Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy on Decision Making & Relationships

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

Lawrence Levy is the author of To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History. It was named Amazon’s Best Business and Leadership Book of 2016 Formerly a Silicon Valley lawyer and executive, Lawrence was hired by Steve Jobs in 1994 as CFO and member of the Office of the President of Pixar. He was responsible for guiding Pixar's transformation from a money-losing graphics company into a multibillion-dollar entertainment studio. He later joined Pixar's board of directors. He then left corporate life to study Eastern philosophy and meditation and their relevance to modern life. He now writes and teaches on this topic and cofounded Juniper Foundation to pursue this work. I wanted to learn from Lawrence - how he thinks about taking on challenges -- how he organizes his thoughts around risk taking -- and how he was able to have extreme success on multiple counts (school, business, family, and the journey within, as well)._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Okay, now this conversation is with Lawrence Levy. And Lawrence is the author of a book that was named by Amazon as the best business and leadership book in 2016. The title is To Pixar and Beyond My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History. How cool is that? graphic company into a multi-billion dollar entertainment studio. And I would bet that you've been influenced by Pixar, by the movies and the storylines that they've created. And so he was from London. That's where he was born, which I happen to be in London as we speak, learning from some of the best sporting clubs here and to understand their practices and their perspectives and how they build culture and how they build the mindset of a competitive cauldron to be able to help people become their very best. And so there'll be more of those insights at some future time, but I'm here just learning and soaking it up and it's fantastic. And what I

wanted to learn from Lawrence in this conversation is how he thinks about taking on challenges and how he organizes his thoughts about risk-taking. And then lastly, how he's been able to have extreme success on multiple counts. School, he graduated from Harvard Law. Business, Pixar. Family, and most importantly, the journey that he's gone within himself to understand what matters most. He left his very successful corporate experiences to go study Eastern philosophy and meditation and their particular relevance to modern life. And he now writes and teaches on those topics and conversations and has co-founded the Juniper Foundation to pursue this work even further. So fantastic conversation. I hope you learn as much as I did from Lawrence. And if you are also looking for digestible, snackable insights from other bright minds on the path

of mastery, take a minute and go to punch over to iTunes and check out Minutes on Mastery, that podcast that we have. And it's these pearls of wisdom from world-class performers all in three minutes and under. And so it's a really nice way to organize. So just some brilliant pearls of wisdom. And Lawrence has got a bunch of them embedded in this conversation with that. I just want to take a moment and recognize that we've passed our million download mark. And that's really cool. It definitely feels like our learning community that we're creating together is growing in a nice little clip.

So let's keep it going. It feels wonderful to be part of this community. So kudos to us all building something that feels really special. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Lawrence Levy. one of these conversations. So I don't want to sound like trite when I say it, but you've been in the center of some really intense environments and on the business front. And so could you take a quick pass for some people who maybe are not as familiar with your work as we would hope that you can tell them a little bit about where you've been in the last 15, 20 years. Sure. Yeah, I guess there's sort of three phases to it. I started out as a lawyer, actually. I was a lawyer in Silicon Valley and I came out here

in the 1980s and I wanted to represent startup companies that were trying to break into new markets. And the environment in Silicon Valley back then was different in a way from now. Then Silicon Valley was truly full of these underdog, tiny startup companies that were trying to do really great things. And very often the path to those great things had to go through some of these Goliath corporations like IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation and Xerox. And we had to help these companies break into that. And so I started out, I built the very first technology transactions legal department, I think, in the world. Now, many law firms have one representing those companies.

So that's where I really cut my teeth on helping the underdogs basically break into do really great, really excellent work. And then my next phase, I ended up going to work for one of my clients. Actually, it was a small startup called Electronics for Imaging, and we built that into a company and took it public. And then after that, still in corporate life, I joined Pixar. Steve Jobs called me in 1994 and he wanted some help. He wanted basically boots on the ground at Pixar to figure out what its strategy should be and how to turn it kind of into a real thriving company. company and um and so that's when i had my years at pixar and so i guess that was sort of that phase two and then the third phase of my life i dropped all of that and i went off to study um basically buddhist philosophy and meditation and to understand the relationship between those things and um fulfillment in contemporary life and that's kind of a little bit where you find me today. So in a nutshell, those are the phases of what I've done. Okay, so, okay, where do we start? Yeah, I want to start with the underdog piece.

And if because hopefully, we're going to peel back some layers here to understand, like, how you understand how the world works, what your unique psychological framework is. And that's really like your outlook on the world and your outlook on people and your outlook on yourself. And then because that becomes like the launching pad or the frame or the base to do some stuff in the world. So why underdogs? Well, Silicon Valley, as you well know, is kind of the hotbed of innovation. And innovation, by definition, means going someplace where no one's gone before. And usually there are other people that are trying to protect the status quo. And so in the case of Silicon Valley, it might be, you know, another company that's holding

on to a piece of the computer market or a piece of the semiconductor market, and they don't want, you know, startups to come along. I mean, one example would be Pixar, actually. You know, Pixar obviously made this foray into this new medium of computer animation, and the existing forces of animation didn't necessarily want that to happen because they didn't want Pixar to take away the mantle of traditional animation that these other companies owned. And so that's why very often at the beginning, startup companies are underdogs because they're going up against large sort of established entities that have a lot of market

power and capital and so you have to be very nimble to navigate that okay and so then you have an appreciation for literally going somewhere where no one's gone before and because of that you're able to understand the underdog and fight for the underdog and create space for the underdog to take advantage of emerging technologies or whatever that might be. Yes, you know, I would say that. And looking back to that time, that's exactly what it felt like. You know, we had to, because very often we needed to build relationships with those companies. So it wasn't always that you could just go it alone. You know, again, with the example of Pixar, we needed a relationship with Disney so we could have access to film marketing and distribution. And that was the same in my work before that,

electronics for imaging. And so it takes a lot of creativity sometimes to build just the right alliances that allow a new company to get a toehold in a marketplace, but also taking advantage and leveraging the existing structure that's already there. Okay. All right. So let's go, let's, you've got an interest in the underdog and fighting for the underdog and emerging technologies and partnerships but let's go back if we can did you okay tell us about your accent well i was uh uh you know you may be arousing if i was always battling for the underdog i i don't know i you know i was my accent is british i was born and raised in london england until i was a teenager. Then I moved over to the United States. I started out in Indianapolis. My family moved there. And slowly I worked my way through business school. And then I kind of worked my way through law school. I went to law school at Harvard up in Cambridge, Boston. And then after that, I sort of landed in and I was working in Miami, Florida, actually. And I hit this was sort of my mid 20s. And I'd say I hit the wall. I was doing work there, sort of doing these complicated real estate partnerships and things like that. And I'm doing this work, and my heart just isn't

in it at all. And there was a bit of a crisis for me. I, you know, at the time, I was married, still married to my wife, Hillary, and we had a baby, and I had responsibilities. But at the same time, you know, there was sort of something radical was missing. Do you remember that point in time? Is there an image or a moment in time that comes up when you felt like you hit the wall or that you had an emptiness in your life? You know, there is actually. It's funny that you ask that. The law firm that I was working at was a very grand, prestigious law firm headquartered in Miami, Florida. And the floor that I would on the – it was structured so that the offices were around the outside. And on the inside of the floor, on the interior of the floor without any windows was this little law library. And as a young associate,

I spent hours and hours in that windowless library surrounded by these books on tax and real estate and all of these things. And I really do, I remember sitting there one day looking around at these books and asking to myself, what am I doing here? And so that's an image that stays with me. And do you remember the feeling that came at that moment?

Yes. I mean, it's sort of a, somehow, it's almost a feeling of hopelessness. I mean, maybe despair, but maybe not quite that strong. Certainly a feeling of conflict. You know, on the one side, I've got this really good job and I've got responsibilities that I need to fulfill. But on the other side, I'm just thinking, is this the direction that I want my life to be in? And so I knew that I couldn't be cavalier about it. I wasn't at a time when I could just sort of take off and do anything I wanted. And so I felt trapped. And I would say that was the way it felt. Okay, so I want to use this one little moment to really understand you

because I think so many of us have those moments. And what we do is we feel even further trapped because we can't leave our job. We have responsibilities. We've got so much invested in the way that we've already done our life, but we feel this emptiness. So I don't think that that's an uncommon experience. And that's why I wanted to learn from you about that particular moment that a pivot took place, because you could have said, okay, that's just me being ridiculous. Stop it. I've got a great education. I've got a great little gig here. My My family's healthy. Just keep going. Suck it up, Lawrence. Like you could have done

that. And you did something different though. So you felt, well, I don't want to put words in your mouth. It feels to me, or no, not feels, I'm thinking that you felt something and because of the feeling you shifted, not just the thought alone. But I want to explore that more with you. Well, in many ways, I would describe myself as very sort of action oriented. And so if I've got a problem, I will turn over 100 stones in order to find the solution. And if I can't do that, I'll turn over 100 more. And so, so I'm going to sort of try something. And in this case, it took a while, I actually didn't

know what to try. You know, I did do some soul searching of sorts and try to sort of figure out, you know, what the what the problem was. And I realized I understood that I needed to make a change, but I wasn't sure what the change was. And then one particular incident happened. We were sitting around in a meeting and there was a request to represent a new client. It was a tiny little company and it was a software company. So remember, this is like 1984, 1985. And nobody there wanted to represent a software company because it just wasn't where the action was in Florida at that time. And there was plenty of economic activity, but none of it was in software. So it wasn't a good opportunity from a career point of view kind of a thing. And in like one microsecond, my hand shot up And I was just kind of like, I'll do it.

And I don't know what it was. Somehow it seemed that buried in there somehow was a ticket. And it turned out to be that way because it was – I did represent that software company. I learned a lot about technology software and the legal sides of it. And it was the fact that I did that that turned out to be my ticket to eventually move out to Silicon Valley. Okay. And you're not sure why you threw your hand up. It could have been a moment of craziness or like there was something behind it.

But it was definitely – you felt compelled to say, let me take a shot at this. Yeah. It was like – absolutely. Okay. Are you – all right. take a shot at this. Yeah. It was like, absolutely. A couple things. One is I want to understand what led you to the crisis. I think we're understanding, and crisis is maybe too strong of a word. Conflict was the word you used. What led you to it and then what you did with it because these moments I think are really important for trajectory and our pursuit towards meaning in life and maybe even mastery.

So you're a doer. So you're an action-oriented person. Do you have a particular way that you see the future, meaning optimistic or pessimistic? Is there a way that you think about the future? Well, I think if you ask my wife, she'd call me a sort of eternal optimist. Say it again, an eternal optimist? An eternal optimist, you know, and so always sort of trying, always seeing the positive side of things.

Lawrence, that is really rare for attorneys. Is that right? You know, maybe it is. I think that that was just sort of been my outlook on life. Do you fit in with your, like, do you feel like one of the pack with attorneys? Like you're fit right in? Or do you feel like you're a little bit of fish out of water or somewhere in between? Well, I'll tell you a story that might answer that for you. So when I did move out to Silicon Valley, I joined a fantastic law firm, one of the biggest law firms out here. And I started this department and I worked there. Wait, hold on, hold on. Before you tell the story, like I love nuggets that you're dropping in here. I can't wait to go further. Like, yeah, Steve Jobs hired me or called me, you know, to help him out. And yeah, you know, I went to this little school in Cambridge called Harvard.

And then, yeah, you know, I started kind of building this amazing law firm, the largest law firm in Silicon Valley. Like, Lawrence, like there's so much in here. I don't even know where to start. So I just got to interrupt your story and say, there's good stuff coming from this conversation. So keep going. Keep going with this story about how you connect with other lawyers. Well, and so I ended up – by the way, when I joined that firm, I met their senior partner whose name is Larry Sonsini. He became a great friend and mentor in my life. And he's actually featured in the book.

But I said to him, you know, you have all these lawyers here that are doing corporate law, and I don't want to do corporate law. I just want to do this technology transactions. And he looked at me and he said, you know, he said, we are seeing a lot more work in that area, and I'll let you do it. You know, I may bring someone more senior over you, but it, but it's a good idea. So that's how I started there. But this story ends that about six years later, they made me a partner at that firm. It was the youngest partner that they have made. And, you know, this is the Holy grail of the, at the time in terms of, you know, being the lawyers that you work really hard and you become a partner in a major law firm. And about two months after it, I came home to Hillary and I said, I think it's time for

me to leave the practice of law. And after her jaw dropped, because she was like, this is everything that we've been working for, right? Finally, we have some stability, we have some security, and this is the time that you want to give it up. And I said, Yeah, because I'm looking 20 years ahead of me, and I don't see anyone or anything that I want to do or be. And the longer that I stay with this, the harder it will be to give up because the sort of golden handcuffs of success will close around me. And so I think it's time for me to think about leaving. And so that maybe answers your question that says, you know, I love to practice the law.

I saw kind of an art in it in a way. And so I really like that. But I didn't sort of feel it as necessarily beating the, you know, sort of in my pulse kind of thing. Okay, so this is the second time you've had this relative success or extreme success, and maybe the law form term. And then you said, you know what, the future, I'm not aligned properly. I look at the future and I want it to be amazing. And I don't see people or places or experiences that is going to lead me there, so to speak. So you left law at one of the most largest firms in Silicon Valley to do what? So I ended up joining – I had been representing – one of my clients was a company called Electronics Imaging,

a brand-new startup, and the CEO of that company was a fellow called Ephraim Arazi, actually a very famous guy. He was known as the sort of Steve Jobs of Israel for his pioneering work in the tech industry in Israel. And we started spending a lot of time together trying to get his company off the ground. And eventually he said to me, you know, you should come on board with us. And, you know, we'd love to have you. And I know that you're sort of thinking about whether you want to leave or not. And I said to him, you know, I would like to think about that,

I said, but if I come on board with you, I don't want to be your lawyer. Because if I'm practicing law, I've, I'm at the place where I, you know, could imagine a better place to do that. So if I come on board with you, I, it's to develop a chance to do other things. And he said, that's fair. He said, I'll give you as much rope as you can handle. And that was sort of my step into sort of the business world where I really ended up cutting my teeth. It's that small startup environment is very harsh. And so I jumped on board. One thing I should add here, though, is that I wasn't sort of cavalier about it. In some ways, we made our decisions sort of what to do as a family carefully. And I understood that I wasn't going to lose my skills as a lawyer. It

was the fact that I had a set of skills that I could rely upon that I use as a platform to jump off from to take risk. So when I jumped in to a very risky, almost crazy situation in that first startup, you know, yes, I may have given up a sort of prestigious partnership per se, but I didn't give up my skills. And I knew that I could fall back on that if I and my family needed it. So having that foundation

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Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay. Two questions that I want to ask. Well, let's start with the easiest one, I think, is I want to understand about risk-taking for you because that's a great context that you just provided. And if you could be the first person to go to Mars, and it's an important venture for the well-being of the world, right? We need to get to Mars as a hypothesis to save the world. Would you go?

If you had a 50% chance of success and a 50% chance of failure, which would mean dying. And we needed it to save the world? Yes. Yeah, I'd probably go. I'd probably go. And what would you... I mean, I'd think about it. I'd think about it for a while. You're asking me to think about it in sort of one instant. But I would certainly think it through. And what would you... So this is going to answer the second question that I had for you, which is, how did you negotiate the life change, life, the career shifting opportunities that you wanted to take or create in your life?

How would you explain this to your wife? You mean going to a startup or going to Mars? I think they're the same thing. I think they are the same thing. Well, you know, you know, I'm look, I'm I'm lucky to have a very sort of grounded, insightful wife and, you know, and and that and also knowing that, you know, we really didn't start out with anything. And so we sort of weren't afraid we were never afraid to kind of sort of miss out on on, you know,'re the kind of people that, you know, if we have things, we enjoy them. But if we don't have them, then, you know, we're fine with that, too. And so her understanding of that, I think she understood that she respected the trajectory that I was on. She especially respected the people that I went to work with and trusted them. And I

think that was very important in this whole thing. And so, you know, she sort of got behind that, that jump that I took for the, for the same reasons, but certainly we talked it through a lot. Oh, okay. And where does fear creep up for you and or her? You know, that's a good question. It's really interesting. There are things that, you know, cause, you know, different levels of fear. And so, you know, one category of fear might be, you know, like, you know, there's something, you know, one of the children is ill, something is, there's a serious problem with someone close to us in the family, a serious problem with a loved one. And that generates a lot of fear, a lot of worry, you know, a lot of anxiety, right? And then you have, well,

fear associated with sort of a job issue. And yes, there's fear with taking these risks, but it's not in that league. It's not in that category. So we're sort of able to say, yeah, okay, if that doesn't work out, look, it's still – I don't want to be cavalier about this, you know, and say like it's just money or it's just a job. You know, those things are very important. But relatively speaking to, you know, being intact, you know, with being grounded with the people in your family,

the people you love, those kinds of things. They're different orders of magnitude. Okay. All right. Very cool. And okay, so this is going to lead us to eventually your practice in mindfulness and Buddhism. But I wanted to understand just some of the back-end stuff that was leading you to this journey that you're on. So that being said, walk us through maybe a little bit about what you've come to understand the process to become or not to be accepted to one of the greatest universities in the world, Harvard. And also, you know, maybe the same insights on how to get to one of the best law forms in the world. Maybe there's some parallels that we can draw from between those two.

Yeah, and one thing to keep in mind, I think the environment back then, early 80s, is different from the environment now. Although I think this is an important theme as well. You know, back then, things were not quite as sort of trumped up on performance. And so, you know, it was much more common back then. You know, I, when I moved from the United States, I ended up in Indianapolis, which is where my family moved. And at the time, if you lived in Indianapolis, there's a great school, you know, 100 miles away called Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. And that's where you went. And without much fanfare. And that's where I went. And I, so I, so I studied there. And then I really didn't

know anything about law school. And I had some friends who took the LSAT exam, the aptitude exam to get into law school. So I thought, well, if they're taking it, I'll take it. So I took that exam and I did very well on it, much better than I ever would have imagined. And then because of that, I thought to myself, well, that means I can probably get into a really good law school. And so I applied. And that is really how I got into Harvard. I wish there was more sort of vision or something like that behind it, but it was kind of like, well, I did really well on the admission test. So maybe I should think about that. Is that similar? Does that capture how you design your life? Meaning that when there's an opportunity in front of you, you go for that until it doesn't fit anymore. And then you,

like a decision tree, you find the branches that seem interesting, and then you kind of go for that. Is that how you've designed your professional pursuits? A little bit. I wouldn't call it sort of completely opportunistic. You know, I would say that, you know, I follow the threads when I think that they're going to sort of lead somewhere good. But, you know, I'm probably not, and I wouldn't consider myself sort of an somewhere good. But, you know, I'm probably not and I wouldn't consider myself sort of an opportunist, consider myself more of a strategist. But as a strategist, I keep my ear to the ground so that, you know, I can sort of try to sense or intuit, you know, where the right beats are, sort of where the places to go are and kind of feel my way through

that way. So each of these decisions has its own sort of agonizing element to it. Okay. Okay. And did you choose your wife or did she choose you? Like, how did that relationship begin? Well, it began young. We were really young when we met, like in our late teens.

And she was the sister of a good friend of mine. And we met each other. And I would say we chose each other. I mean, we were young. As I said it, it didn't sound right. What I was trying to get to is who pursued who first, I guess, was what I was trying to understand. Well, I think each other. I mean, I made the first move, I guess, was what I was trying to understand. Well, I mean, I think each other. I mean, I made the first move, I would say that, in, you know, wanting to take her out for her birthday one year.

And then, you know, we just kind of had a chemistry. And, you know, we have, you know, our life together is a partnership. You know, we'd like to say in many ways we kind of grew up together because Al Twent is, you our 20s was a time of great growth and change in both of our lives. And so we learned how to sort of navigate all of that together. We're still navigating together. And so we try not to get stuck and keep moving and do it together. So I think I've got a similar, what's it called, romance path as you do, is that I met my wife when I was 16. And so we've had the teens, the 20s, the 30s, the 40s,

the teacher try to figure each other out and to figure ourselves out along the path. And it's not an easy road, and it's a wonderful journey. It's got both involved. And I wonder if you could, this is a dangerous question, but, you know, do you have any insights on relationships and intimacy and romance that you like that, not just advice, but like really how you see intimacy and romance working to be a successful voyage, if you will. Well, I like the word voyage. You know, I see it as a partnership. And, you know, it's one of those things where I see for all of these things,

I think raising a family, being in a long-term relationship, there's a lot of giving of oneself involved. There's a lot of sacrifice involved. And we have resistance to that because we want things our way, and we see that our way is the best way, but it's not always the way that somebody else wants. And so we have to yield. And that yielding isn't always easy. But, you know, I have found that, you know, that's generally what, you know, what gets us forward. Sometimes I make a joke and I'll say, you know, at the beginning of my marriage, I was like 95% right about everything. And a few years later, you know, that percentage has reversed. But, you know, it's kind of an awareness, like when something comes up, you know, our first inclination sometimes is to dig in and say, you know, well, my way is obviously the way.

But now, you know, there's another voice that comes out that says, even if I think my way is the way, I better be open to the possibility that it isn't because I've been wrong too many times. So be open to that. And at least for myself, I found that to be really helpful. There's some characteristics of people that are extremely successful that are not, none of this is going to be a surprise to you, but I'm wondering where you might fall on some of these scales, if you will. So oftentimes we can find people that are like on the tip of the spear, is that there's a bit of narcissism, more than the general population, right? Narcissism, OCD,

obsessive compulsive, perfectionism, high anxiety, and with a crazy work ethic, a neurotic work ethic, to be able to maybe feel that one day that they'll be okay. And I'm not saying that's everybody on the world stage or the tip of the arrow, but I wonder if you identify with any of those verticals. And you don't have to say yes to any of them, but that's a kind of common thread that I've seen over and over again. Well, I suppose I would start maybe by questioning the presumption, which is what does it mean to be extremely successful? And so here's the lawyer, here's the lawyer party. Right. So there's a sort of a hidden

assumption that extreme success, you know, I don't know what you have in mind, but it's money or power or medals or winning or performance or something like that. Yeah, I was thinking of it in the most surface way, right? Not talking about meaning in life, but the most surface way you can imagine, the people that are heralded as being, quote unquote, the best, like those types, the Steve Jobs types. Right. And so, you know, along the things that you talked about, I mean, it's hard to sort of self-evaluate, but, you know, the ones that comes out, I definitely am a bit of a perfectionist, I would say that. But the other things, you know, sometimes I would attribute, you know, the things that I accomplished to, you know, managing to keep my perspective. You know, I always had a healthy perspective of sort of at least what I felt was important.

And it enabled me to, in some ways, in business, for example, see it as a bit of a game. And so for me, business, lawyering as well, for that matter, is a little bit like playing chess. And, you know, there are moves to be made and strategies to be done. And I'm a player moving the pieces around on the board, but that's what it is, is a game, as opposed to sort of life itself, where I'm defined by that thing. Okay, so I love that. So perspective is like having enough distance or breadth of awareness to not lose track of the central thing. I think when people say, like, I don't want to lose perspective or I'm great at perspective. So what is the central thing for you? And I think what I'm asking in this way, or what I hope I'm articulating is, what are the things that are most important to you,

which would be your philosophy, which would be the way you understand how the world works, because you just shared the way business works, which is it's like a game. And the idea is to create great moves in a game, like to position yourself for quote unquote success, you know, on the game side of it. So I'm wondering if you can share like what that central thing is for you and perspective being the tool that allows you to be connected to that central thing. Well, um, you know, I, I think, I mean, I'll give you an example. So I took Pixar public, right? This would definitely fall within the category of extreme success, I think. And then at the same time, I'm a father and I have my children.

And when my youngest daughter was in middle school, we got into this habit. I would drive her to school in the morning, and we got into this habit of making her tea, a cup of tea in the morning, because I drink a cup of tea in the morning. But she, like a lot of kids in middle school, never had time for breakfast. So whatever was going to be eaten or drunk was generally going to happen in the car. So I made the tea for her to drink in the car. And the challenge was, if the tea was too hot, she couldn't drink it. And if the tea was too cold, then it tasted yucky. So the tea had to be like the perfect temperature in the car.

And so – Wait, hold on. Like you're taking Pixar public. public and like your practice of mindfulness practice a relationship-based practice is to get the tea to be essentially the middle of the road right like yeah the right temperature in the car isn't this a great story for like life right well i think and here's my answer and so like at the end of the day you know when i look back well what am i going to remember? What's going to be most important to me? And you can't replace making tea for your daughter. But it's those elements of life that somehow we can block by getting too involved in these sort of definitions of extreme success and often missing out on, you know, on some of the things that, you know, make us sort of pulse and feel vital and alive. And those are the things that I keep my attention on. Okay, so I want to go back to the car ride for a minute.

But before we go there, the perspective, I want to kind of see if I can go full circle with you. You have a good skill of using the tool of perspective to not lose track of the importance of the relationships of a loved one. Or is it to stay connected to the things that provide, I don't even know how to fill it. I want to say love or connection or the things that matter most to you. Not that Pixar going public didn't matter to you, but there was something deeper or as deep, maybe, not to over-influence your response, about the relationship with you and your daughter.

Well, I think that's true, and I think it's different things. At that time, it was the relationship, and that example was a relationship with my daughter and relationship with loved ones. But over the course of my life, you know, that has gone on to other things, you know, as we might get to. You know, I eventually gave up corporate life altogether because I wanted to pursue my passion for kind of Eastern philosophy and sort of traditions of insight and wisdom because those were the sort of beating pulses of sort of, you know, passion within me and made me sort of come alive and feel that I was engaged in the work

that was important and meaningful to me. So it's taken on different things. And, you know, I don't sort of knock in a way anything that I've ever done. I mean, when I started out my career, I would write 75 page legal contracts from scratch. So to some people, that would seem like the most boring thing in the world. But to me, you know, I saw that as an art form, and I got a lot of, you know, reward out of it. But I've just continued to sort of play forward and find those things that are rewarding, intrinsically rewarding, perhaps. That's, yeah. Autotelic, as the scientists like

to call it, the intrinsic, the value and joy of doing something for the pure joy of doing it. You know, and so, okay, so go back to this, go back to the car ride. I can only imagine, you know, you're sitting in, you're driving, you're looking in the rearview mirror, I would imagine, and your daughter's in the backseat. Yeah. Okay. And then you see her grab her cup of tea that you just spent a lot of attention to get to the right temperature. And then when she would grab for the tea and take a sip, would you try to catch that out of the corner of your eye or would you listen for something? Or was it not that important? It was just the process of knowing that the warm tea was ready for her.

Oh, no. This was just a great game. It was like, did I get it right? And so we had fun with it. Okay. So instead of it being like this, like, dad, it's too hot, or dad, it's too cold, you'd say, okay, let's see if I can get it right. Yeah. It totally became a game.

And this is from my perspective, right? This was just meaningful from my perspective. From her side, who knows? She's getting taken to school and she's drinking her tea. But for me, these were moments that mattered. And so I always try my best, at least, you know, not to, you know, to appreciate moments that matter in a in a environment where sometimes that's not easy to do. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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And okay, I mean, how fun is this part of the story is that, you know, okay, yes, you've had this unbelievable success at different ways of looking at success in your life on the surface. And now as we're starting to dive a little bit deeper in part of the successful father is a story that captures it is the way that you would make tea to get it just right for your for your daughter. Like, okay, great. I can't wait to see where we take this conversation. Because I've been practicing mindfulness training for 18, 19, 20 years, somewhere in that range. So 15 plus for sure years. And I know that this is an important part of your daily experience now. And I think it has been for a while. Sorry for my dog barking in the background. But so can you walk us through now? Can you walk us through Steve Jobs giving

you a call and what that was like to try to grab the tail by the lion as Pixar was just getting going? Or I thinkar might have been a mess at that time if i have that correctly yes pixar had been around for some time uh by the time i got that call it was i got that call in 1994 and it had been bouncing around for steve had owned it for eight years uh and anyway but the moment as you imagine you know i'm sitting in my office and the phone rings. It's 1994. I pick up the phone and on the other end of the line is Steve Jobs. And he says, hi, this is Steve Jobs.

I saw your picture in a magazine a couple of years ago. I thought we might work together someday. I'd like to tell you about a little company that I have. And I at first thought he was talking about Next Computer, which was the company he started after he left Apple. But Next had sort of closed down its computer division, and it was largely being written off. So I thought, well, maybe he wants me to help him turn around Next. And then he says, it's Pixar. And inside I went, what on earth is Pixar? I wasn't even sure if I'd heard of it. And outwardly, I just went, sure, I'd love to learn about that. But it didn't take much research to find out that, you know, Pixar was really in dire straits. Steve had put in $50 million of his own money into it

and had nothing left of that. And it had no business to speak of. It had closed down the hardware business that it originally started to do. And, and, and Steve's reputation also at that point in time was maybe the lowest point of his career. You know, he'd had several failures in a row, the Lisa and the Macintosh computers at Apple and then the next computer and then the Pixar imaging computer. And so, you know, there was every reason sort of, sort of not to go work for Pixar and not to go work for Steve either. Okay. Yeah. And so how did you make that decision? Well, um, you know, I talk about that a bit in the, uh, quite a bit in the book. That was a, it, that was a very difficult decision that, you know, there a really good chemistry with Steve, just from the get-go. And so that was one thing. Then when I visited Pixar, I just had this feeling that the

people that I met there, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, I had the sense that these guys were just winners. And I thought to myself, I don't know how they're going to make it, but I think somehow they'll make it. And they don't have anyone here that does what I do, you know, which is sort of a very strategic, you know, business oriented assessment and implementation of what needs to be done. And I believe very strongly in complementary skill sets, uh, that, that kind of have to sort of go, you know, push off of each other. And I saw that I would be sort of very complimentary here and, you know, I still didn't know what to do. And then I ended up talking to

the fellow who founded, you know, the company I was at at the time, F.E. Arazi, who I mentioned earlier. And he said to me, I remember him just standing there in my office door. And he said to me, look, he said, you've got enough instincts now that you can trust yourself. So if you go into Pixar and you feel like you're getting rolled over by Steve or you're not able to work together, you'll leave. And he sort of saw it as simply as that. And I ended up, I took that advice and I said, OK, I'm going to roll it. I'm going to go for it on this one. Wow. OK.

Is it more of a thinking process that you make decisions or intuition? Well, both. I mean I can definitely overanalyze. And so I'll definitely sort of think through everything. It's funny you ask that because I think in the things that I've learned since then, so in the last 15 years or so, you know, studying all of this philosophy and, and, and related topics, you know, I've, I've sort of come to think that in many ways, um, how thinking processes ultimately just are a justification for a decision that was already made. We just didn't know about it. And so looking back at it, you know, yeah, I'm sure I put a lot of thought and angst into it. But probably deep down, I'd made the decision already.

Oh, that's cool. I think that you just said something that jarred me, is that deep down the decision was already made. I can overthink things too, like for sure. And when I really listen, it's like what I'm trying to do is go with the kind of thing that I already knew to be true. But I overthink by getting in the way with all the logic or pitfalls or trap doors that are hidden. And if I could just sort out those, then maybe I could go a little bit more freely into this next venture. But that just slows down so much of the process. It does. And it's tricky because it's not always that that thing that's pulsing underneath is the thing that's true.

Because, you know, what at least, based on the things that I've learned, and my experience with this is that, you know, we, we function inwardly by a story, we have a story in a way about who we are. And, you know, a story, what it means to be a man, or a husband, or a woman, or American, or you name it, a son, a daughter, an employee. And our version of that story is usually the same as somebody else's version, but it's operational. And sometimes that leads us into, and it's that story that's kind of driving us to act,

even though we may have thoughts around it but it's really that underlying story that's at work and um you know part of what i think meditation is all about and this kind of engagement is to in some ways rid ourselves of the unhealthy stories that keep us from really fulfilling ourselves and so sometimes that voice inside of us is true, but it's not always easy to find it. Yeah, that's why we have to listen. Listen a lot, a lot more than we might think. But what is, I know I asked you earlier about your philosophy,

but let's use the word story. What is the story that Lawrence tells himself about himself and the world? The story that I tell myself now would be that, you know, I left corporate life for a reason. I felt that it was a very kind of one-dimensional kind of way of being. That's why I reacted a little bit earlier when you used the term extremely successful, because extreme success is often defined today in terms that, you know, I find very one dimensional. It's like success and acquisition at all costs. And what I saw around me was that there are a lot of hidden costs to that so-called extreme success. And those hidden costs came in the form of stress, lack of fulfillment, anxiety, you know, many other forms of sort of agitation. And I wanted to find out, I thought to myself,

there has to be a way of living that doesn't isn't so extreme it isn't so dependent on performance of success all the time and so i went off to look for that and i believe you know i found you know um within these philosophers within these meditation and ideas uh an answer for this and so my story now would be to try to you know help the world see that answer in a way, you know, try to be a vehicle for those that are interested to discover that, uh, as well, you know, without sort of beating over the head with it or proselytizing about it, but just making it available. And so, I know, I think I, you know, I feel sort of privileged to be able to be involved in doing something like that. And so that's my story.

I love it. Okay. So you mentioned two words to reveal insight and wisdom. And so the story I think that you are on is this journey of insight and wisdom. Is that close? It's close, but I would say with this caveat, when we talk about listening, I would say we need help with this listening, I guess is what I would say. difficult for us to see this on our own because whenever we touch upon sort of that inner story that is even if it's one that's hurting us or something like that we have a mountain of resistance that comes up to protect the sort of inner status quo so to speak and by ourselves

simply listening by ourselves what we often do is just encounter that resistance. So we need an outside force to kind of touch it for us so that we can see it. And, you know, for me, this is the role of, you know, a spiritual lineage of wisdom or meditation masters or teachers or guides or whatever you want to call them. And so, you know, I listened very carefully in my practice as well to these great masters from the past whose books I read and study and especially to my own teacher. I have my own teacher in this domain who's very clever at kind of working with this kind of resistance. And I think that if we want to get in touch with ourselves in the way that you're talking about, we have to

somehow get around that resistance. Well said. And I cannot understate the importance, I'm stuttering as I say it, because I've got like five thoughts, I'm competing in my own head, that there's the path to insight and wisdom is challenging and difficult and simple to understand, but very hard to execute against. And that's been my experience, at least. And there's three ways that I've found that amplify the clarity of that inner experience, that inner story. Write about it.

And that's hard because it's just us and us, myself and myself, right? And then write about it and share it with other people that are inspired or have experienced some insight and wisdom themselves. That's one. And then the second is deep conversations, like really with people that are masterful and insightful in their own right. And then the third is listening deeply or some sort of mindfulness experience. But it's not until we get it outside of us, I think, do we amplify or accelerate the clarity, the process to clarity. And are you saying something similar or are you saying that if just being around people that have wisdom changes the game for you?

I think I'm saying something similar, but I'm going a little further with it because I think that it's extremely easy to do all of those things and still not transform inwardly, but validate how, um, you know, where we are right now. Um, uh, and, uh, I'm not saying that's always the result. I'm just saying that, you know, that can be the result. And so, you know, if I use, you know, a popular example of Luke in Star Wars, you know, he had to go to a planet somewhere and carry around Yoder on his back in a swamp. That'll bring some stuff to the surface. I think we need to be gently challenged in a way. And one of the things that I notice sometimes,

especially in contemporary life, is that we want to always stay in our own driver's seat. And so we want to be in control. And so we're driving the car and we take it where we want to go. So I want to go to a meditation retreat here or yoga class there or, you know, philosophy seminar here. And I drive to all these different places and, you know, I capture a little wisdom that's helpful to me and I feel good about it. And the danger of this is that it sort of keeps us circling the base of the mountain sometimes rather than picking a path and

walking up the mountain. So what I always am interested in is what path up the mountain is somebody taking? Or is it all about sort of circling the base because until it's the climb that sort of it's the climb itself through which we really grow and understanding what that might look like in contemporary life is something i'm really interested in how do you help people move from circling the base to beginning the climb? And then once they've begun the climb, oftentimes people will resort back to circling just a little bit longer, coming back to comfort, if you will, the circling meaning comfort, and then to keep going. Do you have any strategies that you've used for yourself or you've learned that other people have helped you to move from the circling and to push up the hill a bit?

Well, I'll share. My strategy was that I spent a year or two reading about all of this on my own. And I was reading all these books by these incredible ancient meditation masters and yogas and even some more contemporary ones like Joseph Campbell and this and that. And I could see that what I was reading about, the people who I really felt really had the wisdom, they had engaged a single path. They had worked with particular teachers that really helped them. And I thought to myself, I need one of those or how am I going to do that? And initially I couldn't figure out how to do that and initially i couldn't figure

out how to do it and i got kind of frustrated by that and i hit the wall and at some point i was kind of like you know maybe it's just not meant to be and then i met a teacher who became and still is my teacher he's a buddhist master called segi rinpoche we started our current foundation together that we call juniper foundation but But he embodies and represents a very particular path of meditation and philosophical inquiry that goes back 2,000 years. And I put myself singly and wholly into that path. And it's not that I don't respect or love other paths, and it's not that I herald this as the best and the only part it's

just that it was a part and and one that I took and it was the taking of it that I then began to encounter my own resistance and my own capacity um uh to grow is when I kind of committed to doing this there you go okay and for folks that are listening that might not know what the word Rinpoche means, could you, you know, it's a very reverent term, but maybe you could walk us through that. Yeah, it's a Tibetan Buddhist

honorary term for a, it means precious one, but basically for a master of a, usually a master or a lineage holder of a particular school of teaching. So it's the highest honor that could be bestowed on a master in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Yeah, there you go. And then do you have a particular practice that you're working now?

And I'm also curious about the books that influenced you. Yes, I i i my meditation practice has come out of this tradition and you know i do meditation practice of different you know every day of different varieties and some of them are straightforward what we would call concentration meditation holding the mind on an object um and others are contemplative meditations where we contemplate a variety of topics that have to do with insight and emotions, compassion, and topics like that. We also have visualization practices. They're all part of one sort of collection of practices that together form a very rich experience.

And are you – so those that are listening I think are very familiar. Many were probably very familiar with those three. I tend to lump them into two. And I call them single-point mindfulness training or meditation and then contemplative. And on the contemplative, do you have particular questions that you are entertaining right now or questions or statements in your training that have been really powerful for you? Well, I mean that there are many i mean you know we contemplate topics um you know in beautiful meditations in compassion that really have you examine and think and contemplate you know the experience of another person from their perspective. And those can be very potent in a meditation context. And so that, you know, there are a lot of examples like that.

The insight or the wisdom practices where we might contemplate the nature of a particular object. It can be something really simple like a cup of tea. You know, what is the nature of a cup of tea? When you start to examine that, you generally get more perspective on that particular topic than you've ever seen before. One thing I would add to your two categories since we're talking about it, the third category that I mentioned was the category of visualization. The Tibetan Buddhists honed the form of meditation practices that were loosely grouped under the sort of enhance our quality of experience and mind. And it's been interesting for me to note that even in the area of sports performance and the like, visualization practice has actually proven to be very effective. There's great research around it and

an incredible accelerant to pattern recognition, to neurological programming, and literally helping the nervous system within our body be more familiar with specific movements, as well as some of the research has even found that imagery can accelerate confidence because you've been there before and so yeah so imagery is a fascinating i think that one of the reasons i separated out is because i tend to use imagery as a sport performance enhancer and contemplative mindfulness or meditation as a way to reflect and to explore and so i well yeah so then i would uh you know so basically what these um meditations are combining those two and so imagine taking that visualization imagery as a as a life enhancer not just a sports performance enhancer.

But imagine that if you're visualizing either yourself or you're in an environment that is full of this kind of incredible sort of vital energy that you want to emulate and bring to your own life and way of being. That's what those visualization practices are about. So they're really the same thing as you're talking about in the context of everything we do. Yeah, which would be compassion or empathy or love or some of the qualities. I think so, but I think that to talk about it as sort of qualities, I mean, we do meditate and talk about those qualities a lot.

But to avoid getting sort of too reductionist about a particular list of qualities, I think that the product of these practices, yes, it is to enhance those qualities, but perhaps more than anything, it's to enhance our whole vitality and energy as a human being. And those qualities are part of it, but I think they're insufficient to describe the whole. And so, you know, the question is, how do we enhance our very way of being? And I think that's what these great meditation masters got, you know, we're trying to get at. It's not just about, you know, building up capability and different kind of, you're talking about this. And can you drop down and give us like something very concrete that you're using as a practice as simple as I start by standing or I start by sitting and then I focus on and then I do like, could you walk us through maybe the just a couple ways that people might be exposed to your unique practice? Well, you know, when I talk about meditation, I say that, you know, there talk about meditation i say that you know there's two a couple of ways to

think about meditation one is as a sort of a technique and and as a technique you know it's kind of easy to meditate i mean there's 2000 meditation apps you can download one and you'll learn the technique um and there's nothing wrong with that you know it's it's fine but for me it's um it's it's much more than about technique when and the context of meditation it matters a lot and so when i sit down to meditate each morning you know i'm first of all i'm you know i'm in a special spot um what's special about it is that's the spot that i meditate and so um it doesn't have to be in some grand temple or hole or something like that. It's just, I, in my mind, I consider it as special and I make sure it's clean and I, you know, maybe I'll light a candle or I'll put a little flower or something like that.

But, you know, I, I, you know, for me, it's a sacred space. Um, and when I sit down to begin my meditation, my meditation begins with feeling this connection with this incredible lineage of masters that have come before me. And I might even visualize that in my mind before I begin. So it's like I'm doing my meditation in the context of this grand temple of ancient wisdom. And I'm nourished and fed by that, partly because I'm sitting there and I'm visualizing that as part of my meditation and partly because I've started that wisdom for a long time and so it makes it come alive for me

and I feel connected to something. And I often say that we do meditation alone, but meditators are not loners because I think it can be a practice of connection, and that connection can really enliven us. And so that's where I would generally start my day. And is this one minute, 20 minutes? We're in that range are you yeah it could be any i mean i um you know i would say it's somewhere between you know it depends on what i'm doing but it's probably somewhere between 10 minutes and 50 minutes uh but i don't think the time matters i you know i think the key with this is regularity. It's making a habit out of just taking a few minutes out of our day to honor this side of our life. Because otherwise, we're sort of on a rush to, you know, the mind.

We wake up and we're just in a rush to get everything done. And we forget to take time to honor this side of our life. And so to me, it's not so much about the time. It's about the quality and the fact that we do it. Love it. Okay. So can I ask you a couple kind of quick hits? Yeah. And then respond however you like to these. You can take your time or just say yes or no or whatever. But are you more street savvy or analytical? You know, I would probably, my quick hit,

I would probably lean analytical, but not so far that I don't pay attention to the street. Okay. Do you prefer a slow-paced environment or a fast-paced environment for learning? Fast. Rule follower or risk taker? Risk taker.

High need for control or moderate or low? Moderate. Intellectually competitive in relationship to physical competitiveness? Probably more intellectually competitive. I wish I could be physically competitive. This is kind of like I was sort of built with a thin body. I go to the gym, but I got a seed control there to the guys that are doing amazing things with weights. So it's got to be intellectually, I suppose.

And then how intellectually competitive are you? If somebody says something stupid at a dinner party, stupid, I know I'm labeling it, but like you are like, that's off. I don't get that. Would you keep your mouth shut or would you sometimes say something or all the time? Are you the one saying, where's that coming from? I'd probably say something only if someone else was being hurt by this. So if somebody was being diminished by that, by that mouthing off, then I would probably step in. But short of that, I probably wouldn't.

Do you value courage and bravery? I do value courage. I do. How are you doing on that scale? Um, you know, I would say that, uh, you know, the things that I've done probably take a measure of courage, but you know, I don't wake up in the morning and think, well, I'm this sort of brave, courageous guy. Uh, I'm just kind of doing my thing. Okay. Um, more critical or positive? You know, both. I mean, definitely positive, but, you know, I sort of have a critical eye and a pretty high sort of BS meter, I would say. So I can, you know, critical perhaps, you know, and try not to be, you know, over years, learn to try not to be too judgmental.

Yeah, OK. Do you make fast decisions, slow, somewhere in the middle? Somewhere in the middle, maybe slow. I'm sort of the one that's – the family makes a decision and three days later, I'm still thinking about it. So somewhere in the middle. I'm still thinking about it. Do you drive that way too if you're on the freeway? Do you stay in the lane too long if you're trying to be efficient with where you're going? Probably. Okay.

Yeah. And then anxiousness or depression? Which part of the meter would you fall on? Yeah, not the depression. I mean, not too much anxiousness either. I mean, I'm pretty even. It usually takes quite a lot to sort of knock me off my horse. It happens occasionally, but not too often. Do you trust others? work with that presumption. I've been burned with it a couple of times, but I still think for me I prefer to be that way than not. Introvert or extrovert? It's funny.

Probably extrovert, I would say. I'm extrovert. I like to talk and enjoy conversation and people, but I don't go out partying and have a big sort of grand sort of social partying life. Okay. And then pressure comes from? Pressure comes from wanting to do – really wanting to do sort of great work. I have pretty exacting standards on myself on that front. And so I'll sort of push myself. It all comes down to?

Oh, wow. That's a really good question. I don't know. It all comes down to finding, trying to get the clutter out of the way so that our latent nature can thrive. Yeah, look at that. You had to work on that. That was good. Yeah, look at that. Right now you're saying, good job. There's a lot of training that came before that statement.

That's good. All right. On that note, success is? Success is a story that can get in our way if we're not careful. And so it's hard to pin it down, but success is what makes us, I don't know, what makes us feel that we're alive, that we're in our element, whatever that may be.

Yeah, I like that. that we're in our element, whatever that may be. Yeah, I like that because part of development of a human is that you can go into any environment and adjust accordingly and not give away who you are, not sell who you are to the demands of the environment. Yeah, beautiful. Okay, and then how do you finish I am? I don't know. I don't know why this word just came into my head, but, you know, I am trying.

Yeah. Okay, good. That's kind of, I guess, what came into my head. Okay. You know, I just have really one or two more questions, but I just want to say thank you. What a great conversation

about some stuff that's real and deep. Yeah, I appreciate it. So thank you so much. Yeah, I'm glad you feel that way. I've enjoyed it too. You push me

on different topics. It's cool. It's great. Tapping into that resistance. I don't want to say it, but yeah. Okay, good. All right, so in your words, how do you think about or characterize or define or articulate mastery? Mastery, I guess I would follow the theme that we've just been talking about.

I think that it is the fulfillment of our potential as a human being. It is when we have that feeling that we are in our element and that we're kind of unimpeded in that way. And so whatever it is that we're doing, it could be writing a 75-page legal contract. It could be driving our children to school. It could be serving coffee at a coffee shop. It doesn't matter what it is. It's about the quality that we bring to it. And so when we are in that, when we're in our element, when we don't feel that angst and that clutter, I think for me, you know, that's mastery. Beautiful. Okay, so then who is the target audience for your book, which is titled Pixar and Beyond? The book is to Pixar and Beyond. And it's funny, you know, it's obviously on its

surface a business book. It's a story about, you know, taking, you know, you know, how we made Pixar into a real company. But, you know, when I went to write that book, I said to my literary agent, you know, I said, I'm going to make a thriller out of an IPO. And some of my most gratifying feedback is when I get a note from someone who says, I can't believe your book was a page turner and I'm not even interested at all in business. And so I think it's a great story. And I think that it should be, I would hope of interest to anybody who enjoys a great story. And along the way, you'll learn about Pixar and the entertainment business and Steve Jobs and the middle way and meditation and philosophy. So a little bit of things for everyone along the way. That's the book that I tried to write.

And then Juniper Foundation, is that a literal place that people can go to? Absolutely. Juniper Foundation has a meditation center in San Francisco, and we have a website that's juniperpath.org, and you can find it there. You can also learn about me on my website which is lawrencelevy.com and that would lead you to Juniper Foundation but we do have a physical location

in San Francisco and Juniper is a long term project and we're trying to establish something in contemporary culture that doesn't quite exist and so yeah, there's a lot to talk about with that.

Beautiful. Okay, so the website is Lawrence, L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E, and then L-E-V-Y.com. L-E-V-Y, yeah, LawrenceLevy.com. And then that'll sort of lead you into the book and Juniper and all of these things. So good. Like, it's funny that this book that you've written is really, in this podcast, they're total excuses for us to meet each other. And, you know, so I'm thankful that you wrote the book because I've enjoyed this conversation. And if there's any way that I can amplify or celebrate beyond this podcast, what you're

doing, I think that the business world benefits from varied points of view. And this is one of the points of view about being centered and grounded and finding deep meaning in life and backing it up with a practice that allows that way of being to be rugged and to be sturdy and to, you know, stand up to hostile environments. I'd love to celebrate it. So if there's anything else that comes up, Lawrence, I'd love to be part of what you're doing. So thank you. Yeah, I really. I really do appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yeah, beautiful.

And for everyone listening, find Lawrence on social media. He's on Facebook as well as LinkedIn. And you can also punch over to his website as well as you can find us at findingmastery.net. And Lawrence, would you be open to answering some questions on our community? We've got a private community that I know they're going to dig in. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'd love to do that.

Just let me know how. Yeah, we'll follow up afterwards on that. And then you can also find me at Michael Gervais, which is Twitter. And then at FindingMastery is our Instagram account. Lawrence, thank you so much. Love meeting you. And I hope you have a great rest of your life and a great afternoon. Thanks.

Same to you, Michael. I look forward to talking to you again. Okay. Take care. All the best. Okay. You too. Bye-bye.

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