Unlocking How Happiness Can Be Your Best Productivity Tool With Steven Puri

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Skot Waldron (02:49.831)
Steven I’m calling you that because I feel like that’s you told me that’s what your friends call you and I definitely want to think I’m one of those so Here we go, man

Steven Puri (03:00.413)
Now that we’re friends, can I borrow some money?

Skot Waldron (03:02.677)
Is that what friends do? I thought we just borrowed boats and tools. I thought that that’s what we did.

Steven Puri (03:06.506)
I wouldn’t borrow from an enemy.

I’m down for all that. Yeah, check, check, check.

Skot Waldron (03:12.637)
Okay, well, I don’t have either one. I usually go to my friends to borrow those things. you know, here we go.

Steven Puri (03:19.692)
See? But if you’re a good friend, they say, yes, that’s your litmus test. When they start saying no, you’re like, I gotta change me.

Skot Waldron (03:27.285)
is that what it is? Is that the indicator? good. Okay. That’s the method. We’re done. We’re done. tell me first of all, your, your idea here behind this thing you’ve built, this tool you’ve built. mean, dude, seriously, how many tools can we possibly have in our lives? and it’s ridiculous. And you built.

Steven Puri (03:30.059)
That is why I came here today, Skot. I just want to tell you this. I can go now. We’re done a lot, it’s ridiculous. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (03:56.617)
I’m going to say you’ve built another one. and not to steal from DJ Khaled, if you know what I’m talking about, anyway, but I want to, I want to know. Like why this one Suka, why is first of all, why is it even called that in the first place? but why in the world did you build just another tool?

Steven Puri (04:06.463)
Yes. Good reference.

Good question.

You know what? I’m gonna give you a two part answer. And the second part is what you asked. The first part is why listen to me? Why is this gonna be a fun episode? If you were driving in your car right now and you’re like, should this be one that I listen to the end? I’m gonna tell you, here’s what’s up. And if you dig this, it’s gonna be a fun episode, okay? So I am one of the few people you meet who’s been a senior executive at Two Motion Picture Studios. So I’ve worked on a bunch of summer movies you’ve probably seen the Die Hard franchise, the Wolverine franchise. I used to produce computer graphics, produced the digital visual effects for like Independence Day. We won the Academy Award for that. True Lies and Seven and Braveheart, a whole bunch of stuff, right? And I also came up as a software engineer. That’s actually how I sort of fell ass backwards into film was my parents were both engineers at IBM. I was a little code monkey and I got into film by doing digital film and then ended up being a senior executive at Fox and DreamWorks and stuff like that. Right. So I run tech companies now and what I learned about remote work, a lot of this stuff is solved in film. Film has been doing it for a hundred years, but it’s never called remote. You don’t call pre-production like the hybrid era of our film. You know, it’d be weird, right? But a couple of years ago, zoom became a verb and everyone went, Ooh, maybe we don’t sit in this cubicle five days a week, 10 hours a day. And Whether you’re talking about distributed asynchronous or whatever, there are some fun principles from film that actually help leaders be effective and draw the best out of the teams, as well as if you’re an IC and you’re just trying to like up level your own game. So that was really for me, the impetus of, okay, how do I take the things that I’ve learned and couple them with some of the, with the smart people have written, you know, when you read me high’s book on flow and you read Cal Newport and you read clear and you read near’s book like.

They have very common principles read the top 12 books and realize it’s about the same five or six things you can do They all have different words for it to sell you their book, right? So all that said What I built is this It is a simple website that when you start working the morning open it up hit play It helps you stay on track and if you use it I can tell you across 500,000 tasks that have been done you will finish in probably 50 to 60 % of the time you thought you needed. Simply because it helps you stay focused, stay healthy, take breaks, which are productive, not counterproductive. It’s beautiful music. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (07:00.969)
Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold hold up. Hey, take a break. You did you. What? Like in the world of just my meeting goes to nine 59. I have another one at 10 and then 10 59. I have another one at 11. Like take a break.

Steven Puri (07:05.908)
I know, right? Yes, right?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you’re meeting those two 10 53. And you think in these seven minutes, I’m to go do work. Right. So again, uh, for example, you know, deep work, something that Cal Newport, a term he’s popularized a lot and know, Mihaly’s book on flow, like to do the work that actually moves your life forward or to encourage your team to do the work that moves your company forward. That happens in blocks.

That is not, hey man, let’s have four Zoom meetings spaced out an hour apart today, but in between, like, could you create the feature that scales our growth like 10x? That would be awesome, right? That’s bullshit, never gonna happen.

Skot Waldron (07:55.861)
Yeah, in your free time. Well, actually, whole day is going to be full of meetings. So can you do that like tonight after your kids go to bed? How about that one?

Steven Puri (07:58.642)
Exactly.

Right, Skot, it’s just, if you want to succeed, there are great smart people who’ve written, here’s how to do it. And I happen to have created a platform and watched a lot of people use it. And here’s the thing is, for example, focus. That ability to say, I did something of meaning. That happens in usually like a two hour plus block, two or three hours. So during that time, if you get distracted, there’s a bunch of research, like Neer has some great blog posts about this, it takes you about 17 to 22 minutes to get back into a state of flow. If someone just slacks you and you’re like, oh, hey man, here’s that report you need. And you try and get back to where you were. So as a leader, one simple concept, if you want your team to do something great and you’ve hired the right people, give them a block of time to do that. So for example, in my platform, most of our membership, they’re developers, engineers, they’re writers.

They are designers, they’re accountants, they’re attorneys, they’re people who have knowledge work to do. And they’re like, I could do this in eight hours or I can do it in five. Which do I want? Right. And that sort of sense of it is really the core of why I do what I do is to give people a beautiful space to do that. And it’s also a community where people talk to each other. They’re all kind of productivity minded, successful people in the chat. And it’s really nice. that’s it. you asked me why it’s called Suka. I got it. Yeah. It’s a weird name, right?

Skot Waldron (09:26.153)
Yeah, get to that part. Get to that part. I don’t care about what it is. I don’t care about what it is, Stephen. I’m just kidding. I didn’t care about what it is. What’s it with the name?

Steven Puri (09:31.122)
Yeah, you want to the name. So, let’s just say I suka do you suka? No, just want to know. kidding. so I met Laura, my wife, right? So a Zumba Roomba suka thing. Totally. Laura and I, my, my wife, we’ve been together about 10 years. She was the girl to my left in yoga. One day we started chatting.

Skot Waldron (09:39.189)
Is that like a new like Zumba kind of thing? that what that is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Totally.

Steven Puri (09:59.145)
Now we’re married, about to have a kid, right? Awesome. So when we got married, we went to Bali for our honeymoon, which was great because everyone in my company knew don’t bug Puri. He’s on his honeymoon. He’s gone for 10 days. Like don’t ask him to approve the stapler purchase, right? Okay. That can wait. So as we’re heading over there, we had an early version of this that needed a new name, needed like a real name. And I was stuck. I don’t tell you Skot, we can talk about like creativity principles, but I was like every bad name I had.

Focus flow state distraction app 12. Like I had all of them written down on like brains, terrible. And I told Laura, you know what? Maybe being away will be an amazing experience of just the universe will let my unconscious mind go. Here’s the Amazon of what you’re, here’s the Nike, right? Of what you’re doing. So she’s like, cool, okay. That’d be a great intention the next 10 days. Maybe that bubbles up out of your unconscious. And I said, today,

First day, I want to talk to a couple of our power users and just get from them some like seeds. Like, what’s your favorite feature? Do you love the music? Do you love the timers or the AI coach or whatever? Right? So she’s like, go for it. I’m going to the pool. Have your little zooms. I’ll see you at dinner. So I do three zooms. I put a post up, who wants to talk? Three people, 10 minutes, right? Two of are fine. I ask dumb questions. They give me some decent answers. The third one, I’m going into the wrap-up like Skot, thank you for your time. We promised 10 minutes. We’re done. Like, thank you. And he goes, Steven, you didn’t ask me the right question.

I was like, okay, what’s the question? He’s like, you should ask me, why do I pay you? I was like, it’s like 30 cents a day. didn’t think that was a big deal, but okay, cool. Why do you pay me? He said at three o’clock I can be with my two year old, my four year old, or at six o’clock I can be down on myself. Where did the day go? How did I waste the day? And he’s like, the difference is did I open your app in the morning? So my kids are not going to be two and four forever.

I pay you for those three hours that I get to have those memories with them. And I was like, Whoa, okay. Thank you. So I go to dinner with Laura and I’m like, I talked to this guy who was more articulate about what I do than I am. And he said this thing, didn’t it? Right? Laura’s like, that’s really good. So we’re brushing our teeth, going to bed that night. And she says to me, you know, in yoga, we hear all these Sanskrit terms, Dharma, Karma, Satya, all these like things. It’s like that guy, the, the universe. using that guy as your muse, he told you what it is you’re doing. That’s Sukha. That’s the term we hear in yoga about like the happiness you feel when you’re self-fulfilled. He’s trying to tell you all these tools are just the path. The productivity tools are just the path where you’re trying to get people is Sukha. And from bed in Bali on our honeymoon, I looked up that website, the Sukha company was available. So that’s why it’s called the happiness company.

Skot Waldron (12:46.729)
That’s cool. I dig it. dig it. that’s right. Well, not everybody can spell my name right either. You know, dang SEO. Yeah, I did in sixth grade. I guess it was, I thought, I thought it was solving a problem in sixth grade and I actually created a huge one when people try to book travel for me. It’s not fun, you know? So, that’s a problem.

Steven Puri (12:48.079)
It’s kind of crazy. Yeah. Not everyone can spell it, but you know, eventually.

You changed the spelling of your name, didn’t you? You had a bunch of Skot W’s in one of your classes or something.

Yep.

Skot Waldron (13:13.365)
or every time I show up at a hotel, they’re like, Hey, somebody misspelled your name. was like, no, no, no. It’s it’s fine. no, that’s pretty rad, man. Yeah, exactly. my gosh. Don’t get me started on the TSA people. All right. So the, the, the deal here is, I mean, you’ve built, a virtual tool to solve something that we didn’t think tech could solve. And that was like this idea of loneliness. I mean, you talk about this idea of loneliness and happiness and,

Steven Puri (13:17.381)
No, just leave it. Yeah, just leave it. It’s gotta be fun at TSA.

Hmm? Yeah!

Skot Waldron (13:43.561)
Do you think that remote work is like eroding something in us while also giving us freedom? Like this ability to work from home or to be, whatever, I don’t know.

Steven Puri (13:52.327)
I would.

I will say this. think that if we think of it like a color palette and you maybe lead an organization, maybe before you had like reds and yellows and oranges and stuff like that, and you could paint suns and things. With the pandemic, a lot of companies got blue added to their palette, which does not mean that everything needs to be blue, but it means suddenly you can, when you want to paint a lake or paint a blue sky. And I think that as a leader, you start to recognize what are the activities now they’re absolutely, we should be in the room, vibing together, doing this thing. And what are the activities where it’s like, no, man, I want you to go and like do some deep thinking on this. Like, I don’t want you at the water cooler. I want everyone coming by your desk being like, Hey Skot, did you see the thing? No, I want you to go come back tomorrow with that idea where we’re all like, wow, how do we build that? That sounds amazing. Which doesn’t come out of like a lot of water cooler and how’s the game kind of, you know, stuff. So I think it’s just another part of the spectrum. And if you use it well.

We can talk about some of those use cases. I think it’s great as a leader to understand this is when it’s awesome and then here’s another thing to do when it’s not.

Skot Waldron (15:02.421)
So how do you talk about loneliness? Like you talk about loneliness at times. what is, how does that play into the work environment that we’re in? You know, we’ll go back to COVID and talk about how there were a lot of people that felt that. I don’t know. Like what’s your thoughts about that and why your tool helps with that? Cause they seem disconnected to me, but I think you talk about them in the same context at times.

Steven Puri (15:27.655)
Yeah, I’d be happy to. And, uh, there are some things I want to share that are agnostic to a tool you use. It’s not necessarily about the specific tool that I built and I’ll share that. But if anyone benefits from the tool I built, of course I’d love that. And there are some fantastic tools out there. Don’t get me wrong. But here’s the thing I believe and everything is, this is sort of foundational to everything I want to say, which is human beings are not islands. You know, there’s a common thread through history of together we can do something great. Whether it’s that African proverb about, you if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Or whether it’s when I was building in, in Suka, like a community feature, and I was wondering, is this a good idea to have people who are remote feel like they’re part of a group? Or is that distracting? I asked this of one of our members and she said this to me. This is actually what locked in my mind. Yes, we’re going to do this. So I said to her, what do you think about, you know, if you could actually have a group chat and other people are being productive. could post what you’re doing. People could congratulate you and stuff like that, right? You feel connected. She said, Steven, I absolutely do it because here’s the deal. I can go to the Nike store. I can buy a pair of shoes. They will sell me a left shoe and a right shoe and I go running, right? Totally works. But there are a hundred million people in the Nike run club because when you run together, you run faster, you run further, you’re more accountable. The days that you’re like, oh, I’m tired.

I snuck them in bed and your friend’s like, I’m downstairs. Come on, let’s do this. You get out of bed and you do it. And the day that someone needs you to be that for them feels great too.

And I was like, done, we’re in, we’re to do this. So I do think that we are social creatures. think the human connection is really important. The same way vision is like a leader who reads, who leads from vision is always going to get people more inspired, get more from the team, be more successful. The one that leads from tasks and metrics and that sort of thing.

Skot Waldron (17:23.573)
Okay, I get the sense you are pro remote work.

Steven Puri (17:29.451)
I am absolutely pro remote when it’s appropriate. I’ll tell you this, having worked on a lot of story, I have never had a creative story meeting that is in a virtual environment like over zoom or Google me, it doesn’t make that. That didn’t suck. There is nothing for me about that kind of activity of going like, Skot, I don’t know. The heroes got the sword, but then there’s the bow and the dragons in the room. And what do we, how do we get them from one cave to the other? There’s nothing like being in the room and vibing and you like lighting up and going, my God, you know what you should do is this. Like on a zoom call and this is zoom and I know it’s appropriate for this, but it just doesn’t, there’s something about that, that energy of being there where you’re like, you know, like I got to work with, you know, Damon who did lost and you know, aliens like that, Alex and Bob transformers, know, Billy Ray, like great writers. And sometimes you just want to get together in their living room or go to a coffee shop or go to a conference room. And I don’t think there’s a replacement for that. Not that I’ve seen, and maybe if I were 20 years old right now and I was growing up in a world of, I just live on TikTok, I’m sending snaps, I am completely virtual. Maybe I’d feel differently, but I think it’s a human thing more than a generational thing.

Skot Waldron (18:45.939)
It is a human thing. And, I agree with you that there’s a certain energy that we get in the room. I mean, you and I can have a hard conversation via. Video chat, right. But there’s something missing and, it’s, it’s hard. It’s like, can do a virtual speaking gig via virtual, right. And, and it’s like, but just, just not the same, as.

Steven Puri (18:57.732)
Yeah, I agree.

Skot Waldron (19:13.919)
being there, feeling the energy, giving off the vibe and feeling from each other, which I think is the thing that we miss. And I don’t know. I think that that’s something that’s really critical.

Steven Puri (19:19.001)
Yeah.

I agree with you. And you know what? There are scientific ways to try to quantify that. Oh, well, you know what? You can pick up on these nonverbal cues in the room, or maybe there are pheromones or maybe like a lot of people have tried to figure out what is that thing that exists in the room. Maybe I’m a little bit woo, but I think that beyond just like, I can kind of see how your legs are fidgeting or I kind of smell you. I think there’s something else there. Just having done it hundreds of times with some of the best writers in Hollywood.

There’s something about that that’s more than just, can see when you have a twitch in your finger or something. It may sound too woo, but I think that that same thing about place, like let us co-locate. This activity right now feels like a great one for us to do together, as opposed to I wanna go off and write my blog post and I really don’t want you breathing down my neck when I’m doing it, right? Those are different things. So related to that is this concept of spaces.

And I do think that when you understand how spaces train your mind to work a certain way, you get to leverage that. And I’ll give you an example. When I was really young and we were doing Independence Day, I watched Roland and Dean who were the director, producer, writers. And they had always written or recently written their last movie, Stargates, that, at this beautiful villa down in wherever it is. Apparently I’ve never been there. It was like white marble with.

So they, Roland talked to Joey’s assistant and said, okay, next week, rent us the place. have to go down there to our, you know, write the next movie. Joey comes back and it’s like, it’s rented. Someone’s already rented the Villa and it was around the office.

Roland called his attorney’s entertainment attorney, John Deamer, who’s an amazing attorney. was like John by the house, John by Monday, Roland owned a house in Puerto Vallarta where those renters went. do not know how much they were paid to move that weekend. I do not know, but I’ll tell you, they came back with independence day. It became the third highest cruising movie in history. It doesn’t have to be, you know, a multimillion dollar Villa Alex and Bob who met in college.

They’ve written what Star Trek, Transformers, like Mission Impossible, like tons of stuff. When they got in crunch time on all those movies, they would have their assistant rent a hotel room at the University of Hilton, which is not a glamorous luxury property. I’m just going to tell you. But I think for them, because remember they met in college. I think that little room there evoked a dorm room. And I think that thing of sitting on the edge of the bed with your laptop and know, Bob being at the desk on his laptop, that trigger their creative juices. So once you’re sensitive to that and sort of say, you know what, in the mornings, I work really well in this space where the light comes in my office, blah, blah, blah. This is great for this sort of activity. You get to then use that. You’re not unaware of how that affects your ability to work.

Skot Waldron (22:37.411)
man, I love that. think, you know what else I think that is missing from the virtual stuff is, human touch. and you, you get this sense and I had, Michael Bouguet Steneer, MBS on my show a little while ago. Awesome. Awesome interview. If you haven’t listened to that one, listen to that one, but he talks about, you know, being in, he’s a, he’s a professional speaker as well.

Steven Puri (22:45.068)
Tell us.

Yeah!

Skot Waldron (23:05.801)
When he’s in a room, he tries to shake everybody’s hand. He tries, or as many people as he can, right? In a room, he’s at the door and tries to create that touch because what it does is he’s a big believer in creating a tribe. Like if I shake your hand, if I touch you, we are in this together. Like, you know, back from our primitive idea of it’s safe here, I’m creating a safe space. And another thing that happened, which was a little bit accidental, I don’t know if this was on purpose or if she knew what she was saying.

Steven Puri (23:09.378)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

I agree with him.

Skot Waldron (23:34.741)
But I’m, um, I’m on the board of a nonprofit called hope dealers. Uh, we go deliver food and hope to the people of Atlanta, um, on the streets under bridges. I’ll, I’ll, you know, a couple of times a month, but what we did, um, once a year, we’ll, partner up with a barbershop and this barbershop will, you know, donate their time. They’ll bring stools and all their equipment. And we sit under a bridge under a busy freeway and we cut hair for, mean, I don’t, but the.

Steven Puri (23:41.762)
Hmm?

Hair is cut.

Skot Waldron (24:04.595)
these, you know, most of these Chilean, they’re mostly Chilean, right? Venezuelan barbers will be under there cutting hair for all these homeless people. And it’s so interesting because, you know, it’s cool that they get cleaned up and they can present and take some pride in the way they look. But another thing that my sister-in-law who helps, who is one of the founders of Hope Dealers came up to me and she said, said, Skot, I don’t think you know.

Steven Puri (24:12.918)
Hmm?

Wow.

Skot Waldron (24:34.299)
Exactly what’s going on here. These people never get touched. They, people don’t want to touch them. They’re kind of like the lepers of our society, right? Like, it’s either dangerous or they’re not clean or, know, how often do they, they get tired and they’re getting touched. They’re getting loved on. They’re getting that human interaction today. That’s non-threatening. That’s actually boosting so much stuff. And I think that, you know, if we think about that in a virtual world,

Steven Puri (24:53.557)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (25:03.562)
that idea of putting my hand on your shoulder or give you like a little nudge or, you know, a hug or whatever, that tribalism is missed. That’s missed.

Steven Puri (25:09.085)
Yeah.

completely agree with you, yes. Yep, period. No argument.

Skot Waldron (25:18.94)
Um, tell me about, tell me about this Hawthorne effect idea. Um, the coffee shop effect. I want to, I want to get into that a little bit because I like, I like this psychological thinking. Yeah, let’s talk about it.

Steven Puri (25:31.008)
Yes, I know you definitely bring that out in your, in your episodes. well, let’s, let’s, let’s define a couple of things for those who are like, what has Skot talking about? so there is a concept that is known in a couple of different ways, depending on how deep science you’re going, which can be known colloquially as a Hawthorne effect because there’s some experiments that done in Hawthorne, California, which is very, it’s a small municipal airport there. It’s where, the Tesla and SpaceX facilities used to be, don’t know, I think they moved to Texas now. It’s also known as social facilitation theory, but the basic concept is there is a measurable productivity boost when you can see someone else working and you know that you can be seen. So the sense of I’m around other people who are being productive, if that is the activity, that affects you. And you see that in why college students may go to a study hall instead of sitting in their room, their dorm room alone studying. There’s a sense of the, let me go there. It’s why, like in my experience, writers go to coffee shops. I’ll tell you, in my platform, called our collective space, the coffee shop, because when I was a development executive at, Germanson Fox, there’s a coffee bean on sunset, just west of Fairfax across from the director’s guild. It’s famous for being like a writer’s clubhouse. And you walk in there.

And it’s all like people on their little MacBooks, know, tapping away and it’s not really social. It’s not like everyone’s going around like, Oh, Hey Skot, your weekend? You know, you see the Knicks game. It’s not that, but you walk in the room, there’s an energy. Everyone in there is trying to write the next great thing. And yes, the guy in the corner, sort of weird, quiet. He’s written like three studio movies last year. Like he’s getting a million dollars a script, but this is his habit back from when he was 25, right? This is how he creates that space.

And then, you know, the couple of people at the communal table that just got off the bus from Iowa and they’re writing their first, you know, TV pilot, which will probably be terrible, but they’re trying. And that concept of when you’re around a group of people trying to do the same thing, trying to do something great, it affects you.

Skot Waldron (27:44.853)
That’s cool. I was just thinking about this and I actually, my wife is, uh, she just got a new job at a hospital as a nurse and she has to go through. She, she is trying and believe me when she gets back from telling me about her day, I’m like, you definitely don’t get paid enough. Like what you just did today is, I don’t know. couldn’t anyway, but, part of her training is, and I don’t know if every hospital system’s like this.

Steven Puri (27:53.723)
Doing good things for the world.

That’s cool.

Skot Waldron (28:13.461)
She has to go through all these online modules and they are poorly designed and it is grueling. She is not a sit and stare at a screen and read a bunch of texts type of learner at all. just this week, Steven, just this week, I asked how many hours did you actually sit in front of your screen and have to go through these modules? 22 hours of sitting in front of a screen. And that’s just this week. Okay.

Steven Puri (28:24.797)
Yep. Yep.

Oooooh

Skot Waldron (28:40.485)
It’s like sucking her soul dry. And she got done last night and she’s good. And I asked her yesterday, and I don’t know what prompted this, but it kind of goes into this. I said, do you want me, because I know that she’s what I call a connector in my world of the five voices personality type stuff, and that she really enjoys, she’s an extrovert. She really enjoys the energy in the room. She gives energy. She responds to energy. And I said, do you want me?

Steven Puri (28:43.167)
I’m sorry.

Yeah.

Skot Waldron (29:08.181)
to just come up here and work in this room with you. Like, I won’t talk to you, I won’t say anything, I won’t ask you to do anything. Like, I’m just gonna be here and I’m gonna work in the same room with you. And she was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I need to door close and whatever, right? So it didn’t actually happen, but I still believe that that would have helped.

Steven Puri (29:11.743)
Mm-hmm.

Not only do I agree with you, but I’ve noticed in my own personal work, there are some activities I do that I absolutely benefit from like, oh, I’m going to go to a Starbucks and like do this there and just feel like I’m part of something. And there are activities where I’m like, Laura, my wife, I’m like, I’m going to be upstairs for like three hours and like, don’t even WhatsApp me. Don’t even, can you just like let me go deep on my thing? I just need the no energy around while I try to think on this thing that I don’t know how to do. And

It is, uh, again, it’s one of those things about you get to know yourself and understand how that works. I’ll give you another example. It’s related to that, which is once you get to know yourself, there are some people and I’ve watched thousands of them in our platform that thrive on having their to-do list visible. They want to, Oh, I want to see what I’m doing. Oh, I have a whole bunch of stuff. And there are other people. It’s like, you show more than three things, it’s paralyzing. I’ll give you an example how I learned this.

One of my biggest problems because I procrastinate and I get overwhelmed. One of my biggest problems I call the cold start thing, which is in the morning, I’ll be like, okay, Skot, tomorrow at nine, I’m going to do the things, start work, whatever. And I’d find myself at nine 15 still like scrolling the news or going through my inbox and returning stuff to that. And I was like, well, this is actually important that I go through my answer. No, you know what it was? It’s procrastination. It’s straight up like, no, at nine AM I should have been doing this thing. And when you dig down on that, when I dug down on that with myself, why do I do this? And then asking other people in our community, does anyone else do this? Can I talk to you a bit? It comes down to two kinds of overwhelm almost universally with the kind of platform I’m talking about. I’m not saying that procrastination in other parts of the world are the same. I’m like, literally in this, uh, you know, I’m going to start working this time. It’s overwhelmed of I’m paralyzed looking at the 17 things in my to-do list. I don’t know how I’m going to get these done. Right.

So just the number of them is stopping you from believing that you’re going to get them done. The second thing is there’s something on there that’s just too ridiculously big, which I always joke is like, write my book. You’re like, yes, that is a noble goal. That is not a task. That is not like by lunch today, you’ll have done that. So one of the things that we experimented with in building our platform was having your smart assistant, you know, greets you and start your day, looks your to-do list and says, Hey, which of these three should we start with?

And you can only see those three. Once you start your session and the music plays and your distractions are blocked, you can only see those three. And you know we found? You are 77, excuse me, 77 % more probable to finish those three. If you can only see three, then if you can see your whole list, same tasks, same amount of time. It’s just that sense of like, Oh, I can knock these out as opposed to like, Oh God, this list is endless.

It’s weird when you think about it that way. And it’s all same thing as like when your smart assistant says, Skot, I know you’re working on your new book. You’re not going to write it this morning, but what about outlining chapter three? I know you finished chapters one and two outline. Do you to outline that? Because I noticed you do that in about 35 minutes. So why don’t I create a little time box for you of 35 minutes on outline chapter three. And then you’re like, I can actually do that. Yeah, let’s knock that out. And those little things that you get to know yourself, I think are very helpful.

And this is now I see like individual contributor kind of stuff. This is not necessarily leaders saying like, you must do this thing. It’s more when you rise up and you go, how do I manage myself a little better? Cause I’d like to have that three o’clock happy moment rather than six o’clock. I suck moment.

Skot Waldron (33:07.675)
Okay. I want to, I want to poke just for a second. You’re ready? Okay. Do you think we are becoming that, that relying on technology in this way, right? This can be super helpful, right? To get me going and, and keep me from that, that, that ever long and procrastination delay, delay, delay, delay effect. are we relying on it too much? Because the more I rely on.

Steven Puri (33:10.961)
Do it. Yeah.

Hmm? Hmm?

Skot Waldron (33:37.041)
assistant, AI, to tell me and prompt me and say, is what you should be working on. The less I have to problem solve for myself, the less I have to work hard and be uncomfortable and work through the grind. Like, do you think AI is making us less creative, making us stupid, making us less, innovative? And I don’t know. Do you think that?

Steven Puri (34:03.249)
You know, it is a interesting question. from the way in which you phrased it, I think we’re probably on different sides of this argument because I know your question is slanted a certain way. So I’m going to give you actually, I think a three-part answer. The first one is, you know, that great quote about the best phone is the one in your hand, which is to say like, yes, there are $5,000 DSLRs out there. But right now, if you have your smartphone and you capture that image, that’s, that’s the best camera right now for you.

So, related to that, think the best tool that works for you is the best tool. And if your tool is, write my tasks with a pencil on a long legal pad and I get them done. God bless man. Stay with your system. Like absolutely. Second thing I’m going say, that’s point one. Point two is this. When you consider that your life is being stolen and it’s technology that’s being used. If you or I were engineers or designers, we would know that the biggest paycheck available to us is a company where their business model is stealing the lives of people to sell them to advertisers. So if you want to go work for Mark, Evan, know, TikTok, and you want to have more stock options than your grandchildren will know what to do with, you’re going to try and find some way to get one more second of time on site or time in app from a billion people and you will be wealthy. So when you have the incentives of the biggest financial reward you could get as a designer engineer is stealing people’s lives. And you have the biggest supercomputers on earth to do it. That’s technology. And we’re on the other end of that. We’re on the end of the time of our life is valuable to Mark and Evan so they can sell it. So yes, I absolutely believe to fight that kind of technology.

If you find a technology tool that helps you, yeah, like go for it. Or if it’s your legal pad, but you need to be cognizant of they’re not fighting us with rocks, you know? And the third thing is this, which you tell you, you wove AI into there. And this is the part where I think you and I differ a little bit, which is I don’t think of AI as you go to Usain Bolt and you go, Usain, guess what?

I have this robot that’s going to run faster than you. Let’s have the robot run. This would be so great. And it was saying like, what? And the people in stands are like, what? But I think when you do use AI to go, dude, I made a shoe that actually tailors to your toes and to how you press against them a little bit better. think you could save a second. You could shave me one second off your time. Do you want to try that? That’s about AI helping you to overperform. That’s leveraging AI to go.

Let me do my absolute best. That I think is a great application of AI. Not, hey man, we have a robot that will run the race. Cool, right? Uninteresting to

Skot Waldron (37:08.725)
not interesting. And they actually did some studies. There was a study actually on that where they were, I thought, I forgot what it was. Um, and even when I heard it, but it was this idea of how interesting it would be to see robots race against each other and versus versus people. And people were so against the robot races because it is the human endurance, the push, the

Steven Puri (37:30.095)
Yeah, aren’t you?

Skot Waldron (37:37.829)
overcoming adversity, the breakdown of your human chemistry biology and how you overcome that humanity flaw, I guess if you want to call it, just us being human. Like how do you battle that? Well, robots, nobody cares, right? It’s like, it’s a robot. It’s like you just make it faster. So I think there’s something there. Now, Steven, please, please.

Steven Puri (37:55.759)
Yes!

I’m gonna pick up on that. Do you know there was that show that was about a robot wars where everyone all the teams would build like robots who would battle each other over battle and You remember the narrative of that show? Was not so much about like, okay Here’s ten minutes of a camera watching two rods battle. The camera was on the team and who fought over well, should it have arms? How do we make the work because the interesting thing part the interesting part of it was how did the humans battle each other to go, this is how we’re going to make the best robot, not did this robot slam the other one. So it’s a complete, what you said. Yeah. I’m not interested in the robot race.

Skot Waldron (38:35.657)
Although it was cool to see some robots like explode another robot or smash it to pieces. Yeah.

Steven Puri (38:39.128)
when you knew the story, because the story behind it imbued it with meaning. If it was just watching like a boxing match with two robots, you’re like, okay, whatever.

Skot Waldron (38:47.443)
Nah, whatever. Yeah. so let me throw this at you. My wife, my wife, my no, no, that’s perfectly fine. I loved, I love that point. That’s a really good point. So my wife calls me the debater, right? So I have, yeah, I know. I have had the, I will say the awakening and of being a fence, being a fence sitter. Okay.

Steven Puri (38:51.63)
I cut you off, I’m sorry.

Shocking.

AGI?

Skot Waldron (39:15.711)
So my, my back in political day, years and years ago, I would come home to my very Republican family and they would say, when I lived in Chicago, they’d say, you’re a, what are you a Democrat now? Right. they would label us. I’m just blah, blah. And I would argue the other point. Okay. I would go back to Chicago to where I was living and they’d say, Whoa, Skot comes back from Christmas break and he’s a Republican. All of a sudden I’m like, no, that’s not what I’m like. Right. Cause I argue the other point. I’m just like that.

So, what I was doing, I was just trying to poke and get your perspective. Cause I think that that’s really interesting. I will tell you that it took me like six years to write my book because I just never could get started. And you know what the catalyst was the catalyst.

Steven Puri (39:53.562)
Wow.

I’m dying to know this. Yes.

Skot Waldron (40:03.893)
you’ll have to find out on the next episode. I’m just kidding. Do you like that, Steven? I just took that from like a writer’s next week. No, seriously, man. When chat GBT came out, I was like, hmm, what is this thing? I was like, let me, what, here’s my idea. Cause I have lots of ideas, right? I just don’t execute on them. Here’s my idea. Give me an outline, a 10 chapter.

Steven Puri (40:06.269)
my god. that was next week on the Skot Waldron show.

Right. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (40:32.351)
book outline for what this could be. Bam, bam, bam, bam. I was like, that’s cool. Not cool. Cool. Not cool. Not cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay. Right. Me like take these topics expand on a little bit and then give me an intro paragraph for what that could be in this book. And I’m like, light bulbs went off, right? It got, I always, I always tell people it’s, it’s hard to steer a bike that isn’t moving. And so it’s like,

Steven Puri (40:32.441)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. That’s a really good metaphor. I like that. Can I steal that? I’m using that. That’s a really good metaphor and I’ve never heard it before.

Skot Waldron (41:03.037)
It got, yes, you can. It’s, it’s, it’s peddling, right? It got me peddling the bike so that I could actually go somewhere. And I finished it in three months. And it was like, it was that catalyst. And so I will tell you AI is my friend and AI is in use every day. used it yesterday. It was like my doctor. was using it and people are like, but no, I used it. Like I’ve got word of my. Yeah.

Steven Puri (41:28.887)
Right. By the way, how did that work? Was the ointment helpful? it still itchy?

Skot Waldron (41:32.981)
the ointment. I use that in a presentation because people love ointments, right? it was just a catchy word, but it was like, was so helpful in so many ways. And I love your idea of if we can use tech and tools to battle the tech and the tools that are stealing, what’d you say? What’s the word? Though something or live.

Steven Puri (41:50.251)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they’re stealing your life.

Skot Waldron (42:02.471)
stealing your

Steven Puri (42:06.553)
Dude, we have friends, Laura and I have friends who are still at Metta and friends who used to be at like Twitter and a summer at Tik TOK. And I speak from just dinner parties where you’re like, man, that’s amazing. You’ve got a hundred thousand stock options for doing this thing. And it’s a very mixed feeling of like, are you actually making the world better? Cause we’re at dinner with your four and six year old. Are you actually making a better world for them? But I know you just made a whole bunch of money. So, it’s conflicting. Let us say that.

Skot Waldron (42:40.435)
It is conflicting. mean, okay, here you’re ready for that. I got this question for you. I was, I was thinking before we had did the interview and I had this question, I wrote it out and I said, and you ready? Here it goes. I mean, it’s the idea that you went, you went from like studios with like loud budgets, loud ideas, supporting people’s folk, like to quietly. So loud ideas, like to quietly supporting people in their pajamas, basically like.

Steven Puri (42:48.441)
Hmm?

Here goes.

Yep.

Skot Waldron (43:10.291)
I mean, the through line, I’m just so fascinated with this through line between Hollywood storytelling and mindful productivity. Like, what is that through line for you?

Steven Puri (43:18.753)
Mm-hmm.

I think what you’re asking in a certain way is what was like the inciting incident for kicking off this story of building this? And I’ll tell you, it is very easy for me to explain that. When I was at DreamWorks, know, executive vice president with Kurtz from North Sea there on the studio lot, there was definitely a sense of go home tonight, make your thing 1 % better. And got an offer from Fox. They pursued me pretty heavily.

Said well double your salary will give you the diehard franchise. He grew up on the diehard franchise didn’t you do want to run the diehard franchise? now do on run the Wolverine franchise and some of those were very glittery objects and I was like, How can I turn this down and I went and it was definitely a culture where I was miserable with a capital miserable It was a go-home tonight. Can you make this 1 % cheaper and it was the kind of franchise mentality of listen man, if there’s no film in the can, we kind of know by Sunday night, it’ll make this amount of money regardless. There are just that many film fans built in. So if you can make it little cheaper, the margins are better and we don’t really need to know if it’s good or not. And that broke my soul. I was like, I’m gonna wake up, be like 40, 50 years old, be like, daddy’s going to make a shitty Die Hard 19 at behavior college. know, like, well, yay, go us.

It killed me and I thought to myself, and by the way, my boss, the chairman of Fox football entertainment hated me too. Like as much as I was like, wow, I do not respect you. He’s like, I’ve been in my job 14 years because it’s, make safe bets and I can do projections on this stuff before there’s a script and I don’t care. I’m successful. I’m by the way, he got fired after I left, which is awesome. Um, little shot in Florida there. I’m not embarrassed to admit.

But he, and he was a guy who like, was a pickup basketball game on Saturday mornings on the lot. And he was like chairman and he would cheat and it’s sort of like, man, is that revealing of your character? It totally sums him up and everyone knew it, but they let him cheat, you know? So anyway, back on track. The answer to your question is there’s that moment where we did not get along the movies that I was passionate about. We’re not going to get made there. I had spent a bunch of money buying projects that nominally they wanted but in reality, we’re not gonna be greenlit and the greenlit movies were gonna be hey, man We have a shitty diehard five script Bruce has a window the spring. Let’s just make it. Let’s just shoot it. Can you just budget it cut out anything? That’s expensive Okay What can I do? There’s only one other skill that I had I Was my brain was trained as an engineer. My parents were both engineers. I was like, you know what? I’ll have much more agency if I go to a small company raise a little bit of money and try and solve things. And I had one exit before this, you know, it started that computer graphics company, which we sold. We made like a six X exit. It was great for me. I thought it was easy. I was in my twenties. I was like, my God, I’m so good at this. And then here I am suddenly doing two small companies, both failed and was humiliating.

It was hard bumping at friends at the dry cleaners, you know, going to dinner and have your friends be like, Hey, Steven, how’s that thing working on? I think we’re going to fold it. I think it’s not going to work. And they’re like, are you happy you left entertainment? I am, but I wish I had a better story to tell you of how I went on to be successful. And right now, like I kind of want to jump out the window and I moved to New York, licked my wounds. It’s where I met Laura. She met me at a very low place in my life.

And I knew she was with me for the right reasons. And it led to this. It led to saying, have I learned? I learned there some lessons about how you can be happy at work, have focus. I have ADHD, I’m neurodivergent. And it’s not a coincidence. I created something to say, how could I feel better and get my work done? So that’s the big, how do you go from being a vice president of a studio to running a small startup? There you go.

Skot Waldron (47:30.505)
That’s awesome, man. Let me ask you this one. Follow up here. Here’s kind of a lightning round, little, little thing here. which, which is harder to direct. Wait, that’s this. What is this? Do you see that? Okay. You see the old lady. What, which is harder to direct Bruce Willis or distracted developer.

Steven Puri (47:35.701)
Ooh, okay.

That’s a bat. That’s a cloud.

Okay. So I’m going to tell you this and I want to say it very respectfully because I rarely talk about people. Bruce is someone who’s not a friend of mine. It’s not like, man, we’re old buds. I know extremely well. I know I’m only from business meetings where I am a tool for him to get his movie made. Right. So he’s going through a hard place in his life. I don’t want to say this as respectfully as possible, which is Bruce is one of the people, one of the actors who in real life, plays the role of Bruce Willis. Like when you meet with him, it’s not like you and I hang out being like, Skot, tell me about your wife, dah, dah, dah. It’s almost like he is inhabiting a role of this larger than life hero that he envisions he is. So he does stuff. Like when he talks, he talks really well like this and he doesn’t look at you. And then right at the end, just like it was a movie, like you are the camera, at the end he’ll shoot up and look at you through his eyebrows practically punctuate the line, like you would do if you were on set. But he does it, like in a meeting talking about location scouts is challenging because let’s be honest, I’m just the studio suit trying to get the movie made on budget, on time, you know, and Bruce is a first dollar gross star.

So is that hard? Yeah, that’s hard. Working with a developer, I think way easier. Even ones that are recalcitrant, even ones that have their own ideas, because at the end of the day, if you’ve hired well, if you’re like, hey man, here’s the mission, we’re going to solve the homeless problem. And I think here’s how we’re going to do it. And I know we’ll pivot during the way, but that’s the mountain we’re going to climb. If they’re in to climb that mountain, yeah, you’ll disagree about, know, do we take the south face or the north face or do we have enough protein goo or something, you what mean? You’ll disagree, but you’re focused on climbing that mountain. And if you can return everyone to that vision, yeah, you can get over disagreements. But not with Bruce. There’s Bruce’s way and then there’s dumb.

Skot Waldron (49:59.861)
That’s good. That’s good. Okay. Here’s your next question. You ready for this one? That was a super long, that was a very long lightning bolt. That was sure that flash very luck. Die hard Christmas movie or not a Christmas movie.

That was a lightning round. That was a long answer. For a lightning round, I should have been like, yes. man, how short? There’s a good answer to that, but it’s like a minute long. You want a five second answer?

Skot Waldron (50:23.507)
Yeah, go ahead. I got to know what you really think. I need to know.

Steven Puri (50:27.622)
Okay, and by the way, i’m gonna tell you this Every guy that I meet that’s over like 30 When they look through my filmography limit, that is the question they ask me. Okay? So i’m going to give you a this is a good answer. Okay mofo, but it ain’t short. Okay? Okay buckle in So here’s the deal if you go back and watch that movie again It is the same movie as taken

Skot Waldron (50:36.181)
That’s the question. I know it’s the question. I asked this question. I know. OK. All right. All right.

Steven Puri (50:54.9)
It is the same movie as Mission Impossible 3, the same movie as True Lies, the same movie. And that movie is so well written. To this day, writers come in and pitch you using that as a story model to say, well, it’s really like the structure of die hard, but done this way because it executes like a machine. is like a Swiss watch of that genre. It’s not an art film that’s going to win Academy Awards, but does it well. So the answer to your question is, how well does that movie work in every way. If you were telling a story where you put the hero in a limo sitting up front, cause he’s a street cop, right? He’s a, he’s a normal man of the people. He doesn’t sit in the back of limo, sits in the front of the limo with the limo driver and the limo driver is like, it’s my first day, man. Like, what are you doing here? And he bugs him and your hero’s like, I don’t want to talk to you. want to talk to you. And finally forces the limo driver, the limo driver forces him to tell him what’s up. And he says to him, the entire plot of the movie, he goes, okay, let me get this straight dude.

So, Your wife left you for some rich dudes in LA and you came out here like a caveman to throw over your shoulder in draggerbacks in New York and Bruce Willis goes, yeah, something like that, right? He lays out the entire movie in the first act. The writers are like, this is what our movies are about in two sentences, right? So just like taken, just like this is movies is man loses a lot of the important female in his life. In a world where he can’t compete, Bruce is poor. He knows how to run, jump, shoot, kick.

Liam knows how to run jump shoot kick when he goes to the birthday party with his daughter Because that’s the woman taken He brings a boombox and you know new daddy brought her a pony I can’t compete and both of them Have the moment because those movies are wish fulfillment by the way Both of them have the mom going but she would love me If she needed me to run and jump and shoot and kick and bad guys show up because that is their deepest wish. It is not endangering the women is a bad thing. It is if they were in danger, I could win them back. And it ends exactly that way. So if you want to tell a Die Hard is a Christmas movie, what time of year are families together the holidays. It’s the only time. It is the best time to set a movie about a guy trying to unite his family.

Skot Waldron (53:24.629)
Roll credits. Holy that was, man, I’ve got tear. I’d be like, need tissue. I didn’t like, I mean, that was good. That was good.

Steven Puri (53:31.718)
Dude, I’m telling you, if you worked in Hollywood, you would have seen Dyer 50 times because every time you’re like, there’s another smart decision. It is, an incredible film.

Skot Waldron (53:38.833)
So good.

All right, last question. If Die Hard 19 were to come out this summer, and I’m super excited, I’m pulling up old wounds. Yeah, exactly. Besides that, because I definitely would go see that, probably not, which movie are you looking forward to and why?

Steven Puri (53:49.273)
This went dark, Skot. I was in such a good mood.

Here’s your second girlfriend that hates you.

Don’t see movies anymore.

Skot Waldron (54:12.009)
You know, you’re done with that. You’re like,

Steven Puri (54:13.744)
No, the last movies I’ve seen in theaters were Gravity, the Sandra Bullock, Andrew Alfonso Cuarón movie. And I saw with some friends that were dying to see the Top Gun Maverick, which by the way, Top Gun Maverick, know, is basically Star Wars four. is beat for beat. Star Wars four, we got to go to this dangerous place, drop two little missiles down a hatch, flying down a canyon. mean,

Skot Waldron (54:19.177)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

I never thought about that.

It is!

Steven Puri (54:39.429)
It’s Star Wars A New Hope and Chris just cribbed the fuck out of Star Wars 4. It’s the same movie. Han Solo flies in, the Iceman flies in, like the whole thing.

Skot Waldron (54:44.55)
You are so correct. Okay.

I’m going to use AI and compare, all the comparisons of that.

Steven Puri (54:57.82)
Dude, you don’t have to use AI. It’s a fun movie to watch. Watch it. And watch Raiders, by the way. Have you ever seen the first Indiana Jones movie?

Skot Waldron (55:01.557)
it’s so good. we. dude, yeah.

Steven Puri (55:07.346)
Okay, I’m going ask you a question. Here’s my lightning round. Raiders 1, the one that spawned the universal ride, all of the sequels, first movie, right? I will tell you that Inside Hollywood, that is one of the best examples of character writing in an action adventure movie ever. Full stop, period. And I’ll tell you why.

Skot Waldron (55:09.375)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Puri (55:27.804)
How would the movie end differently if Indiana Jones had never been born?

Skot Waldron (55:38.677)
I don’t know that could be answered on so many levels. It wouldn’t have ended differently.

Steven Puri (55:40.046)
It wouldn’t. No. Watch the movie.

Indie has no effect on the plot. The reason the movie works is you love that character is written so well. You don’t realize he doesn’t affect the plot at all. Every other action adventure movie. And I encourage you, I’ve seen thousands. I’ve worked on hundreds. hero in the third act has to run and jump and diffuse the red led timer and stop the space weapon and, know, punch the guy and throw him off the cliff and throw, you know, what’s his name into the of Mordor tonight, every movie. Dlimax of Raiders, he’s tied to a stake. He can’t move.

And it’s brilliant. If you look at the writing behind that, it is like having Picasso come over and like paint your house. You’re like, Hey, do you like it? My house is It’s kind of different than the other one was on the block, but it’s still kind of a white house, but there’s something a little better about it. Right. It’s that good.

Watch it again. It stands out.

Skot Waldron (56:46.197)
Brilliant. We just watched it. Like we just watched it last month. Actually it was on some TV station in the hotel. My kids wanted to watch it and I was like, heck yeah. We’re going to watch.

Steven Puri (56:54.202)
You want to know why it works so well?

Tell you, it’s so satisfying spawn all these people’s numbers is so satisfying because in the beginning of the movie, do you remember the, you know, the government guys come to Indiana Jones, who’s kind of a, man, I sort of steal artifacts. It’s sort of gray area, you know, like they come, they’re like, so Hitler’s after this arc thing. What? Right. And it’s exposition. It has to tell the audience, here’s what the movie’s about. There’s this dangerous thing. It could be a weapon from God. Right. And Indy explains it. He goes, you know, if you believe all this shit, there’s like a, you know, the tablets and the arc covered armies that carry it when I don’t know, it’s just a whole bunch of, you know, woo woo stuff, right? I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in God. He goes off. He’s got to meet Marion, right? And get the, the Mandela thing from her. And her take on him is like, you were my father’s partner. You broke my heart. You don’t care about me. Like you tossed me aside. Like I’m some stupid kid and you know, I’ve never recovered from it. Now I live in the Himalayas drinking, you know, shots with random guys, right? You remember this, right?

In the climax of this movie, this action movie, what does Indy do? What is the thing he does that pays off both those storylines in a way that is deep? What is it?

Skot Waldron (58:19.858)
He rescues the girl.

We fight some dudes in the bar.

Steven Puri (58:28.336)
No, no, no, no, that’s way earlier. Climax of the movie, he is tied to a stake. What does he do in the climax of the movie? Marion, close your eyes. Four words. In those four words, he goes, you know what? I believe in God, he’s coming. This is gonna be bad.

Skot Waldron (58:31.898)
Okay. Yeah. He tells her not to look. He says, don’t look. Don’t look at close your eyes. Close your eyes. Yeah.

Steven Puri (58:49.284)
I love you. I’m going to save you. Four words pay off those two storylines where you get it. He reveals who he is and what he cares about. no one ever has a try any other movie, action movie where in the end you’re like, and the hero is not actually going to shoot the gun. He’s going to just kind of talk a while. You can’t name one.

It’s brilliant.

Skot Waldron (59:13.877)
That’s amazing. I never thought about that, but that is awesome.

Steven Puri (59:16.836)
That’s how good it’s like a magic trick where you don’t think about it.

Skot Waldron (59:21.087)
That is awesome. I love it. my gosh. That was such a good lightning round for many reasons. this interview has gone on way too long because I’m so tired of talking to you, Steven. Can you tell? No, man, this is, this is awesome. brilliant. want to know, like at the end of the day here, we’ve talked about these things. We’ve kind of gone off the rails, but it’s been fun, entertaining, educational.

Steven Puri (59:22.16)
How’s that lightning round? I told you it long, but it’s a good answer.

Yeah, done. Me too. I gotta go eat.

Hopefully so.

Skot Waldron (59:50.421)
Philosophical, like all the things like we’ve gotten into it. What do you want people to take away though from the idea of Hollywood, the idea of productivity, the idea of loneliness, of happiness, of like, what is the message you have for people?

Steven Puri (01:00:06.191)
We’re going to spend a bunch of our life doing something. We can call it productivity, we can call it work, can, whatever it is, right? Your career. If you pick up one thing from today that helps you get through your day happier, feel more, I’m in control of my life, feel suka, huge win. It could be any of the things we talked about. Finding a place that makes you feel creative, blocking time in your day to do deep work, leading a team through mission, any of these things.

If there’s one thing that makes your day better, huge win.

Skot Waldron (01:00:40.735)
Gold man, thank you. People wanna find you, where they go, spell Suka because I know people won’t spell it right.

Steven Puri (01:00:46.815)
I know. number one, anyone has a question. They can email me. My email address is very public. Steven at the Succo.co the Succo company, T H E S U K H A.co. Even if it’s like, Hey man, is there a blog I could read about Cal Newport thing you mentioned or near his book or may highs book? Send me an email. I try to return every email in 24 hours. If I’m not sick or traveling, it will not be a long response. I’ll not give you the story of my life. It’ll be probably two lines long, but it’s like, here’s a great post or go read Skot’s book. You know,

So that’s available and anyone who wants to try what we built, it’s free for seven days, no BS, no credit card. can sign up in 10 seconds. enter your name, your email address and you’re in. And if it helps you go for it. And it’s of course at www.thesukha.com free trial. That’s my life.

Skot Waldron (01:01:17.407)
Perfect.

Simple, I am seriously going to sign up. I’m, I, I looked at it for a second. I’m going to come to say hi in the coffee shop because that’s what we do. um, yeah, let’s do it, man. I love it. Thank you, Steven, for being on good luck with the tool. Good luck with the baby. Good luck with all the other stuff in your life. You’re good. Good luck, man.

Steven Puri (01:01:45.442)
Dude, come say hi in the coffee shop.

This is super fun.

Thank you and congratulate your wife on doing good things for the world. It’s hard being a nurse. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Skot Waldron (01:02:06.069)
I will do that. I will do that. Thanks man. Appreciate you.