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A Leadership Beyond artwork

Leadership Lessons from Show Business - A Conversation with Steven Puri

A Leadership Beyond · 2025-09-09 · 32 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

48 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density8 / 20
Originality10 / 20
Guest Caliber14 / 20
Specificity & Evidence9 / 20
Conversational Craft7 / 20

Steven Puri brings 30 years of experience bridging creative and technical worlds - from founding Centropolis Effects (which produced CGI for Independence Day and 13 other major films) to leading franchises like Die Hard and Wolverine at 20th Century Fox, to now building Suka, a focus app designed to protect deep work. In this conversation, Puri uses concrete storytelling to extract leadership principles that apply across industries. He draws parallels between film production's proven remote-and-hybrid model (development, prep, production, post-production) and modern workplace management, arguing leaders must understand how to lead creative professionals, technical engineers, and hybrid teams through different phases. A core insight: managing creativity isn't about predicting where lightning strikes, but about removing obstacles and creating psychological safety - Puri illustrates this through the story of Jeff Lindor recognizing potential in an untested trailer writer by giving him side projects. He emphasizes hiring for cultural fit and passion over resume credentials, and positions Suka as a counterweight to attention-stealing platforms, enabling teams to achieve flow states and genuine self-fulfillment. Essential for CEOs, engineering leaders, and HR practitioners navigating distributed teams and creative collaboration.

Key takeaways

  • →Managing creativity requires understanding that constraints and context help creative professionals do their best work, not limiting their potential.
  • →Leaders should hire for cultural fit and passion first, then develop skills, rather than gambling on potential - the cost of replacing the wrong hire is approximately one year of salary and productivity.
  • →Flow states, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, are attainable and represent the fundamental driver of self-fulfillment; leaders must create environments and tools that protect team attention from digital distractions designed to steal focus.
  • →Different team members require different leadership approaches based on their working styles (introverts vs extroverts, creatives vs engineers), and setting clear time markers and story structure helps diverse teams perform better.
  • →Social media and attention-stealing platforms employ teams of engineers specifically optimized to capture user attention; leaders must actively combat these forces to help teams maintain focus on meaningful work.

In this episode

  1. 1Career Journey from Film to Tech: A Forrest Gump Story
  2. 2The Hidden Remote Work Reality of Film Production
  3. 3Managing Creativity: The Bart Trailer Story and Breaking Neural Pathways
  4. 4Leading Diverse Teams: Creatives, Engineers, and Problem-Solving Styles
  5. 5Hiring for Culture and Fit Over Skills Alone
  6. 6The Fight Against Attention-Stealing Technology and Flow States
  7. 7Suka Company's Mission: Tools for Focus and Self-Fulfillment

Mentioned

Suka CompanyIBMCentropolis Effects20th Century FoxDreamWorks PicturesDas WerkIndependence DayDie HardWolverineStar TrekTransformersSteven Puri

Guests

Steven Puri

Topics in this episode

Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiFlow stateSuka CompanyCentropolis EffectsDas Werk20th Century FoxDreamWorks PicturesDie Hard franchiseWolverine franchiseStar Trek

Questions this episode answers

How did Steven Puri's experience in film production translate to managing technical and creative teams in tech?

Puri notes that film has operated remotely and hybrid for a hundred years through development, prep, production, and post-production phases - each requiring different leadership styles for creative professionals (big-picture thinkers) and technical specialists (process-oriented). He learned to manage these overlapping groups by understanding emotional intelligence, setting clear markers or checkpoints, and creating environments where each person's best work emerges, lessons that directly apply to tech teams.

What is Puri's approach to hiring for culture fit and passion?

Puri prioritizes hiring for passion and cultural alignment over pure technical skills, arguing that passion cannot be injected post-hire while skills can be developed. He recommends observing candidates in low-stakes social settings - golf, yoga, hiking - or watching how they treat service workers, rather than relying on curated social media profiles, to reveal their true character and fit.

How does managing creativity differ from managing technical work, according to Steven Puri?

Puri explains that creative breakthrough often requires stepping away from the problem - not focusing intensely on the task itself. He uses the example of assigning Bart multiple projects so his mind could wander and find novel solutions, versus staring at a single problem until he reaches obvious, uninspired answers. The principle mirrors rubber-ducking in engineering: articulating the problem outside your own brain stimulates different neural pathways.

What is the Suka Company and why did Puri found it?

Suka (Sanskrit for happiness from self-fulfillment) is a focus app designed to help teams achieve flow states and protect deep work against attention-stealing platforms. Puri founded it because he believes well-funded tech companies deliberately engineer addiction and distraction; Suka aims to give people and leaders tools to do work that moves their life and company forward, countering algorithms optimized to steal attention.

What is a flow state and why does Puri believe it matters for leadership?

Drawing from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's research, Puri defines flow as a concentrated state where high performers lose track of time, distractions fall away, and work feels effortless and good - the fundamental source of happiness through self-fulfillment. He believes leaders must create environments and use tools like Suka to enable their teams to access this state regularly.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

8 / 20

A few genuinely useful ideas (film's development phases as remote-work analog, 'give the person more than one problem' to unlock creativity, 15-23 min to reach flow, hiring by watching someone do something they're bad at), but wrapped in long anecdotes and generic leadership platitudes with low idea-per-minute density.

It's never about the thing, it's about the other thing.
Research shows it takes 15 to 23 minutes to fall into a flow state

Originality

10 / 20

The film-production-as-hybrid-work framing is a fresh angle, and the 'give a creative more than one task' story is non-obvious, but much of the rest recycles well-worn material (Csikszentmihalyi flow, Cal Newport deep work, Nir Eyal triggers, hire for culture not competence).

in film, for a hundred years, film is done remote and hybrid and rto or in person, but never called it that
Cal Newport, we're very proud, we're talking about this

Guest Caliber

14 / 20

Steven Puri has genuine operator credentials - VP at Fox, EVP at DreamWorks, sold a VFX company, now founder/CEO - so he has actually done things at scale, though his current app is small and much of his relevance is storytelling rather than hard operating lessons.

VP of Development and Production at 20th Century Fox running the Die Hard and Wolverine franchises
My first tech company was Centropolis Effects... sold it to the German media conglomerate Das Werk when he was 28

Specificity & Evidence

9 / 20

Some concrete specifics (named films, the Bart trailer anecdote, 15-23 minute flow figure, John Deere brainstorming example), but no business metrics, dollar figures, growth numbers, or hard data - mostly illustrative stories and vague claims about algorithms.

it takes 15 to 23 minutes to fall into a flow state
I learned this with brainstorming with engineers at John Deere

Conversational Craft

7 / 20

The hosts are warm and do some active reframing (naming 'purposeful markers'), but questions are largely softball setups that let the guest steer into his app pitch; there is no pushback, challenge, or probing of claims.

So how intentional we have to be to combat that.
So what... is Suka doing to do your part in helping us to fight that fight?

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker C61%
  • Speaker A20%
  • Speaker B19%

Most-used words

different11flow11leadership10steven10life10film10remote9thank9suka8leaders8team8state8engineer7stephen7first7best7

Episode notes

Leadership Lessons from Show Business In this episode, Tom and Adrienne chat with Steven Puri and trace his unexpected path from a "code monkey" in Northern Virginia to an Academy Award - winning visual-effects producer and later a tech entrepreneur. Steven shares how he bridged left-brain engineering and right-brain creativity on films like Independence Day, Braveheart, and several David Fincher projects. He reflects on lessons learned in Hollywood - managing creatives, nurturing "lightbulb" moments, and building culture - that carry over into hybrid and remote leadership. Long before remote work became a buzzword, Steven was orchestrating VFX teams across studios in Los Angeles, London, and Sydney, balancing creative, financial, and logistical mindsets over distance - an early test of distributed leadership that today's managers face. Throughout the conversation, candid anecdotes like the famed "Bart" trailer story illustrate why inviting every voice can spark game-changing ideas. As our work (and often our brains) has scattered in today's culture, Steven is dedicated to bringing us the tools for intentional focus.

Full transcript

32 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: This is leadership beyond your community of conversation. Today we are talking with Steven Pury. Steven is the founder and CEO of the Suka Company with the mission to help millions of people find their focus, achieve more and have a healthy work life. Steven's career started as a newscaster interviewer for the number one youth news show in the D.C. baltimore market, and then as a junior software engineer and Thomas J. Watson Scholar at IBM. After attending USC in Los Angeles, he began working in film production and produced computer generated Visual effects for 14 movies including Independence Day, which won the Academy Award for visual effects. Stephen's first tech company was Centropolis Effects that produced those CGI effects and he eventually sold it to the German media conglomerate Das Werk when he was 28. Stephen then produced some indie films and eventually went studio side to develop and produce live action features as a VP of Development and Production at 20th Century Fox running the Die Hard and Wolverine franchises and an EVP at, uh, DreamWorks Pictures for Kurtzman Orsi Productions where he worked on Star Trek, Transformers and more. After Fox, Steven returned to building tech companies and founded the Suka Company. Suka means happiness from self fulfillment in Sanskrit. The Suka is a focus app that bundles all the tools necessary to add have a focused experience and a healthy, productive workday. Stephen lives in Austin, Texas now.

Speaker B: What I really like about talking to Steven is how he uses story to give us concrete, actionable items and sticks with story. And he was doing remote work before it was a thing. But he's dedicated to teaching others who didn't even know it was a thing how to keep their leadership working with different environments than we've ever experienced, different paces than we've ever experienced. And he's just fun to talk to and listen to.

Speaker A: Oh, Stephen was so much fun to listen to and talk to. I mean we, we laughed and we went on tangents, uh, but we connected it all to leadership. And there's some really great insights for leaders and CEOs at all levels in bringing together the best workplace and such a cool thing that he has married his, uh, his passion for engineering and his creative side together throughout his career. And he's doing some really wonderful things with the Suka Company. Welcome Steven Pury. Steven Pury, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for this conversation. This is going to be maybe a wild ride. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be a little bit different because your background is so different and so interesting. So I'm excited to dig in today. Of course we've got Tom with us as well. Say hi, Tom.

Speaker B: Hello.

Speaker C: Um, great to be here.

Speaker B: Yeah, it will be a wild ride.

Speaker C: Hopefully it ends in a place where, like, oh, what a great destination.

Speaker A: That's right. We will make it connect, right? One way or another, we will make it connect. But we. We can't promise the tangents. We won't go on.

Speaker C: There's a famous expression in, in film development, which is the stone will land in the third act where it was thrown in the first act.

Speaker A: Ah. Yeah.

Speaker C: And the audience can feel. If you lie and the stone lands somewhere else, the audience can feel it.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Well, let's see if we can get the stone to land in the right place.

Speaker C: We all aim for that.

Speaker A: Okay, so tell us, uh, Steven, tell us a little bit about your very interesting career journey through Hollywood, through tech. And then as you do that, I hear you've got some amusing stories. So share with us an amusing story that has taught you something of a serious leadership insight.

Speaker C: Okay. And definitely stories will determine amusing to whom. All right, so I'll tell you this. The trajectory of my career has been one of Forrest Gump, like, lucky opportunities that have come up in my life, coupled with a lot of hard work to make something of those opportunities. Right? So if you had said to me, five years from now, what will you be doing very frequently in my path? I would have told you something that was not correct. But if you asked me five years later, I'd be like, oh. And it turned out really well. But look how this happened, Right? So, uh, let me back up and give you a little bit of context so that everything we talk about in this episode, people can sort of hang it on a spine of like, oh, those were his film years, those risk tech years. Right. So I was raised the son of two IBM engineers. Mom was a software engineer, dad was a hardware engineer. And, you know, your mom's a great ice skater. You probably learned ice skate as a child. Right? So I was a little code monkey in my teens. I ended up going to usc. I grew up in Northern Virginia because my dad worked for the division of IBM that did the Pentagon work, the DOD work. Right. So we were there. And when I went to usc, USC is, if not the best, one of the top three cinema TV schools in the country, in the world. Right. So in the dorm, a lot of your friends are aspiring Spielbergs and Lucas's and all that. So even though I had certain skills, maybe left brainy kind of skills, you go out on Tuesday night and you see a movie with your friends. Then you stay awake at the diner debating the cinematography or why did this character do this or that, and. And super fun. So I developed a vocabulary around film happen. Um, to be. Wait for it. Lucky thing that happens. Number one, I am in Los Angeles when film goes digital, when computers became powerful enough to manipulate film, Right. So is the explosion of everyone's using an Avid and pro tools and suddenly you can do computer graphics. And I happen to sit at the intersection of that Venn diagram of I can speak engineer. And there are some commonality there. And there are also some very smart people have written about that commonality. How do I create something that helps people with that? And that is what I do now. So that. That is the twisted journey. I'm sure someone in there. There's also, you know, I played some games of tennis or golf and things, but those are the key points. I got married.

Speaker B: Something that comes to mind. They'll call me. Bottom. Bottom line at Tom, going right to our remote work is think of, uh. And you probably didn't use the term remote work.

Speaker C: Spot on.

Speaker B: What is absolutely obvious is that you had to deal with very different types. You had the creatives, the finance people, you had, uh, technical people. So bringing it into the corporate world, you're dealing with different contributors and you have to unify them on a goal and then often with a timeline and a budget.

Speaker C: Spot on. And, uh, now that we've established the spine, let me talk to what you just brought up because it's really interesting point especially. Sorry, Tom.

Speaker B: Yes, please do. I'm just saying that emerged listening to that of, uh. I'm picturing all these characters that have to operate together and they don't live in. In your cubicle area.

Speaker C: It is a motley array.

Speaker B: So go ahead, run with that.

Speaker C: Okay, so here is thought number one. The pandemic happened in many industries. It was a shock to the system. Oh, my God. I'm not sitting here 10 hours a day under the same fluorescent lights staring at you. We go to the water cooler, chat right? Now, in film, for a hundred years, film is done remote and hybrid and rto or in person, but never called it that. You know, films begin with writers creating the seed. That becomes Transformers. It becomes, you know, Star Trek, whatever. Uh, and they're working remote in their homes, in their writing partner's living room, in a coffee shop. Right. Hopefully one of those things gets some traction. You get a little money, you open a production office two days a week. Uh, I'm meeting with Tom, our line producer, and Adrian, our Location scout. The other three days a week, you guys are out doing your stuff. I'm rewriting the script to try and get Brad Pitt to agree to do it. You know, you do all this thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Eventually it is in person. You're on set, it's day and night, you know, for months you're living together, and then it goes back to hybrid and remote. Now the thing is, in film, if you were to say, oh, you're in the remote period of your movie, anyone, film would be like, huh, Right. You're in development, you're in prep, you're in pre production, you're in post production. Right. But the interesting thing is leaders have established patterns of how they lead through those periods. As Tom said, with both creative professions, hey, man, what happens next? And very technical professions, tell me exactly what you think this character would be wearing. Let me go research that. Let me design the sets for this. Let me come up the color palette for what I. I'm going to shoot things like that. Right. So you have a very creative but, uh, technical world that has to come together in each of these periods. And leaders know how to do that. Now what is interesting to me is as I moved into tech, a lot of those lessons map really well into that world. And I know in this podcast, especially with Tom's probing questions, we're going to get to some very actionable advice about what are those insights?

Speaker A: So that foreshadowing, you know, I've talked to him enough.

Speaker C: Now I know he's like listening actively and he's like, and now look me probe this. So I'm ready. Pro boy, Tom.

Speaker B: Um, so. So you. Let's just go a little deeper of what you just said and I'll repeat it. Those skills and you didn't know it was remote work. I like that because we're experiencing this in hybrid. Everything existed, but it all has new names.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But it didn't exist for everyone. And so that's the difference. So going a little deeper, what are specific skills that map we have dealing with different types. You have engineer, so you can deal with the technical process people.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: And you have creative, so you go to the big picture and they don't care how we're going to get the costume. They just say it's got to look this way. And so what are some things that you learn to do that are skills that leaders who deal with different types too?

Speaker C: Okay, so let's begin early in my career, this is around 20, and it has served me in both of these two fields. Which is managing creativity. Right. Because that, that's the thing, like determining where lightning is going to strike. Can you really do it? Yes, actually there are some things that I've learned from creatives. So let me give you an example. Little Steven is 20 years old and he's working at a company in Hollywood, an ad agency that does trailers for movies, commercials, music videos, that sort of thing.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: A lot of, uh, Warner Brothers work in Buena Vista, which is basically Disney. Right. My job at that time, straight outta school, was I ran the little department for the writer producers. So we would get in rough cuts from the studios. Hey, this is our spring movie next year with Julia. And so, and so this is our Christmas thing. We want you to help sell it. And I would assign that to writer producers. I'd, uh, call up Tom. Go Tom. You did that great job with Batman last year. Can you do this Superman one this year? Now the company's run by two guys who are very well respected in the field doing this. 20 years that worked at the networks, worked at the studios. Very well respected. One of them, Jeff, comes in my office and he's the only person in my life who's ever called me Stevie. So I'm just gonna use his voice now in this. He comes to my office, he's a very gruff guy. I go, Stevie. I was like, yeah. He's like, you know, Bart? I m was like, yeah, Bart, uh, the guy works in the vault. Yeah, I met him. He's like, you ever give Bart a movie to write a trailer? I was like, are we talking about the same Bart who drives tapes around Hollywood? Like, no. Should I? Where are you going with this? And Jeff's like, I have an instinct about him. Stevie, Jeff, your name is Lindor. You've been doing this for 20 years. Done. I'm not here to question you. Went found a, uh, Warner Brothers B title that had like a month deadline. So if Bart bombed out, I could give it to someone else. Gave it to him. Two days later, Jeff's in my office. How's Bart doing, Jeff? I haven't bugged him. He's never ridden a trailer before. I thought I'd give him till Monday and I'll check in. Okay, fair enough. What else did you give Jeff? He's never ridden a trailer before. I gave him one movie. Jeff goes, stevie, let me teach you how creativity works.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: It's never about the thing, it's about the other thing. If you give Bart one movie to work on, he is going to stare at it with little Beads of sweat coming down his temples. And he's going to write the most obvious B version of that trailer you've ever seen. And, uh, what it is, is you as an engineer, or you can probably map this onto whatever. You know, those playing at home can think about their own careers. But there's the thing you need to do, and you are trying to solve it. And it's like this Gordian knot. And your mind keeps going into the same neural pathways of. Oh, well, I think it's gotta be this because it was this once before. No, no, if I could just. But that's not working. And what's interesting is engineers sometimes call it rubber ducking. I don't have my rubber duck on my desk right now. But you pick it up and you explain to the rubber duck. Or if you're pair programming, you talk to your pair. And there is a thing that you do when you have to articulate outside your own brain.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: What the problem is that stimulates different neural pathways, that suddenly as you're saying, you're like, oh, but we could try this if we use a different react component that didn't. Hold on, let me try that. Right. And it's just another way to get unstuck the creativity of saying, how do I solve this problem? The same way with Alexander the Great. Just being like, I got your Gordian night right. You know, not right. Here, buddy. Let me show you how to fix that.

Speaker A: So I know a lot of there's, you know, there's a preferred style of, like, the talk it out kind of people who, you know, they might like. I am a talk it out problem solver. Uh, like everything I do, I. I mean, I talk all day long whether somebody's here or not. Thank goodness I now have dogs, because I talk to them and they just give me those. Looks like you're.

Speaker C: Wait until they write their memoirs.

Speaker A: Yeah, if only the truths they tell. But, but, but also, you know, I know they're, you know, on the other side of that, there are the quiet doodlers, or, you know, they're writing it out. And so there's this it. All of it is a, uh, creativity in some way, you know, where you're connecting. And it's either a quiet creativity, a quiet think out loud, think messy, or, you know, a very external vocal think out loud, think messy.

Speaker C: Yes. So I think what underpins what we're talking about, and this is a broader topic that hopefully is helpful for leaders, is a lot of it is the emotional intelligence of. Or it's something. You know, this is something where it's the. Tom, why don't you. You not come in for a day or two and do whatever f thing is you do when you're working remote and we'll see you in the staff meeting. Because that's usually when you walk in and we haven't seen you and you're like this. And everyone in the room is like, yeah, that. That changes the trajectory of our company. We should leave right now and go execute what Tom said.

Speaker B: You know, may I name what I just heard? Which is markers, uh, purposeful markers. So a lot of times we don't know what we're doing and why we're doing it. And so I learned this with brainstorming with engineers at John Deere. They said they hated brainstorming, but. And there were other people that just wanted to brainstorm all day and do nothing else. What we learned is if you set a time limit and you say, for five minutes we're going to brainstorm, then we're going to put the black hats on and pick one of these things and bring them forward. These same introverted people would brainstorm around with the clock because, uh, they knew there was a clock, and I mean with the group. Whereas it seemed like it had no beginning, no end, no reason, like it was in and of itself. And what I heard you do so subtly and masterfully is. Is put little markers and arts does this all the time. Adrian mentioned earlier. Oh, you're foreshadowing. So. So you do this in a story so we know where we are. And even if where we end up is a mystery, they want to create the intrigue. And I think leaders need to do a better job of not just directing and supporting, but also, uh, creating a story so that, you know, occasionally you'll go out of character.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker B: But we're going to create an environment where your best self comes forward most often. So ask, uh, what you want and flexing to what they need.

Speaker C: Yes, that is a wonderful way to put it. And I will expand on that in the improv game of yes and yes and yes. What you said about leaders creating that environment to say, here's how you can do your best thing. And I'll tell you something that I witnessed was the first time I was at DreamWorks and I was in a story meeting with Stephen in his conference room. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But if you hired someone who's like, oh, yeah, I've been at two companies in three years, and this is a fun place. I saw your job Posting hired culture.

Speaker B: Um, not just competence.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Hired to culture the kind of people we want working here as well as having the skills.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but skills can be developed. Yeah, right.

Speaker C: Yeah. Passion, you can't really inject passion.

Speaker A: You cannot really develop that. Like you can fine tune it, you can hone it, you can align to it. It can change for individuals over time as they learn more. Perhaps. But do you want to gamble on that? Because we, we all know what goes. What the cost of rehiring for that role. Right.

Speaker C: Incredibly expensive. It's incredible when you consider the entire. Exactly. The hip and the letting them go and the posting the job and the recruitment and the.

Speaker A: Yeah, right.

Speaker C: Like a year.

Speaker A: So hire for the right fit first.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Understand what that right fit is. Uh, take you back to culture.

Speaker C: Let me just share this. Uh, the kooky thing is I've heard some people talk about. Well, you know, we look at um, potential candidates, social media profiles to get an insight into them. Okay. Come on, it's 2025. Everyone's social media is a well curated version of some idealized thing written by AI.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: Written by hand.

Speaker B: It's good words.

Speaker C: It's garbage. I'll tell you the most valuable thing that I learned to do, and this is by accident, was if I'm really serious, if this is going to be someone with whom, um, I partner, bring on the team, whatever, and go do something that they're bad at. Hey man, let's go do yoga this weekend. Hey, do you want to go to topgolf? Let's hang out after work. Do you want to go on a hike, man? Do you learn about them when they're confronted with something where it's like, yeah, golf, yeah, it's just fun. Let's go have this fun. You will learn, man. Let them drive when you get out of that car and you watch them treat the valet. That will tell you more than any resume.

Speaker B: Good. We got, we got an actionable tip right there. Oh yeah, to. The time goes so fast here. But uh, the, the Suka Company, meaning happiness and self fulfillment. And I would be interested to hear how you view happiness and self, uh, fulfillment and how that fits into the leadership landscape.

Speaker C: I have a very strong thesis that we all have something great inside us. And the question of this lifetime is are you going to get it out or not? Um, and there are very strong, well funded, smart forces that are working to make sure that we and our team do not get it out. If you're an engineer, designer, behavioral psychologist, the best paycheck you can make in the world is to work for a company whose business model is steal your life, period. They're happy to say, give me your life, I'm going to sell it to this advertiser. I'll keep the money. Thanks.

Speaker B: Sucks the life out of you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: They have the best user interface, the best engineering. It feels like glass sliding by under your thumb. And, uh, what's behind you or your team will do nothing. And it is very hard to fight because they have legions, phalanx of people who are just focused on. We get one tenth of a second more of time on site or time and app across a billion people. And they know their grandchildren will not need to work if they can just do that. The stock options, the RSUs, would be that great. Right. So you're trying to fight that. You're trying to make sure your team doesn't fall victim to the, you know, sirens and all that, and you can't lash them all to the mass like Odysseus. Right. So the answer to your question, Tom, is, um, I passionately believe that we need to give people tools, both as leaders as well as for ourselves, that allow us to do the work that moves our life and our company forward.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Because there are a lot of people building the tools to do the opposite. That's what I do with my life.

Speaker B: Well said.

Speaker A: Yeah. I just did a session yesterday on, um, this power of pause. I'm on a cause for pause right now. Right. Um, and in that session I said, the systems today that we are working with for, against are designed to keep us reacting.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And distracted. And distract money and distracting people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's all on this thing. I. Yeah.

Speaker A: So how intentional we have to be to combat that.

Speaker C: Near Al, who is a, uh, friend, he has written some wonderful stuff on understanding your internal triggers and your external triggers, because whether you do or not, people working at Meta and TikTok and Twitter and Snap, they do.

Speaker B: They're studying it. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker C: Their algorithms are optimizing on you.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Thousand times a second.

Speaker A: Yeah. So what. What is Suka doing to do your part in helping us to fight that fight?

Speaker C: I appreciate your asking.

Speaker A: We're on board.

Speaker C: We're on board that I'm very passionate about Tony and I, you know, if you look at the process of getting into a flow state and maybe to set the table, it would be smart to make sure we all, you know, everyone listening at home is nodding their head yes, which is. I know, some people know. But just to say it. So Mihai Chitzentmihal, who wrote the book on flow, which named this. He said, high performers seem to have this common state, this concentrated state in which they do their great work. Uh, I want to understand that. And like Prometheus, he wanted to go up, find the fire, bring it down to the common people, to us, right? Flow states are attainable. They are that state which you may or may not have experienced where you lose track of time, distractions fall away. You're in what you're doing, you're great at it, it feels good. You move your life forward. Right? And that is the fundamental source of why I named my company, when I named it, which is Suka is the Sanskrit word for the happiness that comes from self fulfillment. When you were in your lane, doing the thing you're great at. And it feels great, you can do it with ease. That is, I hope, what you want for yourself and for your team. Now, flow. Flow states don't happen in seven minute increments between zooms. They just don't.

Speaker A: Huh?

Speaker C: Research shows it takes 15 to 23 minutes to fall into a flow state with the correct conditions around you, the right music, distractions, blocked work in front of you. You know, so you need to, to have a, uh, dedication to that practice if you want to be doing that kind of work. And I'm not talking about stapling your TPS reports, emptying your inbox, returning your slacks. That is shallow work. Cal Newport, we're very proud, we're talking about this. But if you want to do the work that moves your life forward or your team, you need to set aside time for this deep work and respect it where it's, hey, man, you know what? Every morning from 9 to 11, let's not set silly zoom meetings. And maybe let's not slack each other. Let's let that be sacred. And hopefully out of that time comes the thing that makes someone in the staffing, you know, turn their head and go, wow, that. So if we set the table a bit, that is flow states, that is how you harness it for yourself or for your team to benefit your company. Right? Then you also can't be just, uh, you know, interrupted in the middle because it takes you out 15 to 23 minutes to get back into a flow state when someone pulls you out, you know, from slacking, you. So let me answer your question now, that said, which is if you decide you are that kind of person or your team should benefit from that, we built a flow state app. It is very simple. It is a website with the play button we build impacted into that play button as many of the conditions, precedent that help someone get into flow so they can get there faster, stay there longer and do better work. And it results not in being overworked, but in being healthy about productivity. Wow.

Speaker A: Very.

Speaker B: Send us the link so that we put that in the show notes.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: It's very simple. It's just T H e the Sukha S U K H A co um, and it's a free seven day trial. No credit card, no fun business.

Speaker B: We'll put it in the show notes for those we're driving or whatever.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: Um, uh, and we'll investigate that. And. And because I, uh, Adrian's talking about the power of the pause. And every coaching client now has CEO think time in their process. And. And it's different what it includes, but it always includes some form of shutting out, some sort of resourceful questioning and some patience not to have. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. And the very discipline of putting CEO think time into your week, it transforms individuals and cultures. And I work with very strategic people, but they admit to me they haven't been strategic lately. They've been reacting.

Speaker C: So that is absolutely the truth.

Speaker B: Pause is the same idea, which is we keep making it, packing it, shipping it. We're going to go off a ledge and not remember what it was or why it was.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, we get. We get too far into our lives to do work towards our legacy. Right. You look up and you're like, what am I leaving behind? And you made a lot of money for some other company, probably Super. You've got projects that you're proud of. Super.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Is that the thing you want them to talk about in your eulogy? Right.

Speaker C: What are you leaving behind? Is very germane for me. Um, as Tom knows, I'm having my first child this November. And I definitely am saying to myself, what are the things that I'm doing that are going to improve his world 0.1%. And that when he gets to an age of understanding that daddy has a job or had a job, that it's something that he can point to proudly. I never used to think about that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What a beautiful. That is a beautiful legacy.

Speaker C: I hope so. And you know, my wife's right there. She's. She's, uh, the magic behind all of this.

Speaker B: Yeah. As is always the case.

Speaker C: True.

Speaker B: I resemble that one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, uh, the time has passed, has flown by. It does. And I knew it would in a flow state. M And so guess what I'm gonna

Speaker A: say Adrian, we can prepare for this one, right? What's the final question for Stephen?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's the first word in the last word. And I say, shut up, Tom.

Speaker A: I think, you know, what comes to my mind is, well, part of it is when. When Tom says to himself, bottom line at Tom. But Steven, if you were talking to a first time CEO, you know, somebody just coming into that, to that role, what would be the one piece of advice that you would give to that person?

Speaker C: That advice would be to listen.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker C: people will help you. Users that churn will tell you what was wrong. Uh, investors that say no will tell you why. But you really have to get out of your head and actively listen. That's one of the things I enjoyed in our conversations with Tom before. Like, he's one of those people that actually listens and the next thing he says is not, I was just waiting for you to stop talking so I could say this.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And that takes practice and discipline to do.

Speaker B: Well, practice keeps coming up. Uh, and my book, and someone can steal it is Leadership as a practice. Because you can go on to HBR and you can get all the cognitive things of good leadership, and they're all great. And we've been trained to take a test. So they say, get this from this expert and we're going to test you on it. And you get an A. They know how to do that, and they're nothing that shows up in their practice. Leadership is a practice, not a concept. Thank you so much for joining us today, Steve.

Speaker C: This was awesome. Thank you guys for inviting me.

Speaker A: Yes. What a great conversation. We did get our amusing stories and we tied it all to leadership and.

Speaker C: And Tom kept hanging lanterns on things. Okay, that was a point. He just something. That was nice.

Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I would say that it wasn't too tangential, though. We were good.

Speaker B: We were.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Stephen.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: Okay, bye.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Leadership beyond podcast. We hope you benefited from this conversation as much as we have. We invite you to join our community of conversation. Subscribe to our podcast on itunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to sign up@aladershipbeyond.com for free materials and, um, updates. That's aleadershipbeyond. Com. Join us in two weeks for our next episode.

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