Why He Left Hollywood to Reclaim His Attention - Steven Puri

At the height of a successful career in Hollywood, Steven Puri was working on some of the biggest film franchises in the world. The path forward was clear. Bigger titles. Bigger budgets. More recognition. But something didn’t sit right.

What happens when you realize the system you’re succeeding in no longer reflects your values? For Steven, that moment came when he saw firsthand how success could be disconnected from meaning. The work was profitable, but it wasn’t purposeful.

In this conversation, Steven shares how a health diagnosis, impending fatherhood, and growing disillusionment with the attention economy pushed him to step away from Hollywood and return to building something different. 

Today, he’s focused on helping people reclaim their focus through his company, The Sukha Company.

This episode explores the hidden cost of distraction, the discipline of deep work, and the courage it takes to choose alignment over achievement.  You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of focus, flow, and how to reclaim your attention in a world designed to take it from you.

Enjoy!

Stay connected with Steven Puri
Website: https://thesukha.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-puri/

Work with Brian
Storyline by Kingswood helps leaders and professionals make sense of career transitions, identity shifts, and the stories they’re telling about their work.

Learn more: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yWlc-4M5JIaTMPurQlcccQ8gZF5lEabY/view?usp=sharing

Stay connected with Why I Left
Visit: https://www.WhyILeft.co 

Subscribe: 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMgQI4X0kEp8-o7Z9D3tRmg
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-i-left/id1613667100 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0TE4Y626idPxNeewpCG6Ef 

Follow:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialwhyileft/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-i-left/
Connect with Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianaquart/ 
Rate us 5 stars and share feedback: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-i-left/id1613667100 

Thanks to our partners & sponsors: 
BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/whyileft and get 10% off your first month  

ApodcastGeek: Use Code BA10 to 10% off your first order at https://apodcastgeek.com/  

Your story deserves to be told with clarity and impact. That’s why I created Storyline by Kingswood, an executive branding and narrative strategy service for high-impact professionals who are stepping into a new chapter. Elevate your leadership. Command your story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Trillion dollar companies who entire business model is steal your life, distract you. Right? I mean it's pretty astounding when you think about it. I believe you have something great in you. And I I want you to release it. Like don't go to your grave without locked inside you.

Brian Aquart 1:03

Welcome to Why I Left, a podcast exploring life-changing career moves. I'm your host, Brian Accard. Join me as I chronicle real stories from real people about the bold decisions that transformed their careers and lives. Let's dive in. Hello, and thanks for tuning in to this episode of Why I Left. What if the most life-changing moment of your career came not from success, but from stopping? From illness or impending fatherhood, or realizing the noise of the world had drowned out your own voice. For many of us, the constant pursuit of achievement can drown out the quiet questions that really matter. Why am I doing this? Who am I becoming in the process? Today's guest, Stephen Purie, faced those questions head on. At a moment when his career was thriving, life forced him to pause, to examine not just what he was building, but why. This is a conversation about meaning, mortality, and the courage to design a life and technology that restores our attention rather than consumes it. Let's go check it out. Alright, welcome back. So our guest today is Stephen Purie. Steven has lived many creative lives: newscaster, Hollywood Studio exec, tech CEO, and now founder of Suka, a mindful tech company helping people reclaim focus and flow. After building Visual Effects Studios, being a senior exec at DreamWorks and Fox, and later launching startups like Suka, Steven faced two defining moments, the health diagnosis and the approaching birth of his first child. Those experiences sparked a profound reflection on legacy, attention, and purpose. And in this conversation, we'll explore what it means to leave behind the noise, design technology that heals rather than harms, and live with intentional presence. So, Steven, welcome to Why I Left. How are you doing? And congrats.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Thank you so much, Brian. Yes, first child, super excited, haven't slept, but I'm kind of okay with that right now. Because when he looks at you and his little hand like touches your face, it's all good. Like you're just in love.

Brian Aquart 3:24

I love that. You know, so you began as a young newscaster and then pivoted into visual effects and studio leadership. What drew you into storytelling and technology? Tell us more about that. Interesting. So I'm going, let me frame this.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

For those listening at home or playing along in the car, what Brian mentioned, which might be the reason to listen to this episode or the reason to go to another episode more interesting to you, is I'm one of the few people you'll meet who's been a senior executive at a couple studios, but also raised over$20 million of venture and run a couple of tech companies, one successful exit, two failures, right? So a lot of what I do is reflections upon that, share that right now while I'm building my next company. So the funny thing, Brian, is if you look at my career, it may seem to have a lot more forethought, like, oh, I want to evolve into this. I will tell you, to be super honest, I think it's a little more forest gump in that there have been moments when something drops my lap, some opportunity, and that's luck. You're in the right place. Now, I think to make something of it, to be like, okay, I'm going to turn this opportunity into my next career, that takes a lot of work and, you know, thought. And I'd like to think I've done that a couple of times. But some of the things that have come my way because the universe has been gracious, been like, hey, Steven, you want to try this? So you asked me about being a newscaster. So when I was young, growing up in Northern Virginia, happened to be near the audition for a show on Channel 5 there, the Fox Seminary Media Station. It was a half-hour news show for young people, like pre-college, you know, high school people that aired on the network. And it was the top-rated youth show in the DC Baltimore market. Producer was like, hey, you, you're here. Would you want to interview to be one of the hosts on this show? And I had never done anything like that, but it sounded super cool. So I wrote a news story, you know, they had auditions on camera and stuff like that. They had a few weekends of, you know, the casting call, the cattle call, and I was one of the two people chosen. And it was super cool doing that because this was pre, you know, TikTok, pre-Facebook. So for people in DC who wanted to be seen by the youth market, it was a great way to do that. So we got on the mayor, we had on, you know, sports, you know, figures in DC and things like that, because they wanted to be down with the kids. And we were like all teenagers, like making this show, right? So they did that. That led to invitation to go to USC in Los Angeles, University of Southern California. So here's the funny part. Mom and dad were not like newscasters. Mom and dad were not like Hollywood people. Mom and dad were engineers at IBM, a little nerdy. So, you know, like if you're young and your parents are both like great ice skaters, you probably learned to ice skate when you were a kid, right? So I knew how to code. Not because it was my career ambition. It's just like what you do with mom, you know, go to the computing center on the weekends and, you know, submit jobs to run. I, when I was at USC, was a Watson scholar, which meant IBM let me be a junior software engineer at IBM when I wanted to make money. So I made money during school doing that. That transition to film that you asked about happened because I was there in Los Angeles when film went digital. And I happened to know both worlds. I know a bit about entertainment and I knew a bit about engineering, and I could bridge that. And that was a small subset of people that could do that, and my career took off, which is how I ended up producing the digital effects for Independence Day. And as you know, we won the Academy Award for the visual effects on that, which was awesome, right? And it takes a village. A lot of people contribute to that. I don't mean to take credit for it, but I'm just telling you like producing the digital effects on an Academy Award-winning movie helps your career.

Brian Aquart 7:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

That's why I started my first company, you know?

Brian Aquart 7:25

That's amazing. And and you know what's funny? I actually uh watched Independence Day with my kids for the first time. When? A few weeks ago. It was actually a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I'm in the movie.

Brian Aquart 7:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

If you remember, there's a big wide shot in the hills of Los Angeles where they're looking at the destroyer that comes and sits over the city. Yes, yes. I'm the guy in the foreground looking at the destroyer. That's me. From the back. Like here, let me turn around. It looked more like that.

Brian Aquart 7:57

Get out. That is so that is so cool. It's so funny you mentioned that because they were they, you know, it was awesome to kind of watch. It was one of my favorite movies, but watched that with them uh recently. So it's so funny that that that we're we're talking about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

It's good populist entertainment, you know? It is. It hits all the notes. And the funniest thing is in doing that, I learned lessons because Roland and Dean were amazing. We started a company together. Centropolis Effects, my first company, the three of us started. One of the things that I learned in that was Dean's like, watch this. We're going to have a sequence where we kill millions of people, millions of humans. Destroyers are going to blast Los Angeles, New York tonight. People are going to be okay with it. But then we're going to save the dog, and people are going to cheer because people care more about dogs dying in movies than they do humans. And he's absolutely right. That was totally a Dean moment where the dog gets saved. Yes. And the entire theater cheers. And you're like, but everyone just died. And they're like, but the dog is so good.

Brian Aquart 9:02

So true. That's actually hilarious. You know, and so thinking about that, after you know, working at places like this, you know, major studios, Fox and DreamWorks, what did you learn about creativity, scale, and burnout that later shaped some of these ventures that uh you've launched?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Well, I appreciate you're asking that. So I was very fortunate in that when I went to DreamWorks, I became an executive vice president for Kurtzman Norsey, who were writers there at the studio. And they were very smart. Like they're there, you know those uh stories about mechanics that can put their hand on the hood of the car and tell you exactly what's wrong? They didn't have to open it. They're just that good. Yeah, yeah. Alex and Bob are just that good. There are probably about a dozen writers in action movies in Hollywood that are that good. There are a thousand writers who write movies, right? Craftsmen, they're fine. There are about a dozen that are at that level of like Yoda, right? So because I was an EVP with Alex and Bob, that's how I got to know Damon Lindelof when he was doing Lost. And we later did some movies together. It's I got to know, you know, Chris McCorry, David Ayer, you know, Billy Ray, like go down the list. Like these are the top writers in Hollywood of that genre. I'm not talking intimate Wes Anderson kind of like twee stuff. Being around them, there were definitely some things that they knew how to do with their own productivity to operate at that level of like a million, two million dollars of script. Do it repeatedly, not burn out, and be able to like, you know, have a have a life, if you will. And those are a lot of the lessons I talk about. So I can talk about some of them if you, if you'd like.

Brian Aquart 10:43

Yeah, would yeah, would love to hear a little bit. Yeah, what's what's one of those lessons that that that you learned that you picked out from that? Okay. One simple lesson.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

There is a famous writer, Ron Bass, Rain Man, my best friend's wedding, like go down the list. And he's in the million-dollar club, right? He was famous, or maybe infamous, for not talking to his family in the morning. Like, not even hello to his wife, not, I'm gonna make pancakes this morning. Who needs a ride to school? Like, none of that. And he said to his family, he's like, Listen, when I start talking with you, I can't hear my character's voices in my head anymore that day. So I need to use that time from five in the morning to nine, six to ten, whatever it is. I just gotta go to my office, close the door, I'll be back after that, right? Now his family, of course, was like, Dad,$2 million of script, you go write, we'll make the pancakes, right? We good, okay. And it was interesting because Ron knew them in the afternoon, perfect time for him to do interactive stuff, studio note meetings, meetings colour, that kind of stuff, right? He had a stable of writers he worked with. And that speaks to chronotype. Chronotype is the concept. There are times of day that you are more adept at doing certain kinds of things. And that was my first brush when I was a young, I was like straight out of school, with someone who is that self-aware to go, let me say exactly how my, you know, whether you call it your brain rhythm works, your, you know, mind works, whatever you want to say. But he was like, this is how I've optimized my days in order to function this way. He's like, I do my writing six to ten, good. I'll get the script out in four weeks, whatever. And then I can do collaborations and I can go pick the kids up from school or do whatever that thing is, right? Now, in that time, he was very focused.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

And you and I, and many people listening here, live in a world that is filled with trillion-dollar companies who entire business model is steal your life, distract you.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Right? It I mean, it's pretty astounding when you think about it. You look down, you know, the these top companies on you know the stock exchange, and that's the business they're in. And it used to be 10 years ago, they were kind of embarrassed, like, you know, Zuckerberg, you get called to Congress to testify, and he'd aw shucks at like, you know, we're just Facebook's just here to show grandchildren videos to grandmothers. That's what we do, you know? And now they have absolutely no shame. They're like, these are the techniques we deployed this quarter to increase the amount of time we stole from people's lives, and that's shareholder value. And by the way, we're going to create more shareholder value next quarter by stealing more of their lives using these new techniques we're developing, right? They have no problem. You listen to the earnings calls, and it is straight up, listen, if you do anything with your life, it doesn't benefit my stock price. It's as if Mark called you up and was like, hey, Brian, hey man, can I have your life? And I'm gonna sell to these advertisers and I'll keep the money, but I'm gonna give you some dance and cat videos, buddy. You know?

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Like, it sounds ridiculous, straight up what it's about, man.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So that's the thing. When you think about the like the Ron Bass, uh, and there are many others I worked with that had this sort of sense of focus, but they were able to say, hey man, like I have to block distractions, even if it's just talking to my family in this period of time. So in this four hours, I can do what other people would do at eight or ten, or maybe never.

Brian Aquart 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Um, so that's just one.

Brian Aquart 15:39

We can go on more, but I know that was a long speech. I'm back. No, no, I love that though. I think I think that's so true for people who are looking for reasons why they should be doing more intense, focused work like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I have a question for you. Yeah, what's up? When you are working, when you're doing something valuable, what pulls you away? What are the distractions for you in your life?

Brian Aquart 16:02

The distractions for me Definitely the phone, right? Alec, I sometimes I have my notifications.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

You'll be working and your hand reaches for the phone, right?

Brian Aquart 16:09

Yeah, like and I'm right there with you.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Two alcoholics talking to each other. I'm the phone is super distracting.

Brian Aquart 16:17

The phone is super distracting. And then you know when you know everyone knows the the outlook ding, right? Like the outlook ding, right? For emails. I gotta admit, sometimes that'll get me an open yeah. Like, who's what is this? Yeah, who's this? Something I want. Exactly. So those are some of my distractions, but I tend to I am I'm a huge proponent of like like large focus work. Sometimes, though, it's funny. So Ron and I are a little different. I would be more so like a 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. guy. Well, no one's there to talk to me anyway, but I'm I'm a late night person. Well, I will I will lock in during that time.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Because I work a lot. I I love that. Let's talk about that because that really ties into this thing of chronotype. So there was a time when I was in SF and more code mentality, more using that sort of part of my brain. And there is absolutely an SF hustle culture among devs. It's like, oh yeah, you gotta be in flow from you know 10 p.m., 11 p.m. till four in the morning. It's like, you know, this great zone. And I understand that it's less cluttered with distractions. Fewer people are WhatsApping you, SMSing you, emailing you. That is absolutely true. However, it may not be actually your brain's best time to do work. And what I found after doing that for a while was this is me getting to know my chronotype. Yeah, I would be writing code late at night, but often it would be the code that wasn't optimized, or I'd later refactor. It is something that would have to be revisited there as opposed to code I wrote in the morning before I started bugging people with stuff and they start bugging me. That usually stood. That was like, oh, it's that's yeah, pretty solid. You know, it feels hard. This doesn't. So that was something. And now you may be very good at the late night stuff, but I've tried to stop doing that with important things. I can do mindless kind of stuff at night, but not the oh my God, we're writing a key feature for the app.

Brian Aquart 18:14

Gotcha. Gotcha. Curious, stay away from the keyboard. Yeah, it's it's uh I'm right now, it's been successful. Hell, this, this, this show was a 3 a.m. idea, you know. So it was glad you're up at 3 a.m., I think. I know. That was so random. But but yeah, so you know, and so when I think about obviously the show is kind of a good transition, right? So you we talk about pivots here, and you then leave Hollywood to return to building companies, right? So what was the moment you knew? Yeah, what was the moment you knew it was time to leave?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

When I was at DreamWorks, I got courted hard by Fox. This is pre-Disney acquisition, okay? And the chairman of Fox said to me, Listen, if you come here, I'll double your salary from DreamWorks. Not not you have my attention, but still more. This is what closer. He said, You probably grew up watching diehard movies. And I was like, Yes, I did. He's like, Do you want to be the executive on the next diehard? Do you want to be the executive running the next Wolverine movie? And I was like, man, that one's hard. I was kind of a no until then. And his pitch was, listen, I know at DreamWorks, you guys are making like classy stuff. Like, you know, the top writers and directors in Hollywoods are writing like really quality stuff. And you know, Fox at that point was doing mashups like Alien versus Predator and like just not noble things, right? You had Jim Cameron making movies that were distributed through Fox, and then you had Fox making its own movies, which were like, come on, this is schlock. Right. And he he's like, you know what, we have all this avatar money. I want to class up the joint. A lot of writer directors won't work here because, you know, that we're associated with you know Predator 14, stuff like that. So he's like, if you come here, I'll give you an open checkbook. Bring your friends. I would love to have a Christopher Corey, a Billy Ray, a David Ayer, a you know, Alex and Bob project, like that whole thing. So to his credit, that first year or two, he did completely sign off on my writing some big checks to bring. I got a David Ayer original that he was writing to direct. Billy Ray was adapting 24, the TV series to be a movie for me. Chris McCoy is writing the Wolverine sequel called The Wolverine, right? There were a number of those. At the end of the day, uh most of the major studios just you know how they're set up. Is you have like a president, chairman, vice chair, whatever, right? Sort of green light authority. And then beneath them, you have the vice presidents and the studio slate, which can be 400 projects in development, which could be everything from hey, we bought the rights to this video game. We can make the Minecraft movie, could be we bought this pitch, we bought this script, we bought, you know, some biograph, uh, somebody's uh life rights, you know. How do you get those into the 12, 14 slots that the studio is actually going to make that year, right? So those 400 projects that are in some stage of development are divided among the vice presidents, the senior executives, right? So if there are, let's say, eight senior executives, six to eight in each studio, you have like 400, it means you have about 50 things you're cooking, like that are in your little cupboard and you're trying to get them made. You're trying to get them to the point where the chairman's like, this is great. Like, let's go do it, right? We would have, every studio has Monday or Tuesday, much like a you know, venture capital, institutional venture capital firm, they have a partner meeting where you know, sit around and go, should we make, you know, uh the untitled Brian biopic? Should we make the Wolverine sequel? Should we make the whatever? And I gotta tell you, like, I had some projects that I thought were really high quality, no traction, just no interest. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? But the one project that my boss really wanted to make that was on my slate, was Die Hard V. I'm just gonna tell you straight up, I inherited the writer. It was an awful script. The writer, after I left Hollywood, was kicked out of the writer's guild, I believe, for plagiarism. Like, this is how how bad that situation was, right? Where I was like, we gotta fire this guy. Like let him turn in his next step, his next draft, and then just part ways and get someone really great to write this. Because Die Hard is an amazing franchise if you do it well, right? And Bruce was was well at the point, and he was interested in making a movie and the whole thing. And I remember this one conversation with my boss where he, in essence, in a very honest way, right? This is not a noble conversation, but it's an honest one, said, Listen, man, you're pushing so hard on this. Stop. If I put out a one sheet that has the two, one sheet is that vertical postering, like movie posters sort of thing. If I put out a one sheet that has the two words diehard on it, my little quants, my projection forecast guys down there in the hallway, they tell me it will make$70 million opening weekend. It doesn't matter if there's film in the can. It's just that many people show up to see John McLean go, yippee kaye.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

It doesn't matter if it's good. Just make it. Bruce has a window in the spring. Just shoot whatever you got.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Okay. Wow, that's an inspiring way to use your life. Okay. So let's go make a really bad script because you know what? People just show up to see John McLean, no matter what's good or not. I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Fair enough. And uh he and I do not like each other. To this day I have no respect for him. And he hates me.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Because I was like, that's where we're aiming. Okay. Why did I why did I leave Dreamworks? Dreamworks like when I was there, like Steven Spielberg, obviously, and Stacy Snyder, who's chairperson, like I gotta tell you, no matter how hard it is to make a good movie. Like people don't try to make bad movies. Sometimes you do, because it's just hard. Man, they push to try and make great movies. And I left that culture to go to Fox. And, you know, it's a decision. You sort of go, Am I gonna be 40 years old, 50 years old, 60 years old, making diehard nine just to pay the kids school, you know? And you know, no matter how wealthy you are, the one thing you can't buy is time. You can buy yachts, you can buy blood infusions, you can buy you know fancy cars. But man, you can't get those 10 years back. And that was it. And the the hardest part was my contract was coming up and I was making a deal to go to Warner Brothers. Somehow my boss got wind of it and re-upped my contract just as an F you. Just as like, now you can't leave.

unknown 24:48

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

And I was like, wow, we hate each other. Why do you want to keep me here? Just to make sure I didn't go to another studio to make good movies there. It's like a defensive move. I don't know. I'm sure there's a good sports metaphor. I'm not really a sports guy, but I'm sure there's something about that where it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna let you go to the I don't know, the Lakers. Even though you'd be great there, they'd love you. Just don't want the competition out there. So we're gonna keep you here and uh keep you down. And I waited out that year extension that they they paid for me very well to be there and just be like, why am I here, man? You know, like you don't want to make quality stuff, I want to make cheap stuff. So that was that was it. That was when I said exactly what you said five minutes ago, 10 minutes ago. What's the other thing I know how to do? The only other thing I know how to do is engineering. Let's go find some way to apply what I've learned that has an engineering solution. And a lot of that came to I've seen really high performers do repeatable high work, teams do repeatable high performance work. And let's make a website to sort of put all those lessons together and just go, here's a big play button. It'll help you with distraction blocking, music, all those things. And it's an engineering solution, you know, and succeed or fail, I don't have a guy above me who's saying, like, hey man, just make it cheaper. Exact, exactly. There you go. Long answer. You asked a question, you got a long answer.

Brian Aquart 26:12

But I I love I love that though, and I love the you know, the beauty of the show is when people hear about resignations, they often think it's this snap judgment type of thing, or that like you just you just don't hear these backgrounds when you hear people making big moves. And so I love the story. And you know, I'm a storyteller, so I love hearing the behind running this. And would love for you to talk about now the parallels. The parallels you see between producing films and now building startups. Like, what what do you see there? Because that engineering background, like you fell back on it.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

This is gonna be shocking to some and not shocking to others. Startup, you have an idea, you nurture it, you try and get seed money, early money to develop it into something more clear, then you start building it and you raise more money, and then eventually you release it and you help a lot of people for a consumer app, of course, not a you know SAS talk, but you release it and you help a lot of people find it and it becomes broad hit, right? It is the exact same thing with a film. You start with an idea, you start to do a draft or you do a treatment, you try and get some money to get a script going, and then you start attaching directors, and uh it's a very similar thing. People don't realize that a lot of films have the same kind of lifespan of a startup, right? And so yeah, you had go through the same things of how do you test the idea, stand out in a crowded marketplace, tell the story to attract money, tell the story to attract, you know, the right people, the right team hiring, and then tell the story to the broad market to market it.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Right.

Brian Aquart 27:49

So there are a lot of parallels there. We'd love to now dig into some of the themes that that you speak on often. You you've spoken about helping people find flow and detoxing from social media. How did this mission take shape for you personally?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Okay, so I'm gonna tell you a story and then I'm gonna answer your question. I was going, you know, I'm in Austin. We talked about this where it's not quite as cold as it is where you are. Right. I was in Austin, I was going to SF. And the next morning I was gonna meet with my team, and there was an idea for a feature that I wanted to illustrate. Like I'm not a great designer, but you can go to Figman's for a mock it up, right? So I thought, you know what, on the flight, I've got two and a half, three hours, I'll do it. Uh Alaska Airlines runs that nonstop route. So I get on. The captain's like, hey kids, sorry, Wi-Fi's out, you know, enjoy your flight. So I was like, okay, fine. So we take off. About 15 minutes later, we start descending. And I was like, oh, something bad happened. Like we're landing in Dallas. Like they're going to tell us we have a hydraulic problem. The engine fell off. I don't know, something, right? They don't want to scare us, but we're landing pretty close to Austin. Look down, two hours and 40 minutes had gone by. I had no concept. My designs were done, and I really liked them. And I realized I hadn't even noticed if the drink card had come by. I hadn't chatted with my seatmate. Like the Wi-Fi was out, which meant there were no incoming emails or, you know, Slack messages or SMS or WhatsApp. So it was this weird sort of environment. I was like, man, I had anticipated landing, going to the hotel, grabbing a sandwich in the lobby, going up to my room, trying to finish the designs before the meeting in the morning, right? In reality, I called a buddy of mine. I was like, hey, man, I have a free night in SF. You want to have dinner? And it was really nice. Right. Now, I didn't know what it happened. Now I understand that. I was in a flow state. And it was really cool. And by the way, for those I I know flow states are very much in the zeitgeist right now, and people are trying to like understand flow states. So I know there's a portion of the audience that's like super flow master. And there are probably some playing along at home that are like, I've heard of it. What the hell is it exactly? Is it fair if I explain what that is for like 30 seconds? Please do. Please do. Okay. So here's the deal. There was a Hungarian American psychologist. This guy, me high, she sent me high, and he had a thesis. He said, You talk to really high performers in very different disciplines, athletes and artists, scientists, inventors. And when they talk about that concentrated state they go into that where they do the thing that makes them famous, the thing that, you know, changes the world, they describe it in very similar ways, even though they're in different disciplines. He's like, What's up with that? So he did the research. At the end of it, he wrote a book called Flow. It's the seminal work on this. It is from whence we get the term flow states. And he said the greatest thing. He said, I chose this word because it was the most beautiful metaphor for what I found. We are all on the river paddling to move ourselves forward. But if you align your boat with the current, it magnifies your efforts. It carries you. You move further and faster. And that is what these high performers have figured out how to do and to do it repeatably. That book is magic, man. And now, subsequent to that book, you know, the standing on shoulders of giants thing, like other people have taken his research and expanded it and done amazing work. Like, you know, Cotler with the Flow Research Collective and what, you know, Cal has written about deep work and shallow work and Nier about distraction, like all these guys, like they've done amazing things to expand upon it. But that was sort of the foundational work here. And the his what he wrote, it really you can express it very simply. It's not magic. It's just a great state. He said, flow states are characterized by you lose track of time. Like you're not staring at the clock. You're not going, oh, when's lunch? Distractions fall away. Like you help to block them, and then they just are not in your field of view figuratively, right? Absolutely. You do your best work, you do it in a faster period of time, shorter period of time. And at the end, you feel a sense of elation, of joy, as opposed to a sense of depletion. It's not like, oh God, I was up all night, we're gonna so dead tomorrow. It's that feeling of like, that was awesome. And he said, you don't have to call it flow. People lots of people I interviewed have their own name for that state they go into. Like just the famous Michael Jordan quote about when I'm in the zone, it's just me and the ball.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

And it's just it is MJ's way of saying, actually, it really doesn't matter what the spectators are doing, what the scoreboard says, or really even what the defenders do. Because in those moments when I'm doing stuff that's gonna be on a highlight reel 30 years later, all I really have to do is control this ball. The entire world shrinks down to do amazing things between me and the ball, right? And there's a very Picasso quote. There are a number of, you know, these people that you know, but they talk about it with their own words. And me I'm like, call it whatever you want. I'm calling it flow, but there are conditions precedent that help people get into it. And I talk to a lot of individual contributors, like designers, writers, engineers who want to develop a flow practice, and also to team leaders who are like, I would love to have a team that's doing great work in a shorter period of time so they're less burned out. They retain, they don't churn as much because I'm not burning them out, but we're doing the work that moves our company forward.

unknown 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

So that's what I'm really passionate about is how to give people these tools. That's essentially what the Suka website is. It's a flow state in a box.

Brian Aquart 33:36

I love that. Yeah, no, I love that. And you know, as we kicked off earlier, we you're now a new father. Like I said, congratulations. Thank you. So how such a beautiful thing. Um, and now as you prepare for this stage of your life, and as we also mentioned too, you know, we're facing, you know, uh serious health diagnosis as well. How have your definitions of success and legacy changed?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Oh man, okay. So here, again, I'm gonna tell you a story because I love telling stories because I think they illustrate better than me telling you stuff, right? So in developing the Suko over the past five, six years, I've met a lot of people. There are a lot of members who reached out to me going, hey man, can I talk to you about how to optimize my practice, right? So you talk to people and it always begins with like, what's challenging to you? What distracts you? What are your goals? And then you kind of like, you know, work through that, right? So a number of people have before five weeks ago spoken to me about being parents, single parents, married parents, whatever, and how time is at a premium. Like, it is not like when you're single and you're like, I'll go to bed at three in the morning and da-da-da-da. Like it is like that kid's gonna be up at 5:30 or whatever it is. Like, you have to take care of another living human being, right? So your flexibility goes away. So a number of them have said essentially this to me. Like, there's a guy, we have a we have a group chat, and in the group chat, once a day, you can post something you finished. When you kick, uh when you click complete on a task, once a day, you can say, share it. It'll say, Oh, you know, Brian finished his new website in three hours. And then people can say, like, oh, Brian, share the URL. Let's all see your website. It's kind of a nice community, right? So there's there's a member, this guy, Roy King, this spring hosted his little, you know, in the group chat. It said, Roy King turned in his dissertation. And people in the dischat with the in the group chat were like, hey man, that's kind of a that's a big one that just sort of mic dropped there. Like, wow, right. And he's a super cool guy. He goes, Hey, hey, listen, you know, I'm uh I'm a heist, let me get this, I'm assistant vice principal at a high school, and I've got two kids at home. And I've been using Suka because I only have 60 to 90 minutes in the late afternoon, early evening between like when the kids get home, when I get out, like that sort of thing. And I got to use it really well because I want to be a dad, I want to be good at my high school, right? So he said, I've been using that to get my PhD in engineering and don't get too excited because I still have to defend it. So, like two weeks from Monday, or whatever it was, he's like, I've got to go in front of the panel and they're gonna ask me all the questions, do the thing, right? I don't have a PhD. My brother has two, I have zero, but I kind of get the idea, right? So two weeks later, it was interesting that weekend, people around the world that I know don't know him, South America, Asia, whatever, they post in there like, hey Roy, you got this, man. Good luck on Monday. You know, we're pulling for you. Like really nice kind of stuff, right? On Monday, no, no one hears from him. He doesn't post anything in the group chat. And finally, someone posted, like, hey, uh, anyone talked to Roy? Yeah. And Tuesday morning, Roy logged in and posted, You may now call me Dr. King. And people went, Ape shit. They were like, Yeah, you know, because it's just that feeling of like when you're part of a community and you're pulling for each other, it's such a great feeling. And I realized in those conversations, people like Roy King, where they're like, Man, I have this much time as a parent. I have to be super efficient. We're really made for that. We're made for people who are like, I would like to be done at lunch, the stuff that used to take me six or eight hours, because I'm gonna be rigorous in my focus. I want to get my life back. I want to be in control of my life, right? So that's become, to answer your question, I understand even better now what Roy was talking about, where he's like, I got this 60 and 90 minutes between like here and here with the kids. Yeah, that's my life now. It's like Laura, my wife is a senior vice president at a national bank. And between the two of us, we're like, okay, I got this window, you got that window. Okay, great news. I got this podcast with Brian, I gotta do, but then I can watch, you know, the little guy, you know. It's yeah.

Brian Aquart 37:43

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

It's an interesting transition. Yeah, but it makes you appreciate time.

Brian Aquart 37:48

Absolutely. And and you you mentioned, you know, this this time piece, which I I love the Roy story, but you want to make your time count by also sharing it freely, right? Which I really resonated with in our in our first call. So what what message do you most hope your child will hear in our conversation years from now? Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

I'll tell you, this may not be specific to my son, whose name is Satish, means uh Lord of truth in Sanskrit. I do a lot of yoga. Laura and I met in yoga, so it's like part of our life. So I don't know if this is I don't think this is specific to him, but it is something that I hope above anything else that uh he hears, which is I do what I do. Like I Tony and I create the sokha for free. We don't collect a paycheck from this. We created this website so people can get into flow, be more efficient, because we have a thesis, just like Mihai has his thesis about high performers. Tony and I believe that we all have something great inside us. And the question of this lifetime is are you gonna get it out or not? And there are a lot of forces, like we talked about, that are on the side of don't, don't get it out, keep scrolling, keep double tapping. You know, because Elon and Mark and Evan and these guys, they want to make sure you end up 80 years old on the sofa, scrolling and double tapping, and talking about how, oh, you could have written that book. Oh, yeah, you could have you could have made that app, you could have opened that restaurant, you had that idea for that company. And you know what? That's a miserable place to be. You don't want to be that guy or girl on the sofa talking about you shoulda, you could have, oh, I had that idea. And no one wants to be around you either. So whether it's my son listening at some point, or whether it is anyone listening to this now, I believe you have something great in you. And I want you to release it. Like don't go to your grave without locked inside you.

Brian Aquart 39:53

I I I absolutely absolutely love that. And ever since I've learned more about Suka, just the the mission behind it is is just something I can obviously get get behind. When you think about it and how you know you're you're building this company and it built this company helping people reach forward. Building every day. Yeah. It's feels it's more mission than product, right? Even though it's a product, but it's like it's more mission. 100%. You nailed it. I've heard a little bit about your personal beliefs that that sit at the core of this. How does it then now show up in how you're actually building Suka? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Here, I'm gonna tell you a story of failure, my failure. So I told you Centropolis, the company in my 20s, right? We did Independence Day, Roland Dean and I started a visual effects company. I raised about 15 million for that. Four years later, we got a buyout offer from a German conglomerate uh called Dasselberg, right? So I was like 28, cash in my pocket, had sold a company, you know, as one thinks in their 20s that you're smarter than you actually are, you know, better looking or funnier than you actually are. Come on. Like I was like, oh, this worked out great. I sold a company spice, right? Later to realize that was a lot of luck. Okay. So when I left Fox, News Corp, I went to do a small startup. I had an idea for like a collaborative social media thing, more sort of like Instagram for a group, as opposed to like a selfie that's very selfish. It's really just me. I was like, what if we were like more of a group sort of thing, right? We got to about 60,000 monthly active users. We had raised a precede and a seed. We really didn't get to that inflection point of like hundreds of thousands and millions of users to get a series A and had to close it. And man, I was depressed. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I'd bump into friends at the grocery store, the dry cleaners, and they were still in film. They're like, hey, Piri, how's it going? And I was like, oh yeah. Probably gonna close it. It didn't work, you know, and I just felt like a huge failure. And I had two startups before Suka took off, I had two startups that both didn't work. And I will tell you this here's here's the end of that story. I did one smart thing at the end of both, which is I didn't wait a year for the wounds to heal and be like, oh, Brian, it wasn't that bad. No, when the wounds were still bleeding, when it was fresh, like I gotta call my investors today and tell them I just don't think this is going any further, right? I I lost your money that fresh. I sat alone at home and there's a chair that I have with like a big window right behind me, that like the light comes right on you. I just sat there with a pad of paper and a pencil, and I said, you know what? What did I learn? I want to capture now what do I think I did wrong that I would do differently again. Both times on that pad of paper, the first word that I wrote was listen. Both times. And I know that I, you know, as many do, you know, sort of venerate the culture of the visionary founder and like Steve Jobs, no one told him, you know. And I realized that there's a balance between having a vision, being like, this is what we're building, and being flexible and getting input, being like, hey man, like there were people along the way with both those companies that gave me really valuable input. And I thought, well, you know, they don't really get it. No, actually, they did get it better than I did. You know? So to answer your question on Atsuka, one of the things that I think is making it work is we have a really good dialogue with our members about, hey, there's a new release coming today. It's gonna have these things. Tell us what you think. Oh, okay, here's something you don't like. We're gonna pull it out in the next release. Oh, here's something you're missing. Let's try and work that in. And we have an ongoing collaboration with our members to build the thing that gives them that rocket boost to do what they want to do. We are here to be of service. So we listen to the people that we service. And that was born out of the lessons of two failed companies, where I was like, that hurt.

Brian Aquart 43:56

That's the type of realness we appreciate on the show. Okay. Like I really do.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah, people sometimes don't want to ask me about there was always played about like, you know, the failures. It's like, nah, man, there's some good stuff I learned there. It sucked.

Brian Aquart 44:08

Yeah. But that's where the gold was. No, I appreciate that. You know, when you think about, you know, society as a whole, right? If you could redesign one aspect of how how this thing works, whether it's education, work, or even tech, to promote more flow and less fear, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 44:25

I am right now thinking a lot about education and schools and, you know, obviously my son, and in two years, we're gonna have a daughter, right? So I've thinking a lot about this as people who give us a ton of advice, great friends who are on different sides of public schools, private schools, Messory schools, wall roofs, all those things, right? And the thing that stood out for me is curiosity, is I got what I believe to be a great education going largely through public schools. Most of my education is public schools, but I'll tell you, I remember the feeling of curiosity, whether it was instilled in me through my parents or through teachers, but just that sense of like, ask why, learn why, learn more. You know, it wasn't that uh the learning was beaten into me. It was more, hey man, there's amazing knowledge here. If you want to go pick up a book on that library shelf, you're gonna learn something. If you want to go grab these paints and learn what yellow and blue mixed together make, paints are right there. You know, want to pour them all together and make brownie black, learn. Learn how it works. Um, that sense of curiosity wherever it comes from, I think is so important because like with the internet with LLMs and stuff, if you're curious, you can find out a lot of stuff now. You know, in my day, because I'm old, like you had to go to the library, right? Now the library sits on your phone, man, or in your meta ray bands, or in whatever device Johnny Ive and uh Sam Altman are cooking up. Yeah.

Brian Aquart 46:00

You remember encyclopedias?

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Oh, okay, you're gonna laugh. My parents got the World Book Encyclopedia. I read it like it was a novel from A to Z. And then the last little book that they give you, the thing, I read it page by page. I was like, this is fascinating.

Brian Aquart 46:16

I used to love that stuff. So there you go. No, you're you're right. You're absolutely right, though. It is, and even my my kids now, because they have access, like immediate access to so many things. Like, of course, we've we've bought them, uh, we bought them a dictionary, but of course they can go to you know Uncle Google and uh just type in what what this thing's as opposed to figuring out how you go and find it in the dictionary. And maybe I'm a little old school, but I I'll have them whip out that dictionary to go look up a word, you know, just because I think you should, you know, and so I'm just thinking to that, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Did your parents say that to you, going, if you look it up, you'll remember it? And I was like, but you know the answer. They're like, go look it up.

Brian Aquart 46:58

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

And so I hated that, but I did it, but I hated it.

Brian Aquart 47:03

Same. And as a as an elder millennial parent, I am doing the same things. There you go. Okay, well, no shame.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

My son will enjoy that too. Dad, what's the dictionary?

Brian Aquart 47:14

You go, definitely. You know, I'd love to ask you a little bit more about some some lessons learned here because uh what I love about this conversation is that you know, people, people can can find themselves in a lot of our guests, right? And I've had folks who startups and newsrooms, all those things. So, you know, from newsrooms to film sets to startups, what consistent lesson about creativity and leadership has stuck with you?

SPEAKER_01 47:40

As a leader, you need to learn the techniques to make room for that. And creativity does not necessarily mean playing with finger paints. Creativity is a whole new way to write this feature. Creativity is a different way to write the copy for our ad explaining this thing. Creativity is, hey man, I wrote a blog post that just lays out our mission in a way better way that people get. So as a leader, there's a lot of rote things that you may, as a manager, a lot of rote things you may have to manage. Hey, Brian, it's Friday at 10. I need your TPS report, you know, right? But hopefully the creativity is the thing where it's like, Brian, man, I feel like there's something not working about this part of our website or app or you know, user flow. Can you just take a morning and just focus on this? Just explore it. Maybe you come back with nothing, or maybe you come back with something where everyone in the staff meeting is like, Whoa, oh my God, we should build that now. And I I know it's hard to predict which one will be, but go. So you have to learn like those little ways of making room for that.

Brian Aquart 48:43

Yeah. I love that. And when you think about, you know, dealing with either uh telescope or parenthood now, what does it teach you about slowing down without losing ambition? It's about how effective you are.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Like I get more done now by one o'clock than I used to by six. Because I'm just disciplined. I'm like, you know what? I would love to have that time in the afternoon to help out my wife, be with my kid, whatever. So from like 7, 8 in the morning until like noon, 1 o'clock, I just turn on suka, block stuff out. You're not gonna reach me, but I'm gonna do all the stuff you used to drag, I drag out until eight or nine hours later. That's it. Period. You can get it done if you focus.

Brian Aquart 49:27

It's just how do you want to use your life? I love that. And then for people who are are listening, um, a lot of folks may be considering a career shift or transition. How can they tell whether they're either like chasing achievement or alignment? Because what I've loved hearing them in your story is, you know, that example that you just you gave about, you know, making another diehard 10, right? As opposed to the true writing, right? Like, yeah, like you were, and you you could have, you know, just done all that and rode into the sunset, but you were looking, you were chasing alignment. And that's, I think, is a is is a testament to you as a person, right? And how can others tell themselves when they're other they need to be chasing a sheep in our alignment?

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yes, uh, I am not the guru on this. I will give you my personal opinion. I just want to flag it at this is Steven talking to Stephen, not, hey man, this is like how flow states work and this is how that's right. So I would say this is if you want to be aligned in your work, it begins with self-awareness of like what really are your values and what lights you up. Like I realized at a certain point in my career, I loved making movies because if you went to the premiere and people were delighted, or you just went into a random movie theater two weeks after the release and watched people relate to it and they were happy and sad and laughing, and you know, like, wow, like all these people are affected in some way. Maybe they went into their day a little happier or a little more thoughtfully. Same thing with creating Suko. And just like, I love when people tell me, hey, you know, I use this and now I finished my dissertation, or I, you know, I created my presentation, or I wrote my thing, I did my design. So I realized for me, it's a lot about being of service. It's a lot about feeling that other people get value because I was like, oh, here's here's a helpful tool. Um, so I think it's about alignment begins with your game, like, what are my values? How do I want to treat the world? I want the world to treat me, and what lights me up, you know?

Brian Aquart 51:26

Yeah. I like that. And you've talked about using Suka yourself. And so what's just the president of the hair club for men?

unknown 51:35

Exactly.

Brian Aquart 51:36

Exactly. Right? So what's what is what's one practice that you return that that helps you return to flow when life is feeling chaotic? And if you don't mind, just like tell people how how Suka works. It's super simple.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

It's a website with a big play button in the middle. You sign up in 10, 20 seconds, and what it does is it gives you the the a lot of the conditions you need for flow, which are we give you a free Chrome extension that will keep you out of bad websites. You know, I get on Amazon while I'm working and I lose 20 minutes surfing Amazon. Oh, I get on YouTube. My my bad ones are YouTube, right? Free Chrome extension, keep that blocked, free way to lock your phone. So when you pick up your phone like you and I do, there's a little voice that goes, Hey, Brian, is your phone helping you? And you just get that moment to go, oh, you know what, do I actually want to do this or do I want to finish earlier today? You know? Flow music. I have a lot of friends who are film composers. There's a lot of research on what kind of music is good for flow. They were at like a thousand hours of original music, so that's really fun. And there's, you know, you can track your tasks in there. You get a productivity graph of how you worked so you can see where you got distracted and stuff like that. You know, there's a whole bunch of stuff in there. So it's super fun. And it's free for three days. You can try it out and see if you take it. Use it 72 hours in a row if you want. I love it. I love it.

Brian Aquart 52:54

And when you think about the next decade of work and tech, what do you hope people will finally leave behind and what do you hope they'll build instead? Or is there no hope for the future?

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

People have so many different goals in their life that I do I am biased against people who take advantage of other people, whether it's through investment scams, crypto scams, nutritional supplement scams, you know, like there's so many things out there where it's just like take advantage of people. Um and there are some people who are actually just trying to build beautiful things, you know? So I would I just want to support the people that are like, hey man, we're trying to make the world a little better as opposed to we're trying to just skim a little off the top and see if we can get away with it.

Brian Aquart 53:45

And finally, what's one question you have for me, or another question I should say, that you have for me?

SPEAKER_01 53:52

You're right. I asked you one already. What's the one thing that has been on your to-do list the longest? And don't say buy Stephen a Christmas gift. Like you're gonna get that done this week, we're gonna be good.

Brian Aquart 54:03

Good one. Good one. Uh the thing that's been on my to-do list the longest is actually creating like my personal website, right? Like I do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do.

Brian Aquart 54:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

You want to create your personal website if you hop into Sukra and use that to block everything out and focus on it, I will give you a free membership. Okay. Try it. Okay. Try it, get it done. See, see if the proof is in the pudding with no risk. I will waive your membership fee. It's$10 a month. Give it to you for free. I would love to see you do that. And I have a tool that'll help you.

Brian Aquart 54:42

Okay. Cause because it and I'll definitely take you up on that because you've accepted. Okay. I I've had my domain, truthfully, four or five years now, you know. And as I've thought about everything that I do with the uh not only the show, obviously, but then what I do with Kingswood and all these things, I'm like, you know what? There needs to be a container of of stuff for for me. Like, how come I don't do this? And oh, here's this vision for it, but I never do it. Like I never actually do it. I I do a good job telling my story online, but I don't have a good place. I'm just now starting to like I've I've had all these things that are just waiting in the wings, and I just need to sit down and do it. But I know I'm just I'm one of the like I'm a one-man show with a lot of different things, and so I'm just building.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Okay, so you're here to make that happen. Brian, thank you for having me. Thank you for everyone who's listening at this point. I hope this has been entertaining and maybe helpful.

Brian Aquart 55:36

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I just want to thank you for coming on the show today. Glad we connected. It's been a lot of fun. And uh, can you just share the site where people can support your work?

SPEAKER_01 55:47

If anyone wants to try it, it's free for three days. It's at the sukha. Sukha means happiness in Sanskrit. So T H E S U K H A.co for company. The Suka Company, the happiness company. So T H E S U K H A.co.

Brian Aquart 56:01

Perfect. Well, thank you for that info. And that'll do it for today's episode. Again, I want to thank Stephen Puri for joining me today. Share all that info in the show notes. Hope you all have a great week, and we'll definitely see you next time. Stephen, thank you again and congrats. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to why I left. Join us next time for more inspiring stories about growth, resilience, and transformation. Visit us online at www.yileft.co. That's whyileft.co.