Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re excited to welcome a special guest, Steven Pury, who has both experience from Hollywood and the startup world. He knows what it takes to be a peak performer on screen and in the office. Today we’re going to explore how to get in a good flow state for optimal performance and break down human skills that AI can’t touch. So Steven, thank you for joining us today.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I hope this is an episode that is both entertaining and has some actionable advice in it. So, let’s see where it goes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Love it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, we’re really excited to have you. And on a personal note, Matt and I both are excited to learn about you or learn from you about this flow state because I’m pretty sure everyone can admit to having times where it’s such hard to get to

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It’s becoming kind of popular in the zeitgeist.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): that point.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): People are becoming aware of like, oh, there’s this way to work that’s kind of cool and I feel good.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, totally.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah. So, yeah, let’s get into it. Let’s share some knowledge.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So just a little bit about why you should listen to this episode and Steven. He is one of the few people on earth who’s been a senior executive at two motion picture studios and also raised over 20 million in venture capital. So we’re going to talk a little bit more about his past experiences as we get into the episode. Um but tell us how you got from the film industry to venture venture capital and tech. Those are wildly different.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay, some context for those playing along at home or in their cars or at the gym. Uh, I actually started out as an engineer. My parents were both engineers at IBM. My mom was a software engineer, a coder. My dad was a hardware engineer designing large scale integrated circuits.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): So for CPUs, right? So it’s like, you know, your parents are great ice skaters. You probably learned to ice skate when you were a kid. It’s just natural. So I knew how to code even though that wasn’t my thing. I was actually more interested in business and journalism and stuff like that. So when I went to USC in Los Angeles, which has a fantastic cinema school, I wasn’t actually in the cinema school. I was there and had a lot of friends who were pursuing film. But it was the moment in time when film became digital, when computers became powerful enough to make digital films. And I sat at that intersection in the venn diagram of I could speak engineer because I was a Watson scholar at IBM. Like I was a paid junior software engineer making money for college, right? So I could speak engineering, but I also could speak creative. And that was a very small set of people that could bridge those worlds then. Now everyone does everything but at the time it was like hey kid you in the back you could dance you can sing come here you know you can star in this musical right and my career took off so I suddenly was not on the path that I thought I’d be on I was rather on a path of producing digital film because as an engineer I fell into film becoming digital.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): I did about 14 films, worked on True Lies and Seven and uh Braveheart and like all this stuff. was super fun and ended up teaming with uh Roland Emer and Dean Develin.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I produced the digital effects for Independence Day and we won the Academy Award for the visual effects on that movie. I’m not going to lie, it helps all your careers.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): 1400 people contributed to the visual effects producing digital effects on that. Roland Dean and I got very close toward the end of Independence Day where the three of us decided to start a company to do visual effects. So I ran that company. I raised about $15 million for that and we sold that four years later. We got an offer from Das Ver, which is a big German media conglomerate and it was like a 6x multiple. So we took it and suddenly I was like 28 years old.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I had cash in my pocket. I was like, you know, as one thinks in their 20s, smarter than you are.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): You think you’re funnier than you are. You think you’re better looking than you actually are. Right? So there I was like 28. I was like, oh cool. What do I want to do next? like this engineering thing led to meeting all these directors, doing all this digital stuff on films. And I thought, well, it would be cool if I helped get a movie made as opposed to just being the guy hired on a movie that was going to make the digital part, you know, um, in film terms, it means going from below the line to being above the line. So I set myself on that path in my late 20s and that meant working my way up the development ladder, knowing more writers, knowing more actors, knowing more directors, being able to put things together. And that is how I ended up, you know, as you guys know, I was an executive vice president at DreamWorks uh for Curtsy and that is the era where Alex Curts and Bob Wars were doing Transformers went into Star Trek 11, Eagle Eye, you know, all that kind of stuff.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Great movies.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): um as a vice president at 20th Century Fox where I ran like the Die Hard franchise, the Wolverine franchise, um a bunch of, you know, you can see the theme.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I love doing big summer action movies.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And that was kind of like the pendulum swinging all the way to like, oh, you’re deep in film now. And the pendulum started to swing back to engineering around Die Hard 5 when I was the executive on that. And there was huge back pressure from the studio to make it. It was like script be damned, quality be damned. People would just go see it because it’s John Mlan and it’s Bruce and they want to see Yippi Kay. And the script was terrible. And I had other things on my slate that I thought were actually really good ideas that my boss, the chairman of the studio, was not as interested in because he’s like, “Listen, any poster that just has the two words die hard is going to make $70 million opening weekend.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): It doesn’t even matter if there’s film in the can. Just go make the script we have. Just get it done, you know? And I was like, “Wow, I’m going to wake up 40, 50 years old making die hard nine like kids, daddy’s paying for your college, making really bad die hard nine, but you know, keep keep going. I’m buying books for your school, right?” And that’s when I decided to get back in engineering. I was like, you know what? This is not going to be a fulfilling use of the, you know, rest of my career. Maybe I can find problems that can be solved with engineering. And that’s what I, you know, do now. And that’s how I got back into doing startups again. Um, and by the way, you didn’t mention this, but I will put it out there in case we want to talk about it. Yes, I had a successful ex in my 20s. I’ve had two startup failures. And you know, you learn more from failures.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): They suck. And you’re embarrassed and depressed and all that, but I have also lost $6 million of money. We raised 15, sold that for 90, but I’ve also raised three about three million for two different companies that ultimately didn’t get to the series A. And I was personally embarrassed.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): but learned a lot. I would not be able to do what I’m doing now successfully if it hadn’t been for those two like, “Wow, this hurt. What did I learn?” Back to you in the studio.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to point out to you that you mentioned uh saving for your kids college and we just wanted to shout out that you just became a father. So, congratulations

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yes, absolutely. Something as I mentioned to you, I was not looking forward to. It was not a goal of my life. Like someday I’m going to be a dad. It was just not me. I was, you know, in the middle of a career and another career and everything’s going well.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And I met Laura. We met at yoga.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Nice.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I had a daily yoga practice. And you know, we’ve been together for 10 years now. And there was a moment in this where I was like, you know, I think that actually would be fun with you to have a child. And I have a five week old son and I can’t actually imagine how I could love anything more. It doesn’t seem possible that my heart could be any more full than it is right now.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s pretty incredible how, you know, love expands, especially for your own family.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You know, it’s like, where did that come from? Was it inside me or it just came?

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah. Oh, no. It’s a less selfish life I lead now. But man, like I just I don’t sleep much. If again, as we joked about, if I forget to use adverbs or verbs at all, I apologize. I’m really tired. But man, am I happy.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): He smiles and I just melt.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yep. Yep. I totally know that feeling.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Hopefully you’re getting to the better nights of sleep. I feel like for our kids, it was always around two months that they started giving us some longer stretches. And I mean, but enjoy. Soak it up as tired as you are. It’s like it’s the best. Those little sweet newborns.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It’s amazing. Yeah. My friends are talking about, you know, this goes by so quickly. You know, the days are long, but the weeks and the years are short. And you know, so I’ve gotten a lot of advice and you know, we’re really enjoying it and my wife is just seeing her as a mom is like a whole new level of just wow, this is who you are as a person. This is cool.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s so good.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): But anyway, back to the culture topic.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s amazing. Very incredible.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And on the other end, we can also relate to, you know, we’re in the startup phase and have been for three years and obviously we haven’t 6xed our business yet, but we’re still in it and we hope it’s a success like that someday. So, but we are learning a lot and never would regret it even if you know even if it doesn’t go that way and makes a millions right.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Go over him. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And I have to say like the concentration piece too, like with getting in a flow state, you know, and being a parent, you know, I’m I’m here at our um office today recording. Krista’s at our home office and she’s got her headphones, the doors locked. When we first started Mobriam, the two things I realized I needed the soonest were noise cancelling headphones and a lock on the office. Not that I don’t love my kids, but like you have to get in that state of mind where you can focus.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): Yes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And uh yeah, if you’re working at home or at the office, you know, whether it’s a kid knocking on the door or that one co-worker that always comes by and you’re just like, I really got to focus right now. It’s like, you know, it’s important both for the creative side and, you know, the structural engineering type of production.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): it it can we pick up on that because I’m I’m going to tell you I’m going to tell you two things that that come up as you say that the first thing is before I had a child because

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It affects all of us. Um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go there.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, let’s do it.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’ve been doing this for six seven years now you know we have a community of people who get into focus together. It’s a very productive, supportive community. I’m very grateful that, you know, what we do, this website aggregates those kinds of people. So, I had a number of people who were parents and talk to me about the extreme pressures on their time, like how precious their time was relative to what it was like when they were single and sort of like could kind of wake up when they wanted to go to sleep.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And now I understand where it’s like, “Oh man, I have 90 minutes right now of time between X happens and my family needs me and I need to use that extremely extremely well. I

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): have to be efficient if I’m going to achieve what I want and also be present with my family.” So that’s become so much more clear to me why we have so many parents in Suka in that membership because I get it now. I’m like, “Ah.” And the other thing is this is it it reminds me um how I actually named our company because it’s a weird name. Okay, the Suka company. What? Right. I will tell you it was from this conversation. So Laura whom we remember I met in yoga, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): We got married a couple years ago and you know if you do a lot of yoga, where do you go for your honeymoon? Bali. I’m very grateful for my life and we go to Bali for a couple weeks and chill out, right?

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): Do yoga on the beach. So, we’re flying there and we had an early version of this flow state app, right, that I run. Laura, you know what? The next two weeks, no one’s going to bug me because they’re like Steven’s on his honeymoon. Don’t ask him to prove the purchase order.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I was like, maybe in this time the universe will speak to me and I’ll come up with the name because I have had every bad idea for a name about distraction blocker, flow state app, productivity app, like just every awful obvious name, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So, she said, “Yeah, I hope I hope that happens for you.” So, we got there and I said, I think what would seed my unconscious is if I talk to maybe two or three of our early members in the beta version and just say,” Tell me what feature you love. Tell me why this works for you and maybe that’ll bubble up later. Right? So, Laura said, “I’m going to the pool, but you can enjoy your Zoom calls on our honeymoon. Why?”

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right? So, I spoke to and I dropped in on the group chat. I was like, “Who has a minute to chat?” Spoke to three people for 15 minutes and just asked what’s your favorite thing? you just tell me, you know, is it the flow music or like a thousand hours? Is it, you know, the smart assistant that keeps you off your thing? Is it a pomodoro timer? What is it? The third guy when I was going into the wrap-up, I was like, Matt, I said 10 minutes. I want to respect your time. You know, thank you so much. Have a great day. He stopped me and he said, Steven, you asked the wrong questions. Okay, guy, I don’t know that well. Like, what was the right question? He said, ‘You should have asked me why I pay you. Okay, I’ll take the bait. Why do you pay me? He said, I find I have two kinds of days.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): At 3:00, I am playing with my kids. They’re currently 2 and four. Or at 6:00, I’m down on myself. Where did the day go? I was busy all day, but I didn’t get the big thing done. But he said, I realized the difference in the past year or so is that I hit play on your website in the morning? So, I pay you because my kids are not going to be two and four forever. And I was like, wow, you won that round. That was a way better answer than what I was asking for.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Powerful.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So, I went to dinner with Laura. I was like, I spoke to this dude who is more articulate about what I’m doing than I am. And I told her this and she’s like, that’s really good. Going to sleep that night, you know, in our little honeymooners like spa rows brushing our little teeth. And Laura looks at me with her mouth full of toothpaste. And she goes, “You know in yoga we hear all these like Sanskrit words, these prana, your life force, and karma and your dharma, your duty.”
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): She’s like, “That dude, you wanted the universe to speak to you. It spoke to you through that guy. He described to you that feeling of happiness when you were at ease. You’re in control because you’re doing the thing you’re very good at.” That’s what he’s telling us. He wants to be in control of his day because he wants at 3:00 to be playing with his kids. That is what it looks like for him. She’s like, “That’s what you should call your company, the happiness company, not the distraction blocker, not the focus app, not the flow state app.” And I looked on my little phone for $14. That website was available and I just bought it. I was like, “We’re doing this.” So, that is what’s really important to me is it’s like, where is it you want to be? You want to be in control of your life. Maybe be with your kids or be skiing or play with your dog in the park, whatever it is. But if you use those hours in the morning, well, your afternoon is different, dude.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And I’ve had enough of those 6:00s where I’m like, “Oh man, we have to go to dinner. I didn’t get this done. Oh, Laura, you know, we need to hurry back from dinner tonight so I can finish work.” And I hate that. And I hate telling Laura that, you know. So that um that I think is really the goal of all this. It’s not focused. It’s being in control of your life and feeling like I got this.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Seems like Oh, sorry.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think that’s huge. Oh, yeah. The one thing I was going to say is like um especially when I was working more at home, Christa would say, “Hey, it’s dinner time, you know, are you done yet?” And to that I would say, “I’m never done, but I’m stopping.” Like, a lot of us have these big goals that we’re working towards um projects that span weeks and months. It’s not just you go in and do your thing that day and that’s the end of the thing.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I mean, there’s this continuation of focus that happens across days, weeks, months, and years, but you’ve got to get into it and then come back out of it in an efficient way.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’m totally totally with you. I have a question for you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Question for this for both of you. What is your methodology methodology or what practice do you have to know what needs to get done today?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Um, I mean, for me at least, I usually on a good day, like my 3:00 done day, like to your comparison there, um, I just make a simple list of no more than a handful of things and then I just quickly number them. Um, and that’s usually just in my notebook. Uh, but then sometimes you have new things that come in that day that weren’t there in the morning that potentially could derail you.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Um, but that’s I mean that’s pretty basic, Christa.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I have a feeling that whatever processes we have are going to change after this episode.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, um, so I’m not going to directly answer that, but yeah, but I will say a couple things.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): If I do my job properly. Yes. And your wrist will feel better and you’ll sleep better at night.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It sounds to me like this flow state it’s it’s less about accomplishing a certain number of things but um more about making the time you spend more efficient and and focused and yeah well I’m sure we’ll get more into it but Matt sometimes he’ll he’ll say to me like especially when he was working on his book the review cycle he’d be like I I like my plan today write a chapter Right? That would be his goal, his list or whatever. And then he’d be like, “Well, I didn’t even get to start writing chapter 1, but I was really productive and I did all this research and now I’m more prepared to do that chapter one.” And so, again, I don’t think it’s about accomplishing a certain thing or list, but about the focus that you have and and the mindfulness and the presence of each individual thing that you’re doing.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): That is so beautifully put.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Be present in your shoes.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): That is so beautifully put. Um, and I know we’ve mentioned this term a few times, flow state. And I know there’s a portion of the audience in their car nodding like, I am a flow master. I’m in a flow state right now as I drive to work. And there’s another cohort in the audience. It’s like I’ve heard it and I’d love to really understand it better like in the zeitgeist and people are talking about it but can someone so if it’s fair can I set the table and just kind of like

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Like what is that?

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Here’s what we’re all talking about.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Definition. And yeah, let’s get into it.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay. So there was a Hungarian American psychologist named Mihi Chin Mihi. He had a thesis. He said, “You talk to high performers in wildly different disciplines, artists, athletes, scientists, inventors, they describe the highly concentrated state that they go into when they do the stuff that makes them famous in such similar ways. What’s

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): up with that?” So like, you know, Prometheus, he wanted to go up to Metal Olympus, get fire, and bring it down to the rest of us and go like, “Here’s how it works, guys.” Right? So at the end of his research he wrote a book called flow. It is the seminal work on this. It is from once we get the term flow states and he had the greatest thing he said about it. 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 forward. You go further and faster. And that is what these high performers have figured out how to do and do repeatedly since he wrote that. There have been amazing people who have done research on this. The Codlers and the Newports and the Neers and you know the standing on shoulders of giants on shoulders of giants sort of thing.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And people have dug into different aspects of this, you know, because in his book he sort of said, “Here are the characteristics of this. You want to know if you’ve been in a flow state? This is what it’s like. Here are the conditions that these people seem to use to get there.” And since then the research I’m like, well, let’s go deeper into the music. Let’s go deeper into the, you know, distraction blocking. Let’s go deeper into this. Right? So the characteristics of a flow state and then I’m going to be quiet and we’re going to go back to the studio and ask questions. But for those playing at home, it is a state where you are highly concentrated doing your best work. Like you do quality work, you lose track of time. You’re not staring at the clock. Distractions fall away. You don’t feel the need to pick up your phone or, you know, quickly check your WhatsApp or any of that stuff.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And at the end, you feel a sense of joy or of uplift as opposed to depletion. And it’s not like, “Oh god, I got to drag myself out of here.” You’re like, “That was awesome.” Okay. And I think, you know, from the example I gave you, that’s what that member was telling me. He’s like, “At 3:00, I want to feel good and be like, oh, cool. Now I have time to go play with my kids.” As opposed to I dragged it out all day and well, it’s done, but I need a nap. You know, and that’s when I experienced my first flow state, by the way, before I had ever heard the concept. I was just on a flight. I was going from Austin to SF. I was going to meet with my team the next morning and I thought there’s an idea for a feature I wanted uh to propose to see if people liked it. I thought I can hackily mock it up in Figma enough on the flight that they’ll get it and you’ll be like, “Oh, that’s super cool. It’s
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Enjoy each other.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): build it, kill it.” So I got on. You know, Alaska runs that route. The captain’s like, “Sorry kids, Wi-Fi is out on this, you know, equipment. Got to, you know, enjoy each other.” And we took off, you know, like 15, 20 minutes later, we started descending and I was like, there is something clearly wrong. Like we went from Austin to Dallas. They’re landing because an engine fell off and they just don’t want to scare us until we’re on the ground. Like something bad happened and they won’t tell us. And I looked down and two hours and 40 minutes had gone by since I last looked at the clock. And I had no idea. I didn’t know if the drink card had come by, but my designs were done and I like them.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And then suddenly I had a free night in SF. I was planning on doing this like I don’t if you guys have done this like get to the hotel lobby, grab a sandwich, go upstairs, try and finish in the hotel room for the morning.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yep. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I called a buddy of mine. I was like, “Dude, I have a free night in SF. I wasn’t planning on “do you want to have dinner?” And it was really nice to feel like in a different kind of not always behind the ball, but in front of the ball.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Later I realized that was a flow state which was helped by the fact that there was no Wi-Fi. So there were no incoming messages. There were no emails to check. There was nothing I could send out. There was no way to let me quickly like messages so and so. That was kind of blocked for me. So it helped me fall in. I had music. I had my headphones earbuds, you know, kind of with me. And that oral AU oral environment really helped me drop in. We can talk about music as a way to, you know, get your brain into flow. And later I was like, “Oh, wow. That
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): was in a flow state.” And it’s not some obscure thing. Like, it’s available to anyone if you just understand some simple brain tricks to help you get in. And once you’ve done it, you’re like, why would I work any other way?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Why wouldn’t I have 3 p.m. where I’m playing with the dog rather than 6 p.m. where I’m like, oh, I have to work after dinner.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, man. That’s very powerful.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, can you tell us a little bit more about suka and about getting into this flow state? How do we do it?

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah, I will. And I want to acknowledge anything smart I say is because really smart people have come before and done lifetimes of research. Okay. So I am not that smart. But what I did say was how could we take all this and put it into one simple play button. All I want to do in the morning is when I start work, hit play.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It gives me scientifically designed music. There’s a Pomodoro thing. It tracks my tasks. It blocks all the websites in my phone and it just keeps me in. Right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So that is really what we did because so many smart people wrote, “Hey man, we did a lot of studies on students about how they study. We did a lot of studies on, you know, workers in the office, remote workers.” So here’s what Suka is. It’s a simple website. You open it, there’s a play button right in the middle. When you hit play, it basically gives you a lot of the conditions that allow you to drop into flow. And research shows, by the way, that flow is not something where you go, I’m in a flow state. magic, you know, like Superman flying, it takes like 15 to 23 minutes for your brain to drop in. And it’s curious because like the studies that have done with like fMRI machines on jazz musicians and you know people
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): who are in a state where it’s just like flowing together, their brain signals actually change like the prefrontal cortex kind of shuts down. There are all sorts of things that happen.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Interesting.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You go, “Oh, that is how it’s like an observable phenomenon. It’s not like a drug trip or something.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s physical. It’s physical and mental.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah. Exactly.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s so crazy.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Exactly. So that’s really what we did with Super.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): We said, you know what, I want to look at this. How do we get the best music? I’m really lucky. And because remember, I had a film career. So I have a bunch of friends who are film composers sadly with a lot of time on their hands these days, you know, and it’s like, hey, here’s the research.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It shows for most people the sweet spot is like 60 to 90 beats per minute. certain key signatures, ambient, non-vocal.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): You’re not singing along with Blackpink as much as you like to, Matt. Let’s be honest, right? So, it’s like this kind of music. Hey, could you write me a thousand hours of original music like this? Right? Then we organize that into a playlist because some people like a little more uptempo. We called that playlist sonic caffeine. Some people like down tempmpo. We call that in the ambient atmosphere. Um, have you guys messed with binaural beats? You’re both wearing headphones.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I know.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Have you played binaural beats?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay, binaural means something I got into because of this because we had a number of members especially um curiously engineers who were into this and some people dispute this so I’m not going to say this is fact or

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Tell us Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): fallacy but some people swear by it which is if you can feed each ear a different channel right you can’t listen to it just on your laptop you have to have earbuds or headphones or something like this where you can make sure each ear is hearing a different thing it’s a slightly offset pitch.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And the logic behind it is that it actually stimulates your brain because your brain is trying to reconcile the little 3640 hertz offset between your ears and it keeps you engaged in a different way.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Interesting.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So it’s called binaural by your oral beats.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): We threw up three binaural playlists just for those people who are like, I have headphones and I’m into this and this gets me going, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Interesting.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And there’s a lot of uh writing about different sort of brain waves that are stimulated by different hertz like oh 36 stimulates more this and if you want gamma brain waves versus delta you know I really believe it’s like experiment on yourself because this is not something where you’re going to hurt yourself by doing it. I tried it. I don’t know if it’s the placebo effect because I was expecting it to make me feel more focused but it was kind of cool to have you know a free way to just be like let’s try bind roll

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): today scrap on headset.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Very interesting.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Um, so music’s super cool.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’ll add something that I discovered if you want to know. It was kind of creepy.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Definitely.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So when we launched this, remember we had that early version that we were looking for a real title, a real name. Buddy in Marin, he does the audio for Lucas Arts for the Star Wars games. Called me up. Steven, I just got back from Nepal. It’s my son’s high school graduation present. He got into a great school, worked really hard. This was his thing. By the way, when we were in Catmand do one day, it poured rain. Poured rain and it was so lush and delicious. I had my recording equipment. I recorded it. I’ve got two hours of rain in Candoo. I don’t really know what to do with it. Do you want it?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow, that’s cool.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right. Yeah.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): So, I was like, I don’t know, but you know what? What if we did this? What if we just took it, made a playlist, and quietly, without announcing it, just like put it in the middle of the other playlist. We’ll call it Himalayan Dream Rain.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow. Okay.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It became the third most popular playlist on the platform.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh my Give

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay. Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): How odd. So, of course, you can tell I’m a curious guy and I know who’s listening to it because I run the platform. So, I emailed some people. I was like, “Hey, Chris, I noticed you listen to this Dream Rain a lot. I’d love to understand why.” I sort of had no idea what happened to it. I’m going to tell you, everyone who replied that I spoke to, they had some version of this, it evoked a period of time when I was studying really hard. Oh, when I was young, I would study at my grandmother’s house in Georgia and it would rain there around finals or something like that.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): So, it was an interesting mental association of like, it’s raining out.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Oh, this is when I’m studying, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh. Oh.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And that was super interesting. Oh, here’s another mental way to trick yourself into I’m in my focus mode, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So, we threw up some other what I call naturecapes now, right? Streams in Japan, surf and cypress.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Uh there’s a lake, Emerald Lake in Canada that has some specific indigenous birds someone asked for. So, we found a recording and threw it up there. They’re sort of popular. Not super popular like the rain was. And then a woman who is actually a pretty well-known Substacker author, blogger, she reached out to me last year and said, “I saw you’re experimenting with this non-m musical playlist. Can I make a request?” I’m like, “That’s why we’re here.” Like Tony and I do this for free just because we think it’s a cool fun thing to do, so I would love your input.
 
 
Steven Puri  (Guest): And she said, “I had a baby during the pandemic. I used to write in coffee shops. I love being in coffee shops. I love that sound of the espresso machine, whatever, and the clatter of cups and the murmur of people that I can’t obviously with a 2-year-old, whatever it was, you know, two-year-old be going to coffee shops and writing my

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): blog anymore.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Great.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Any chance? So, we found, this is not someone I know, so we just found this. There was a recording made in Vienna, Austria of their local coffee shop. And it’s just a couple hours of hearing exactly that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): We threw it up there and a bunch of people listened to it. And I’ll tell you, for me, I listen to it. This is one that I’m actually super into. It reminds me of when I was an executive in film, and I was at Sony, then DreamWorks, then Fox. I’m not a writer.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): I cannot write to save my life. Our emails are very short as you figured out. Not a big writer. But I had to read a lot because we are executives at the studio. You’re continually getting scripts, treatments, books, all sorts of things. Want to make a movie out of this, right? I could do that at home. I saw you yawn. Am I boring you? I’m boring you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): No, no.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): No, I’ll tell you about my sleep deprivation, too.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): It’s okay. We can wrap this up. Steven, you’re drawing this out. Let’s wrap it up.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I don’t have a newborn, but my son had surgery yesterday, so my two-year-old’s he’s fine.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Oh goodness. Okay. I hope he’s okay.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): He’s doing fine. But yeah, my sleep has not been like that for the past five nights.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You just had a late night and an early morning. So it happens.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): Oh boy. Okay.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): The flow states the flow states loading.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You know what? I appreciate you making it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But I’m here. This is so interesting to me.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): The eyes are open even if I’m yawning. Okay, got it. So, I was going to say this. So, I would go to this coffee bean and tea leaf that’s on Sunset Boulevard right across from the director’s guild and I would read there even though I was not a writer. I would read there because this was known as a writer’s sort of clubhouse. was a very popular coffee bean or coffee shop in general where you walk in and everyone’s on their MacBooks writing away and it was not a super social place. It’s not like everyone was table hopping being all like, “Hey, Kristen, what are you writing?”

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): But there was an energy in the room because like in the corner, yeah, there was the old weird guy who’s written like three big studio movies this year.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): He’s making a million dollars a script, but he still comes here because this is where he was writing back when he was 25 and 30. You know what? This is his mental space. And then, you know, next to you at the communal table, there are two girls who just got off the bus from Iowa and they’re hunting and pecking their first TV spec.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): very interesting.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You know what I mean? And everyone in there is trying to do something. And I loved going to find one of those chairs in the corner, my little stack of scripts or my Kindle, and just reading there and being around everyone who’s trying to write the next great thing. And that energy between people I love. And I recognize why when this particular blogger said to me, “Is there any way you could put up a coffee shop sound?” Because it brings me to a place in my head. I was like, “I got you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s very interesting. So, or Christa, you go ahead.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say the piece the piece that’s interesting to me is so Matt and I talk a lot about winter being our kind of indoor productivity time where you know instead of going and doing a bike ride a mountain bike ride or something because we live in Utah and it’s snowy all winter uh we might just come onto our computers and work on a creative project and that was when he was like really productive

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): in his book and I wrote a couple children’s books this last year and that was a super productive time for me too, winter. Um, so I can see the rain being a great way to kind of trick your brain into thinking I can’t really go outside. It’s raining. Um, because for me, my daughter, my oldest daughter, she’s so funny. She loves to read and we like to get out of the house and go do things and she’s very much a homebody. that anytime it’s raining outside or storming, she’s like, “This is the best day ever cuz we have to stay inside, you know.”
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so I can see that tricking your brain.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): That’s so funny. You are like my wife and I’m like your daughter.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s so funny. But yeah, I there’s so many scientific things here and I I think there’s going to be a big self-discovery p piece for people listening to this to figure out what kind of audio and I’m guessing you recommend headphones

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): because it kind of cancels other things a little bit like Matt said the noise cancelling headphones.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I will say this, if you were in an environment with other people, it is a good visual signal. Don’t bug me. I can’t hear you. Right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Right.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So it is like don’t drop by my desk and chat with me about the game last night sort of thing if you have.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So there’s that which is not even an oral benefit but it’s like a visual kind of like hey man on purpose and then there is like you said you completely control your oral environment whether it’s I want binaural
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s a good point.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yep.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): beats or I just want to hear my music at high fidelity. I will be honest I don’t use them anymore just because I like to be able to sit down hit play in Suka and start into whatever I’m doing and not like wrestle with you know making sure the w

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): The Bluetooth is connected or the wire or whatever.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So, I don’t really I honestly I don’t really remember where mine are. They’re right somewhere in the office. Not sure where.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I have a question about this though.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): They’re here.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, um there’s times when you’re at work and you know there’s kind of an open door policy at some places there’s a a hunker down and let people know that you’re working like I don’t know is it just

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): H. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): important to with this flow state is this something because you mentioned your friend who he hits play every day so that he can focus on his kids later in the day Um, but is there a reason that maybe
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it’s okay not to be in the flow state every day or to not try make sure you get that, you know,

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yes. Really a fantastic question because as people want to integrate this into their lives, it is sort of like, hey man, you love spaghetti bolognes. Are you because you love it, are you gonna have it three meals a day every day? you know like there’s a place that it belongs just like burgers or salads or you know whatever.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So let’s talk about that. If you are a leader of an organization of a team or you’re an individual contributor, the one actually doing the designs or the code or the blogs or copywriting, whatever it is, right? You can acknowledge, oh, you know what, there is value to deep work. As Cal Newport, you know, has written very eloquently, there’s shallow work. There’s I got to empty my inbox. Oh, I got to pay the bills. Oh, I got to return my slacks.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): there’s, you know, which does kind of need to get done or else, you know, Matt’s upset like you never replied my email.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You know, he gets all pouty. So, exactly.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Exactly.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I I’ve seen your soul. Um, so there is the shallow work which Yeah. get needs to get done, but no company, no billion-dollar company has ever won because it’s like all the emails were returned, you know, the Slack messages, the team’s messages were, you know, people inbox zero does not create a

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Inbox zero.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Right.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): billion dollar company. the deep work does the thing where it’s like Matt walks into the staff meeting and goes yesterday actually took two hours and I thought deeply about what our competitions and what we’re doing.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): What if we had a feature that did this and everyone sort of becomes quiet and goes we should build it right now like we should leave this meeting right now and go do that that comes from deep work

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): right so if you are a leader or you’re an IC either way you really you need to set aside some time for deep work it’s not all the time it may not even be every day like I’ll tell you in our organization we had a conversation around chronoype which is hey everybody like what time of day are you most adept at doing what you know like is your deep work clarity of focus in the morning the afternoon whatever for most of us it is the morning so we block in our calendar a time when we have an agreement among us hey man don’t set client meetings exactly yeah don’t don’t slack me looking for the

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But that’s the flow time.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): TPS reports from last week just 9 to 10 or 9 to 11 whatever it is that day like that’s a time when it’s like sit there sometimes nothing will come of it sometimes we’ll be like yeah I did some work it was fine every now and then there is the Hey, I had an idea I want to talk with you about.
 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right? So, if you want to win, if you want your team to win or you want to win or however that works, it’s a balance of saying like, hey, if we believe the deep work is valuable and we want to harness that magic, how do we set aside some time where we all agree, hey, that’s not the time to go set stupid meetings. That’s not when we do our standup. It’s not when we’re like, you know, going to slack each other and go deep because as I mentioned, it takes 15 to 23 minutes to drop into flow.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): If you get interrupted to the middle, it takes you another 15 or 23 to get back in, you know.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, you do need to have that set aside time and some social norms around whether it’s the time of day or maybe it’s a you indicate that you need to be in that flow state with the headphones or

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So, exactly.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): a sign on your door or something.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): the pancakes like we good we good dad right but it was very interesting he was that aware of his chronotype now in the afternoon he could do studio notes meetings collabs with other writers he knew the afternoon was

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): talk after school.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): like yeah blah blah blah all talk but that time was s exactly that time was sacred though and you can figure that out for yourself like If you suppose you’re a team leader, you’re like, “Hey guys, what if

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Character voice instead.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): we try having some flow time set aside each week, maybe an hour a day or you know two hours, two days a week or something like that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): We just go deep, right? You probably want to time it properly, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You don’t need any sophisticated app, any brain measurement equipment. You don’t need an fMRI to tell everyone, you know what, just take a piece of paper and just this week or this week and next week, draw a simple grid. Monday through Friday, morning afternoon, just really simple pencil.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): Jot down what you did, how you felt. Tuesday morning, wrote blog posts. Yeah, felt great. Yeah, it was cool. Worked. Wednesday afternoon, uh, worked on debugging the so and so thing. We got reported. Went miserably. But I’m telling you, you look at that after a week or two, the patterns will jump out at you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You’re like, I should be doing original creative work like in the morning. This is true for me.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Like when I write, whe it’s a blog post or code, whatever, like 7 to 10 in the morning, it is invariably faster and better than when I do it later in the day. Later in the day, I’m always slogging through and I end up rewriting it later.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right? So, that’s an easy way for you or you to do with your team to say, “Hey, if we want to have a flow practice, when should we do it?” And then have people say, “You know what? I

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): looked at this after a week. I’m really good like nine to 10 in the morning, nine to 11 in the morning. If that’s when I can do that kind of deep work, let’s try it for a week, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s amazing.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And uh and it’s free. This is the thing is it’s free to do. If you just want to get an advantage over yourself, how can I be better tomorrow? How can I be more in control of my day? You can. Flow states are free.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): If you want to have it over other companies, like flow states are free. Like it’s just there.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And you let me point this out. It again is not something you do for 15 minutes. Like for example, if you come to Suka and you don’t have something to do, it’s going to take you an hour. It’ll seem just like a music app to you. Like, oh, I tried it for 3 minutes, music played, and my distractions were blocked.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): I don’t get it. The average session with one of our members is 48 minutes because they actually go in, they have something to do, and they’re like done. Could have taken me an hour and a half, could have taken me two hours, but it blocked everything for me. It kept me on track.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I like that.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): So that’s the only thing with flow states is you you have to you know use them properly.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You know, I I have a couple thoughts here.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, um I ran track in college and we had our our workouts that we did as a team, but we also had to hit a certain number of miles. Um, and that was all tracked and we would record how we felt and all that kind of stuff.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And our head coach at the time, he said, you know, if you’re trying to, you know, add a couple more miles to your day to hit your mileage goal, don’t go out and do that if you can’t commit to running for at least 14 minutes.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And he said just because it’s not actually going to give you the benefit, the physical benefit that you want.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): See, that’s it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so I think that makes sense to me as far as it takes time to get into that flow state as far as there’s a physical kind of getting in the zone and there’s a mental getting in the zone like a warm-up essentially. Um but also like the interruptions like I’ve listened to playlists on YouTube and then an ad comes in the middle and it’s just like everything falls apart and you’re like skip pause and that’s happening every few minutes and

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right. Balloon. Yes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): then it’s it’s just it’s worthless. But then the frequency as well. So in the early phase of me writing the review cycle, I was doing like 30 minute sessions every day before work.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’m like, I’m just going to do this. And and I would get these little incremental pieces of progress. And then I switched to doing a minimum of a half day, like on a Saturday, like, you know, wake up and and work for several hours.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): Right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I would get multiple times more. And I started recognizing that not all hours were equal. that, you know, one hour in this state could produce x number of pages or x number of, you know, whatever.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Ah, well put

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But if I was going to force myself to do it when I wasn’t feeling it, it was just like banging my head on the wall. And I think this whole conversation up to this point, I a takeaway that I’m getting is I need to go back and do like a fresh audit of my own kind of norms to see uh what’s going to

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): H. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): make sense and allow myself to block out um distractions because the inbox is like my nemesis these days. Like I’m there for my clients uh our Mobim clients. We try to have great support, but also if I’m expected to reply within minutes on everything where you really have to produce something of value

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay. So, I want to pick up on the last thing you said.
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): I’d like Chris, you also to weigh in on this. Three biggest distractions. Three things that if you controlled them better, you would finish earlier in your day. What are they?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): in inbox 100% for me, Christa like distractions.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Inbox three three distractions.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Three things to finish earlier in your day. Say, say that again.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Okay, I’ll let me start.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, three distractions.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’ll go first.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I will tell you the things for me. Number one, when I’m working and I hit an obstacle, I’m writing a blog post and I just the muses are not singing like I know what I’m writing. I’m coding something and the build keeps failing. my hand will reach for my phone. It’s almost like muscle memory. Like I didn’t think of it. It’s just like let’s just quick check see who like WhatsAppapped me or you know who’s you know. It is so interesting the way that they the companies that make these apps have wired my little dopamine desiring brain to go like I have some for you Steven.

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): I’m right here. Right. So that’s a really bad one for me that when I hit that moment of frustration, open my phone, I’ll feel good because I’ll see, oh, Christa, you know, WhatsApp me something. That’s really nice. The other one is YouTube. If I am coding something and there’s something I don’t understand, I find a YouTube video. It’s like here’s how to use this particular like bit of open source, you know, mod and you know, before that video ends, YouTube knows exactly what to recommend to me or like oh, I’d love to watch a video on that. click wake up 30 minutes later I just watched four videos I I was watching a three minute tutorial on a bit of code and I just blew 30 minutes and the pain you feel is at the end of the day that’s when you feel I didn’t do it so just to be very brie those two for me big ones now microphone back to Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think for me, I I’ll be honest, my flow state is typically at night after my kids go to bed because I’m as as I am involved in our business, but I’m heavily involved with being a mom for our kids.
 
  
Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And you know, I kind of have to be okay with all of their distractions and stuff. And so, um, and there, but I will say there are times when I do like open Instagram and I get stuck on the reals. It’s the worst. And I need to be there for my kids. Maybe I might sometimes call them as the distractions, right? But actually they are my Yes.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yep. The primary.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and and so I need to make sure like and and I do feel worse when I get distracted from them, you know, and so but there are times when I’m like I got to get work done in the

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): middle of the day and you know and so usually I just try to give them something to do or just kindly let them know I just need an hour or something and they’re they’re really good about uh understanding that and stuff even though they’re little. But um but yeah, I will say that you know, wherever whatever you need to be doing, be there.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Be present in your shoes and and don’t allow anything that’s different than that, right?

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah to in to intrude completely agree with you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That anything else is a distraction.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Nice. Oh,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’ll tell you how I solved part of this for myself and I which we share in Suka is when I hit play when I open it hit play in the center a QR code pops up in the middle of the screen for a moment that I can shoot I can tap with my iPhone you know my phone and I put it down if I pick up my phone during my session the smart assistant in SU will say to me hey Steven is your phone really helping you and it doesn’t stop me but it gives me that one moment to go who do I want to be do I want to be I’m done at 3:00

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): f***.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): interesting. Hey.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): guy or do I want to be grumpy at 6:00 guy?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And sometimes that’s all I need is just that little like a friend sitting next to you just goes, “Ste, is that really helping you?”
 

 
Steven Puri  (Guest): You know, actually it’s not. I’d rather be done at three and like go play with my little fivew week old, you know.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm. Yep.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And we did the same thing with the we give everyone a free Chrome extension. You can download it for free. You can customize what websites get.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Downloading now.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Yeah. As soon as when you go to sign up, there’s an option. It’ll just say, “Do these websites distract you?” And if so, click this. And it’ll bring you right to the page. You can download a free Chrome extension. And it gives you like here are the 20 most probable like from our membership. Here are the ones that everyone seems to complain about. Oh, I get sucked into Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, you know, uh YouTube, you know, Reddit, whatever.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): You can add, you can subtract if you’re like, actually, I need to turn Twitter off because I’m going to be posting for work today, so don’t bug me about Twitter.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Right? So, you can toggle them.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): And this exact same thing if you go and you open up YouTube. I open up YouTube YouTube more than just five seconds like I’m navigating tabs. You know, if I actually open it up and I sit there for like 5 10 seconds. Hey, little popup little screen. Is YouTube helping you? And you just get to choose because I have a five-week old. I would much rather be playing with him than watching some stupid YouTube recommendation.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, that’s that’s so powerful.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Definitely. This has all been amazing advice for for Matt and I. I at least I I guess I should only speak for me, but I’m pretty sure it was good for Matt, too.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Definitely 100%.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I feel I feel like you know Matt pretty well at this point.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I do.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): I’m going to go out on a limb here.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I do. I do. Um but great advice for us and for everybody listening to all you leaders out there um who are helping your teams and individuals who are working to make your companies and your lives, your homes better, more focused and mindful and and finding that flow state.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Do that audit. Uh figure out what helps you get into that state and and use it for your team and and your own life and your product productivity.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Um and Yes.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And check out the suka co for sure.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Thank you.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): This has been such a fun episode. Thank you for the questions and for all the prep, Matt. I was glad when we spoke before.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. No, that was very helpful.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And you know, if you’re looking for your future spouse, go try yoga. That’s I hear it’s a great way to meet people.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Sh I’m just saying it is a great and you know what girls that you meet in yoga are generally of a certain kind of like personality you know like I don’t go to bars or clubs and like meet girls that was not my thing but you go to yoga and it’s like people are kind of a little more spiritually you know interested a little more balanced and see I’m just saying it does attract I’m very grateful

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I love yoga, too, by the way. So, Matt Matt got lucky with me.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): for that. So yeah, and now I’ve got a little son thanks to 10 years ago saying hi to the girl to my left. I am now a dad.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That That is incredible.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Thank you so much, Steven. Yeah, we really enjoyed the conversation today. And to all our listeners, check out Suka. Um, find your flow state, get those deeper projects done and learn.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): There you go.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yep. Thanks everyone.

 

Steven Puri  (Guest): Bye everyone.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’ll see you. Thanks for joining us, Steven.