Latest / Coffee Playdate Podcast with Dr. Olga Deengar / No Choice, All Transformation Ep 32: Building The Way Meditation App with Jack Shukman
Transcript
- Dr. Olga Deengar: Welcome to the Coffee Playdate Podcast. I have a very special guest with me today. Jack Shukman Welcome. So the next game is called Take a Sip. It's the same concept as the rapid fire questions game, but this time if our answers match, we have to take a sip from our coffee cups. Here we go. Jack Shukman: Hi, great to be here. Dr. Olga Deengar: you for coming on. First, like to start off by asking if you drink coffee. Jack Shukman: Right, I've got my decaffeinated tea with me. Dr. Olga Deengar: First morning or evening meditation? Jack Shukman: I don't, I'm one of these crazy people who gave it up fully like a year and a half ago. So strict, no caffeine for me. Morning. Dr. Olga Deengar: evening. Next one, a short five-minute meditation session or a 30-minute deep dive. That's great. What made you give it up? Jack Shukman: interesting. I was kind of addicted and I needed like three or four cups a day just to get through the day. And at one point I just realized, you know what, I can't, I don't like the feeling of needing a coffee just to feel normal again. So ⁓ went cold turkey. It's gotta be 30 minute deep dive. Dr. Olga Deengar: I wish I had 30 minutes deep dive. I'm going to go with five minutes. It's a little more practical for me in this season of life. ⁓ one, ⁓ eyes open or eyes closed during meditation? Yes, wow, that is very brave and courageous of you to do. can't do my job. ⁓ awesome. So we're going to start with our first game. It's the rapid fire questions game. I'm going to ask you to choose between one answer or the other and ⁓ give me the one that you like more. You don't need to explain yourself. Just go with your gut instinct. Ready? Jack Shukman: I get it, I get it. Eyes closed for me. Dr. Olga Deengar: Me too. I love eyes closed Jack Shukman: All right, cheers. Ready. Dr. Olga Deengar: And the last question, routine or more spontaneous meditation practice? Alright. Giving a keynote speech at a conference or silent retreat in the mountains? Jack Shukman: Silent Retreat. I love a structure. I love a structured routine. Yeah, definitely. Dr. Olga Deengar: about strict bedtime or ⁓ with the flow? Me too. It's a daily practice for me. Yeah. Cheers. Jack Shukman: Ooh, strict bedtime. Cheers again. Dr. Olga Deengar: Good. about a small dinner party or a big social gathering? All right, perfect. So Jack, lot of our listeners may not know about you or who you are, so would you be able to introduce yourself and tell us the incredible work that you're doing? Jack Shukman: Big social gathering. Dr. Olga Deengar: Cool. And the last one, lullabies or guided meditation to get the baby to sleep. Jack Shukman: Sure, I am the CEO and co-founder of a meditation app called The Way. And Way is really kind of a very unique thing. It's the only meditation app where when you open it, there's only one thing you can do, which is session one. And after that, there's only one thing you can do again, which is session two. And then so on, session three, four, five. So it's really this, ⁓ we call the single path. lullabies. We haven't tried guided meditations with our little baby yet. So ⁓ are the answer. And it's there to guide you and support you over a really long term period of practice. Actually, there's 1000 meditation sessions in the app. that journey takes you deep, deep, deep into thousands of years of meditation tradition. And the only that we're able to do that is because my co founder, who is also my meditation teacher and my uncle, Henry Shukman, is the only teacher and the voice in the app. we do, it's a joint project, we do it together. Dr. Olga Deengar: This is incredible and I'm a huge fan of The Way. It's been my meditation app for a very long time. love that it has only one path. There are no other choices. So it really takes that decision fatigue away. And in and of itself helps me stay grounded. It helps me ⁓ control emotions better on a regular basis. When my little one starts drawing with crayons all over the walls, I don't freak out anymore. just kind of go with it and be more calm when I approach that kind of stressful situation. But let's go back to, I wanted ask you, what's it like working with your uncle? Do you think this has been a really good collaboration? Has it had some of its challenges too? Jack Shukman: You You know what, it's been amazing, actually. And it's been amazing on a few different levels. and I are different in many He's a very kind of creative person and I'm very like, I love a process and a spreadsheet and having like a system in place. And so actually those two kind of, and of course he's very, he's a real specialist. I mean, he studied Zen and meditation for you know, nearly 40 years at this point. I'm much more of a generalist. Like I have a bit of a background in a few different business areas. So we were really able to kind of meet as, you know, student and teacher, uncle and nephew specialist and generalist. And it's just been an amazing kind of collaboration. And the other thing is that like, of course I'm biased. I think he's a wonderful, wonderful, cool dude and a wonderful meditation teacher. And I love just getting to work with him and learn from him every day. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, so incredible to have completely like two very different perspectives coming and you have more of the business side of things and he has, of course, the Zen mastery. Do you ever meditate together? Jack Shukman: for sure. Yeah. Do you know what actually, Henry was also the officiant at my wedding when my wife and I got married a few years ago. And one the most amazing meditations I ever remember is just before we were going to go out and the ceremony was going to begin and I was so nervous. ⁓ my God, I was ⁓ a mess. You know, I was sweating, I was trembling. And ⁓ we a little Dr. Olga Deengar: Amazing. Jack Shukman: It was a five minute, not a deep 30, 30 minute deep dive, but it was a five minute little sit together and he could just tell that I was so, you know, like on edge ⁓ just had this little moment and of course it helped calm me down and it was, ⁓ just like this beautiful little shared moment. So, ⁓ and we meet up, cause we live in the same country, but when we up, we, it's, it's amazing to to sit him. Dr. Olga Deengar: That is amazing. I'm so happy to hear that. helped you get rid of some of those jitters, you know. Jack Shukman: You For sure, for sure, for sure. And then I was able to go and do my vows just afterwards. it together, just. ⁓ Dr. Olga Deengar: Just I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the business the way is in meditation app. And I'm sure as you were first starting out and stepping into this space, there were some other apps, some competition out there. ⁓ Did you have fears going into this new field? Jack Shukman: Yeah, for sure. I mean, people said we were crazy. They were like, Hey, guys, do you not realize that meditation apps already exists? Actually, when we started, there were 3000 meditation apps on the app store already. So people were like, what are you gonna do? You know, who's gonna want another meditation app? So that was, yeah, that was definitely like a big fear we had. And I think what, what got us through actually was that we had this really strong conviction, this really strong belief that was based on a lot of research that we did and a lot of user interviews that we did and also Henry's perspective as a teacher, which is that actually, you know, all these other meditation apps that when you open it, feels like Netflix. It's just like so many thousands of options. And had the strong belief that that ⁓ wasn't we thought the best way of helping someone nurture their practice on a long step-by-step journey. And so, yeah, we had this kind of crazy idea of no choice. that was something that really was like a really guiding design from the beginning. And so because of that, that was sort of like the North Star we always worked towards. yeah, that was like our crazy plan and it worked. We were very lucky, but that was something that... people have responded really, really well to and have really appreciated. So that's a little bit how we kind of approached it. Dr. Olga Deengar: So you stayed true to your vision and you did not deviate from it at all. Jack Shukman: Yeah. And you know what? It, it, it really, it was hard. It was really hard. Like it makes a lot of sense when we were building it and testing it and designing it. There were lots of times when we were like, should'nt we have some choice? You know, really this thing about no choice in so much of our lives, you know, shopping online or, I don't know, going to the grocery store. It's like there's choice everywhere. So it did seem very like against the current of a lot of how things are set up today. so we questioned ourselves sometimes like maybe we should just put in, know, here there could be A or B and the student ⁓ pick. So we really had to, yeah, fight to stay true to that design principle. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, it sounds like there was a lot of temptation too because of the world we live in. Jack Shukman: For sure, for sure, yeah. Dr. Olga Deengar: Are there any mindset tools that helped you on your entrepreneurial journey? Jack Shukman: Yeah, is it cliche to say meditation? ⁓ you know, I really, I really believe that and this isn't solely what don't meditation to have this perspective, I believe, but meditation is a nice way of fostering it. But like, you know, the the the process or journey has to be enough. It's if you're working always just for like a goal of like, we want to hit this many users or this much revenue or this much money or something that you can't control. I think that's a recipe for unhappiness. But what we can control is like the process and the work and the team spirit and the collaboration. And if we can put all our energy and focus into like a really, yeah, like fun and healthy and work. but like a really robust process and we're happy with that. And of course, then we're going to check the results, but we're not going to lose our minds or our sleep over what those results are going to be. I think that's a mindset that I believe really helps. And that can be true of any project, like writing a book or ⁓ don't know, maybe raising kids. don't know. I don't have enough experience to say that yet. But it's the journey is not the destination is what we focus on. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yeah, it sounds like when you put in that focus, that energy into creating a good workplace culture and a good environment for your colleagues, for yourself, it's almost like work becomes play. Jack Shukman: Yeah, I love that. love that. mean, I think we try and do some things actually ⁓ in little mini, you know, our little team. have seven people now. So we start every team meeting with a meditation session. Henry will lead if he's on the call or we'll ⁓ use the app if not. And we will, you we always ⁓ take time to like, yeah, have some I mean, we're a remote team, so everyone's online, but we always take some time to, like play some games together, have some fun when we're doing our workshops and our brainstorming. And when get together, we get together as well every six months or so to do like an offsite and then we do lots of fun team activities then. but you know, I don't want to say that like it's a hundred percent play because it's not, of course, there's always going to be hard work and that's just, that's part of it. And there's always going to be things that go wrong and there's going to be bugs and there's going to be things that don't work as we expected them to and we have to change. yeah, I do think trying to hold it as lightly as possible, I think is a really healthy thing. Dr. Olga Deengar: Yes, I love that you're on this mission to lighten up the workplace. amazing. Now, speaking of ⁓ of giving back to your coworkers or your loved ones, I wanted to ask you, was there an experience that you've created for them that was ⁓ unforgettable or very meaningful that took a little more out of your budget, but it was totally worth it? Jack Shukman: Well, yeah, I mean, it's very top of mind for me right now, because we're about to in a couple of weeks go and have our one of our off sites. But for the we ⁓ when we started the the company, Henry and I felt like it was really important for everyone to see kind of like the source as it were, which is the Zen Center where Henry taught at. for many years before we did the way, which is in Santa Fe in New Mexico. It's called Mountain Cloud Zen Center. And it's a beautiful place in the, in the mountains, um, incredible room with an amazing energy when you, when you meditate in there. Um, and so, yeah, we took everyone there and we had a whole week together and we had a lot of meditation, a lot of sitting a lot of time kind of at this place where Henry had taught. And that felt really special for like just focusing everyone really on. uh, like the core mission of the project around the teaching and the, the positive transformation that meditation can have, uh, for people. that was, that felt like a really special thing. And I'm really excited because in a couple of weeks, we're to go back to Santa Fe again with some new team members and kind of do this again, but this time with a little bit, bit of a bigger team. Dr. Olga Deengar: That's incredible. And do you often do these offsite visits to the Zen Center? I mean, this sounds like maybe an annual thing for your team. Jack Shukman: Yeah, we try and do it every six months or so. It's not like a perfect six months. And we always try as well and do, ⁓ we move around different locations. We have some folks in Europe, some folks in America. So we do move around where we're possible. We always try and, have it so that it's next to one of our live events that we do. So we host also like meditation retreats ⁓ our app users to come together that Henry ⁓ lead. And so. We're doing, we do those in, in our, in like our big cities, like in LA, in, in New York, in London and Amsterdam. And it's really fun for the team to get to join those as well. Cause then they're really like sitting with the people that we're building the app for ⁓ we get to meet them and ⁓ like what, how they're finding it and what we can do to help improve the app. and it just feels really, really real. So that's kind of like one thing, how we try and organize these, ⁓ these offsites. Dr. Olga Deengar: you are connecting with your app users regularly. I think not a lot of business people can say that. Like you're actually meeting them in person and getting their feedback, getting their thoughts and just getting to know them as human beings. That's really special. Jack Shukman: It's, it's amazing. It's so, it's so, powerful because it is, it is, you know, we try very hard always to put ourselves in the, the, the eyes or the mindset of, of, of a user or of a student who's using the app. But, it's ⁓ sometimes hard, know, like we're sitting on a zoom call, trying to figure out what they're thinking and they're not on the zoom call with us, you know, and we have data and we have user interviews, but it's not the same as like being in person with a hundred app users, you know, like right there in the room. so that's really special. Dr. Olga Deengar: That's so cool. I do want to ask you, is there a piece of advice that you would give someone else who's starting out in a similar space as you? Jack Shukman: Yeah, I think I would say that, you know, if a or sector an industry or whatever is very competitive and very crowded, that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't try like I think a lot of the conventional wisdom would be, don't touch it, do something else. But actually, I think we've shown is that if you have a strong opinion, or a new way of doing something or, you know, differentiation, then people will be interested and people will try you and people will open to a new, in our case, a new kind of meditation app. So, you know, it can be a little bit scary, but I don't think it's not the end of the world. You should definitely still try. Dr. Olga Deengar: Are you saying it's important to follow your passion? Jack Shukman: Also that. that for sure. Yeah, No, I'm very fortunate that I get to work in something I'm passionate about every day. It's amazing. Dr. Olga Deengar: I love that advice. And it is so important to really follow your, what's meaningful to you, what's most important to you in your life and, focus in on that because as you can tell, of course, you can build a business out of it and be really successful and bring value to people. And I think that's the more important part is that you're actually contributing to a greater community. There are so many people worldwide that you've reached because of your app. It's incredible. Jack Shukman: It's an amazing thing. Yeah, there's 200,000 people now who've downloaded it, which is very, very cool. And, you know, it's definitely true what they say, ⁓ a hard day, on a tough day when something goes wrong and we're racing to fix it or, yeah, maybe we've missed a deadline that we wanted to hit. The reminder ⁓ of we're trying to do and the mission we're on and that we're helping people meditate and helping people find a little bit of stillness and calm and peace and understanding in their lives. It's like, it's worth it. It's totally worth it. And now and again, we'll get an email a message in the app from a student that that they've like, yeah, found a little bit more kind of openness and spaciousness and understanding in their day. And it's like, yes, we've done it. doing it. That's amazing. And it's, very inspiring. Dr. Olga Deengar: It helps fuel that momentum, keeps you going for sure. Jack Shukman: Definitely, because It's a long journey. We've been working on this now for nearly three years and I hope we're going to be working on it for another 30. ⁓ Dr. Olga Deengar: Incredible. It is a long journey and I'm sure someone like you reads a lot of books. Is there a book that you would recommend to our listeners today? Jack Shukman: There is and know, I've just got to do it. ⁓ is actually my uncle Henry's book, Original Love. It's his map and and just ⁓ how he meditation. And it really is kind of like a companion piece to the app. I mean, the app is really the ⁓ daily practice of book that he wrote, Original Love. And it was a very, very transformative book for me and has actually really shaped ⁓ only my practice, but my life. So maybe I'm cheating a little bit because he's my uncle, but that is my book recommendation. I hope ⁓ go and read it. Dr. Olga Deengar: Jack, how many times have you read that book? Jack Shukman: Probably four or five now. Yeah, probably four or five. read a very, he was very kind and shared with me like an early draft. And then I've also read a couple of times the one that's been published and I've gone back to different chapters, you know, to like remind myself on some things every so often. Dr. Olga Deengar: And do feel like every time you read it, you get something new, something like a get a different perspective, something you didn't really find before? Jack Shukman: Yeah, definitely. And there's also something where there's like a bit of a comfort, like you're reading something that you know you've already read and you almost know exactly what, it's going to say, but you just like read it. Cause it's, it's just like having a nice, I don't know, like a warm bath or a cup of decaffeinated tea. It's like this little comforting thing that you can kind of go back to. Dr. Olga Deengar: I love that. Well, Jack, thank you so much for joining us today. You've given us a lot of amazing insights on your entrepreneurial journey. And I loved all of the stories that you've shared with us. So thank you. Jack Shukman: It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.