right now?
(38:02):
Is that how, being a tool done?
There's a smart assistant thatwill nudge you.
Jill, do you really need to bein CNN right now?
Is that how you get your workdone.
It's amazing the way, once youjust have that opportunity to
say who do I want to be, youknow, I want to be the guy or
girl at 3 pm and stuff I don'treally need to be in CNN right
now.
Right, there's beautiful music,there's time boxing, there's
all those kind of things andcommunity people.
So that's really what I do issay how we bring people together
(38:24):
to do the things you're capableof, because I have a thesis we
all have something great inside.
The question of this lifetimeis are you going to get it out
or not?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that, isn't it?
I mean, I think it wasElizabeth Gilbert who made it
more widely known.
But any of us that have studiedany of the ancient literature,
it of the ancient literature,it's the idea that it's already
in there and we just have tocarve it away.
And how do we bring it?
Like whether it's scolangelo,right, they believe me.
(38:54):
I have an uncle who's an expertwith a whittler and yeah, I
mean, his creations are amazing.
Um, but same thing where he'll?
He kind of sees the wood andknows what's in there and then
release it.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I love that.
That's really cool, Steven.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
This has been such a treat, I think, having just a
conversation around what you'redoing and intention and flow,
and also the transferable skills, a lot of people a possibility.
You don't all have to have theanswer now.
Again, remember that S curve.
You're in something, you're inthe start of getting it going.
Sometimes it feels hard andyou're like what am I doing?
(39:32):
So starting and getting intothe flow state and giving
yourself carved out time and,whether you're using an app like
Steven or you're using it justwithin yourself, finding that
time to pause and let yourselfdo two things at once, which
might be, yes, I have a job, butI'm also walking right now, or
I'm giving myself time.
I think all of that is really,really helpful.
(39:53):
I want to hear from all of you.
If you have questions, we willbring Steven back.
We will dig deeper.
Whatever you want to hear moreabout flow states, we will bring
him back.
Send any of your questions tohello at jillgriffincoachingcom
and until next time, I'm goingto tell you to embrace the flow,
be intentional and always,always, always, be kind.
Thanks, Stephen.
I really appreciate you beinghere.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Thank you guys.
Hey everyone, this is Jill Griffin, the host of the
Career Refresh podcast, and I amreally glad you're here today
because I have a treat for youthe Career Refresh.
We are going to talk aboutcareer strategy, navigating your
career, reinventing your careerand transferable skills today
All things that everyone istalking about.
So this might be a good time tograb a pen or get that notes
(00:20):
app ready, because my guest isgoing to be sharing his
experience and I know a lot ofit will be actionable for you.
Stephen Puri is the founder andCEO of the Suka Company, and
its mission is to help millionsof people find their focus,
achieve more and to have ahealthy work life, and I know we
(00:43):
all want that.
So with that, I welcome Steven.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh boy, this is going to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Of course.
All right, friend, take usthrough a little bit more detail
about your bio on a high level,cause I know everyone's going
to want to hear more about whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, here's the fun reason to listen to this episode
for those who are in their caror at home or at the gym is I
have an unconventional path thatrelates to things Jill has
talked about in the past, whichis I started out in my teens as
a code monkey.
Both parents were engineers soI knew how to code.
I am going to school in LosAngeles and while I was there a
lot of friends were in cinema TVbecause it's Los Angeles.
(01:23):
I was there, a lot of friendswere in cinema TV because it's
Los Angeles.
So I was there when film wentdigital and I happened to be,
luckily, at that intersectionwhere I could talk to an
engineer, I could talk to acreative, and I ended up
producing digital effects for abunch of movies, like the
computer generated effectsmovies when that was a
relatively new thing.
So we won the Academy Award forthe visual effects on
(01:45):
Independence Day which Iproduced.
The digital effects Worked withCameron, finn Schur, woody
Allen, spielberg, a whole bunchof people, val Gibson.
We did Braveheart like a ton ofstuff, super fun, and that led
me to want to make a big careertransition then into producing
films, not just being a techsort of engineering guy, but
actually being a studioexecutive.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, it's such an amazing story to hear how you've
continually used yourtransferable skills.
So again, I want everyone to belistening for that, but
continue.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Sorry to interrupt, Let us just say lucky things
have fallen in my lap and Ithink what I've done is just
trying to make a lot of them.
It's like recognizing luck andthen going, okay, how do I work
hard and make this something?
So when I decided to make thattransition to being a studio
executive, learned a differentset of skills, different lexicon
, different network, built thatand then ended up a few years
(02:36):
later executive vice presidentat DreamWorks for Kurtzman Orsi,
who were the writers ofTransformers and Star Trek and a
bunch of fantastic guys, andVice President Fox, where I ran
the Die Hard franchise, theWolverine franchise, a bunch of
the action movies there.
As you can tell, it did a lotof action summer movies.
And then I had a moment where Iwas like I'm not sure when I
(02:58):
wake up, be like 40, 50, 60years old, being the guy making
Die Hard 9, where you're like,hey, kids, daddy's going to make
Die Hard 9 to pay for yourcollege.
So I went back to the thing thatI knew and I transitioned my
career again into engineering,into tech.
I was like you know what?
Let me find some problems thatI can solve that I think I'm
suited to solve that.
Have tech solutions and let'sgo build some startups.
(03:22):
So in my career I've both donethe film thing.
I've also raised about $21million of venture capital.
I've had one successful exit,which was awesome, and two
failures which were painful butinstructive, and I'm happy to
talk about all of that.
I've really come to a place inmy life where there are some
things that I've learned throughthese different experiences
about how to be intentional andmindful in your work and
(03:43):
navigate this, and that here wego, yeah okay.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So you've talked a lot about using those
transferable skills.
You didn't use that word, thatwas the word I use.
And then moving into the nextthing and there's been a lot of
talk about that s curve andwhether it's disruption of
business or innovation ofbusiness or innovation or
reinvention of yourself, it isan S curve and for anyone, if
you just picture the letter S,there's the start, which is hard
(04:08):
and like you need to get thatflywheel moving and you're like
really stretching to get itmoving.
Then you're in that middle,which might be bumpy but you're
scaling and you're starting toget momentum.
And then you get to mastery.
And if you're like many of us,when you get to mastery it feels
good for a while.
But when you start to findyourself not necessarily
learning things anymore oryou're not in a meeting where
(04:29):
your palms are sweaty and you'reexcited anymore because you're
in mastery, you start.
Most of us then start to figureout we might be in the same job
, we might be in the same title,we might not be moving house in
any way, but then we find howdo we start the bottom of our S
curve again?
What do we need to learn?
(04:51):
But your career, I think isreally interesting, because you
started with technology andengineering, took it to other
places and then I'm guessing,when you started to feel that
level of mastery is when youwent back to say now how do I
take everything I've learned andbring it back through
engineering and technology?
Do I have that right, or is it-?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You have that right.
I'll add one little bit ofcolor to that, which is it was
no kidding, die Hard 5, therewas a thing that just convinced
me like my film career was over,where, when I was at DreamWorks
for four years, it's the laststudio run by a filmmaker and
when I was there it was Stevenand Stacey running it.
It was definitely a sense of gohome tonight and make your
(05:26):
projects 1% better.
Working at Fox, which is NewsCorp, the style really comes
from the top.
The style comes from Rupert andChase.
At the time it was more go hometonight and see if you can make
your projects 1% cheaper.
When we got to a point on DieHard 5 where I was like the
heart of why you make this movieis gone, I was like this is a
(05:47):
business and I give great creditto my boss, the chairman, with
whom I did not get along, but Iwas like he does not treat this
as show art, it's called showbusiness and he very proudly,
you know mashed together theAlien and Predator franchises.
It was like I was the guy whothought of Alien versus Predator
franchises.
It was like I was the guy whothought of Alien versus Predator
.
Okay, that is for him anaccolade.
(06:07):
For me it would be like am Igoing to look back on my
deathbed and go man, I did somegreat genre mashups.
Remember we took like piratesand dancing and made that pirate
dancing movie.
That was brilliant, right, andthat for me was really impetus
of like what am I doing with mylife?
Because, as you know, when youget wealthy, you just no amount
(06:29):
of money can buy more time.
It's one thing you can have thebest food, you can have the
best massage, you got the bestvacation but you can't buy more
time.
And I was like I am now wastingmy time here making like a
diehard movie that doesn'tdeserve to be made, and I'll
make a diehard six if I stay andit doesn't deserve to be made.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right.
So really interesting andintrospective.
So it was wanting to makesomething 1% better creatively
versus 1% cheaper, right?
That's what I'm hearing you say.
And then the second thing youmentioned.
Well, so I think it's also justto call out you had been
working long enough at aparticular salary, long enough
(07:09):
that you also had the privilegethen to be able to say let me
pause and look at thisdifferently, or how do I want to
contribute?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
privileges of fantastic word and I'm very
grateful that you know I havehad a lot of luck in my life and
also worked very hard.
Where I am not wrestling with,where does the next meal come
from, right?
Right, yeah, and the parentsboth wrestled with that.
I would say that drives me.
My parents worked very hard tomake sure I would not understand
what their life was like whenthey were young.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
And again, I say that not Imean no one, like I said, no one
handed you anything you workedfor.
But I say that just forsomebody who might be listening
to this and say, but I don'thave six months savings to be
able to restart or rethink.
So I want to keep thatperspective as we go through
this and see how we can?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I did not early in my career.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hadmultiple roommates to make it
work, and there's a lot of funstories that come out of that
New York City apartment with astudio apartment and there's
still a wall down the center.
I had a roommate just after USCin Hollywood and our apartment
(08:14):
manager.
One day we found out she was astripper by night.
We're like this seems like yeah, this is that building where
our manager's also a stripper.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, making coin, there you go Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Making cash man, yeah , making coin.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
There you go, okay, so, in addition to knowing that
you had the savings, so therewas risk reputationally, there
was risk for your own intellectand your own innovation and
probably your own feeling ofself-worth, and those are real
things that are gonna show up ina career.
What else did you think aboutin order to say how do I take
this and bring it back intotechnology?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Okay, this is a great story of a stupid mistake that
I made and hopefully I'velearned from right.
So I mentioned to you I had onesuccessful exit.
So in my twenties I got alongvery well when we did
Independence Day with thedirector and producer of the
movie, right?
So there I am, like 24, 25years old, and we decided to
start a company together to dovisual effects.
(09:09):
Raised $15 million, which isnot incredibly hard when your
film just won an Academy Awardfor visual effects, right?
So we did that Exited a coupleof years later Daswerk, a big
German conglomerate good, analoghere would be like Liberty
Media.
They bought us out and, as onethinks, in their 20s gosh, I'm
(09:29):
really smart, I'm really good atthis, I've sold a company, I'm
invincible, I'm good looking Allthe stupid things you think
when you're in your 20s, right?
So then when I made thedecision to leave Fox which is
mutual with my boss, even thoughthey kept me there an extra
year just to run out my contractI was like we both know I'm
leaving after this contract whenI went and said, oh well,
(09:50):
what's the other thing?
I know how to do.
Well, I know engineering.
Let me go see how I can applythat in this new world of
startups, which has become verypopular by the 2010s.
My first company failed right,and some of the things that were
painful and failures, the way Icaptured them is when I reached
(10:11):
the moment of I have to go backto my investors, who invested
about 3.1 million into thisright and have the shameful
conversation.
I use that reference to yourBrene Brown recent episode right
, but the picture I painted ofwhat we're going to build.
We are not going to get there.
We've tried everything I canthink of, and raising more money
would be in bad faith becausethere's not something new to try
.
It's a blue didn't get thereright.
(10:33):
We got to about 60,000 monthlyactives.
We need hundreds of thousandsto raise a series of right, so
we're going to pull the plugrather than go forward and waste
more money.
Horrible conversation, maybebecause everyone I knew in film
was watching.
You left a job as a seniorexecutive at a motion picture
studio.
There are like 30 of those jobson earth.
(10:53):
You left one to go do thisstartup thing right, and this is
now over 10 years ago when itwasn't quite as cool as it is
now and I just felt like I wouldgo to the dry cleaners and I
bumped into someone who was likehow's your company going?
I'm like I'm going to shut itdown.
I failed, right, it was awful,but I did capture that.
I did sit in a chair at myhouse with a pad of paper and I
wrote down while the wounds arebleeding.
What did I learn?
(11:14):
Not a year later, when you'relike oh, it wasn't that bad and
life goes on.
No, right now, when I feel likean abject failure.
What are the things I wouldtell myself two years ago?
Do you recall?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
any of those things to share with them.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
No, Are you kidding?
I have a piece of paper righthere.
Those are gold.
This is my Bible.
I think we repeat our mistakesunless we are very intentional,
and a lot of what I wanted toshare with you today is about
intention and mindfulness andhow to get the most out of your
day right.
But to bring this to aconclusion, the number one thing
on that piece of paper waslisten, and it was a very, very
(11:48):
powerful thought for me abouthow how close am I to the people
with the problem that I'msolving, that I'm listening to
them, not projecting onto themwhat I think they want.
Right, and that has guided meto success with my current
company.
But, man, I had a painfullesson there and, like you said,
there was a lot of.
I can't believe I was a studioexecutive and now I have a
(12:09):
failed company and I feel like afailure.
You know and also learned, aswe discussed, people don't think
about you as much as you thinkthey think about you, so it's
like it's sort of passed withtime.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know, yeah, but it's, but it still sings and it
still sings it absolutely stillsings.
So I think for any of ourlongtime listeners, you know I
always say with frequency toevaluate yourself.
I have evaluated myself everyFriday afternoon for about 25
years what worked this week,what didn't work this week, what
(12:43):
would I do, definitely nextweek?
And that is based on myperformance and client meetings,
my pitching, my sales, myeverything I'm doing.
I'm looking at and closest tothe experience that you can do,
that which is what you said.
You sat down and you did it theclosest to the experience out
(13:09):
of a big presentation and youfeel really shaky.
But it's important to captureequally what worked and what
didn't work, because we do havea negative bias and our brain is
, if we don't feel that great,our brain is going to go to all
the reasons why something didn'twork.
But there was also somesuccesses, I have to imagine, in
that, even though it ultimatelywas a failure, if you think
today was there a success thatyou can share that you would
reapply and scale with.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Oh sure, there is no way I would understand the
modern world of angel andventure institutional investing
if I hadn't done that startupout of Fox right.
So, yes, I define it as afailure, because I raise money
from people with the vision ofwe're going to build these
pyramids.
Ultimately, we did not buildthe pyramids.
We got the money for right.
But along the way a lot ofpeople came and worked for me,
(13:54):
went on and launched theircareers and are now successful
in tech.
I personally have taken thoselessons to launch my current
company.
The things that I saw therereally became the foundation of
the super company.
I was like, oh man, the thingwe get to solve is helping
people really use their day well.
And those were all wins thatcame from that.
But what I meant is I'venoticed that over time you start
(14:17):
to have those rose coloredglasses and if you really want
to capture the lessons, youcan't wait six months or a year
to say, like, what did I do?
It's like capture them now.
And I keep those two sheets ofpaper with my two failed
companies because I know I havea predilection.
I have some predisposition tomake those mistakes.
Unless I correct it, I'm goingto.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I think the other thing you said about having two
failed companies is importantfor people to realize that we
often hear about or publicizethe success, whether that's the
bio, the LinkedIn profile, thenetworking we're doing.
I mean I say all the time Ifail more than I succeed,
because I try something newevery single time or every
(14:59):
single day.
I'm always trying.
My successes are huge.
There's a lot of failure and,like I will say with honesty, at
you know, my mid twenties or myearly thirties, failure was
shame, failure was oh my God.
But now I'm just sort of like,come at me, bro, like next next,
(15:21):
exactly it's like okay.
I tried, I tried.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Michael Jordan has a great, great quote which I am
going to mangle, but he's likeno one ever talks about the 27
times I had a game winning shotand I missed it.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know, I was like he did amazing things, but there
were a lot of shots he missedRight, and I think also you know
I'm speaking from a US Americanculture, so I would love to
hear from listeners as thisapplies in your cultures
globally.
So I would love to hear fromlisteners as this applies in
your cultures globally.
But in school, as we're growingup, failure is being held
behind, is repeating, is maybediscipline or punishing, and
(15:59):
we're in a system where failureis not ever looked at
differently and then we carrythat lens all through our
schooling.
Then we get out into our firstjobs and the same thing again I
get it, someone's got a, youknow, money and, uh, an effort
involved.
So failure can also mean thosethings.
But it's when you understand.
(16:20):
I think what silicon valley andthe tech companies have taught
us is that how do we, likeyou're saying, look at, yeah, it
was a failure, we're not goingto gloss over it.
There's still learning here thatcan be applied, and I know my
years working with Microsoft ina strategy and innovation role.
(16:41):
They first taught me about whatthey call the wallow and I was
like, well, that just soundsdepressing.
What's the wallow?
And after every launch and Idon't mean, I mean every launch,
whether it's, like you know,1.0, 1.2 or 2.1, right, like
every single launch, they have awallow and they sit in there
(17:03):
and they have a very systematicway of looking at success,
failure and learnings and I waslike, oh, this is a step change,
like this is a new way of justalso appreciating that like
people still need to bemotivated, they need to feel the
morale, they need to feel like,yeah, okay, we didn't win, but
there's good here and it's notjust all failure, and I think
(17:25):
that that's something that ifpeople can take away even
anybody who's a parent in the,in the learning of your
children- I mean, you do notknow, Jill, I'm going to become
a dad in November.
I didn't know that.
Congratulations.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And you just touched on something that, lauren, I
talk about, which is when ourchild will have failures.
When they do that, the thing Iwant to train myself to ask,
like you said, is well, what didyou learn?
Not, you know, like, oh God,you got to do better next time.
It's not that feeling of like,oh, I'm down on you, you should
(18:01):
be depressed.
It's rather the thing of like,oh, what a great opportunity.
What did you learn today?
Yeah, yeah, and just make thatthe thing.
It's just, oh, this is a greatlearning Cool.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, and, for full disclosure, I am child free.
However, I have multiplechildren around me, and plenty.
I'm a godmother to many, and Iwas talking with a dear friend
of mine whose son is verysuccessful in sports and is
going division one at thecollege level shortly very
(18:31):
successful in sports and isgoing division one at the
college level shortly and it wasjust sharing how, every time in
a particular game, wheneverthey failed, the coach would
have them on the sidelinesduring the game doing pushups.
I'm like, oh okay, so let'sburn their energy out more, love
the public and caning for them,and do you think that's going
(18:53):
to motivate them anymore?
And then I was like you knowwhat?
Then I started designing in myhead a picture of who this
individual was, and guess what?
I was right, but I think it'sinteresting takeaways around
failure.
All right, I want to get backto you though, but I still think
it's a really important.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Okay, let's get back to me.
This feels great.
Go on.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Let's talk about what you're doing now.
You've mentioned a couple oftimes about being intentional,
how to be productive in your day, so talk about the SUGA company
.
I'd love for you to tell us whythe name.
Dig a little bit into whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay.
So let me start from problemsthat I have, because if anyone
is again driving around home andraise their hand going, yeah, I
get that.
Maybe this is a moreinteresting way to talk about it
, which is, I realized that Iand a lot of people I work with
as I was doing these companiesthat were you can call them
remote distributed hybrid, youknow, but it's not.
We're all sitting here underfluorescent lights five days a
(19:51):
week, eight hours a day, kind ofcopy right.
So it's, you need to bring yourown kind of like structure and
discipline to do something andstuff can sprawl, right.
I found that what needed to getdone today could have taken
eight or 10 hours, could alsohave taken four.
Ooh, okay.
And then you know, you go andyou read the books because a lot
(20:11):
of smart people have writtenabout this.
So when you read Flow by MihalyCsikszentmihalyi, the
Hungarian-American, we can talkabout flow states.
When you read James Clear andCal Newport, whom I got to meet,
and Near, whom I got to meetthese guys, and there is a great
commonality between what theytalk about and write.
And let me be super blunt,there's so much commonality
between what they talk about andwrite, and let me be super
(20:31):
blunt, there's so muchcommonality that, yes, they may
have different lexicons anddifferent acronyms with things,
mnemonics to have you rememberstuff but they really agree upon
the core five or six principlesof how to manage your day and
not have your day get away fromyou.
And that became superinteresting to me.
So when you talk about how didI bring value from what I call
(20:52):
my failures, this was one of thebiggest things where I was like
wow, we could have been moreefficient, I could have been
happier in my day if I'd donethese things.
How do you make one button thatdoes them right?
So, problem one I call it mycold start problem, which is in
the morning tomorrow, 9 am, I'mgoing to get started on X, y, z,
which I have to get done right,but I would find myself
(21:13):
tomorrow morning at like 9.15,still kind of returning emails
from my inbox, going through thenews or something to be
informed or whatever, right.
So 9.30,.
I got rolling and I was likethat's a problem, let's peel
back the onion, okay.
Layer one is, let's call itwhat it is I'm procrastinating.
Okay.
Layer two why?
In my case, overwhelmed, and Iwas like okay why am I?
(21:34):
overwhelmed and it came down totwo things it was I looked at my
task list and it was long.
I was like there's 17 things onhere.
I'm not going to get them alldone.
I don't even know where tobegin.
It's so overwhelming looking atthe number of things, or
something on the list was sowrong as a task so big, it's
like I'm not going to write mybook between now and my 11 am
(21:56):
podcast with Jill.
Why get started?
That's a 14-day, three-monththing and I wrote right.
So that's a goal, that's not atask.
So, with that problem, whichturns into the end of day
frustration, where I would lieto myself, you know what I'm
just going to get up earlytomorrow and before 9 am I'll
finish the stuff from today andthen at 9, I'll start tomorrow's
(22:18):
work.
It's a lie, it's just dominoesthrough the week and I would
find myself reinforcing thisthing of like God, I'm not good
at managing my time, I'm notgoing to get, and I hated that
and every now and then I'd havea win day and be like this feels
great.
Okay, what are the conditionsprecedent that made that a win
day?
So it's simple stuff.
For example and I'm talking nowabout Suka, the platform I
(22:41):
built.
In the morning my smartassistant looks at my task list
with me and just says let'schoose three things, steven,
what are the three priorities?
And then when I work, the other14 are hidden away.
I can't see them and itsuddenly reduces for my ADD,
medically diagnosed.
I don't mean that in acolloquial way, but like I do
have ADD, like I believe I canmultitask, I believe I can get
(23:02):
more things done than I canright, it really reduced the
overwhelm.
Well, I look up, I'm like, ohman, I can get those three done.
Since we did that on ourplatform, our members have a 77%
better chance of finishingthree things than finishing two.
Simply by hiding the stuff, youdon't get overwhelmed.
That's how powerful that thingwas for other people, not just
me.
(23:22):
Which metrics?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
are how I know that.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
The other thing is, if it sees something stupid big,
it's like Stephen, you're notgoing to write your book this
morning.
My smart assistant's like howabout outline chapter three,
because I see in your task listyou finished chapters one and
two.
Outline.
Like you can do that in half anhour.
Let me throw it in as one ofyour three things this morning
and it just makes it moreachievable.
And you know how it is.
It's that positivereinforcement.
(23:45):
We were like horseman a littlebit, like I got my three things
done.
I'm good at this.
I'm excited to do it tomorrowmorning.
And you asked me about how Inamed my company.
I met laura, my wife, in yoga.
Right, I married the girl onthe yoga mat to my left not
kidding, that is a literalexpression, right.
So yoga is a part of our dailylife which she's obviously
struggling with now with herbelly but you know we're doing
(24:07):
prenatal yoga for her On ourhoneymoon.
A couple of years ago we had aworking title for this thing.
We're building, right the flowstate app to help people get
into flow.
Let's talk to the Lord.
We're going to Bali, which is agreat place when you do yoga.
Spend 10 days just hanging outwith your new wife, right.
So on the way there I said toher you know what I want to find
(24:27):
?
The name I want to find likewait, amazon's a great name, but
it doesn't really say likebookstore number four.
You know, like Nike doesn'treally say like shoe store, but
you remember them.
I want to find that mail app.
And Laura, of course, was likeI wish that for you.
I hope your unconscious mindbubbles that up or the universe
helps you find that thing overthe next few days.
So that thing over the next fewdays.
(24:54):
So we got there.
I said I think someone help isdo you mind today if I have a
quick Zoom with like maybe twoor three people that are members
of our community and just askthem what's their favorite thing
?
Maybe that'll be good seedsthat'll bloom over the next week
or two, right?
So she's like I'm going to thepool, enjoy.
I'll see you at dinner.
I know so I did.
I spoke to three people, askedthe usual questions like hey, I
just asked for 10 minutes.
What's your favorite feature?
Why do you use it?
Great.
The third guy when I was goingto the wrap up, like Jill, thank
(25:15):
you so much for your time.
It's eight minutes in.
I'm going to let you go now.
He said, steven, you asked thewrong questions.
And I was like, okay, guy, thatI don't know that well, thank
you for that.
What was the question I shouldhave asked?
He said you should have askedme why I pay you.
And I was like, okay, I mean,it's 30 cents a day, it's not
(25:36):
like a birkin bag every monthyou know like why do you pay me?
he's like I found I have twokinds of days at three o'clock I
could be playing with my kidsthey're two and four or at six
o'clock I'd be down on myself.
I'm like where did the day go?
I'd pay you because my kids arenot between four forever okay
(26:00):
okay, wow, so I go to dinnerwith laura.
I was like I spoke to this dudetoday.
He's more articulate about whatI'm doing than I am and this is
what he said.
She's like that's really good.
So that night we're going tobed brushing our teeth.
She looks at me, she goes.
You know what?
You wanted the universe tospeak to you.
It spoke to you through thatguy.
You know, in yoga we hear pranaand karma and dharma and all
(26:21):
these like sanskrit concepts.
He described sukkah to you.
He described that feeling ofthe self-fulfillment you feel,
the happiness you feel whenyou're in your lane doing the
thing you're good at.
There's your name and I boughtthat domain from bed that night
on my phone when I looked up thehappiness company, the super
company, and I just bought thesuper, kind of like that's what
I'm going to call it.
(26:43):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
It's a lovely story, yeah, Of how, of how also.
I think what I would take awayfrom it too is okay, you were in
a place that was beautiful andyou could pause and rest.
But I think what I always takeaway with it is that when we
find ways whether it's throughhobby or other activities that
are not core to our work and wecan find the pause in our day
(27:06):
and maybe it's an hour, maybeit's a walk in a park or on the
beach or someplace where you canget away A lot of times you can
get into that flow statebecause you let your brain just
wander in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Can I tell you a story about exactly what you
said.
So when I was a young punk,right 20 years old, working at
this ad agency in Hollywood, oneof my first transition jobs
into entertainment my job at thetime was for the agency which
did trailers, so studios, warnerBrothers, buena Vista, which
was Disney.
They would send us rough cutsof movies.
(27:39):
This is coming out this summer,it's coming out this fall.
Help us with the trailer, right?
My job was get them in in,assign them to a writer,
producer to write the trailerand would send the draft back to
the studio, right, run by thesetwo guys who are like 20 years
older than I had been doing thisfor ages, very well respected
in the industry, right, greatpromo guys.
One of them, jeff, comes to myoffice and he said to me uh, he
(28:02):
was calling stevie, I don't knowwhy he's like Stevie.
I was like, yeah, he's like youknow Bart.
I was like there's a guy in thevault who delivers tapes named
Bart.
I've met him in the elevator.
I think, yeah, he goes.
You ever get Bart of a trailer,right?
I was like Bart, the guy whodelivers the tapes.
Right, are we talking about thesame part?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He's like yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'm like I haven't.
Jeff, where are you going withthis?
He's like I'm an instinct.
Give him something.
Okay, You're the name on thedoor.
You've been doing this for 20years.
I'm on a question.
Got it Done?
Jeff comes to my office twodays later.
How's Bart doing?
I was like Jeff.
I gave him his first movie.
I gave him a rough cut fromsome beam title at Warner
Brothers.
That's like a month deadline.
I was like I gave him thatthing two nights ago.
(28:43):
I haven't bugged him yet.
I don't want to blow his brainout.
Okay, steve, that's good.
So what else did you give him?
It's like he's never written atrailer before.
I gave him one trailer.
He goes.
Steve, let me teach yousomething about creativity.
It's always about the otherthing he's like listen, if you
give Bart one thing to work on,he's going to stare at that
(29:04):
thing with little beads of sweatcoming down his temples and
he's going to come up with themost obvious B version of a
trailer you have ever seen inyour life.
Because the part of your brainthat does the oh huh chocolate
peanut butter what are thosereally together?
That's not the part you thinkyou're thinking with, so you
have to give him another movieto work on.
That's not the part you thinkyou're thinking with, so you
(29:27):
have to give them another movieto work on.
Can I tell you in my film andtech careers how right I've seen
Jeff Groovin for decades.
What you just said.
There's actually a great bookabout the neuroscience called
the Net and the Butterfly, whichis about the default mode and
the executive mode network,which is why so many people,
including hello, yours truly,right here.
Oh, I had this great idea whenI was showering this morning,
driving, going for a walk, doingthe dishes because your
(29:49):
executive mode network isexecuting some action that you
think you're focused on washingthe dishes, while the back of
your mind, like the baby brain,gets to go oh, I don't know
what's the cell phone taste like?
Tastes, like you know, andthat's incredibly cool.
That was a great insight thathas carried me through so many
fun successes, also with writersin Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I was going to say, I mean, if anyone is writing,
whether personally, or has adream of writing, Stephen King
on writing and I'll also put ina plug yes, the written word,
but the audio book.
He actually is the voice, thenarrator in the audio book and
it's such a fabulous, fabulousbook on writing and it is, it's
really important.
(30:30):
I have a client right now whohas made a decision because of
her lifestyle and things thatshe needs, that she's getting up
at 4am and she is writing fortwo hours every morning before
conversation, children, socialmedia, news, right, she's
creating a sacred and it givesher time that then she goes out
(30:52):
about her does, knows all thethings she needs to achieve, but
that quiet time is reallyimportant to like.
Let the flow happen.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I got another one for you, ron Bass, who wrote, you
know, rain man, my Best Friend'sWedding, all these movies,
right?
This ties into the concept ofchronotype, which you've seen a
lot of smart people write about,right?
So Ron Bass was an attorney whodecided he wanted to be a
screenwriter and he was famousfor this thing which you just
(31:21):
brought up.
In the morning he told hisfamily listen, I can't talk to
you about whether we're havingpancakes.
Did you do your homework?
I can't talk to you, wouldn'ttalk to his wife.
He would get up, go to hisoffice and write for three or
four hours.
Because he said, what Irealized is I can't hear my
characters in my head once Istart talking with you.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It's really.
I mean, I didn't hear it.
I hadn't heard that before, butI have a similar thing where,
again, you know, there's two ofus and a dog in the house.
There's no children, but often,as my husband's prepping for
his day and I'm prepping for myday, we each might have one
earbud in.
That's the way that we say,like one earbud so you can
(32:03):
listen to whatever it is thatyou need to, and I might be
listening to very low-keymeditative music as I'm starting
what I need to do so that I getinto my prime state to then
start writing and creating thatis cool that you use sound that
way, because I'll tell you, it'sone of the things that I
learned in research, which is,it is true, for flow states
which we can talk about ifthat's interesting for your
(32:25):
audience.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
But to get into that flow state, there is a lot of
research on what sort of themost probable music is that will
get you there, which is about60 to 90 beats per minute,
certain signatures, melodic,rhythmic, non-vocal music.
I happen to have a lot offriends who are film composers
with time on their hands so theybring like a thousand hours
(32:45):
with the platform.
Super interesting.
Yes, we all have the friend whogets in their flow state
listening to nineties gangsterrap or death metal.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
They're the outlier.
I mean, I definitely listenedto some Eminem and got into my
flow state Okay, so I'm justsaying there is that.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
But there is that middle of the road thing, so
there are many, obviously,flavors of that.
There's like the whole lo-figenre.
We have three playlists.
Playlists are just lo-fi.
We've got, you know, upbeat,down tempo, a lot of kind of
things like that.
And here's a realization I had,again, just again, listen, one
of the things I'm really tryingto do as I say this as I'm
talking, which is so ironic.
I say this as I'm talking,which is so ironic.
(33:21):
We had a number of people inthe community say you know what
I always associate being focusedwith, like being at this lake
or being by this body of water,whatever.
Can you provide me that?
Coincidentally, one of oursound engineers was in Kathmandu
and came back and said, oh myGod, it rained while I was there
and it just sounded sodelicious.
(33:41):
I recorded two hours of rain inthe Himalayas.
So we're like you know what,let's create a playlist and see
if anyone likes it.
It was just Himalayan dreamrain.
I called it right, it was a hugehit Now sounds of Emerald Lake
in Canada, we have a stream inJapan.
If you want to hear a gurglingbrook, we have Cypress surf, if
you like, hearing the surf hitthe beach.
(34:02):
And it's interesting how, forsome people, that kind of like
rhythm thing is even better thanlistening to what we call
traditionally music music ofnature, you would call it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
I mean.
For me, words can distract me,so sound is better.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
for me Are you listening to Eminem right now?
Be honest for me.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
So I'm listening to Eminem right now, be honest.
But but I also have um.
I have a playlist that I callpump and it's something that I
often give to clients of justmusic that is with words and is.
I don't know what the beats perminute is, but it is words that
are sort of like your psychsong.
Like you got into this you'vegot a presentation, you've got a
job interview, You've got a big, important meeting, right, and
how do you get into state thatway, which often involves
(34:50):
physically moving?
I don't necessarily meanexercise, but like stand up and
listen versus sitting down, andif you're standing, that's it.
It's your state of where you'rephysically at.
So tell a little bit more aboutwhat this app does and, if
anyone's interested, like who'sit?
For?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I know it's about focus, but tell us a little bit
more about that I'll tell you tobe super blunt and I don't
market it this way is it's aflow state app and let me take
like 30 seconds and talk aboutflow states.
For anyone who doesn't know,this is for you.
For those who already know, youcan just nod your head and be
like I feel smart, right?
So Hungarian-Americanpsychologist who's now I
mentioned, mihalyCsikszentmihalyi, had a thesis.
(35:31):
He's like high performers seemto get into these states of
concentration where they dogreat work, they do it
efficiently, the world fallsaway.
I want to study that.
He is ultimately, the person whonamed this.
His seminal book is called Flowand what he said was this he
said I have looked at athleteswho do this.
I have looked at artists, I'velooked at inventors.
(35:53):
It is amazing how there's somuch commonality about how their
minds and their spirits aresort of trained to be like.
Now's the moment where I do thething right and they call it
different things.
I always love that MichaelJordan quote where he calls it
the zone.
He's like when I'm in the zone,it's me and the ball and just
the scoreboard falls away.
The defenders don't exist, thestands aren't there, it's just.
(36:14):
You see him in that momentwhere he's doing incredible
things.
It's just me and the ball.
And there's a Picasso quoteabout I was up all night, I
forgot to pee, I didn't drink orhave dinner.
I think I lost track of time.
But hey, gernika, like what doyou think?
Do you like it?
And that he was like, how do Imake that accessible to people?
(36:38):
And a lot of what I'm trying todo is say, okay, how do I take
the learnings of you know ofbehind and and others, and make
them accessible to people,really available?
So he said you know what?
There are things that they do.
There's a kind of task thatseems to get people in a flow
where you have to have someskills that apply toward it.
So it's not Michael Jordanpainting, it's not Picasso
playing basketball, right,they're not going to get into
flow state, right.
(36:58):
So you have to have skills toapply.
You'd be somewhat challenged,like it's not stapling TPS
reports, even if that's your jobat work, like kind of A right.
So you have to have some abilitythat applies to it, you have to
be somewhat challenged, youhave to believe it's meaningful.
And then there are those tricksthat we offer, just like how do
you time box things, how do youapply music sometimes to help
(37:19):
you get there.
So I say all that to set thetable.
What I firmly believe is, ifyou want to have that three
o'clock, I feel great, I knockthis out and I play with my kids
or go windsurfing.
Whatever you want to do, youcan get there if you're
intentional.
Which brings us back to thevery beginning of when you and I
first met, right, and we talkedabout this for the episode,
(37:41):
which is we made an app that, ifyou have an intention, it's
simply a website.
You just literally open thesuperco, the super company, and
when you hit play, it can putyour computer in.
You know, do not disturb.
If you open a website that'slike YouTube, cnn, you know,
whatever.
There's a smart assistantthat'll nudge you.
Jill, do you really need to bein CNN right now?
(38:02):
Is that how, being a tool done?
There's a smart assistant thatwill nudge you.
Jill, do you really need to bein CNN right now?
Is that how you get your workdone.
It's amazing the way, once youjust have that opportunity to
say who do I want to be, youknow, I want to be the guy or
girl at 3 pm and stuff I don'treally need to be in CNN right
now.
Right, there's beautiful music,there's time boxing, there's
all those kind of things andcommunity people.
So that's really what I do issay how we bring people together
(38:24):
to do the things you're capableof, because I have a thesis we
all have something great inside.
The question of this lifetimeis are you going to get it out
or not?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that, isn't it?
I mean, I think it wasElizabeth Gilbert who made it
more widely known.
But any of us that have studiedany of the ancient literature,
it of the ancient literature,it's the idea that it's already
in there and we just have tocarve it away.
And how do we bring it?
Like whether it's scolangelo,right, they believe me.
(38:54):
I have an uncle who's an expertwith a whittler and yeah, I
mean, his creations are amazing.
Um, but same thing where he'll?
He kind of sees the wood andknows what's in there and then
release it.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I love that.
That's really cool, Steven.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
This has been such a treat, I think, having just a
conversation around what you'redoing and intention and flow,
and also the transferable skills, a lot of people a possibility.
You don't all have to have theanswer now.
Again, remember that S curve.
You're in something, you're inthe start of getting it going.
Sometimes it feels hard andyou're like what am I doing?
(39:32):
So starting and getting intothe flow state and giving
yourself carved out time and,whether you're using an app like
Steven or you're using it justwithin yourself, finding that
time to pause and let yourselfdo two things at once, which
might be, yes, I have a job, butI'm also walking right now, or
I'm giving myself time.
I think all of that is really,really helpful.
(39:53):
I want to hear from all of you.
If you have questions, we willbring Steven back.
We will dig deeper.
Whatever you want to hear moreabout flow states, we will bring
him back.
Send any of your questions tohello at jillgriffincoachingcom
and until next time, I'm goingto tell you to embrace the flow,
be intentional and always,always, always, be kind.
Thanks, Stephen.
I really appreciate you beinghere.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Thank you guys.
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