Latest / Blockchain Germany – Web3 Startups, Crypto Innovation & Venture Capital by Startuprad.io™ / Steven Puri (Sukha): Deep Work That Ships
Transcript
- WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:00.400 Foreign. 2 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:12.800 Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 3 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:16.480 startup scene with news interviews and 4 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:17.840 live events. 5 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:24.320 If you're a founder or engineer fighting distractions, 6 00:00:24.560 --> 00:00:28.070 here's the challenge most productivity hacks 7 00:00:28.070 --> 00:00:31.510 create Flow Stephen Puri, the VFX 8 00:00:31.510 --> 00:00:34.950 producer behind Oscar winning Independence Day and former 9 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:38.870 Fox Greenworks executive Turd Shuka 10 00:00:39.030 --> 00:00:42.669 founder, has shipped under Hollywood level 11 00:00:42.669 --> 00:00:45.910 pressure. Today we'll unpack his Flow State 12 00:00:45.910 --> 00:00:49.150 playbook from the coffee shop effect to remote team 13 00:00:49.150 --> 00:00:52.110 rituals so he can do deep work and 14 00:00:52.110 --> 00:00:55.480 be2 time your meaningful 15 00:00:55.800 --> 00:00:59.600 output today on 16 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:03.160 startup rated IO Stephen Puri. He helped deliver the visual 17 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:06.360 magic on Independence Day. Braveheart, True Lies, 18 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:09.720 Godzilla Dentur then moved 19 00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:13.440 upstairs as a studio executive at Fox and DreamWorks. Along 20 00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:17.240 the way he co founded Centropolis FX with his friend 21 00:01:17.240 --> 00:01:21.000 Roland Emerysch, later selling the company and produced in the 22 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.740 Transformers universe with Transformers Prime. He's 23 00:01:24.740 --> 00:01:26.220 a founder again building 24 00:01:30.460 --> 00:01:34.220 Flow State platform for remote workers, developers and 25 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:38.100 creators. We'll explore what Hollywood war rooms taught 26 00:01:38.100 --> 00:01:41.820 him about focus and what his startup failures told 27 00:01:41.820 --> 00:01:45.620 him about resilience and how to design teams for deep work in 28 00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:48.220 an AI driven distraction heavy world. 29 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:53.070 That is a nutshell. That's a big sentence. 30 00:01:54.910 --> 00:01:57.870 Yes, but. But you know, in Germany we love big sentences 31 00:01:59.070 --> 00:02:01.390 and compound bounds. Yeah. 32 00:02:02.590 --> 00:02:06.390 Let's talk a little about origins. You told me both of your parents 33 00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:10.230 were engineers. You started in CG and 34 00:02:10.230 --> 00:02:13.830 Metroland Emirates through vfx. What 35 00:02:13.830 --> 00:02:17.240 was the first this is bigger than me moment on 36 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.360 Independence Day? Oh, I think 37 00:02:22.200 --> 00:02:26.040 there were a lot of this is bigger than me moments. I was 38 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:29.640 very fortunate to meet Roland and Dean, his co 39 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:32.920 producer and co writer, after I had worked 40 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:37.040 on about 13 movies. How 41 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:40.120 that happened is you mentioned my parents were both engineers at IBM. 42 00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:43.880 So when your mother is a great ice skater, you probably learned to ice skate 43 00:02:43.880 --> 00:02:47.350 when you were little. So. So I learned how to code. I was in Los 44 00:02:47.350 --> 00:02:51.030 Angeles at the University of Southern California when computers 45 00:02:51.030 --> 00:02:54.750 became powerful enough to handle film. So I 46 00:02:54.750 --> 00:02:58.150 worked on the digital effects for True Lies with Jim 47 00:02:58.150 --> 00:03:01.630 Cameron seven with David Fincher. I did 48 00:03:01.790 --> 00:03:05.390 Braveheart and Mortal Blood with Mel Gibson, did a bunch of movies and met 49 00:03:05.390 --> 00:03:08.830 Roland and Dean after they'd done Stargate. And 50 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:12.910 I remember coming over to chat with them and they were building in one of 51 00:03:12.910 --> 00:03:16.550 the hangars at Howard Hughes old aircraft factory which 52 00:03:16.550 --> 00:03:20.330 was been abandoned, but it was a very cheap place to have huge stages. Right. 53 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:24.570 They had under construction the 54 00:03:24.570 --> 00:03:28.090 alien fighter craft that Jeff Goldblum would later 55 00:03:28.250 --> 00:03:31.450 be inside and install the virus to help save the world. 56 00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:35.850 And it was pretty great having a conversation with them about 57 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:39.450 doing the movie Together when you're standing next to this massive 58 00:03:40.090 --> 00:03:43.690 starship being created, that was one of many moments 59 00:03:43.930 --> 00:03:46.620 that was hard movie to do, but a great one to do. 60 00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:54.460 Every day. What did leadership under pressure look 61 00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:58.260 like across Braveheart? True Life's Godzilla, and which 62 00:03:58.260 --> 00:04:01.740 habit from those sets still lives in your 63 00:04:01.900 --> 00:04:05.620 founder routine? Okay, so in 64 00:04:05.620 --> 00:04:08.540 many ways, I view leadership as 65 00:04:10.790 --> 00:04:13.910 a way to create an environment for a team to do great things. 66 00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:18.910 I don't view leadership as, oh, I'm here to be 67 00:04:18.910 --> 00:04:22.710 the great one. I think, for example, in the entertainment world, Bob Iger 68 00:04:22.710 --> 00:04:26.550 is a great example of a leader where he has amazing people running 69 00:04:26.550 --> 00:04:30.390 the divisions he's navigated, very complex acquisitions, but 70 00:04:30.390 --> 00:04:34.110 he doesn't make it about him. In contrast to someone like 71 00:04:34.110 --> 00:04:37.890 Elon Musk, who's very full of himself. So 72 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:41.250 going back to working with people who are very talented, 73 00:04:41.970 --> 00:04:45.650 Mel, Jim, Cameron Fincher, Spielberg, I work with 74 00:04:45.650 --> 00:04:49.090 Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch. The thing that was important was 75 00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:53.530 we have a team here and if everyone has something 76 00:04:53.530 --> 00:04:57.370 inside them that is great to express, how do you create the conditions where 77 00:04:57.370 --> 00:05:00.570 they're going to be great, they're going to get that out. And that's a very 78 00:05:00.570 --> 00:05:04.380 strong theme of my life. I've worked with incredibly 79 00:05:05.020 --> 00:05:08.820 productive, creative, talented people. And it's 80 00:05:08.820 --> 00:05:12.580 about, if we all have something great inside, how do you 81 00:05:12.580 --> 00:05:16.420 make sure you don't die with it still inside you? That's how 82 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:17.420 I view leadership. 83 00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:24.540 We had quite an extensive conversation before that, and you said 84 00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:28.300 the studio sequel Treadmill felt at one point meaningless 85 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:31.710 to you, pushing you towards a startup. What 86 00:05:31.710 --> 00:05:35.110 snapped and why? So what you're 87 00:05:35.110 --> 00:05:38.310 referencing is when I had sold 88 00:05:38.870 --> 00:05:42.710 that company with Roland and Dean, and I was in my late twenties, 89 00:05:43.510 --> 00:05:47.070 and as one thinks in their late twenties that they're smarter than they are, they're 90 00:05:47.070 --> 00:05:50.830 more successful, they're better looking than they are. Right. So I had that moment of 91 00:05:50.830 --> 00:05:53.510 like, oh, wow, I sold a company and I had some money in my pocket. 92 00:05:53.830 --> 00:05:57.520 My girlfriend was a flight attendant for Air France, and we traveled for a year 93 00:05:57.520 --> 00:06:00.160 or two and just sort of experienced the world. And I thought, 94 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:04.920 when we come back, I want to make 95 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:08.160 movies. I don't want to make a portion of someone else's movie. 96 00:06:08.880 --> 00:06:12.080 So I worked my way up the ladder to be, as you said, 97 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:16.280 an executive vice president for Kurtzman Mercy at DreamWorks, Vice President 98 00:06:16.280 --> 00:06:20.080 at Fox doing Die Hard, Wolverine and things like that. And I wanted to 99 00:06:20.080 --> 00:06:23.810 be like a studio chairman. So when I got to 100 00:06:23.810 --> 00:06:27.370 Fox, what was interesting is 101 00:06:28.410 --> 00:06:31.850 I came to understand for the first time that my job, which Was 102 00:06:32.010 --> 00:06:34.890 from the outside, rather prestigious. 103 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:39.450 I'm responsible for delivering the next Die Hard movie, the next Wolverine movie, 104 00:06:39.530 --> 00:06:43.210 a bunch of movies on the slate. It's really just a chair. 105 00:06:44.810 --> 00:06:48.450 The studio will live beyond my tenure there. It was around before 106 00:06:48.450 --> 00:06:52.250 I was there. I'm the guy in the chair for these couple of years, 107 00:06:52.890 --> 00:06:56.650 and someone will come after me. And the studio is going to make these movies 108 00:06:56.650 --> 00:07:00.450 regardless of who is there, because people will just see a movie 109 00:07:00.450 --> 00:07:03.930 because it says Die Hard on the poster. And my 110 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:07.770 boss, who was the chairman of Fox Films Entertainment, who was a 111 00:07:07.770 --> 00:07:11.130 smart guy, if not a nice guy, a smart guy, he was very 112 00:07:11.450 --> 00:07:15.130 pragmatic. He said, you know, it doesn't actually matter how good this movie is, 113 00:07:15.130 --> 00:07:18.750 how good the script is. We can financially model it based 114 00:07:18.750 --> 00:07:22.470 upon the previous four movies. So as long as we make it cheaply, 115 00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:26.150 we know we won't lose money. And, Yorin, that 116 00:07:26.150 --> 00:07:29.830 is not an extremely inspiring way to lead a 117 00:07:29.830 --> 00:07:33.590 team. It's like, hey, would you go kill yourself to make 118 00:07:33.590 --> 00:07:37.350 this thing? By the way, we know the script sucks, but as long as it 119 00:07:37.350 --> 00:07:41.150 gets shot, when Bruce has some time to shoot the movie, we'll release it and 120 00:07:41.150 --> 00:07:44.590 it'll be fine. And that for me, was the breaking point where I was like, 121 00:07:44.590 --> 00:07:48.270 am I going to wake up, be 40, 50 years old doing die hard 122 00:07:48.270 --> 00:07:51.990 nine in the retirement home? Because people will go see it even 123 00:07:51.990 --> 00:07:55.790 if there's no idea. I couldn't see spending 124 00:07:55.790 --> 00:07:58.790 more time there. I think there's a real value misalignment at Fox. 125 00:07:59.430 --> 00:08:03.230 If you do Die Hard 9, it has to play in a retirement 126 00:08:03.230 --> 00:08:06.830 home. Pretty much, yeah. And obviously now 127 00:08:06.830 --> 00:08:10.030 Bruce is not making his movies anymore, and I hope he and his family are 128 00:08:10.030 --> 00:08:13.530 well. But at the time, he was still quite 129 00:08:13.530 --> 00:08:17.130 vibrant. And the movie got made because he had a 130 00:08:17.130 --> 00:08:20.930 window of time in his schedule. It was not made because this is the 131 00:08:20.930 --> 00:08:24.730 most amazing idea. The best script ever, the best director ever. It was 132 00:08:24.730 --> 00:08:27.809 more, just get something ready and shoot in April 133 00:08:29.650 --> 00:08:33.090 and we'll find a country in Eastern Europe where we can shoot it cheaply. 134 00:08:34.850 --> 00:08:38.650 Not inspiring. Good to have a. It pays well 135 00:08:38.650 --> 00:08:42.360 and it's a fun job to have, but. But someday you're like, 136 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:46.040 I'm going to wake up sitting around talking about how I did these bad 137 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:48.720 movies. Not a great way to spend your life. 138 00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:55.320 For everybody who's interested, we do have a founder's world. And then we 139 00:08:55.320 --> 00:08:58.160 also talk about his talker's moment and how Stephen 140 00:08:58.640 --> 00:09:02.400 rebuilt his identity as a founder. The full story, of course, 141 00:09:02.400 --> 00:09:04.080 inside our Founders vault. 142 00:09:06.830 --> 00:09:10.470 I was wondering because you've been in 143 00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:14.110 corporate. I have been two. Even though completely different 144 00:09:14.190 --> 00:09:17.230 capacities and industries. What specific 145 00:09:17.710 --> 00:09:21.390 anti patterns did you learn there that 146 00:09:21.390 --> 00:09:24.830 now shape Shuka product bets. 147 00:09:25.630 --> 00:09:29.430 Okay. An anti pattern. And this might fall 148 00:09:29.430 --> 00:09:31.630 into category of values also, which is, 149 00:09:33.630 --> 00:09:35.070 I think you, 150 00:09:37.310 --> 00:09:40.510 all of us right now are looking at how do we measure work. 151 00:09:41.950 --> 00:09:45.710 And in the tug of war between working at 152 00:09:45.710 --> 00:09:49.150 home, working remotely, working hybrid, working in office, 153 00:09:50.110 --> 00:09:52.670 there's a lot of fear. Right? 154 00:09:54.830 --> 00:09:58.390 I think the fundamental thing that we should focus 155 00:09:58.390 --> 00:10:02.050 on is not, well, where did you do this work? 156 00:10:02.130 --> 00:10:05.970 Were you here under the fluorescent lights with me where I could watch you? 157 00:10:06.050 --> 00:10:08.530 Were you at home? Were you at a beach or at a park? I don't 158 00:10:08.530 --> 00:10:12.130 know where you are, not what time of day you did it. Like, if you're 159 00:10:12.130 --> 00:10:15.170 not here at 2am Joran, you're not working hard, you're not part of the team. 160 00:10:15.170 --> 00:10:18.890 If you're not sleeping under your desk, you're not doing meaningful work. I 161 00:10:18.890 --> 00:10:22.370 don't think those are important. I think work should be measured by the effect 162 00:10:23.490 --> 00:10:27.150 of what you do, not where or when you do it. So if you walk 163 00:10:27.150 --> 00:10:30.910 in the staff meeting tomorrow and you say, guys, actually yesterday I had some 164 00:10:30.910 --> 00:10:34.470 time to think. This is what I was considering. 165 00:10:35.430 --> 00:10:38.190 And everyone in the meeting looks over and goes, oh, my God, we should do 166 00:10:38.190 --> 00:10:41.590 that now. That changes the trajectory 167 00:10:42.069 --> 00:10:45.910 of our company. And then you say, well, you know what? I actually 168 00:10:45.910 --> 00:10:49.430 just thought of that. Walking my dog. Who cares? 169 00:10:50.950 --> 00:10:54.150 I would much rather you said I was walking my dog and I had this 170 00:10:54.150 --> 00:10:57.830 revolutionary idea than I was here all day. I was here 14 171 00:10:58.130 --> 00:11:01.730 hours yesterday. And I have some mediocre things to share. You 172 00:11:01.730 --> 00:11:05.410 know, Stephen, between you and me and something like 50 173 00:11:05.410 --> 00:11:08.530 to 100,000 people listening to this interview, can I tell you a secret? 174 00:11:09.010 --> 00:11:12.450 Yes. I have the best ideas when smoking a cigar. 175 00:11:13.490 --> 00:11:17.330 Okay. I'm glad it's our little secret. No one 176 00:11:17.330 --> 00:11:19.250 tell anyone what you just heard. 177 00:11:21.810 --> 00:11:25.650 Yeah. Awesome. Why do you think that is? Hold on, I want 178 00:11:25.650 --> 00:11:29.090 to ask you a question. Why do you think that is? That's pretty simple. 179 00:11:29.090 --> 00:11:31.890 That's like a moment I do get 180 00:11:32.690 --> 00:11:36.410 completely for myself. I sit there on our covered 181 00:11:36.410 --> 00:11:40.089 porch, on the balcony where there's another balcony on 182 00:11:40.089 --> 00:11:43.850 top. But I have awesome neighbors. They don't mind me going 183 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:47.490 out late at night smoking cigarette because they're already in bed. Thank you, 184 00:11:47.490 --> 00:11:51.010 neighbors. I look out like it is peaceful world. 185 00:11:51.010 --> 00:11:54.730 There's. There's a lot of green. I see some squirrels running around and 186 00:11:54.730 --> 00:11:58.510 all that stuff. And I. I can really wind down my brain. I can 187 00:11:58.510 --> 00:12:02.230 really relax. And it 188 00:12:02.230 --> 00:12:05.830 takes some time to smoke, like a really good cigarette. So you 189 00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:09.630 relax it for quite some time. May I tell you a story? 190 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:13.790 Sure. That's why you're here. So when I was 191 00:12:13.790 --> 00:12:16.830 transitioning from being a student at USC 192 00:12:18.110 --> 00:12:21.910 to the film world, which was not my original intention, I sort of fell into 193 00:12:21.910 --> 00:12:25.010 it. I had gotten a job 194 00:12:25.810 --> 00:12:28.850 working at a company that did trailers for movies, 195 00:12:29.250 --> 00:12:32.850 largely for Warner Brothers and for Buena Vista, which is Disney. 196 00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:37.810 So my job, when I was 20 years old at this company was 197 00:12:38.450 --> 00:12:41.690 we would have contracts with the studios where they would send us rough cuts of 198 00:12:41.690 --> 00:12:45.450 movies. Hey, next spring we have this romantic comedy with Steven and 199 00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:49.090 Joran in it. Find a way to promote it. So I would assign 200 00:12:49.810 --> 00:12:53.650 those incoming movies to writer producers. Hey, go take this home. 201 00:12:53.650 --> 00:12:57.050 Watch it. They want it to feel fun or they want it to feel scary. 202 00:12:57.050 --> 00:13:00.770 They want to feel right. So the company is owned by two 203 00:13:00.770 --> 00:13:04.450 guys who are very well established in this field in Hollywood. They were very 204 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:08.130 respected as great guys to promote movies. So one of them 205 00:13:08.130 --> 00:13:11.970 comes in my office one day, and he's 40 years old, 206 00:13:12.130 --> 00:13:15.860 by the way, smoke cigars. So he comes to my office, and 207 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:19.180 he's the only person in my life who calls me Stevie. So he goes, 208 00:13:19.900 --> 00:13:21.900 stevie, do you know Bart? 209 00:13:23.500 --> 00:13:27.060 And I was like, there's the guy in the vault that delivers tapes. Yeah, I've 210 00:13:27.060 --> 00:13:30.740 met him. Seems nice. Why? He's like, you ever 211 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:33.260 give Bart a trailer to ride? 212 00:13:34.380 --> 00:13:38.220 I was like, are we talking about the guy who delivers coffee? The same. 213 00:13:38.220 --> 00:13:41.950 Bart, the guy. Where are you going with this? He's like, 214 00:13:42.180 --> 00:13:44.420 stevie, I have an instinct about him. 215 00:13:45.620 --> 00:13:49.300 Jeff, you own the place. Let me give him something to work on, Right? So 216 00:13:49.300 --> 00:13:52.740 I found, like, a Warner Brothers B title that had a month deadline. 217 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:55.260 So if after a week, he's like, I don't want to do this. I could 218 00:13:55.260 --> 00:13:59.020 give it to a pro. Right? Jeff comes to my office two days 219 00:13:59.020 --> 00:14:02.780 later. Stevie, how's Bart doing? Like, Jeff, I gave him this 220 00:14:02.780 --> 00:14:04.900 thing two days ago. I'm not going to bug him. I'll check with him on 221 00:14:04.900 --> 00:14:07.960 Monday. Okay. Okay, that's great. What else did you give him? 222 00:14:09.390 --> 00:14:12.990 Jeff, he's never written a trailer in his life. I gave him one movie, 223 00:14:13.310 --> 00:14:17.110 and Jeff said something that I've seen 224 00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:20.030 proven true for 20 years in both film and tech. 225 00:14:20.990 --> 00:14:24.630 Jeff said to me, stevie, let me explain to you how 226 00:14:24.630 --> 00:14:28.430 creativity works. It's always about the 227 00:14:28.430 --> 00:14:32.150 other thing. He said, if you give Bart one movie to work 228 00:14:32.150 --> 00:14:35.790 on, he's going to stare at that with little beads of sweat coming down 229 00:14:35.790 --> 00:14:39.010 his temples and he's going to write the most 230 00:14:39.090 --> 00:14:42.850 obvious B version of a trailer. 231 00:14:43.490 --> 00:14:46.690 He's like the part of your mind that does the huh, 232 00:14:47.330 --> 00:14:51.130 what do chocolate and peanut butter taste like together? He's like, that's not the part 233 00:14:51.130 --> 00:14:54.890 of your mind that you think you're thinking with. So you have to give 234 00:14:54.890 --> 00:14:56.690 him something else to think about. 235 00:14:59.090 --> 00:15:02.530 Not only have I seen him proven right so many times, but there is a 236 00:15:02.530 --> 00:15:05.870 book about the neuroscience of this called the Net and the 237 00:15:05.870 --> 00:15:09.350 butterfly by Olivia Fox Caban 238 00:15:09.430 --> 00:15:13.150 and Judah Pollock. And it talks about the 239 00:15:13.150 --> 00:15:16.710 executive mode and the default mode networks in the brain and 240 00:15:17.830 --> 00:15:21.190 talks to a lot of inventors, talks to a lot of creative types and say, 241 00:15:21.190 --> 00:15:24.950 how do you do this? And what's interesting is the default mode 242 00:15:24.950 --> 00:15:28.710 network, which actually exists first when we were small, is 243 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:32.470 the one that just explores the world. It looks at a cell phone and thinks, 244 00:15:32.550 --> 00:15:36.320 I wonder what that tastes like. Well, the executive mode network is more 245 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:40.000 like the adult in the room. I have to finish the slide 246 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:43.800 deck for tomorrow's presentation. Oh, the investor thing is coming up. I need to 247 00:15:43.800 --> 00:15:47.560 do my homework tonight. So it's only when the 248 00:15:47.560 --> 00:15:50.920 executive mode network is busy doing something the default mode network 249 00:15:51.640 --> 00:15:55.320 can play and come up with those ideas. You go, oh, actually that's interesting. 250 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.840 So that is why people have ideas when they are sitting out, looking, 251 00:15:59.640 --> 00:16:03.060 smoking a cigar, walking their dog, driving, 252 00:16:03.220 --> 00:16:07.020 doing the dishes, showering. So many people come to me like, I have my best 253 00:16:07.020 --> 00:16:10.860 ideas in the shower. My best ideas like washing dishes. And 254 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:14.700 that is why. I see. And 255 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:18.260 actually I also learned that when I became an entrepreneur, 256 00:16:18.420 --> 00:16:21.540 I sent the adult in my brain a part time vacation. 257 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:31.580 Okay, let's talk about Transformers prime and later studio 258 00:16:31.580 --> 00:16:34.700 roles. Put you in a massive cross functional team. 259 00:16:35.260 --> 00:16:39.100 What's a communication ritual from that 260 00:16:39.100 --> 00:16:42.380 world every startup should steal today. 261 00:16:43.420 --> 00:16:47.260 Oh, okay. I would say probably the most 262 00:16:47.260 --> 00:16:51.100 valuable thing that you see on show because Transformers prime is a 263 00:16:51.100 --> 00:16:54.740 TV series that I helped set up. I helped staff 264 00:16:54.740 --> 00:16:58.340 and create the organization for that. So that 265 00:16:58.340 --> 00:17:01.940 is a 3D animated show based on the Transformers universe and all 266 00:17:01.940 --> 00:17:05.660 that. So a very similar thing does exist 267 00:17:05.980 --> 00:17:09.659 in the standup world, which is you do 268 00:17:09.659 --> 00:17:12.060 have a morning standup 269 00:17:13.340 --> 00:17:16.780 and that is something that in the animation world 270 00:17:17.100 --> 00:17:20.660 you will have a practice that Pixar is famous for about, you know, the 271 00:17:20.660 --> 00:17:24.380 Pixar movies, right from Toy Story to today, like they've done an 272 00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:28.140 amazing job. They have a very collaborative process of saying, hey, let's 273 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:31.780 watch things together. Let's talk about the struggles we're having. I don't know why the 274 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:35.580 third act is not working here. It's a similar thing that I see in the 275 00:17:35.580 --> 00:17:39.340 best startup, you know, best startups that have a standup that's 276 00:17:39.340 --> 00:17:43.140 not just a. This is what I did yesterday. This is 277 00:17:43.140 --> 00:17:46.700 what I'm doing today. This is where I'm blocked. You know, it's like that 278 00:17:46.700 --> 00:17:50.240 becomes such a rote sort of a thing that's not actually that 279 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:53.360 inspiring as to say, hey, you know what? I want to show something. 280 00:17:53.840 --> 00:17:57.600 I built this feature. What do you think? And take 10 seconds. Take 281 00:17:57.600 --> 00:18:01.200 20 seconds. Go. Now, when you do this in our app, this 282 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:04.960 works this way. And it's an interesting way to engage 283 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:08.520 the team, to get collaborative ideas, to shoot down bad ideas 284 00:18:08.520 --> 00:18:12.080 quickly. And you, as a leader, have to create an 285 00:18:12.080 --> 00:18:15.740 environment where best idea wins, where there is no ego. 286 00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:19.660 And I'll tell you another story. When I was at DreamWorks 287 00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:24.060 and I had worked hard, and I got to the point where I was a 288 00:18:24.060 --> 00:18:27.820 senior executive there with Alex and Bob, I remember the very first 289 00:18:27.820 --> 00:18:31.380 meeting I had in Steven Spielberg's conference room, which, yes, 290 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:35.180 I'd worked hard to get there and had done many projects. But I'm just going 291 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:38.180 to tell you straight up, the first time I was sitting there and Steven's, it's 292 00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:41.050 all Southwestern Adobe style. 293 00:18:42.410 --> 00:18:45.770 And I looked around, I was like, oh, my God. My life has gotten to 294 00:18:45.770 --> 00:18:49.210 the point where I'm having a story meeting with Steven Spielberg in his private conference 295 00:18:49.210 --> 00:18:52.890 room. This is amazing. And the chairman of DreamWorks, Stacy Snyder 296 00:18:52.890 --> 00:18:55.850 is there, and the president of DreamWorks, myself, two writers, 297 00:18:56.410 --> 00:19:00.130 writing producers. And I saw something that I was 298 00:19:00.130 --> 00:19:03.970 like, wow. And I'm going 299 00:19:03.970 --> 00:19:07.600 to change the details, Jorn, just to be respectful of Stephen in the 300 00:19:07.600 --> 00:19:10.360 process. Okay, I'm going to change the details a bit, but we're working on a 301 00:19:10.360 --> 00:19:14.000 project that's like an Alien movie. And Steven has done 302 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:17.720 some big alien movie. He spent a lot of time thinking about aliens, right? 303 00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:23.440 So he said something where it's like, oh, you know what? The alien should come 304 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:27.240 through the wall, and then we're going to discover its weakness. Is this 305 00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:30.800 right? And everyone, of course, writes that down. Steven 306 00:19:30.800 --> 00:19:34.600 Spielberg said, the alien comes to the wall. Weaknesses, right? And. And then 307 00:19:34.600 --> 00:19:37.440 someone who I'm going to say is like, the coffee boy was coming through the 308 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:41.200 room and said, actually, I feel like we 309 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:44.520 just saw that last summer in this other movie. 310 00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:48.440 And what if it were actually this thing that the alien 311 00:19:49.080 --> 00:19:52.880 was weak, it was his weakness. And I 312 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:56.480 thought to myself, that Coffee Boy will never be seen alive 313 00:19:56.480 --> 00:20:00.280 again. He just contradicted Steven Spielberg. This would be the 314 00:20:00.280 --> 00:20:03.400 end of Jerry. He'll be in a dumpster out back. 315 00:20:05.030 --> 00:20:07.750 And what was amazing is, without a 316 00:20:08.550 --> 00:20:12.310 missed beat, Steven said, oh, yeah, that's good, we should 317 00:20:12.310 --> 00:20:16.150 do that. And there was no feeling of, oh, 318 00:20:16.150 --> 00:20:19.910 my God, someone contradicted Steven Spielberg. It was rather 319 00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:23.630 Steven saying, I want this to be great more 320 00:20:23.630 --> 00:20:27.350 than I want it to be mine. And I'll tell 321 00:20:27.350 --> 00:20:30.990 you, I saw this with some of the best designers, some of the 322 00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:34.580 best writers, directors. They 323 00:20:34.580 --> 00:20:38.340 don't have a possessive relationship with ideas. It's 324 00:20:38.340 --> 00:20:41.180 not like you're in, this is my idea. I must defend it to the death. 325 00:20:41.180 --> 00:20:44.820 We'll do it this way. It is rather, I will defend greatness to the 326 00:20:44.820 --> 00:20:48.499 death. And then you lose the 327 00:20:48.499 --> 00:20:52.100 ego because you want the products to be great. Whether it is an 328 00:20:52.100 --> 00:20:55.420 app, whether it is a movie, a TV series. 329 00:20:56.940 --> 00:21:00.780 That process, if you can create that in your company, it comes from the 330 00:21:00.780 --> 00:21:03.980 top. Because once they see the leader is fine with their ideas 331 00:21:04.760 --> 00:21:08.320 being improved, then everyone goes, oh, well, it's okay. It's not an ego 332 00:21:08.320 --> 00:21:11.640 thing. That sounds pretty good. Can I tell you another secret? 333 00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:15.960 Oh, boy. Is this about cigars? It has done a lot of 334 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:19.760 very cool stuff. But when you first said Steven Spielberg, do you know what 335 00:21:19.760 --> 00:21:23.320 first thing came to my mind? The animated series. He did 336 00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:26.520 Pinky and the Brain. Pinky and the Brain. 337 00:21:30.830 --> 00:21:34.030 Okay, you're going to laugh. That's funny. That was on your mind. You know what 338 00:21:34.030 --> 00:21:36.950 was on my mind today when we were going to talk, when I was thinking, 339 00:21:36.950 --> 00:21:40.550 oh, I wanted to talk to Jordan today, was I think you did a recent 340 00:21:40.550 --> 00:21:44.390 episode where you were interviewing someone who was 341 00:21:44.390 --> 00:21:47.350 working in the finance. I think she was in private equity or something, and she 342 00:21:47.350 --> 00:21:50.830 made selling finance. And you said, you know, 343 00:21:50.990 --> 00:21:53.630 you don't need five apps to tell you you're broke. 344 00:21:55.070 --> 00:21:58.710 Remember this? Yes, I remember 345 00:21:58.710 --> 00:22:01.590 listening to that in the car. I was going to the gym and I laughed 346 00:22:01.590 --> 00:22:04.090 out lo. You know what? You're absolutely right. 347 00:22:08.410 --> 00:22:12.010 Really cool. Let's talk a little bit about 348 00:22:12.250 --> 00:22:14.330 Shuka, your 349 00:22:16.410 --> 00:22:20.210 current company, your current startup. That's why you are here. As 350 00:22:20.210 --> 00:22:23.370 an entrepreneur, you aim for the 351 00:22:23.610 --> 00:22:27.330 coffee shop effect. I 352 00:22:27.330 --> 00:22:31.070 assume it's not being over caffeinated. What does 353 00:22:31.310 --> 00:22:34.270 the science and your user data say about 354 00:22:34.990 --> 00:22:38.830 ambient accountability versus solo focus 355 00:22:38.830 --> 00:22:42.510 playlists? Let me answer that, but then I'm going to 356 00:22:42.510 --> 00:22:45.870 expand it a little bit, if that's okay with you. Okay, so 357 00:22:47.550 --> 00:22:51.270 for those listening at home or playing in the car, what Joran is 358 00:22:51.270 --> 00:22:54.670 alluding to is there is an effect that's known 359 00:22:54.910 --> 00:22:57.390 colloquially as the coffee shop effect. 360 00:22:58.630 --> 00:23:02.430 In research circles, it's often called social facilitation 361 00:23:02.430 --> 00:23:06.190 theory, the Hawthorne effect, other things. And it's based on this 362 00:23:06.190 --> 00:23:09.750 idea, which is there is a 363 00:23:09.750 --> 00:23:13.509 productivity boost, a measurable boost if 364 00:23:13.509 --> 00:23:17.310 you can see someone else working and, you know, 365 00:23:17.310 --> 00:23:20.710 you can be seen working. And whether that is 366 00:23:20.950 --> 00:23:24.390 the negative side of that is, well, it's surveillance. It's like, oh, 367 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:28.160 everyone can see me. I have to work. Or whether it is, hey, we're doing 368 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:31.960 this together. It's inspiring. You can debate that, but there 369 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:35.600 is a productivity boost you get from that. Now, I think what 370 00:23:35.600 --> 00:23:38.680 Joran's getting at, because he wants to laugh a little bit at me, is when 371 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:42.160 I was a film executive, I had to read a lot of 372 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:45.960 scripts, a lot of books. You were continually getting 373 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.760 this flow of things coming at you from people who 374 00:23:49.760 --> 00:23:53.440 want you to buy it, Right. Will your studio please buy my idea, 375 00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:57.040 my pitch, my treatment, my. My video game rights, you know, 376 00:23:57.040 --> 00:24:00.880 whatever. And that means you read a lot. And 377 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:02.440 I'm not a great writer, but 378 00:24:04.440 --> 00:24:08.240 there is a coffee shop, a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf that 379 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:11.240 is across Sunset Boulevard from the Directors Guild of America. 380 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:15.560 And it is famously known as this writer's coffee shop. 381 00:24:15.560 --> 00:24:19.360 And when you walk in There, all the MacBooks 382 00:24:19.360 --> 00:24:23.180 are out with people writing on their laptops. And it's not 383 00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:27.020 incredibly social. It is not like people are just running around talking to each 384 00:24:27.020 --> 00:24:30.860 other all the time. But there's an energy in that room that's really interesting because 385 00:24:30.860 --> 00:24:34.180 in one corner, you have that weird old guy writing 386 00:24:34.500 --> 00:24:38.180 who's written, like, three studio movies this year. His quote is a million dollars 387 00:24:38.180 --> 00:24:42.020 a script. But he still comes here in his 50s or 60s, because it's his 388 00:24:42.020 --> 00:24:45.700 habit. He loves the energy of this room. Maybe he's been there for 20 years, 389 00:24:45.860 --> 00:24:49.260 whereas there are other people who just got off the bus from Iowa, you know, 390 00:24:49.260 --> 00:24:52.260 or from Wichita Falls, and they are 391 00:24:53.060 --> 00:24:56.100 writing their first TV pilot. So 392 00:24:56.500 --> 00:25:00.180 what's interesting about that coffee shop effect, and then I'm going to move on to 393 00:25:00.260 --> 00:25:03.900 a broader point, is I would go 394 00:25:03.900 --> 00:25:06.900 there to read. Even though I was not a writer, 395 00:25:08.020 --> 00:25:10.820 I would go there to read because it was inspiring to me. On weekends when 396 00:25:10.820 --> 00:25:14.500 I had, like, six hours, eight hours of reading to do, to be there among 397 00:25:14.500 --> 00:25:17.300 so many people who are trying to do something with their lives, 398 00:25:18.440 --> 00:25:21.640 all of them are trying to write something great. And that is something that, you 399 00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:25.200 know, with Sukha, that we wanted to recreate where you have the ability, if you 400 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:28.880 want to participate in a group chat, to you Know, turn your 401 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.440 camera on, see other people. It's a very simple idea 402 00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:35.400 of that African proverb, we go 403 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:39.320 together, we go further. You know, if you want to go fast, go alone. If 404 00:25:39.320 --> 00:25:43.000 you want to go far, go together. Now let me 405 00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:46.800 expand that a little bit, which is the why 406 00:25:47.280 --> 00:25:50.840 of what I do. And actually the most important reason that I'm 407 00:25:50.840 --> 00:25:54.640 sharing a lot this year is what I've learned about flow 408 00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:58.440 states. Because we began talking today. And 409 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:01.640 for those of you listening, I appreciate your being here because this is really the 410 00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:05.200 closest thing to my heart. I 411 00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:08.960 believe that all of us have something great inside. And the question 412 00:26:09.120 --> 00:26:12.520 that you're going to answer in this lifetime is, will you get it out or 413 00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:15.800 not? And there are some very strong forces 414 00:26:16.120 --> 00:26:19.960 in this world to make sure you do not the people who make 415 00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:23.680 distractions, the trillion dollar companies that hire some of the 416 00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:27.480 best behavioral psychologists, some of the best designers 417 00:26:27.480 --> 00:26:31.240 from the best engineers, their business models to 418 00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:34.440 steal your life. Because they don't want you to create that startup. They don't want 419 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:36.720 you to come with that new idea. They don't want you to even write that 420 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:40.100 book. They want to have your life so they can sell it. 421 00:26:41.380 --> 00:26:45.020 So if you are out there listening and you have that thing inside you 422 00:26:45.020 --> 00:26:48.780 like, I refuse to die with this idea 423 00:26:48.780 --> 00:26:52.620 still inside me, then that tug of war 424 00:26:52.620 --> 00:26:56.460 for your life you really have to look at. Because on one side you have 425 00:26:56.460 --> 00:27:00.020 those trillion dollar ideas paying the biggest paychecks to the smartest people 426 00:27:00.100 --> 00:27:02.820 tugging, and on the other side of that rope, 427 00:27:04.110 --> 00:27:06.430 it's you alone. 428 00:27:07.870 --> 00:27:11.630 So you need to have people around you and tools that help you 429 00:27:11.630 --> 00:27:15.430 to actually become who you could be. Because you don't want to end up 430 00:27:15.430 --> 00:27:18.990 that 80 year old guy or girl sitting on the sofa scrolling and double 431 00:27:18.990 --> 00:27:22.790 tapping and telling people how you could have created that company, you had 432 00:27:22.790 --> 00:27:26.510 that idea for the app, you could have written that book, because that's 433 00:27:26.510 --> 00:27:29.550 miserable. And by the way, no one wants to be around that person. 434 00:27:30.660 --> 00:27:33.940 They want to be around someone who tried. You may fail what you are 435 00:27:33.940 --> 00:27:37.540 contemplating doing. You come here to listen to this podcast because you have 436 00:27:37.540 --> 00:27:40.740 something you believe you can do. You may not succeed, 437 00:27:41.780 --> 00:27:45.140 but if you try and fail, that is noble 438 00:27:46.260 --> 00:27:49.700 and people can respect that. But giving your life away, 439 00:27:50.740 --> 00:27:54.540 there's no nobility in that. So that is why I talk a lot 440 00:27:54.540 --> 00:27:58.320 about flow states and how to block distractions and how to 441 00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:01.120 get out the great thing inside you. And that's why I was really excited to 442 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:04.800 come on this podcast today. Because I think the 443 00:28:04.800 --> 00:28:07.960 people listening here, they want to do Something with their lives, 444 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.960 and I love that. Back to you, Jorn. 445 00:28:18.280 --> 00:28:22.040 I actually realized that I also used this effect of 446 00:28:22.040 --> 00:28:25.720 being seen, because with a friend of mine, I'm doing like one 447 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:29.540 hour a week. We call it the hour of the Skunk, where 448 00:28:29.540 --> 00:28:33.300 we just go online on a meeting, webcams on. 449 00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:37.060 We both work on the things you really don't want to do, 450 00:28:37.380 --> 00:28:38.980 like tax filings, 451 00:28:40.900 --> 00:28:44.100 all the administrative trivia. You just have to. 452 00:28:45.780 --> 00:28:49.380 Yeah, I love that in German. Die 453 00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:53.020 stunde Distincties. And so have 454 00:28:53.020 --> 00:28:56.700 you. I've not heard an episode where you talked about body doubling. Is that something 455 00:28:56.700 --> 00:29:00.340 we should talk about now? No, no, 456 00:29:00.340 --> 00:29:03.980 no, actually. Actually, I do it all myself. Like the owl of the 457 00:29:03.980 --> 00:29:07.740 skunk. It's all me. Oh, it's just you. I thought you were on webcams together 458 00:29:07.740 --> 00:29:11.460 with your friend. Yeah, exactly. So. So I'm there, he's 459 00:29:11.460 --> 00:29:15.260 there, and we both work on different things, but we force each 460 00:29:15.260 --> 00:29:18.940 other to do the stuff we don't want to do. You know, like the book. 461 00:29:18.940 --> 00:29:22.740 Eat that frog. Exactly. That's the idea behind that. Eat the 462 00:29:22.740 --> 00:29:26.420 frog. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So 463 00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:30.220 the technique that Jorn is referencing is commonly known, and it's very popular 464 00:29:30.220 --> 00:29:34.020 with neurodivergence, popular in ADHD circles, 465 00:29:34.260 --> 00:29:37.780 of turning on your webcam, working with one or more people. 466 00:29:38.580 --> 00:29:42.220 And it's not that you talk, it's not that you interact, but it's just a 467 00:29:42.220 --> 00:29:46.060 way of having a sense of presence. There's someone else there, as I do 468 00:29:46.060 --> 00:29:49.660 the thing that may be super annoying to do or I've been procrastinating 469 00:29:49.660 --> 00:29:53.410 on, and you eat the frog. You do the thing that's hard. 470 00:29:53.410 --> 00:29:55.850 You, I guess, spend an hour with the skunk. 471 00:29:57.290 --> 00:29:59.370 Exactly. Sometimes I feel like that. 472 00:30:02.410 --> 00:30:06.010 I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in here. 473 00:30:06.410 --> 00:30:10.250 But let us move to next question. You shared that 22 474 00:30:10.250 --> 00:30:14.010 minutes can be lost, regaining focus after interruptions. 475 00:30:14.170 --> 00:30:17.930 How does Shukra reduce this, like, 476 00:30:18.010 --> 00:30:21.750 context switch tax in practice? Oh, 477 00:30:21.750 --> 00:30:25.550 good question. Okay, so, as you know, I love stories. Let me 478 00:30:25.550 --> 00:30:28.550 tell you a story about how I discovered this. And then I'm going to go 479 00:30:28.550 --> 00:30:31.910 into more of the neuroscience of it and how it can be applied. Right. So 480 00:30:32.310 --> 00:30:36.110 I live in Austin, Texas. You know where this is very well, because you've lived 481 00:30:36.110 --> 00:30:39.910 in Texas. I was flying to San Francisco, where 482 00:30:39.910 --> 00:30:43.670 the next day I was going to meet with my team. And on the flight 483 00:30:43.670 --> 00:30:47.080 I thought, I'm going to mock up. I'm going to go into Figma, mock up 484 00:30:47.080 --> 00:30:50.840 this idea for a feature well, enough that I can Demonstrate it tomorrow, 485 00:30:50.840 --> 00:30:54.080 and then actual designer can pick it up and finish it. 486 00:30:55.280 --> 00:30:58.480 I got on the flight, and there's an Alaska nonstop 487 00:30:58.960 --> 00:31:02.720 from Austin to San Francisco. We took off. They announced the WI 488 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:06.560 fi was out, and we landed about 15 minutes later. 489 00:31:07.120 --> 00:31:10.640 And I thought, the engine has fallen off. Something bad has happened. We lost 490 00:31:10.800 --> 00:31:14.480 hydraulic systems, and we're in Dallas. We didn't go anywhere. 491 00:31:17.190 --> 00:31:20.830 I looked down at the little clock on my MacBook. Over 2 hours 492 00:31:20.830 --> 00:31:23.430 and 40 minutes had gone by. I had no 493 00:31:23.990 --> 00:31:27.790 concept. Time had moved. We were in San 494 00:31:27.790 --> 00:31:31.590 Francisco, and my designs were done. And I was 495 00:31:31.590 --> 00:31:35.390 actually quite proud of them. And 496 00:31:35.390 --> 00:31:39.030 I thought to myself, I couldn't tell you if the drink cart came by. I 497 00:31:39.030 --> 00:31:41.600 couldn't tell you the name of the guy in the seat next to me. I 498 00:31:41.600 --> 00:31:44.520 had no concept of any of these distracting things around me, 499 00:31:45.400 --> 00:31:49.160 but I had this great feeling of being in control of my life. That night. 500 00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:52.920 I thought to myself, I'm going to get off the plane, grab a sandwich in 501 00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:55.800 the hotel lobby, go up to my hotel room, and try and finish the designs. 502 00:31:56.840 --> 00:31:59.560 In reality, I called a friend of mine and said, hey, I have a free 503 00:31:59.560 --> 00:32:03.320 night in San Francisco. Do you want to have dinner? And that felt 504 00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:07.640 amazing. To not be behind, but to start, be ahead. 505 00:32:08.950 --> 00:32:11.830 And at the time, I did not know the term flow state. 506 00:32:13.910 --> 00:32:17.510 Now, I'm sure there are many people listening who are flow 507 00:32:17.510 --> 00:32:21.310 masters, and they know all about flow states. But for those who 508 00:32:21.310 --> 00:32:24.230 don't, or maybe have heard it in passing, let me just do 30 seconds on 509 00:32:24.230 --> 00:32:27.670 what a flow state is, that we're all on equal footing. Okay? 510 00:32:28.550 --> 00:32:31.950 There was a Hungarian American psychologist, Mihai Csik 511 00:32:31.950 --> 00:32:35.110 Nai, and he had a strong thesis. 512 00:32:35.940 --> 00:32:39.580 His thesis was man high performers in these 513 00:32:39.580 --> 00:32:42.980 different disciplines, inventors and athletes and 514 00:32:42.980 --> 00:32:46.340 artists, they get into these 515 00:32:46.340 --> 00:32:50.180 concentrated states where they do the things that make them famous, the things 516 00:32:50.180 --> 00:32:53.700 that change the world. And they describe these states in very similar 517 00:32:53.700 --> 00:32:57.540 ways. What is that state? How does it work? 518 00:32:58.580 --> 00:33:02.340 So, like Prometheus from the mythology, he wanted to go 519 00:33:02.340 --> 00:33:06.190 up to Mount Olympus, steal some fire, and bring it down to the rest of 520 00:33:06.190 --> 00:33:09.590 us. So when he did his research, at the end of it, he wrote a 521 00:33:09.590 --> 00:33:13.390 book, and the book is called Flow, and that is the 522 00:33:13.390 --> 00:33:17.150 seminal work on this. It is from whence we get the term flow states. And 523 00:33:17.150 --> 00:33:20.630 he said this was the most beautiful metaphor I could use 524 00:33:20.870 --> 00:33:24.470 for what I found, which is, we are all on the river, 525 00:33:25.350 --> 00:33:29.150 paddling to move ourselves forward. But if you align your 526 00:33:29.150 --> 00:33:32.730 boat with the current, you go faster and you go 527 00:33:32.730 --> 00:33:36.490 further, because it magnifies your efforts. And that's what these 528 00:33:36.490 --> 00:33:40.090 people do. Now, in the intervening decades, 529 00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:44.050 many smart people have expanded on his research and said, oh, this is the 530 00:33:44.050 --> 00:33:46.930 thing. There is a way in which you could be more in control of your 531 00:33:46.930 --> 00:33:50.170 day, more in control of your mind and your energy to do things. 532 00:33:51.210 --> 00:33:54.810 Super helpful. If you are an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, 533 00:33:55.290 --> 00:33:59.030 if you are working on things on the side, if you have knowledge, 534 00:33:59.030 --> 00:34:01.950 work to do, like you may be a developer, you may be a designer, you 535 00:34:01.950 --> 00:34:05.790 may be an author, and this is 536 00:34:05.790 --> 00:34:09.430 what I am passionate about. Suka, which you referenced 537 00:34:09.430 --> 00:34:13.230 and I appreciate you bringing that up. Suka is ultimately 538 00:34:13.230 --> 00:34:16.950 a flow state app. I don't call it that all the time because not everyone 539 00:34:16.950 --> 00:34:20.190 knows what a flow state is. We call it a Focus app. But what it 540 00:34:20.190 --> 00:34:23.799 is is we looked at the research and Mihaly did an 541 00:34:23.799 --> 00:34:26.919 amazing job saying, here's how you know you're in a flow state 542 00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:31.919 and here are the techniques that these high performers use 543 00:34:31.919 --> 00:34:35.679 to get into it. And we just said, what if there was a simple website 544 00:34:35.679 --> 00:34:38.919 with a play button right in the middle that did most of this for you? 545 00:34:39.799 --> 00:34:43.199 And I can go into what some of those things are because people can do 546 00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:46.959 this. They don't need my app or anyone's app. If you're interested 547 00:34:46.959 --> 00:34:50.550 in having control of your life, creating your startup better, 548 00:34:50.550 --> 00:34:53.310 creating whatever it is you're working on for your team better. 549 00:34:53.870 --> 00:34:57.470 Mihaly said flow states seem to be 550 00:34:57.470 --> 00:35:00.990 characterized by loss of track of time, which I experienced. 551 00:35:00.990 --> 00:35:04.270 Maybe you weren't. Have you've experienced a flow state, right? Yeah. 552 00:35:05.630 --> 00:35:09.470 Yeah. Okay. So you lose track of time, distractions are blocked, you're 553 00:35:09.470 --> 00:35:13.310 very focused on the task at hand. You do it at a very 554 00:35:13.310 --> 00:35:16.860 high level. Your return of energy 555 00:35:16.940 --> 00:35:20.620 from the task is much higher than things that drain you because 556 00:35:20.620 --> 00:35:24.380 you can look at it and say, oh, I've done something of meaning. 557 00:35:24.940 --> 00:35:28.060 And when he talked about what are the things that help you get into a 558 00:35:28.060 --> 00:35:31.580 flow state and stay there, he said, number one, 559 00:35:32.060 --> 00:35:35.900 everyone that he spoke to could get into flow state on a 560 00:35:35.900 --> 00:35:39.580 task that he thought was meaningful. No one gets into a flow state like 561 00:35:39.580 --> 00:35:42.380 paying their bills or returning stupid emails or 562 00:35:44.050 --> 00:35:47.770 filing taxes, right? You don't get a flow state. When there was 563 00:35:47.770 --> 00:35:51.610 a famous basketball player in this country, Michael Jordan, who 564 00:35:51.610 --> 00:35:54.850 had this quote where he said, when I'm in the zone, it's only me and 565 00:35:54.850 --> 00:35:58.689 the ball. And what he was saying, which zone is another word for 566 00:35:58.689 --> 00:36:02.370 this flow state. He's saying, I can reduce my world down to 567 00:36:02.370 --> 00:36:05.850 what is important and all that's important is I control this ball to go where 568 00:36:05.850 --> 00:36:09.530 it needs to go. The stands are not important. The scoreboard's not important. The 569 00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:13.300 defenders are actually not important. All that's important 570 00:36:13.300 --> 00:36:16.580 is I move this ball where it needs to go. 571 00:36:17.380 --> 00:36:21.220 And this is a guy who did stuff that 30 years later is 572 00:36:21.220 --> 00:36:24.660 still in the highlight reels for the best basketball in the world. 573 00:36:25.220 --> 00:36:29.020 And Picasso wrote about that too. He has a great quote about, I 574 00:36:29.020 --> 00:36:32.780 was up all night and I forgot to pee. No 575 00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:35.540 bio breaks and I didn't drink water. 576 00:36:38.030 --> 00:36:41.070 But hey, look, I made some progress on Guernica. 577 00:36:41.950 --> 00:36:45.750 So Mihaly said, what you're doing has to be meaningful. You 578 00:36:45.750 --> 00:36:49.110 have to be challenged. You have to have skills that apply. It's not Michael Jordan 579 00:36:49.110 --> 00:36:52.950 painting and it's not Picasso playing basketball. You have 580 00:36:52.950 --> 00:36:56.670 to have some feedback. You have to know you're not 581 00:36:56.670 --> 00:37:00.030 pouring energy into a black box with no idea if it's working. 582 00:37:00.510 --> 00:37:04.290 Picasso has to be able to stand back and say, this huge canvas 583 00:37:04.290 --> 00:37:08.010 that I'm creating. Am I starting to realize this vision I have in my head 584 00:37:08.010 --> 00:37:11.570 of what is the horror of war or Michael Jordan looking at the 585 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:15.210 scoreboard and saying, okay, I'm going to win this game. This is what I 586 00:37:15.210 --> 00:37:18.849 wanted. So as this applies to Suka, what I 587 00:37:18.849 --> 00:37:22.690 built is I just said, without downloading an app, 588 00:37:22.690 --> 00:37:26.050 without doing a lot of things, how can we take what Mihaly wrote 589 00:37:26.930 --> 00:37:30.130 and make that available? Just a simple play button in the center of the screen. 590 00:37:31.350 --> 00:37:34.790 So music helps people 591 00:37:35.270 --> 00:37:38.990 get into flow and stay in flow. You brought up Jorn how a lot of 592 00:37:38.990 --> 00:37:42.710 research is 15 to 23 minutes to get into 593 00:37:42.710 --> 00:37:45.870 a flow state. You don't just sit down, say, I'm in flow, and you're deeply 594 00:37:45.870 --> 00:37:48.550 in flow. It takes a few minutes, like music playing, 595 00:37:49.270 --> 00:37:53.110 focusing. If you get interrupted, it's another 596 00:37:53.110 --> 00:37:56.150 15 to 23 minutes to get back to that state. Right. 597 00:37:56.750 --> 00:38:00.510 So there are a number of components. We can talk about them and I'm happy 598 00:38:00.510 --> 00:38:03.310 to do so, but I've been talking for a long time now. I want to 599 00:38:03.310 --> 00:38:06.590 give it back to you. But that is really what I think is the secret 600 00:38:06.750 --> 00:38:10.470 sauce of our episode is how can you harness 601 00:38:10.470 --> 00:38:14.150 a flow state to do the things that propel your life and your team's 602 00:38:14.150 --> 00:38:14.670 life forward? 603 00:38:17.870 --> 00:38:21.590 Two add ons to that. What really helps me is at 604 00:38:21.590 --> 00:38:25.070 one point listening to a lot of those 605 00:38:25.790 --> 00:38:28.340 background music on a commonly used 606 00:38:29.610 --> 00:38:33.450 video app that is like working jazz, relaxing jazz, 607 00:38:33.450 --> 00:38:37.250 something like this. I have almost. I'm almost constantly wearing 608 00:38:37.250 --> 00:38:40.890 headphones for that simple reason. Because I have like two very 609 00:38:40.890 --> 00:38:44.730 loud boys just behind this wall. And so I really 610 00:38:44.730 --> 00:38:48.250 need to do that. And a second piece that I found 611 00:38:48.330 --> 00:38:51.690 really helps me focus is interaction. 612 00:38:51.850 --> 00:38:55.540 And actually I also do realize that that this 613 00:38:55.620 --> 00:38:59.260 now maybe for a month or two, works 614 00:38:59.260 --> 00:39:02.780 for me with AI, with large language 615 00:39:02.780 --> 00:39:06.500 models, because I assign them roles. I assign them 616 00:39:06.900 --> 00:39:10.500 not, not really personalities. Like they don't have like funny 617 00:39:10.500 --> 00:39:14.260 voices or something, but they do have a purpose. And then you can 618 00:39:14.260 --> 00:39:17.540 work with them like in a, in an, 619 00:39:18.180 --> 00:39:21.300 in an idealized team. Because I found some research. 620 00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:25.540 If you not only set up, for example, 621 00:39:25.540 --> 00:39:29.380 let's say ChatGPT is the most used one. If you not only set 622 00:39:29.380 --> 00:39:33.220 up ChatGPT and give it a prompt, but if you really set up a 623 00:39:33.220 --> 00:39:36.540 personality, something that helps you towards your goal 624 00:39:36.940 --> 00:39:40.700 and then have a group of different people who have different angles, 625 00:39:40.700 --> 00:39:44.460 those virtual people, then you can get a much, much better 626 00:39:44.460 --> 00:39:48.060 result. And that's what I'm doing. And that also newly 627 00:39:48.060 --> 00:39:51.360 helps me get into flow. That is so interesting. 628 00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:55.680 Number one, my hat is off to you that you are that thoughtful about 629 00:39:55.680 --> 00:39:58.320 your flow practice. That's awesome. 630 00:39:59.600 --> 00:40:03.440 And that is interesting to me what you said about 631 00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:08.320 having that interaction that specifically keeps, you know, gets 632 00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:10.960 you there and keeps you there, helps you doing your best work. 633 00:40:12.640 --> 00:40:16.320 It's actually something I'm going to talk about with my partner later today because we've 634 00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:19.890 been working on our, you know, essentially GPT, your, your 635 00:40:19.890 --> 00:40:23.250 assistant in Suga and 636 00:40:23.490 --> 00:40:27.050 I would love to think more about that. That's a great idea. Okay, what should 637 00:40:27.050 --> 00:40:30.770 we talk about next? Well, when we're done with the interview, 638 00:40:30.770 --> 00:40:32.210 I can show you some insights. 639 00:40:34.690 --> 00:40:38.450 You talked about Michael Jordan and Picasso. I'm very sure 640 00:40:38.450 --> 00:40:42.090 they are not the reference customer. And if they. In case of 641 00:40:42.090 --> 00:40:45.650 Michael Jordan, if he's using flow, he's 642 00:40:45.650 --> 00:40:49.430 not stating it outright, but what's your biggest validated 643 00:40:49.430 --> 00:40:52.550 use case so far? Like developers, designers, 644 00:40:52.630 --> 00:40:56.390 writers, solos, any surprising activation 645 00:40:56.390 --> 00:40:59.430 metrics that predict. Okay, 646 00:40:59.990 --> 00:41:03.190 I'm going to tell you a couple things that I found interesting because in running, 647 00:41:03.270 --> 00:41:05.990 you know, this for years now and talking to a lot of members, 648 00:41:06.950 --> 00:41:10.710 I know that our biggest cohorts are knowledge workers, right? Which are 649 00:41:10.710 --> 00:41:13.670 often developers, designers, writers, you know, like 650 00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:18.440 people who have multiple hours a day 651 00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:22.760 of sitting on a laptop and doing something and if 652 00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:26.120 the desire is to do it better, to do it faster, 653 00:41:27.560 --> 00:41:30.840 that is where flow states are very helpful because you stay in the thing. You 654 00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:34.600 don't context switch going between things. You don't 655 00:41:34.600 --> 00:41:38.120 try and multitask, which is not really a thing it's just monotasking with 656 00:41:38.120 --> 00:41:41.850 context switching. And there are a couple practices 657 00:41:41.850 --> 00:41:45.650 that I have seen validated by a number of people. This is not 658 00:41:45.650 --> 00:41:49.370 just theory number one is time blocking 659 00:41:50.010 --> 00:41:52.490 and time blocking as it relates to your chronotype. 660 00:41:53.530 --> 00:41:57.250 So chronotype, for those who don't know, is the concept that 661 00:41:57.250 --> 00:42:00.970 there are times of day when you're more adept at doing 662 00:42:00.970 --> 00:42:04.770 certain kinds of things. And I'll give you a film example because 663 00:42:04.770 --> 00:42:08.320 it's a fun way of illustrating this and memorable, which is Ron Bass 664 00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:12.040 was a huge screenwriter in Hollywood, wrote My Best Friend's 665 00:42:12.040 --> 00:42:14.720 Wedding and Rain man and all these, like, movie star movies, Right. 666 00:42:16.160 --> 00:42:18.640 He famously would not talk to his family in the morning. 667 00:42:20.720 --> 00:42:24.360 He's like, I'm not the dad who's going to say, who wants pancakes? You know, 668 00:42:24.360 --> 00:42:27.520 did you do your homework? Who needs a ride to school? He's like, 669 00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:32.800 I can't talk to you because when I talk 670 00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:35.760 to you, I lose the ability to hear my character's voices. 671 00:42:37.330 --> 00:42:40.530 And that's when I get paid a million, $2 million a script to do. So 672 00:42:40.530 --> 00:42:43.290 what he would do is he knew his chronotype and he said, I'll get up 673 00:42:43.290 --> 00:42:45.890 at 4 or 5 in the morning. So I have four hours to write 674 00:42:47.090 --> 00:42:50.730 and I'm going to get up, not say hello to his wife, go to his 675 00:42:50.730 --> 00:42:54.570 office and write. Now, he knew that his chronotype was such. He was very 676 00:42:54.570 --> 00:42:58.290 good with collaborative work. In the afternoon, after lunch is when he was 677 00:42:58.290 --> 00:43:02.010 good, meeting with other writers, meeting with producers and studio executives 678 00:43:02.010 --> 00:43:05.710 and talking about story, talking about. About things like that. So that was 679 00:43:05.710 --> 00:43:09.470 the first brush I had with someone who was very aware of their chronotype 680 00:43:09.470 --> 00:43:11.990 and harnessed that. Why do I bring this up? 681 00:43:13.270 --> 00:43:17.070 Because you can figure out your chronotype very easily. You don't need an 682 00:43:17.070 --> 00:43:20.790 app. You don't need to pay anyone. If you have a pencil and a 683 00:43:20.790 --> 00:43:23.550 piece of paper and you can use a computer if you want, but I'm just 684 00:43:23.550 --> 00:43:25.990 saying, it is this rudimentary, right? 685 00:43:28.550 --> 00:43:31.760 Create a simple list for each day, 686 00:43:32.160 --> 00:43:35.920 morning and afternoon, and just roughly say what you did and do it for 687 00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:39.600 five days. Oh, Monday morning from 8 to 11, I worked on 688 00:43:39.600 --> 00:43:42.880 blog posts and put down how you felt. Tuesday 689 00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:46.240 afternoon, I was working on coding from two to five. How'd you feel 690 00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:50.160 when you look at that after five days or do it for two weeks, you 691 00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:53.760 will start to see your patterns. Man. When 692 00:43:53.760 --> 00:43:57.040 I write creative stuff in the morning, I have a clarity. 693 00:43:58.090 --> 00:44:01.890 Then in the afternoon, I try and do it and I always feel blocked. Or 694 00:44:01.890 --> 00:44:05.010 I feel like it's stupid. I have to rewrite it. Oh, when I write my 695 00:44:05.010 --> 00:44:08.250 code late at night, because I think all code should be written in the middle 696 00:44:08.250 --> 00:44:11.410 of the night, I get a lot done, but I end up refactoring it the 697 00:44:11.410 --> 00:44:15.170 next day. I should pay attention to that. And then you start to develop 698 00:44:15.170 --> 00:44:18.410 a sense of when you should be doing certain things. So if you are a 699 00:44:18.410 --> 00:44:21.850 solopreneur, if you're doing a side hustle or you're working from home, 700 00:44:23.140 --> 00:44:26.700 you may want to have a meeting with yourself that you put in your 701 00:44:26.700 --> 00:44:30.376 calendar. When you say, Hey, 2 to 4pm 702 00:44:30.464 --> 00:44:34.260 Is my sweet spot for this, or 8 to 10 in the morning 703 00:44:34.260 --> 00:44:37.620 is my sweet spot for this. Block it in your calendar so no one schedules 704 00:44:37.620 --> 00:44:40.980 team meetings with you. Zooms. If they slack, you know, 705 00:44:41.620 --> 00:44:45.220 they know you're busy. And use that time for that thing 706 00:44:45.380 --> 00:44:49.200 because you'd be amazed if you know you're good from like 7 707 00:44:49.200 --> 00:44:52.920 to 9am at this thing. You can get in that time done what other people 708 00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:56.760 do in seven to 11. And you have to respect that. You have to 709 00:44:56.760 --> 00:44:59.040 treat the time as sacred. Was her little jingle. 710 00:45:00.640 --> 00:45:04.200 That's just my smartwatch. I have two 711 00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:07.960 pieces to add to that. One of them is actually when you talked 712 00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:11.520 about seeing or hearing the characters talking, 713 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:15.000 what came to mind was when I was in London, I was in the house 714 00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:18.580 of Charles Dickens, and he actually had a mirror in 715 00:45:18.580 --> 00:45:21.900 front, a big mirror in his writing room. And he got in front of it 716 00:45:21.900 --> 00:45:25.740 and acted like his characters. And then at one point, he knew 717 00:45:25.740 --> 00:45:29.540 how this would play out. And then he got back to writing. And that's incredibly 718 00:45:29.540 --> 00:45:32.940 cool. Second piece is. I already knew for quite 719 00:45:33.580 --> 00:45:37.300 decades that I'm a night person. I'm a night owl. I do my 720 00:45:37.300 --> 00:45:40.700 best work between, let's say, 8:00pm, 20 721 00:45:41.020 --> 00:45:44.730 and 2:00am the next morning. Yeah, 722 00:45:45.450 --> 00:45:48.890 that. That's my best time. But I do have some 723 00:45:48.890 --> 00:45:52.730 blockers. That's time for best. Time for what, though? Because that's 724 00:45:52.810 --> 00:45:56.410 time for creative work. Yeah, it's. It's not for tax 725 00:45:56.410 --> 00:45:59.850 filing, but it's for, like working 726 00:46:00.009 --> 00:46:03.690 on the business, not in the business. Doing some preparation, 727 00:46:04.090 --> 00:46:07.690 having some new ideas, what to do. And basically that's the best 728 00:46:07.690 --> 00:46:11.290 time for me to do creative work. That's awesome. You know that I 729 00:46:11.610 --> 00:46:14.090 do have blocks in my calendar. 730 00:46:15.610 --> 00:46:18.730 I'm not a philosopher, so I just call them get you done. 731 00:46:22.410 --> 00:46:26.170 Fair enough. But I'll tell you a funny story. So there's a guy 732 00:46:26.330 --> 00:46:30.010 that I've seen body doubling in Suka 733 00:46:30.730 --> 00:46:34.490 about The last year or two, usually in the evenings or on weekends. 734 00:46:35.290 --> 00:46:38.870 And this spring he posted in the group 735 00:46:38.870 --> 00:46:41.990 chat, where you can share things you're working on and people can ask you, oh, 736 00:46:42.070 --> 00:46:45.710 I finished my website, here's a link, right? So it's a nice collaborative thing. He 737 00:46:45.710 --> 00:46:48.390 posted in there, he finished his dissertation 738 00:46:50.950 --> 00:46:54.750 and people asked him like, hey, congratulations, that's awesome. He said, well, you know 739 00:46:54.750 --> 00:46:58.150 what? I'm actually a high school assistant vice 740 00:46:58.150 --> 00:47:01.990 principal in Missouri. And what I've 741 00:47:01.990 --> 00:47:05.620 been doing is using Suka because at night I have maybe 90 minutes of 742 00:47:05.620 --> 00:47:08.860 focus time in between family dinner and school 743 00:47:08.860 --> 00:47:11.780 responsibilities and all that. So I have to use it really well. So at night 744 00:47:11.780 --> 00:47:15.220 I have this 90 minute block and in that I've been studying for my 745 00:47:15.220 --> 00:47:18.980 PhD in engineering. And then on weekends I do the same thing. He 746 00:47:18.980 --> 00:47:22.820 said, so I have to be very efficient with the little bit of 747 00:47:22.820 --> 00:47:26.380 time I have when I'm not with my kids, I'm not at work. And so 748 00:47:26.380 --> 00:47:30.140 he said, but don't get excited because I only turned 749 00:47:30.140 --> 00:47:33.790 in the dissertation. I still have to defend it in front of the panel, like 750 00:47:33.790 --> 00:47:37.510 two weeks from Monday or something. So that weekend, coming up 751 00:47:37.510 --> 00:47:39.990 to the Monday, there are a number of people in the group chat. They're like, 752 00:47:39.990 --> 00:47:43.750 hey, Roy, good luck, man. You have this. We're excited to hear how it 753 00:47:43.750 --> 00:47:47.510 goes. And on Monday, he was absent, he 754 00:47:47.510 --> 00:47:51.150 didn't say anything. And people started asking like, hey, has anyone heard from Roy? 755 00:47:51.150 --> 00:47:54.190 How did it go with his defense of his PhD thing? 756 00:47:55.230 --> 00:47:58.590 And Tuesday morning he dropped into the group chat 757 00:47:59.080 --> 00:48:01.880 and he said, you may now call me Dr. King. 758 00:48:02.680 --> 00:48:05.800 And people went crazy. 759 00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:10.440 And it validated something. You began this episode by talking about this, 760 00:48:10.760 --> 00:48:14.600 but I had to learn this. It validated the power of 761 00:48:14.600 --> 00:48:18.280 community. When we started 762 00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:22.120 doing suka, even under an earlier name and developing this whole stuff, it 763 00:48:22.120 --> 00:48:25.550 was a single player game. It was here, here are your tools. 764 00:48:25.630 --> 00:48:29.230 There's beautiful music, there are timers, there's a smart assistant. 765 00:48:29.390 --> 00:48:32.790 We'll block your phone, we'll block your website. They're all the tools sitting there. But 766 00:48:32.790 --> 00:48:36.550 it was alone. And I, as the founder, knew all these members, 767 00:48:36.550 --> 00:48:39.790 almost like a hub, and spoke sort of model, but they didn't know each other. 768 00:48:39.790 --> 00:48:43.590 And I had an idea. Should people be able 769 00:48:43.590 --> 00:48:47.310 to see each other, talk to each other? So I talked to a 770 00:48:47.310 --> 00:48:49.590 couple members. I was like, is this a good idea or is this the most 771 00:48:49.590 --> 00:48:53.220 distracting thing ever? Is this going to be terrible? Right? And one 772 00:48:53.220 --> 00:48:56.780 woman said this to me. She said, listen, Steven, I can go to the 773 00:48:56.780 --> 00:49:00.540 Nike store. I can buy a pair of shoes. They will sell me 774 00:49:00.540 --> 00:49:03.460 a left shoe and a right shoe. I put them on my feet, I run. 775 00:49:03.460 --> 00:49:07.020 It works. But there are a hundred 776 00:49:07.020 --> 00:49:10.820 million people around the world in the Nike run club because 777 00:49:10.820 --> 00:49:14.180 when you run together, you run further, you run faster, 778 00:49:14.820 --> 00:49:18.560 you're more accountable. The days that you 779 00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:22.160 feel bad and your friends come by and pick you off the sofa and you 780 00:49:22.160 --> 00:49:25.760 go running, you feel great. Are amazing. And the days when one of your 781 00:49:25.760 --> 00:49:29.000 friends needs you to be there and support them and give them energy, they feel 782 00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:32.520 even better. She's like, you should do it. It is one of my favorite things 783 00:49:32.520 --> 00:49:36.120 because now we do have experiences, like what I was saying with Roy King, 784 00:49:36.440 --> 00:49:40.160 where you're part of a group of people 785 00:49:40.160 --> 00:49:43.840 who are trying to do something great and there's an energy. Whether it's the 786 00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:47.030 coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard, whether it's 787 00:49:48.070 --> 00:49:51.870 a run club, there's something powerful about when you're around people 788 00:49:51.870 --> 00:49:55.630 like you that are all trying to do something great. It lifts all 789 00:49:55.630 --> 00:49:59.430 of you up. I 790 00:49:59.430 --> 00:50:02.790 see. For our audience, I was wondering 791 00:50:03.190 --> 00:50:06.710 what breaks your focus most 792 00:50:06.710 --> 00:50:10.470 like Slack pings, meetings, social media, comment. 793 00:50:11.510 --> 00:50:15.190 We'll compile a cheat sheet down here. Steven, 794 00:50:15.350 --> 00:50:18.950 actually, we would be now going into the ad break, 795 00:50:18.950 --> 00:50:22.470 but we've been talking so long. How do you think 796 00:50:22.630 --> 00:50:26.150 we call this episode one and then instantly start recording 797 00:50:26.150 --> 00:50:28.870 episode two? Fantastic. Let's do it. 798 00:50:29.430 --> 00:50:32.870 Awesome, guys. Hope to have you back pretty soon. And 799 00:50:33.270 --> 00:50:36.390 actually, for you and me, it will be just a few seconds. For the people 800 00:50:36.390 --> 00:50:39.910 out there, it will be a few days until the next episode comes out. 801 00:50:40.150 --> 00:50:42.640 See you soon. Talk to you soon. 802 00:50:47.680 --> 00:50:51.280 That's all, folks. Find more news, streams, 803 00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:52.480 events and 804 00:50:52.560 --> 00:50:56.880 interviews@www.startuprad.IO. 805 00:50:57.200 --> 00:50:59.520 remember, sharing is caring.