From Hollywood Lessons to High-Performance Habits with Steven Puri

Episode Transcript
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Jay Johnson (01:16):
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where together we are shapingworkforce behaviors.
Today I am joined by StevenPuri.
Welcome to the show, Steven.
Thank you.
I hope we have someentertaining, engaging ideas,
and some actionable ones too.
I am confident we will.
And this is going to be onethat I think our audience is

(01:36):
really going to enjoy becausewe're going to dig into
procrastination, productivity,and all of the things, all of
those behaviors that essentiallywe all want to achieve high
performance.
I truly believe that.
And I will, you know, up fightme on it.
Uh, but I do believe that noone wants to be terrible at
their job.
And we all want to achieve moreon some level.

(01:59):
So before we get into thatthough, Steven, I'd love for you
to share just a little bitabout your background because I
think it's important to knowsome of the experiences that you
have.
Let's give it some context.
Yeah.

Steven Puri (02:11):
Totally with you.
Okay.
For those who are playing alongin their cars or at home,
here's the reason to listen tothis of Jay's many episodes,
which are awesome, right?
I am one of the few peopleyou'll meet who has been a
senior executive at Two MotionPicture Studios and also raised
over $20 million of venture, hada successful exit in two
failures companies that I'verun.

Right.

And along the way, yes, I've done a bunch of fun
stuff.
I'm very grateful for the lifeI'm leading.
It's awesome.
But most importantly, I've beenaround some incredibly
productive people and people whocan do it in a sustainable way.
And a lot of what I do now isshare the lessons that I've seen
firsthand.
There's a theory, which youknow, Jay's very steeped in.

(02:54):
You guys have probably heard alot about.
And there are also somespecific practices that I love
to share that I was like, thisI've seen work.
So that is the context.
And Jay, please, uh, if youwant me to fill any of that out.

You know what?
Just from my own curiosity, canyou share what it was like
working in those studios?
And what did you learn fromthose experiences?

Well, um let me bifurcate that into there's the
business part, which people findfascinating, and then there is
the performance part.
Okay.
So the business part is, and Ito this day, people still want
me to help them get their scriptmade, get their movie financed,
stuff like that.
And I'm like, I'm out, right?
But here's the deal is peopledo not associate the word show

(03:41):
with the word business.
It is it is one word, right?
So if you want to do somethingsolely on artistic merit, don't
do it where there's 10 million,50 million, 250 million dollars
at stake because it is abusiness.
Your piece of art has a PL,right?
So go be a painter, be a poet,write a novel, right?

(04:05):
So the business of film wasfascinating for me because it is
a very mercenary, cold-headedor level-headed, cold-eyed view
of what do we think the returnsare on this piece of art, right?
So working in that environment,you know what?
You have three kids you'venever heard of do some indie

(04:28):
film that grosses a quarterbillion dollars, right?
And you're like, wow, this is astrange indie hit.
You also have Steven Spielberggo off, make a movie with Tom
Cruise or Will Smith or somehuge star at the time, and it
flops.
It's it's has a risk profilelike wild catting for oil
because you just don't know,right?
It's a huge gamble.

(04:49):
The result of that is there's alot of fear in that business,
right?

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah.

So relationships are super important because it
is not something where you cansimply say, hey man, we had a
battery that delivered this manymiles of range.
If we tweak the chemicalcomposition somehow, we'll get
12 more percent.
We can sell more cars.
And you know, those arebusinesses you can quantify very
clearly, you can, you know,manage with entertainment.
It is like this year's Avengermovie bombed, last year's made

(05:17):
500 million dollars.
What was really different?
You know, it was kind of thesame plot, rehashed that we've
been doing for 10 years.
You know, why did thisLucasArts one bomb?
So the business side of it isfear-driven and it's um it is a
business, and you have toremember that.
Uh, the creative side, and I'mgonna stop in a moment because I

(05:38):
can see you're ready to saysomething, is interesting
because the people who succeedin that, and I speak more about
the writers and directors than Ido actors.
Actors are paid to stand andsay a line and not bump into the
furniture, right?
Some are very good at it.
Most you employ because they'replaying a version themselves on

(06:01):
screen.
There are like five, 10% ofactors that are like Meryl
Streep.
Most of them are like you'rebasically hiring Jay to play a
version of Jay on screen, right?
To be super blunt.
So I speak mainly about writersand directors.
It is interesting to see theones that have decades-long
careers, the practices that theycome up with for how to be that

(06:21):
good over that period of time,and also how to recover from
that film that didn't workbecause you were judged on the
last thing you did, right?
Um, back to you.
I know you wanted to saysomething.
I don't want to talk too long.

No, and this is so fascinating.
And I don't want to derail theconversation to be had on this,
but I think it's so interesting.
So, uh Steven, how important isthe ability to I I don't want
to say predict behavior?
Because in many cases, we canlook and say, hey, here's the
model, this has worked and itshould work again, and it

(06:56):
doesn't.
Or, you know, here's a completechange to the model, and we
have no idea if it's gonna work.
And as you said, it turns intoa $350 million movie.
So on some level, what was theexperience trying to predict, I
guess, trends, audiencebehaviors, reactions?
Like that's all got to be justan incredible, incredible set of

(07:20):
conversations that occur inthat space.

What's your favorite movie?

Oh, tough question.
I think name two.

If it's too hard to pick one, name two.

All right.
So I I I generally love cinemafilms.
I'm gonna go with an oldschool.

Cinema Cinemasy, right?

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, uh, I'm gonna go old
school on one that maybeaffected me uh when I was when I
was in college, and I'm gonnasay fight club.

Oh, interesting choice.
Okay, gotcha.
And if you could have a secondone, you said high barbell
brush.

Yeah, if I was gonna say a second one, uh see.
Oh gosh, this is so toughbecause I do love I love the
action movies.
I did love the Avengers.

Okay, no shame.
It made a lot of movies, a lotof people saw it, right?
McDonald's is popular, a lot ofpeople go, no one admits to it.
Okay, right.
That's right.
Okay, so let the reason I askyou that is let me share with
you something that's underneaththe hood a little bit.
And I hope this is interesting.

(08:26):
I know we'll get into a lot ofvery germane topics for you know
talent development and andleadership, but in terms of
film, film is our modern way ofexpressing mythology.
The same way if you think aboutfamous mythologies for us in
the Western canon of the Greekand the Roman mythologies,
right?
Or whether you're you knowIndian mythology, like those

(08:50):
myths that they would tellaround the campfire were their
versions of movies, right?
Our movies are versions ofthose myths.
So, what's interesting is thereason they get passed around
and become so popular is becausethey express fundamental
truths, but in a way that isoften entertaining or has
details that are fantastic orsomething, right?
Yeah.
So here's the thing mostpopular movies, like big movies,

(09:16):
they boil down to a veryrelatable story about a family.
I'll give you an example.
Star Trek 11, a movie that youknow I worked on.
That was the first one with uhChris and Zach as Kirk and
Spock.

I just watched it last night, ironically enough.
I swear to God.
Steven, I swear to God.

You know what?
You heard I died in that movie.
In the battle scene, maybe youdidn't catch this.
In the battle scene, whenSpock, Mr.
Spock, jumps into Kirk's chair,which is vacated, and he calls
down to Bones.
He goes, Bones, where's youknow chief medical officer
Purie?
Bones goes, Chief MedicalOfficer Pury died on deck six.

(09:57):
And Spock's like, Well, you'rechief medical officer now,
Bones.
So that was our inside jokeabout how Bones became the chief
medical officer of the of theenterprise, um, which was a
running joke with female friendsand my assistants.
So my assistants, when themovie came out, put a plaque on
my door at DreamWorks that saidSteven Puri MD underneath it

(10:19):
said deck six in parenthesesLeto, because the joke was I
died on the Leto deck during thebattle, which is the
shuffleboard deck.
So I was probably playingshuffleboard during the battle.
Not a not a noble death.
So in that movie, however, theorganizing principle is Kane and
Abel.
That movie, if you strip outall the genre elements, all the
photon torpedoes and aliens andspaceships, that movie is simply

(10:43):
two brothers are going to killeach other.
And if you notice, they losethe movie until the moment in
which they agree not to killeach other, and then they can
win the movie.
It is a story of two brothers.
You can take all the setdressing out.
I don't know if you have abrother, I do, and I've had
moments where I wanted to killhim.

I've got three of them, and that's three times the
moments.

Okay, that is why that movie works because there
is a fundamental organizingprinciple about a family.
Yeah, you can relate to theAvengers, exact same thing.
These are my brothers andsisters.
Yeah, we all kind of fight andwe kind of get along, and we're
united now against the you knowthe Hatfields and McCoys, we got
a band together, and you knowthat sort of thing, right?

(11:26):
Yeah, and most of those movieslike die hard.
People ask me all the timeabout diehard.
Oh, is it a Christmas movie?
Is it not a Christmas movie?
Like every guy over 30basically asked me that question
when they found out I worked onthat franchise for Fox.
And what's so interesting is doyou have you ever seen the
first movie?
Oh, yeah.
The original, right?
Yep, okay, which is so tightlydone as a story.

(11:49):
It is like you pull that apartas a screenwriter, it is like a
Swiss watch, even though it is abroad populist movie, it is
brilliantly written as populistentertainment.
And here's the thing when, youknow, in the opening, Bruce
Willis, John McLean, comes toLos Angeles, right?

(12:10):
He gets Argyle, the limodriver, who's like, hey man,
it's my first day on the job,you know.
I'm trying to figure this out.
And Bruce Willis, we've seenNew York guy, street cop, you
know, jumps, runs, shoots, kicksfor a living, runs around the
streets, right?
Yippie Kaye, right?
So he's now put in a limo withArgyle.

(12:31):
And of course, because he'sthey want to emphasize he's a
man of the people, he puts theteddy bear in the back.
Remember, he sits in the frontlike a worker with Argyle.
And Argyle says to him, Heyman, come on, tell me, tell me
why you're here.
It's my first day on the job.
And Bruce is like, screw you.
I'm not gonna say, Hey, man,come on, tell me, screw you.
They're talking.

(12:52):
He finally says to him, like,hey, well, here's the deal.
My wife, this, that.
And Argyle looks at him andbasically says, the movie, if
you ever watch this, it'sastounding how clearly
screenwriters are like, here intwo sentences is our movie.
So Argyle looks and goes, Letme get this straight.
So your wife left you for somerich guys, and you came out here
to throw her over your shoulderlike a clay caveman and bring

(13:12):
her back to New York.
And Bruce Willis kind oflaughs, he goes, Yeah, kind of
like that.
Kind of like that.
The ending of the movie, he'sgot Bonnie Medalia over his
shoulder, walking out of aburning building, gonna take her
back to New York, right?
Such a great movie.
Yeah, is the story which wasvery relevant at that time of a

(13:33):
family getting divorced.
Yeah.
And women were suddenly in theworkplace.
You had women making more moneythan men, bingo.
And this played to that weirdthing in the zeitgeist.
Just like right now, we havethe whole thing with like trad
wives, and like, there's like athing in the zeitgeist around
like, how do men and womenrelate to each other?
Who's more potent, right?

(13:53):
There it was that thing oflike, hey man, I thought I was a
powerful guy.
I'm a I'm a policeman with agun.
And my wife is suddenly in thistall uh tower with these rich
guys doing this stuff, and thatwas simply a story of a family.
So the answer to your questionis that is what really underpins
when you talk about Fight Cluband you're talking about, okay,

(14:16):
is it really a guy who hasmultiple personalities, sort of
you know, split kind of thing,and he's fighting for himself.
Does it matter?
Because the story he's tellingis so true when you think about
it reduced down that way.
And with most of these topmovies, you can anyway, long
diversion.
But I hope next time you watcha movie, you'll start to see
like the ones in the zeros whereyou're like, oh my God, this is

(14:37):
a story of two sisters.
This is you know, and theydress it up, but you pull away
all the dressing, and that'swhat you get.

That's brilliant, Steven.
So I I think at some point intime we should have a
conversation about storytellingin terms of how storytelling
impacts, you know, impacts theworkplace, because that's one of
the big things is good leadersare often really good
storytellers and able to kind ofbring that sort of reality to

(15:05):
people, whether it's throughanalogy, whether it's through
symbolism, or whether it's evenfrom telling their own personal
stories and allowing people tokind of step into it.

So Jake, I couldn't agree with you more.
Let me hang a lantern on that,which is yeah, if you like you
know, a lot of leaders talk tome because of Suka, right?
My the community I run, wherethey're like, hey man, five of
my guys are in this.
Should I get a seat license?
What is it you do anyway?
What is this focus app thing,right?
So what's interesting is whenyou talk to them, very often

(15:34):
like the remote and the hybridcome up.
They're like, Well, you know,I've got all these developers
that are hybrid, remote, I'vegot these engine uh designers,
you know.
And you're like, Well, how doyou feel about that?
And very often there's afeeling of fear.
I don't know what Jay's doingTuesday at 3 p.m.
I just he could be at the dogpark with that beautiful black
dog that used to be behind you.

(15:55):
Um yeah, there you go.
And that's interesting when yousay, Oh, I understand we've
peeled back like five whys toget to why is that worrisome to
you?
And you are right, it comesdown to if leaders can express a
story, because a story isfundamentally there is a heroic
force, there is something thatopposes it, there are obstacles,

(16:17):
villains, something right?
There is that thing wherethere's man against man, man
against society, man againstnature, whatever it is.
You find those two things incollision, and if this man
woman, I'm not I don't mean in agender-specific way, right?
If this person, this heroicforce overcomes their flaw, it
is a successful movie.
If it's they don't, it's aGreek tragedy, right?

(16:39):
And that's basically whathappens here.
So as a leader, you have twobig things you have to do.
And I don't mean making surethe TPS reports are filed.
I mean, that's managerialstuff, right?
As a leader, you lay out themission.
We are here to cure cancer.
We're here to make you knowcarbon captured, we're here to
clean the oceans, we're here tomake the best romantic comedies

(17:02):
of any studio, whatever it is.
Like you have to tell a storyof here is the big goal we have,
and you have to lay out howyou're gonna do it.
This is how we're gonna treateach other, this is how we're
gonna treat our customers, andthis is how we're gonna treat
our competitors.
And if you do those two thingswell, if you tell that story
about this is what we're doing,this is why we're here, how
we're gonna do it, you attractthe right people into your

(17:25):
organization.
We're Tuesday at 3 p.m., I knowJay's moving the ball down the
field.

Ah, so spot on, Steven.
And that is the fundamentaltenets of building a culture
that's actually sustainable.
You talk about this a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I I love it.
Now I'm gonna I'm gonna givethis segue here.
We're pivoting.
You you you've you're in this,you're in this space, right?

(17:54):
You're in this space of offilms and production and so on
and so forth.
And now let's fast forward.
You're in a space of helpingpeople be more productive.
And particularly, I know thatyou had a lot of influence
during the time of like wheneverybody was trying to figure
out remote versus hybrid versus,you know, in the person.

(18:17):
How did that before we even getinto like the tactics of
overcoming uh procrastination orproductivity?
How did you how did you makethat shift?
Like what brought you into sortof this space of helping people
shift?

A painful one.
I I'll r relate this to you,but I don't think uh you're
gonna be prepared for theanswer.
So just go with me.
All right.
So when I was uh vice presidentat 20th, uh, this is before
Disney bought News Corp, likethe Fox, right?
And I had been recruited.
The the chairman of Foxrecruited me from DreamWorks by

(18:53):
saying, Hey, listen, I'll doubleyour salary, I'll do fun stuff,
but guess what?
I will give you the diehardfranchise, I'll give you the
Wolverine franchise.
You probably grew up watchingdiehard movies, didn't you?
And I was like, I did.
He's like, You could be the guymaking the next diehard movie.
That was really impelling tome.
So he said, Listen, we want toup our game here.
We've got all this moneybecause they had done Avatar.

(19:14):
And he's like, for the firsttime, we have a ton of money.
We can buy our way into bettermovies than what we've done, the
alien versus predators, and youknow, stuff like that, bottom
feeder kind of like stuff.
And he said, Help me be part ofthis new world, this new
version of Fox.
And I had a lot ofwriter-director relationships

(19:34):
because at DreamWorks, the laststudio run by a filmmaker,
right?
When I was there, that wasSteven Spielberg and Stacy
Snyder, who were amazing.
So you DreamWorks, you couldkind of call anybody up and say,
Hey man, Jay, I just want tohave a general meeting with you.
And you could be like a twomillion dollar screenwriter,
you'd be like, Yeah, you want tohave coffee on Tuesday.
Because you were like, Yeah, ifI could get a job at

(19:54):
DreamWorks, that would be cool.
I'd love to work there forSteven Stacey, you know, that
sort of thing.
So the thing of Fox was like,Hey, bring those relationships.
So in the first year, true tohis word, he gave me an open
checkbook.
So I had projects, I broughtover David Ayer, Alex Kerson,
Bob Orsi.
We had Damon Lindelof workingthere from you know, Lost.
We had Billy Ray writing the 24adaptation for me.

(20:17):
We had um uh Chris McCrory, youknow, doing the Wolverine
sequel, like tons of stuff,right?
But the only thing he wasinterested in was Die Hard Vive.
We would have our basicallyevery studio you have like a
Monday or Tuesday, it's sort oflike a venture capital firm
where you have basically meaningwe all get together and go,
What should we green light?
Can we go gamble 150 milliondollars on this movie and you're

(20:40):
fighting about it?
There are eight of you in theroom, it's like the vice
presidents and the chairman andthe president, right?
So I could bring in stuff whereI'm like, I have the draft from
David Ayer.
He wants to write and directthis for us.
And it would be like, Yeah, buthow's the Iron Five?
So one day I was walking down,we left the meeting, I was
walking down the hallway, and Isaid to him, I I'm failing you.
Like, I'm working really hardto bring the kind of product

(21:04):
that we would do at DreamWorkshere.
But the only thing you seem toask about is the worst thing on
my slate.
It's a writer I inherited froma previous.
This, you know, executive who'sworking on this, and it's
terrible.
Like, there's no idea there.
Like we talked about Die HardOne.
It is a family in jeopardy.
Are they going to get backtogether or not?

(21:25):
Christmas is the perfect timeto set it because that's when
families come together, right?
There's a lot about that moviethat works.
And this movie, I'm going totell you script strip awful.
After I left Fox, thescreenwriter was kicked out of
the writer's guild forplagiarism, by the way.
I was like, not a surprise.
And he's like, listen, here'sthe deal.
As long as you make it for lessthan this budget number, we put

(21:49):
out a poster or one sheet'scalled that says diehard
anything on it.
It will make that numberopening weekend.
I don't care what the reviewsare.
I don't care what anyonetweets.
He's like, we'll be in theblack by Sunday night.
And that's how I keep my job.
So he's like, as long as youmake it for less than that
number, we're good, Steven.
Is there more we need to talkabout?
And I was like, No, it wasactually one of the most honest

(22:10):
conversations he and I had everhad.
And I was like, I'm gonna wakeup 40, 50, 60 years old making
tired 19.
Why?
Like, you know what I mean?
It was not inspiring.
And that's when I thought,what's the other thing I know
how to do?
Because as you know, I startedout as an engineer.
How I got into film was I was asoftware engineer who started

(22:32):
producing digital film.
And I met a lot of filmmakers,and it was like, hey, kid, you
want to come produce films,right?
So that's when I said I have toget up.
I gotta find something I canapply engineering talent to
because that's the only otherthing I knew how to do, other
than you know, produce story.
And I did two small startups,raised about three million for

(22:53):
each.
Both didn't work, both got tolike 50,000, 60,000 monthly
actives, not a series A, likeyou know, inflection point.
And I was humiliated.
I felt so much shame and somuch embarrassment.
I was like, you know, you go todinner and you bump into your
friends from film, and they'relike, Hey man, how's your
startup going?
You're like, terribly, I'd liketo kill myself.
Like really, really, reallybadly like, I don't think we're

(23:16):
gonna raise our next round.
And I moved to New York.
I was like, I can't stand goingto the dry cleaners and bumping
into Jay.
And Jay's like, hey Steven,how's it going?
I'm like, so that is what ledme to a real this is now the
context for this sentence, whichis that's what led me to sit in
reflection and say, What did Ilearn that is valuable?

(23:38):
And it was, I have been aroundsome of the top screenwriters,
directors, engineers, designers.
What are the commonalities ofwhat I've seen, and how do I
make that available to morepeople who want to elevate their
talent?
Whether as an individualcontributor, like I just want to
produce better in a morehealthy way, or as a leader

(23:58):
going, like, hey, let's havehealthier practices and just
up-level all their games.
And that's really what I'vebeen doing the past six, seven
years.
Is that it's incredible.

I want to I want to highlight something that you
said.
And it would be under normalpretenses, this would probably
be let go.
But I I've literally been inconversations with some
incredible, incredible leadersand and actually like people
studying adult learning andeverything else.

(24:28):
One of the things that you saidthere that I think is so
important, and audience, this isyour takeaway reflection.
You stopped for a minute andyou evaluated.
And that is one of the mostimportant skills, I truly, truly
believe, one of the mostimportant skills that we as
humans were given in order toshape our future.

(24:52):
And if we don't actually takethat moment to step back,
reflect, and understand what didI learn from this situation?
What did I learn from theseexperiences?
You're essentially just it'sit's so much that's just let go.
And and it's so easy for us tojust be like, all right, what's
next?
What's next?
What's next?
And just get beyond whereverwe're sitting today.

(25:15):
But if we don't actually puttime into the calendar to
reflect, to better understandwho we were yesterday, we will
be losing something for who weare tomorrow.

So Jay, I have to I appreciate your saying that and
hanging a lantern on that.
And I'll tell you this.
I had a successful startup inmy 20s, which I thought, you
know, of course, in your 20s,you think you're smarter than
you are and you know, betterlooking than you are, all right?
So I was like, oh my god, Ibuilt a company with, you know,
we'd won the Academy Award offuh Independence Day and built a
company, sold it, right?

(25:48):
So when I had those two failedcompanies, I when I reached the
moment with each of them where Iwas like, I should not raise
another round because we'vetried everything we could try,
and it I don't have anything newto try.
So we need to have thatconversation with the investors
and say, I'm really sorry, welost your money, right?
And lost like three quarters ofa million of my own money too.

(26:11):
I was like, ooh.
So yeah, both times I thoughtit is so easy, exactly what you
said, Jay.
It is so easy to run onto thenext thing, and in six months or
a year, it's like, what did Ilearn from that?
It's like the rose coloredglass of like, oh, it wasn't
that bad, you know, we recoveredfrom it, and now I'm running
another company.
I stopped, I sat in the samethis chair with the window, the

(26:34):
comes huge window that comes inover my shoulder, and I took a
piece of paper and a pencil,like old school, not dictating
into Siri.
I took a pad of paper and I satthere with no one around.
I said, What did I learn?
And I wanted to do it while thewounds were still bleeding.
I was like, this is fresh.
Both times, the first word thatI wrote down was listen.

(26:55):
And I realized along the way,as I thought about what were the
markers in time where it'slike, we could have gone this,
we could have gone path one orpath two, then later, we could
have gone path two or paththree.
What were those moments whenmaybe someone had said to me,
like, hey, you know, Steven,have you considered like this
thing in the environment?
Or have you thought aboutadding this functionality or

(27:17):
getting rid of thisfunctionality and streamlining
it?
And there were things, if I hadlistened, and you have to be
selective, you have to havevision and have your own, you
know, idea of what it should be,but you have to also balance
that with like someone givingyou gold, being like, I think
this will help you.
That right now with Suko, withmy current focus app, I'm in a

(27:38):
moment of reflection.
That is this, uh, we're doingthis Thanksgiving week.
I have budgeted time with mywife and you know, our little
newborn.
Um, I budgeted time to spendtime just in reflection to think
this next period of growth.
What is it that's going toexpand us from what we do into
what we could be doing?
And it is so easy to skipreflection and just keep running

(28:01):
towards the next thing.
So I I appreciate yourhighlighting that.

Yeah, I think that it's one of those where it's and
I love that you did yourreflection while the wound was
still fresh.
Because I I'll tell you, youknow, at one point in time, I
thought I had this idea that Iwanted to be a politician.
All right.

I can totally see that.
Oh my God, I could totally seethat.

Don't insult me, Steven.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, we too, hey, where we arein this country, we need great
politicians.
So I started in the municipal,local municipality.
I won my first election.
And just like you said, youknow, at 20, it's like, uh
unstoppable.
Now, mind you, I won against anincumbent by 72 votes.

(28:49):
All right.
Wow.
Didn't know what I was doing,had no idea what I was doing.
Uh, I knocked on every door.
I didn't have like lists or anyof the other things, literally
just knocked on every singledoor and I did it twice.
I was like, I'm just gonnaoutwork that.
Yeah.

So for what like a county seat, like a council?

No, this was like local township.
So it was uh in a township,it's trustee, and you know, so
city council basically.
All right.

City council's got it.

I win that election.
Uh the first two years, Ireally enjoyed some different
aspects of it, really didn'tenjoy some different aspects of
it.
But I listened to people going,You need to run for state
representative.
And I was like, let the ego getin there and everything else.
Like, yeah, I can do this.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
I jump in there and everybody'slike, You're a shoe-in.

(29:38):
There's no way, there's no wayyou can lose this.
You're so popular andeverything else.
And I'm just like, keep keeptalking, keep telling.
Yeah.
Um, but I lost I lost.
That's the end of the story,but I lost.
And I remember in that moment,all of the I was so embarrassed.
I had so many volunteers,people that funded, people that

(29:59):
jumped in there, sponsorship,endorsements, etc.
And I had to look them in theeye and say, I lost.
So, what is the obvious thingto do?
It's just like, oh, we couldn'thave predicted this, or we had
no idea.
And honestly, the reflectionpiece of that came later.
And I looked back and I said, Ilost because I didn't put the

(30:21):
energy in.
It is all on me.
It is 100%.
I can look back at that andtake full ownership of all of
the excuses I made in thatmoment were complete BS.
I wish, I wish I would haveactually sat with that in that
moment.
Because it took me severalyears to come to the conclusion

(30:43):
of I need to own every singlemoment of my life.
Like I am not that the excusesare complete BS.
And it took me several years toactually come to that.
If I would have sat in that andreally said, really, Jay, was
it that you didn't predict thisor that you didn't do X?
Was it because you did this?
Or is it because you were, youknow, your your ego got in the

(31:06):
way and you didn't work as hardas you did previously?
And all of those things wouldhave been better life lessons
learned in the moment to carryforward rather than a couple of
years afterwards reflecting andlooking back.
So I appreciate and value, butit hurt.
It was painful.
I hate losing.

But taking ownership of that, take the I no
wonder you are where you are,because that is a great lesson
that a lot of people could stillget through that experience and
not have made part ofthemselves.
I will tell you a funny thing.
I was in relationshipcounseling with an ex-girlfriend
who really wanted, we weregonna break up, and she's like,
just do this with me.
We did it.

(31:45):
The end result was we stillbroke up and it was the right
thing, and we're friends and allthat.
But there was one thing thatcame out of that that was gold
for me that applies in mybusiness as well as my personal
life, which is at one point thetherapist looked at this and
said, looked at us and said,instead of assigning like
percentages of whose ownershipof this problem, this thing, I

(32:10):
want both you to own it ahundred percent and solve it as
if it is completely yours tosolve.
Skip the step of trying tofigure out who's responsible
100%.
You have to solve this.
And I was like, wow, and I'vetaken that into business where
I'm like, I don't care.
I don't care.
What I care is everyone here iscompletely your problem to

(32:32):
solve.
Now let's solve it.

It's the mission.
It's a great time that you takethe ownership of the mission.
It's what can I do?
Or, you know, if this is asetback, how did I create the
conditions for this setback byeither doing or not doing
something?
Because you own it.
Everything is figure out if butI I even look back at your
reflection story and and whatyou were talking about is you

(32:55):
know, where you were looking atthe different pathways that you
were going down.
And I think that obviouslyhindsight becomes 2020, but
those rose-colored glasses,like, oh, I didn't have a choice
in this moment.
Well, maybe not in that moment,but what about five moments
before that?
What about 10 moments beforethat?
Were there a series of choicesthat led to you not having a

(33:18):
choice?
And that's any any time thatI've been like, my hands were
tied.
I look at it now and I go, Whatwere they?
And what created the conditionsto make me feel that my hands
were tied?
Because I guarantee it was itwas a choice somewhere before
that that led to my handsgetting tied and having to make

(33:39):
whatever brutal choice, whetherit was to shut down a company
because I have been in the sameboat, I have failed, you know,
successful.
Yeah, you know, and every timeit could be the easy thing to
look and say, if this one thingwould have occurred versus
looking before that and saying,if I would have made this choice
here, that might have led to adifferent thing.

(34:02):
And again, it's all yeah,conjecture at some level, but if
you learn from it, that's theimportant part.

I would say it is not conjecture for this reason.
Character is revealed morethrough failure than through
success.

I would agree with that.
I would 100% agree.

Okay, just for the enjoyment of those playing along
at home, I'm going to referencea movie that illustrates this
so incredibly well.
It is like a Washingtonmonument that no one can see.
It's standing right in themiddle of the movie and no one
no one recognizes it.
Very few.
Have you ever seen this is thethe original movie that launched
multi-billion dollar franchise,theme park rides, like the

(34:45):
whole thing called Raiders ofthe Lost Ark?

Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.

Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a question.
Indiana Jones, the hero of thatstory, it is an action
adventure movie.
If he had never been born,would the outcome be any
different?

That's such a fascinating question.
If he had never been born,would the outcome be any
different?

He is the hero of the movie.
It is a one-hander, it is youknow, him and the girl, but it
is a one-hander.
It is not the Avengers, it'snot you know it is he is the
hero of the movie.
If he had never been born,would this action adventure
movie end any differently?
No.
No one notices it.

(35:37):
You know why no one notices it?
And I will tell you this I haveworked with some of the top
screenwriters, I've seen Godknows how many action adventure
movies.
I can't name another successfulmovie where you could say that.
Not one I've ever seen.
Could you say, oh, the herodidn't appear in the movie, but

(35:57):
it's still kind of in the sameway.
Talk about elephant never.

You've literally just changed my chart.
I I remember watching thatmovie.

I love that movie.
And do you want to know why?
It illustrates, and I know somepeople playing along the cars
are like, where is this going,Puri, right?
But it illustrates what we justsaid.
Characters are revealed throughfailure.
You watch the movie again, younotice he fails, he fails, he

(36:28):
tries to get the thing, theysteal it from him.
He tries to get the thing, theysteal from him.
He fails through the entiremovie, right?
Yeah, but here's what isactually important about that
movie, why it launched amulti-billion dollar set of
movies in theme park rides is Doyou remember the opening of the
movie sort of establishes likeguys stealing relics from

(36:49):
temples, and you know, this kindof belongs in a memory fiber,
right?
He's like sort of like I don'tknow, right?
And the the the government guyscome to his uh his university
and they're like, Hey man,Hitler's after this arc thing.
What why does he want this,right?
So he does the exposition,pulls out the old book, he goes,
Well, you know, if you believethis stuff about the Ten

(37:11):
Commandments, they put it inthis thing, and now armies that
carry it, win, and you know, oldwives day or whatever, right?
So he's very skeptical, veryskeptical.
So they hire him, they're like,go get the thing, okay?
So he's got to go see Marion upin the Tibet Nepal, wherever
the hell she is, right?
He goes to see her, and shedoes not want to see him.

(37:32):
She's like, You were my dad'spartner, you broke my heart, you
never cared about me, you usedme like some notch on your belt,
I hate you, right?
You never cared about, right?
So we've established he'sbasically a skeptic, you know,
he doesn't believe in anythingbut stealing shit.
And he used this girl, right?
When she was young, the youngdaughter of his partner, right?

(37:54):
What an awful guy.
Can you name any movie you'veever seen, any action movie in
your entire life, where in theclimax the hero is
incapacitated?
The answer is no.
I know that.
Yeah, no, I can't.
In the climax of Raiders, Indyis tied to a stake with his

(38:18):
hands tied behind his back,right?
Marion's tied behind him.
He can't even move.
The hero of the movie can't dothe typical thing.
Oh, he's a great archer,sniper, jumper, shooter, bomb
expert.
He can't move.
What does he do?
He says, he says, Marion, closeyour eyes.

(38:45):
And with that, he goes, Yeah, Ibelieve in God.
He's coming right now, and it'sgonna be bad.
And he goes, I love you, I'mgonna save you.
So he pays off by saying, Thisis my true character.
Yeah, I believe in God, and Ido love you, and people love

(39:05):
that movie because he may fail,but his character is revealed in
that moment.

I love that.
I love that.
I and you know, I never eventhought about never even thought
about that in terms of that.
I'm gonna I because thescreenwriting is so good.
You just gave me homework,Steven.
So I'm gonna have to go backand watch it again.

But yeah, great storytelling is often like
sleight of hand where it's justlike you're watching this and
this hand is doing the thing.

Very cool.

I know.

Okay, bring us, bring us back on topic.
No, I know we're into this.
This is no, this is I thinkthis is gold.
So reflection, et cetera.
It's important, audience.
Get there, do it, make time forit, and be honest with
yourself.
All right.
So we were segueing into howdid you get into the space that
you're at?
So talk to me.
You've you've got the SukaCompany, which is all about

(39:58):
helping people to essentially bemore productive.
Now, this is a podcast allabout workforce behaviors, and
we know that people are beingasked to do more with less.
We know that people areessentially stressing out right
now because no matter what theyseem to, no matter how busy they
are, they're not feeling likethey're accomplishing things or

(40:19):
not getting the things done.
And you've taken an approach tokind of help people out with
it.
Let's talk about the approach,and then we can talk more deeply
about like, all right, what aresome of these challenges?
What are these villains thatare keeping us from this is
fantastic?

Okay.
So, as you mentioned, we allwant to be productive.
I believe this.
Like, we do have somethinginside us that is great and will
be released.
There are a lot of factors inthis world that work against
that, like procrastination, likedistraction, you know, like
inertia.
You know, like there are thingsthat stop us from whatever it

(40:56):
may be.
The great thing inside you maybe the book, uh, the app you're
gonna create, the restaurant,the you know, school, the
whatever it is, right?
And uh great leaders are uhthey assemble teams where they
say, My job here is to releaseyour greatness.
Like I see what it is in you, Isee what's holding you back,
and you're Greatness will impactnot just you, but this company,

(41:18):
right?
So you may be have the greatcopy inside you or the great
code inside you, whatever it is.
And ultimately, if you as aleader see yourself as the
releaser of greatness, you startto frame things differently in
your mind.
You know, like it's not aboutthe TPS reports, right?
So toward that end, one of thethings, and these are now very

(41:40):
specific to me, one of thethings in my experience where I
was like, oh, this isinteresting about high
performance and sustainable highperformance because people want
to stick around.
You want to talk about employeeretention, right?

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Right.

If someone feels self-fulfilled, they want to
stick around.
You know, there are very fewpeople who are like, oh my god,
I'm singing my song at work, andI hate it, I'm gone, I'm out of
here.
You know, it's like people maybe hear the siren song.
Some people be hear the sirensong of money and be like, Oh my
god, I could make $500,000going and do this.

(42:12):
Okay, great.
Someone can really pay themthat.
But if you're talking aboutcomparable jobs, and in one,
they're like, I'm doing thething I'm great at.
It feels amazing, right?
I'm getting recognized for it.
Like people I work with knowthat I'm a great copywriter or
great designer or a great coder,you know, a great developer.
So what I got really deeplyinto is flow states and

(42:33):
understanding this.
And I'll tell you the firsttime I experienced a flow state
was not with any awareness ofwhat it was.
But now it is a practice thatwe share a lot of saying, like,
how could you finish your workmore quickly with a higher
output and at the end feelelated, feel uplifted as opposed

(42:54):
to depleted, right?
Because when you feel thatsense of ah, this is great,
you're gonna want to repeat itas opposed to depleted, you're
like, oh god, not this, right?

Yeah, so can I jump in real quick for something?
Yeah, I'm gonna relate this tosomething that we have talked
about.
You know, when you were talkingabout making the transition um
between, I think it wasDreamWorks and Fox, you had
mentioned, yeah, they offered todouble my salary, yeah, they
did this, all these cool things.
But what they offered me was,and then you went into uh the

(43:27):
franchises or the valueproposition, sort of that
internal uh relationship to whoyou were as a kid, it was
purpose.
They offered you a sense ofpurpose, the value that you were
bringing into that companytowards a goal that had a
meaning to you.
And spot on.

As I said, if we can make the DreamWorks version
of Die Hard, what an amazingaction movie that would be.

Sure.
You know, and and as I'msitting here and I'm listening
to you and you're talking aboutthis, I think about that because
I think that so often that'swhere leadership and management
sometimes miss the boat, isyou've got talent, but you're
not guiding them to see like howcan that talent create meaning?
How can that talent createsustainability, legacy, even

(44:16):
purpose, you know, somethinglarger than ourselves?
And I think it's so importantthat if we don't draw that out
as leaders, you've got peoplethat are going to come in,
they're gonna do their job,maybe, uh, quietly quit,
disengage, do the minimum, andgo forward.
And then the leader looks andsays, gosh, these people are
lazy.

(44:37):
And rather than takingownership and going, gosh, I
failed to storytell the missionproperly.

Boom, Jay, this is gold.
I should be writing notes.
This is really good.
Um, no, let's let's take a stepback though, because I do want
to share this because I thinkthere's some valuable actionable
nuggets in it, as well as alarger idea.
So I know that there is acohort of listeners who totally
understands flow states, theyharness them, their teams are in
flow, they're doing amazingwork, and there's probably

(45:05):
another cohort that has apassing understanding of it
because it's becoming prettypopular in the zeitgeist, but
kind of what is it?
And so, if it's fair, can I setthe table for 30 seconds about
what it is?

No, by all means, because I was gonna ask about
that anyways, and related tosomething.
So go for it.
Swing okay.

So, for those playing at home, there was a
Hungarian-American psychologist,this guy, Mihai, Chin Sent
Mihai, and he had a thesis.
He said, if you talk to highperformers in varying
disciplines, athletes, artists,designers, inventors,
scientists, when they talk aboutthe highly concentrated states

(45:45):
where they do the thing thatmakes them famous, they talk in
very similar ways.
And he's like, What's up withthat?
So, like Prometheus, he wantedto go up to Mount Olympus, steal
fire, and bring it down to therest of us going, I figured out
fire guys, right?
So at the end of his research,he wrote a book called Flow.
It is the seminal work on this,it is why we call it a flow

(46:05):
state.
And he name he said this aboutwhy he named it flow, which I
thought was awesome.
He said it was the mostbeautiful metaphor I could find
what I discovered, which is weare all on the river paddling to
move ourselves forward.
But if you align your boat withthe current, it carries you, it
magnifies your efforts.

(46:25):
You go further and faster, andthat is what these people have
figured out how to dorepeatedly.
And in the book, and you know,there's been amazing research
since the cotlers, the newports.
So many people have writtenabout you know deep work and
flow states and you know beingin the zone.
And oh, by the way, you know,you don't you don't have to call

(46:46):
it a flow state.
Like Michael Jordan has thatamazing quote about like when
I'm in the zone, it's me and theball, which is a beautiful way
to say actually it's not aboutthe stands, the scoreboard, or
really even the defenders.
If I control the ball, you'regonna see this on a highlight
reel in 30 years, you know.
That's that's really what thisis comes down to, and that's an
amazing amount of focus.
And there's a great Picasso umquote where he talks about you

(47:10):
know, I was up all night and Ikind of lost track of time and I
didn't eat or pee or blah blahblah.
But I think I kind of capturedyou know, the horror war.
I think it was his 14th nightworking on um on Guernica,
right?
So in the book, Mihai says, Heyman, there there are some
conditions precedent that seemto be true for getting into this

(47:31):
state.
He said, in this state, youhave to believe what you're
doing is meaningful.
You know, it is not, hey man, Istaple the papers here and I
put them in the box, right?
Right.
You have to have skills thatapply.
You know, it's not Jordanpainting, right?
You have to be challenged.
Like that code you're writingactually has to be something you

(47:52):
need to think to make the thingthat is great for your company.
It is not writing just anotherbit of HR software to automate a
process, right?
He said you lose track of time,you do your best work,
distractions fall away, and atthe end, as we discussed, you
feel a sense of joy as opposedto a sense of depletion.

(48:13):
And it is fascinating once youhave experienced this, you do
look up, you go, man, I thoughtlike 15 minutes have gone by,
two hours went by, my thing'sdone.
I think I did it well.
And I have time free nowbecause I got it done more
quickly than I thought.
So that is why I'm such uh acheerleader for flow states.

(48:34):
And by the way, you can achieveit completely.
You don't need our app.
You can, if you study it, youcan, like an athlete, learn how
to do this for yourself, andit's kind of magical.
You don't want to go back onceyou've done it.
And if you can create thoseconditions for your team, which
we can talk about, you will seethe change not in the output,
but also in the energy.

Yeah.
I think there's a couple ofthings that I just want to
highlight here too.
Um, and and then let's get intosome of the application.
How do we get to this flowstate?
What do we do?
Um, you know, what brings us tothat that sense?
Because here's something thatwe have found in our research.
We do a lot of research in theburnout space.

(49:18):
Yeah.
And the thing that we have, I'mgonna call it literally, I'm
gonna say a conclusion.
And I don't say that veryoften.
A conclusion is it's not theamount of work that's creating
burnout.
It is the feeling of isolation,devaluation, or resentment that

(49:40):
comes from the work that you'redoing.
And what you just said aboutgetting into that flow state,
the challenge, but probably notso challenging that it's
impossible to do.
And now I feel resentment thatI've been put in this situation.
How you put you set me up tofail, right?
So challenge, but not videogames do this perfectly, right?

(50:01):
It's just enough challenge thatyou want to keep going, you
want to keep going, but it's notso much that you know get
frustrated by it, right?
Yes.
Um, a sense of purpose, a senseof like meaning to the work.
You know, if I if I tell youjust push this button once every
five minutes, that doesn't haveany meaning.
But if I say if you push thisbutton every five minutes, that

(50:21):
is gonna send the right signalto the satellites that are gonna
keep every plane in the air,you're gonna be saving lives.
Not all of a sudden there's ameaning behind pushing that
button, even if it is somewhatmonotonous, like there's an
importance to it.
If I don't push this button,bad things happen.
GPS goes down.
Yeah, you know, so like havingthat sense of purpose and you

(50:42):
know, the sense of autonomy,being able to essentially say, I
have this ability to be who Iwant to be here.
I can bring my talents, myunique uh, you know, impact to
this space.
I think that's so importantbecause flow really can be the
antidote to burnout if we lookat something like what are those

(51:03):
moments in burnout where I'mdepleting my energy?
Is it really because of theamount of effort or energy put
into it?
No, it's probably more of theemotional state that's behind
it.

May I pick up on that and then I'm gonna give you
a talking step back to you,which is this was an interesting
conversation I had early in thedevelopment of Suka before it
was even called Suka.
Was there was an engineeringmanager who had contacted us
because several of his devs wereusing us, and he's like, What's
this thing?
You know, so like when theyfirst heard of Slack, they're
like, What's Slack?
Do I need to get it for thecompany?
Right.

(51:34):
So we had this conversation,and his entire team is
interesting.
They his entire team weredevelopers that ran a um water
shuttle service across NewEngland, right?
But he had developers that werenot just like all in Concord,
Massachusetts or something likethey were spread all over the
place.
So he was dealing with some ofthose fears around remote.
And as we talked about this, hesaid, I just I want to have

(51:59):
some way of letting go of thatfear because I'm so accustomed
to if we're not under the samefluorescent lights for eight, 10
hours a day, I don't know whatanyone's doing.
And the thing that unlocked itfor him is I said, could you in
your mind redefine work likeoutput instead of time?

(52:21):
If that shuttle thing, thatwhatever it is you're working on
to make the water source go, ifif that's done, do you honestly
care if it took Jay 15 minutesor 15 hours?
If you can let go of that,you're gonna have a happier Jay.
Because honestly, what you wantis a staff meeting where I'm
using you, of course, as theexample because you're right in

(52:43):
front of me, but you want thestaff meeting where Jay walks in
and goes, Hey guys, yesterday Iwas kind of thinking about
this, dot, dot, dot.
And everyone turns their heads,like, oh my God, we should do
that now.
Like that changes thetrajectory of our company.
You don't want Jay to walk inand go, like, hey man, you know,
I spent the time, all my emailswere returned, my inbox is
empty.
I just returned my Slackmessages.

(53:03):
Uh, you know, I clocked out ontime.
Like, who no company winsbecause their Slack messages are
returned.
Yep, you know, they havereflection, like you said, and
it's about output.
It's going, go do somethingbrilliant.
If you spend the entire daywith your dog at the beach, but
you come in tomorrow and you go,I thought about this, and
everyone's like, oh man, win.
Stop, full stop, right there.

(53:23):
Huge, huge.

I you're gonna laugh at this, and I'm sorry,
we're we keep you know jumpingdown the rabbit holes, but it
what you said has so muchmeaning, and and and leaders and
managers take this intoaccount.
Now, I'm not saying do this asI'm gonna say as confidently.
I'm gonna use a kind word formyself.
Uh, the unkind word would be ascocky as I was, but I mean,

(53:47):
we're talking, we're talking 15years ago.
My my entire business startedas a side hustle, and then it
got bigger and it got bigger andit got bigger and bigger.
And then finally, it was one ofthose where I had a beautiful
position uh where I was veryhappy, great salary, super great
benefits, all these otherthings.

(54:07):
And then I had this side hustlethat was just blowing up that I
wasn't going to be able to doboth.
And I remember having theconversation with uh my boss at
the time, basically sayingsomething along the lines of,
look, I can do a lot of thevalue proposition that I do for
you in very short order.
I, you know, would you be opento negotiating whether I can,

(54:31):
this was before COVID, whether Ican work remotely, whether I
can do what you need to do basedon the value, because you can
either pay me for my value or mytime, and you can't afford my
time anymore.
Wow.
Well good.
So did that go down?
Uh they continue to pay me formy value because you know, and
and that's the thing is ask anyleader if you've got a

(54:54):
salesperson that can generate amillion dollars by only working
$10 for 10 minutes a day.
Yeah, are you okay with that?
And all of them are gonna go,well, yeah, if they're
generating that kind of return,okay, then you're paying for
value.
I don't give a, I don't care.
Set the metric, set it higher,do what you gotta do.

(55:14):
Yeah.
But yeah, uh you're so spot on,Annette.
And I think way too often wetry to pay for people's time.
And if if people figure it out,time is the most precious
resource, and it's one of thefew things that people don't
negotiate for.

Yeah, but time is also very easy to measure.
It's easy to go, well, Jay washere all day, as opposed to
Jay's idea was worth its weightin gold.
Because then you actually haveto apply yourself to evaluate
the output, the value as yousaid.

Yeah.
So and that, yeah.
Oh gosh, so brilliant.
And thank you for bringing thatup.
I think that's such animportant lesson for leaders to
think about is am I paying fortime or am I paying for value?
Because there we go.

Should we dive back into flow states?
Because I know it's a littlediverse.

Yes.
Let's do that.

Okay.
So the those who are listening,why should you care?
I hope we've established thereason the reason you should
care, whether you are an IC,you're a leader, you hopefully
you're a leader of people.
Is you can create theseconditions where the people you
are leading are doing their bestwork in a way that gives them
more time and energy and theyfeel uplifted, and that leads to

(56:25):
retention, that really leads tobetter work, a whole bunch of
good outcomes, right?
So flow states, and this is a aconcept uh related to that, is
flow states are something whereuh you need to drop in.
Like you don't snap yourfingers and say, I'm in flow,
I'm deeply thinking right nowand doing great work, right?

(56:46):
It is a way in which your brainsort of drops into it, and
research shows 15 to 23 minutesto get in, right?
From the time in which you sitdown, often music helps.
We can talk about that, youknow.
Things help blockingdistractions.
And then if you get interruptedright in the middle, I'm like,
hey Jay, uh, let me slack youreal quick.
And I need that thing fromyesterday, but then I've

(57:09):
destroyed the next 15 to 23minutes.
You're gonna need to get backinto flow, right?
It's it's that.
So what does that mean if youlead people and you go, hey,
well, I want to experiment withwhat if we all did this
practice?
It means you're gonna have toset aside some time on your
team, your team of three, eight,fifteen, whatever it is, and
say, Hey, if we want to trythis, we're gonna need to set

(57:32):
aside an hour a day or threedays a week or something so we
can do deep work, like themeaningful work that moves us
forward, not the returningemails and you know, doing Teams
messages.
And in that time, let's justtreat it as sacred.
Don't don't bug someone if youdon't need them right now.
Don't set client meetings inthe middle of it, you know.

(57:53):
And in doing that, suppose youget buy-in.
So suppose people are like, heyman, I would love Monday,
Wednesday, Friday to have anhour to actually do work that I
would be proud of that mightcontribute to the T more.
You need to factor that the thenotion of chronotype, which you
brought up early in ourconversation.
This thing is like, you knowwhat, I'm tomorrow from 9 to 11,
I'm going to be locked intothis thing, right?

(58:13):
No, I'm gonna mention this, andthis is a little bit of a
Hollywood story, but it's short,which is when I was a young
Turk coming up, my first brushwith this was a screenwriter
who's way above my level at thetime, Ron Bass.
And this was you know, guy whowrote Rain Man, my best friend's
wedding, all this stuff.
Infamous for not talking to hisfamily in the morning.

(58:35):
He's like, I'm not the dadwho's gonna be like, Who wants
pancakes?
You know, like who needs toride to school?
Like, he's like, I can'tbecause when I start talking to
you, I can't hear my character'svoices in my head anymore.
And that's you know, he getspaid one to two million dollars
of script.
That's why he writes the wordsthat Julia Roberts and Tom

(58:56):
Cruise and Dustin Hoffman,eight-list actors say yes to,
right?
Yep, and his family, of course,is like, Dad, you go, you go
make the two million bucks, likeyou make the pancakes.
We're good, you know, we gotyou.
And he was very regimentedabout this.
He's like, he would get up atthree, four, five in the
morning, right until nine,dialogue.
He knew in the afternoon hecould do studio meetings,
interactive stuff with otherwriter, you know, like stuff

(59:17):
like that.
And I remember thinking, wow,this dude, like he's intense.
How like but he's like, I'mself-aware, I've spent the time
in reflection.
I go, this is how I work.
So that is a very extremeexample of chronotype.
He's like, at this time of day,I'm more adept at this, and at
other times of the day, I'm moreadept at that.

(59:38):
But you can for free, and youknow, your team can get a sense
of your chronotype.
As simple as take a piece ofpaper or pencil, draw a quick
grid Monday, you know, throughFriday, morning and afternoon.
It doesn't have to becomplicated Excel, you Google
Sheets, you know.
Just jot down what did you do?
How'd you feel?
Oh, Tuesday morning, worked onblog posts, smiley face, you

(01:00:02):
know, Wednesday afternoon,coded, felt top.
You look at that after five orten days, the patterns will
stand out to you.
Yes, and then you can startoptimizing your day.

Jay Johnson (01:00:15):
Yeah, audience, take this into account.
You've heard me say before ifyou want to change something,
you have to track it.
And being able to track thisand and even and again, people
over, I think they overthinktracking sometimes.
Like, I've got to input thisfor every 10 minutes, or no, no,
no, no, no.
Make it simple.

(01:00:35):
If it's simple, you do it.
If it's not simple, youprobably won't.
Bingo.
Track it so that way you canlook for those patterns of
behavior.
So, well said, Steven, continueon.
I just wanted to reallyemphasize that point.
I think it's so important.

Steven Puri (01:00:51):
I love that.
And I'll mention this issomething with Suco, which means
happiness.
Our company is called HappinessCompany, that we are launching
right now, which is you will getthe morning after you do a
session.
Suppose you say, Oh, I want tobe in a flow state for now.
You hit play in our website andrun it in the background while
you, you know, are doingwhatever work you do.

(01:01:11):
The next morning, you'll get anemail that helps you
understand.
Very simple, but it says, Doyou realize, you know, in the
past week or two, you're moreproductive when you listen to
this playlist?
Or do you know when you'recoding in the afternoon, you
close tickets more slowly?
Maybe we should schedule moretime in the morning for you when

(01:01:33):
you're doing coding, orcopywriting, or designing.
Like the biggest cohorts in ourplatform are um writers,
engineers, and developers anddesigners.
And that kind of feedback whereit's always there in the
background, and then it's givingyou that.
You know, the same way it'slike my mother-in-law loves her
Apple Watch.
If I hear about the rings onemore time, I'm gonna puke.

(01:01:54):
Like it's it's effective, itworks, right?
But it's a passive sort ofthing.
Just saying, like, yeah, I'mjust watching you.
You can glance down and justsay, Oh, how my rings doing,
right?
And having those little cues,like saying, Hey, what uh what
are my patterns in my session?
Suppose you do like a two-hoursession, right?
With Suka, we give you like aproductivity graph.
You can run your cursor overit, and every five-minute

(01:02:15):
increment, you can see what appsdid you use?
Did you touch your phone?
Did you close, you know, opentasks, things like that?
And I'll tell you this is anadmission about myself.
Once we launched this, even asI thought I was pretty good
about managing my productivity,I noticed once I looked at my
graphs day every day, I wouldalways have this dip about 35 to

(01:02:35):
45 minutes in.
And when I'd scroll over andhighlight that, it was usually
when I grabbed my phone.
And I thought to myself, okay,there are two ways to respond to
this.
One, I need to lock my phoneeven harder.
I can't, you know, or I need toacknowledge that must be a
point where my brain just wantsa break.
So I set my pomodora timer to45 minutes instead of 25.

(01:02:59):
I was like, that's maybe moreme.
And that's just that kind ofthing we want to give people.
So the next morning you'relike, hey man, do you realize
like your pattern is kind oflike you should probably do a
pomodora that's 35 minutes long,or listen to listen to Sonic
Caffeine playlist in the morningbecause you close more tickets
or you know, things like that.
Um, that's one of the thingsthat really gives me joy.
And we're about to launch thatpublicly for everyone.

(01:03:20):
It's in beta right now.

That's pretty amazing.
And, you know, for thoselistening at home that don't
know what Pomodora is, it's acertain amount of time in and
working and focused, and thengiving yourself a break.
And there's actually somereally good cognitive
neuroscience behind this of uh,you know, when we are working,
giving ourselves those breakscan actually do a number of

(01:03:43):
things.
It can help with the transitionfrom short-term memory to
long-term memory.
Uh, it can help with everythingfrom like mood affect, uh,
happiness, et cetera.
So there's a lot of reallyscience.
Yeah, there's a lot of powerfulcognitive effects to
essentially taking a break.
Um, so I actually do this aswell.

(01:04:04):
Usually in my little eitherfive or 10 minute breaks, it's
something as simple as gettingoutside, walking in nature,
doing a little breath work, alittle meditation, whatever
those pieces are.
And I'll tell you, I come backin and that energy is almost
like right back up.
And I'm excited to get back towork as opposed to just being
like, oh, do I have to keepgoing on this?
It's it's such a powerfultechnique.

Okay, if we're if we're bringing in the science a
bit, let's talk about brain fuelessentially and glucose levels
and things like that.
So, yeah, and matter of fact,there's a good Huberman episode,
Hubert and Live about this,talking about, you know, after
120 minutes, your brain fuel,your glucose level essentially
is pretty depleted.
So that notion, and when I wasin the valley, when I was in SF,

(01:04:49):
this was absolutely part of thehustle culture.
It's like if you're notgrinding it out all night till 3
a.m., blah, like you're not init to win it, you know, no, no,
no.
Yep.
And the reality of that is thatmarginal output you get in hour
five without taking a break isso low relative to what it was
from 60 minute 61 to minute 120.

(01:05:10):
And I would find that when Idid that, I'm in I'm in a deep,
but I'm staying up late.
The code I would write the lastpart of the night would
invariably be what I would haveto refactor or rewrite later
because you're like, actually,that was the least efficient way
to write.
That was such a hacky waiting,you know what I mean?
And oh, it doesn't work on iOS.
I forgot when I was coding it.
I yeah, iOS has that weirdthing, you know.
So what you just said, supertrue, as counterintuitive as it

(01:05:35):
may seem from the grinded hustleculture, is doing a pomodoro,
which I have to add this just soit's amusing.
The reason it's called PomodoroTomato in Italian is because uh
Francesco Trulo, who came upwith this, was using a kitchen
timer.
Look that look like a tomato,right?
So he's like, What if youworked 25 minutes and took a
five-minute break and repeatedthat cycle, you know, eventually

(01:05:55):
did a longer break.
So when we structured Suko, webuilt it around that for exactly
what you said.
And when your little bing, likeyoga ding comes up and goes,
Hey, you've been working for 25minutes, we offer you in your
face points for going to get aglass of water, points for going
for a walk.
We offer you videos you canplay of just desk stretches.

(01:06:16):
Hey, man, you don't even wantto get up, you just want to
stretch a bit and feel better.
Breathing exercise.
You want to do some boxbreathing together?
Here's five minutes of boxbreathing.
And you're right, you come backto it after that break, the
water, the box breathing,whatever, and you're like, okay,
I got this.
Let's do it.

So I'm gonna toss this out there.
Trainers and coaches for all ofyou that are doing 90-minute
trainings, 120-minute trainings,more breaks than you think you
would normally do.

I design all of my stuff now: 40 minutes of content, 10 (01:06:45):
undefined
minutes a break, 40 minutes ofcontent, 10 minutes a break,
because people will remembermore, they'll be happier, and
they will be far more productiveand engaged.
So uh this is great forleaders, managers, teams,
individuals that want to be moreproductive, and for you

(01:07:05):
trainers and coaches out thereas well.

So and the irony is we've not given them a break as
we've been talking aboutanother thing, Jay.

Hit pause, hit pause, go get some water, come
back to the conversation.
We'll be ready when you comeback.
That's true.
I know, but this has just beenso fascinating.

This is super fun.
We can do another episodesupport if you want.

I mean, there's so much to talk about.
Yeah.
So uh yeah, let me let me askone other quick question.
And then, you know, I want tobe respectful of time here, and
we've already, you know,definitely extended this beyond,
but I think it's been such apowerful question.
If you were to, if you were tolook at at Suka and you were to
say, what was your uh, you know,what was your what was your

(01:07:50):
groundbreaking learning oncepeople started experiencing
this?
Like once they started to dothis, use the app, once they
started to engage in this, whatwas that sort of like okay
highlight moment?

This is gonna sound kind of weird, but go with me.
So Suka is a focus app.
It is a website.
You hit play and it gives youall these little tools, blocks
or distractions.
It is like a single player gamemade for you to go deep, hour,
two hours a day.
I had a thought at a certainpoint where I was like, I speak

(01:08:26):
to so many of our members likeone-on-one, almost like a hub in
spoke, and yet none of themknow each other.
They have no sense that there'sanyone else because it's all
these single player games thatthey're all playing with
themselves, right?
Would it be cool if they uhcould talk to each other?
Is there is there a communityaspect to this?
So I did what I love to do,which is speak to some members

(01:08:47):
and go, hey, I have this idea.
I don't know what do you think?
Like, what if you guys had a agroup chat or maybe private
groups or things like that youcould do?
And there was one woman I spoketo didn't need to talk to
anyone else after I spoke to herbecause she listened to me and
I said, Would this be the mostdistracting thing ever, or would
this actually be a value add tothe platform?
And she said, Steven, I can goto the Nike store, I can buy a

(01:09:12):
pair of shoes, they'll sell meleft shoe, right shoe, put them
on my feet, I run, they workgreat.
There's a reason why a hundredmillion people belong to the
Nike Run Club because togetheryou run further, you run faster,
you're more accountable.
The days when you suck andyou're on the sofa and your
friends come by, they're like,Come on, Jay, let's do this, and
you go running, it feels greatthat they came by for you.

(01:09:33):
And the day you do that forSteven, it feels even better.
She's like, You should do it.
I will tell you, is my favoritepart of the platform the fact
that people in there are allproductivity minded.
It is not like Twitter withpeople hating on each other and
fake bot accounts, it's notFacebook just wasting time, it's
not, you know, like Instagram.
It is an interesting communityof people who are all like,

(01:09:56):
let's do something.
Like life is short.
I have something inside methat's great.
And I'll tell you a uh closingstory.
There is uh in the group chat,you can share one thing a day
that you finished.
So you can post, hey, Ifinished my website, and someone
will say, I post the URL to it.
This spring, this guy posted uhhis name is Roy King.
He posted uh uh turned in mydissertation, finished my

(01:10:18):
dissertation.
And people in the group chatwere like, hey man, that's kind
of a that's kind of a big micdrop.
Like you want to talk aboutthat?
He goes, Oh yeah, I've been youknow using Suka the past year
or two because I am an assistantvice principal at this high
school in Missouri somewhere.
I'm working my PhD inengineering.
I have kids, I get maybe a 60to 90 minute window in between

(01:10:41):
school and family stuff.
I need to use it really, reallyefficiently.
So I use Suka to focus in thattime, and that's how I got here.
But he said, Don't get tooexcited because I still have to
defend my dissertation, right?
This let's step.
So he said, like it's like twoweeks from Monday or something.
I will tell you, leading intothat Monday, that Saturday,
Sunday, people around the worldthat I know don't know him,

(01:11:03):
Japan, South America, they postin there, hey Roy, you got this.
Good luck, Roy.
We're pulling.
And I was like, This is reallythis is a great feeling of being
part of something.
I know these people do not knowhim, like their only connection
is through we are all pulling,trying to do something in our
lives.
And Monday, nothing from Roy.
We're finally someone posted,Hey, anybody here from Roy King

(01:11:25):
today?
Like, need the end of thisstory, Roy.
What happened, right?
And Tuesday morning, he dropsin, he goes, You may now call me
Dr.
King.

Ah, congratulations.

Went ape shit.
Yeah, but that is a thing Ididn't know would be part of
this.

That's incredible.
And how important it is,especially in now and the time
that we're in, to be connectedand to be supported and to be
seen and valued, yeah, and tosupport each other.
So, Steven, there's been somuch great that has come up.

Thank you for moving the conversation forward.

Uh, we could most certainly probably spend another
hour and a half, but I I we'llwe'll hold true to you know,
taking a break here.

If the audience, we're gonna have some water,
we're gonna do it some breath.

That's right.
If the audience wanted to getin touch with you or learn more
about the Suka app, how wouldthey do so?

Oh, super easy.
If there's anything that I'vesaid that someone has a question
about, doesn't have to beabout, you know, my app, welcome
to email me.
Who is that Hungarian guy?
What is Cal Newport doing?
Steven S-T E V E N at theSuka.co for company.
So T-H-E-S-U-K-H-A.co, the SukaCompany, right?

(01:12:43):
And if someone wants toexperiment with this or try it
for their team, it is obviouslyat the sukha.co, th-e-su-k-h
a.co, the suka company.
Suka means happiness inSanskrit.
So that's ultimately what wewant is people to feel
self-fulfilled.
So we think that's a virtuouscycle of like you're doing great
work, you feel great about it,you want to do more.

It's incredible.
And uh, you know, we'll makesure that's in the show notes so
people can access it easy.
I will be trying this outmyself.
I can't wait uh because it isvery much aligned with how I
like to do work.
So this is definitely somethingI'm gonna look into.
Um, Steven, you spent this hasbeen one of the longer episodes,
to be perfectly honest.

No, I'm sorry about that.
I could talk faster.

Yeah, no, no apology.
This has just been so full ofgreat insight, incredible
stories.
I just want to say thank you somuch for being here, sharing
your knowledge and wisdom andexperience with the audience.
It's really truly beenmeaningful.

I appreciate that.
And thank you to everyone who'slistening.
In addition to you, Jay, likeanyone who's stuck with us and
found value here that makes itall worthwhile.
And I appreciate that.

Yes, absolutely.
And yes, thank you, audience,for tuning in to this episode of
the Talent Forge, wheretogether we are shaping
workforce behaviors.

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