Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Scott Kriens, 1440 Multiversity Co-Founder

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

This week’s conversation is with Scott Kriens, chairman and former CEO of Juniper Networks.Scott has been in the technology industry for more than 35 years.Holding early roles at Burroughs Corp and Tandem, Scott moved to EVP of Sales and Operations at StrataCom before helping found Juniper Networks in 1996.During his tenure, he served as chairman and CEO, growing the company to more than 10,000 employees in over 100 countries worldwide and $4 billion in revenue, and remains chairman today.In 2010, Scott and his wife Joanie founded 1440 Foundation and recently completed 1440 Multiversity, a state-of-the-art immersive learning destination set on a 75-acre redwood forest near Santa Cruz County, CA.What really stands out in this conversation is Scott’s authenticity, his willingness to be vulnerable, and how much he genuinely cares about getting to the center of what’s real.While Scott appears wildly successful on the surface, the passing of his father made him rethink how he was living his life.He realized the external rewards he was chasing weren’t fulfilling anymore and forced himself to answer the question, “What really matters most to me?”Think about that question as you listen._________________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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All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade in training, a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And the whole idea behind these conversations, this podcast, is to learn and then to apply that learning, right? So it's not just consuming information, but it's doing something with it for you to be better, for us together to be better. And what we want to do in this podcast is understand from the best thinkers and doers in the world, those that have dedicated their life towards mastery, what are they searching for? What are they aching for? What are they craving in their life? Where does it come from? Then we want to understand their psychological framework. How did they make sense of life? How did they make sense of external and internal

experiences? And the third part is we want to dig to understand the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools,

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convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform.

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My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters and that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. Now this week's conversation is with Scott Creens, chairman and former CEO of Juniper Networks. And Scott has been in the tech industry for more than 35 years. And during his tenure at

Juniper, he served as both chairman and CEO, growing the company to more than 10,000 employees in over 100 countries worldwide and $4 billion in revenue. And he still remains chairman today. Think about that. Growing from a very small startup into a $4 billion revenue, radical. There's something that we need to learn from Scott here. And two pillars that have been important for him are passion and authenticity in relationships. And back in 2010, Scott and his wife, Joanne, founded the 1440 Foundation and recently just completed 1440 Multiversity. And it is a state-of-the-art immersive learning destination. It is beautiful. It is stunning. And what really stands out in this conversation is Scott's authenticity and

his willingness to be vulnerable and just how much he genuinely cares about getting to the center of what's real. And while Scott seems unbelievably successful on the surface, he runs deep. And a period of grief with the passing of his father forced him to rethink how he was living his life. He cares and he thinks and feels deeply. And he realized that external rewards that he was chasing weren't fulfilling him anymore. And it's easy to say that, right? Like, okay, people, we understand that, that as soon as you get the thing that you're working for, the goal that you've set that is external to you, that it's nice to have it. It's good to kind of check that box, but it doesn't fill us. It does not do that, you know? And so he,

he had a reorganization in his life and it forced him to ask the question, what really matters most to me? And I want to ask that we all do that. I want to ask that we really examine what matters most. And I hope that during this conversation, you can just allow that thought to be right under the surface and think about that for you, you know, in your life, what matters most to you. And so with that, let's have a blast. And let's jump right into this conversation with Scott Creens. Scott, how are you? Good, Michael, thanks for making time to

spend it together. No, thank you for spending the time to walk me through the project that you've built or and are building. And to spend the time to unpack and through the project that you've built or and are building and to spend the time to unpack and understand your life journey. So it's an honor. It's great to spend it together. Glad to explore whatever comes up. So. Okay, good. So there's three things that I want to do is I want to understand your journey. And, you know, the idea behind that is to really understand your successes, your failures, you know, like what those are. But then the second part of this conversation, hopefully is to understand your framework, which is how you make sense of successes and failures, how you make sense of the experiences and the people that you've encountered along the way. And then the third part is any

particular mental skills that you've used to amplify your craft or to deepen the understanding of who you are. So those are like the three parts. But the reason I wanted to spend time with you is because so many people right now in modern times, it's like vogue to say, I want to do good in the world. Okay. Now you're actually doing it, right? So you made, I'm going to guess piles of money from a company that you were part of from its inception. I don't know the exact story, but you did well with money at some point. You were successful there. And then you said, I'm doubling down and I'm going to do something that

is significant, meaningful for many people. And if I have that stitch right, tell me if I'm wrong on it. That's essentially what I'm hoping to understand, um, how you were successful in your first part of your life. And now into the second part of your life, like what you're looking to define success as, as well. Well, so let's see, starting back in the early adult days. Um, you know, I know you spend a lot of time in sports and with sports people, my sport was business and money is how you keep score. And so I stumbled into some things early on in the computer world back in the 80s. And in the 90s, the observation that a guy made to me was networking and communications. This was all the way back in

the breakup of the bell system. So much is going to change there that opportunities are going to be everywhere. And so I rotated out of computing and into networking, was with a small startup that turned into a bigger one and we sold it. And then in the 90s, I was a group of guys started a company called Juniper Networks. And it went from a half a dozen of us to at least for the time I was CEO for 12 years, and we grew it to 10,000 people and $4 billion and 100 countries around the world. And it was just. And it was a case of a lot of smart people and being in the right place at the right time. Okay. So when you talk about networks from a put Michael at gmail.com, somebody has to keep track of Michael and about 7 billion others. And that's what Juniper does. So we live underneath all the

stuff that we see every day and are responsible for all the administration and the reconciliation of all the locations. We're one of two or three companies that are doing it. And back in the 90s, there wasn't that much traffic and the internet was a new thing. And we jumped in the middle of doing that. And then it took off to become what it is. And we're still in the middle of keeping everything connected. So in a way, you could think of us as being like the electronic mailmen that run at hundreds of millions and billions of transactions per second, keeping track of everything flying around and making sure it gets where it's supposed to go. And obviously that's now the world of cybersecurity and everything else.

But we're the guys underneath everything that you use every day. We're one of them. And so this, pardon my not understanding this, because the internet feels like, I don't know, some kind of mystery how it works. I have no idea. I love it, but I have no idea how it works. But I think what I'm hearing you say is that there's some hardware that you own, and then there's some sort of form of connectivity that you own as well to be able to track information. Is that close? It is.

It's hardware and software that come together to make these systems. And at the root of all of it, which is true of most all technology at its core, it's actually a very simple premise, which is just read the address, look it up in a table, send it to where it's supposed to go. And there's obviously complexity within all of that. at the essence that's what we do it's no different electronically than what used to happen in the postal system where you know you look at the address you put it on a put it in a bag on the side of a pony and take it to the next town and open it up and deliver it to the general store we're now doing that billions of times a second electronically but it's still

reading addresses, looking it up in your table to put it on the right pony and send it off to where it goes in a way. It's not, um, as at least as a function logically that it doesn't get a whole lot more complicated. Okay. So knowing, so you've been in business for 30 years, probably somewhere. 24 years for Juniper. Yeah. Okay. So in Juniper for that long of time, there's been lots of changes in networking and the way that information is shared and the digital transformation that we're all in the middle of right now. What, what, what have you learned that if you would have known 30 years ago, you would have done differently or doubled or tripled down on? Yeah, that's a great question. There was a major pivot in my life, and it's now been 15 years ago. My dad passed away, and I just sort of stopped and looked in a way I hadn't before at everything I was doing. And the confrontation that brought about was that this journey of just trying to build stuff and pile up proceeds from it had a whole lot more to do with the people and the way that you do it than what you do. And, and I

didn't, you know, I sort of knew it and we always had a good team and it's always, anybody will tell you building any team, I'm sure, you know, it's always about the people. But for me, the confrontation with mortality, when I lost my dad caused me to stare at this and figure out some things I just had put off in the past. And I guess what I really I'd say is I just had my head down from the time I went to school and started working when I was 21 in professional sense after graduating. It was just, you know, I don't have a house, so I should get one of those. And, you know, I'm not a manager, so I should become one of those. And eventually, you know, it'd be nice to start a family and it's just all the stuff that you do. And, uh, I didn't really spend much time looking around until I was confronted with it.

And that's changed my outlook quite a bit. So many of us lose people that we love, and it had a dramatic altering effect for you. What was right underneath the surface of losing someone, losing your dad, someone that you love. Sitting with him the afternoon when he passed and just being hit in the face with this question, what matters? It's not that much time left before that's my fate. And somehow mortality became real in this way that it wasn't before. And so the question, what matters, existed before that day. But since I really couldn't get my head around thinking about it, I just rationalized putting it off. Like, I don't know the answer to that, but I need a house or whatever.

And so whenever I came up against the question, I just found something else to do until I couldn't ignore it anymore. And it changed a lot of things for me that will never be the same. What are some of the things that you began to change? Well, I went, I set out on the pursuit of the answer to the question. And since I couldn't figure out what did matter, I started trying to figure out all the things that didn't to see if I could figure out what was left standing. And I took a couple of years to realize that there wasn't enough time in a lifetime to eliminate all the things that don't matter. So that, that was not going to work. Are you an engineer? No.

It sounds like a very, very much like an engineer's model. Yeah. It's a typical left brain thing, which was where I lived too much of my life. Um, but I guess the thing I don't pretend today to answer the question, by the way, I don't, I don't know the answer, but what I do believe is that whatever it is that does matter, it starts inside of us and not outside of us. And if I'm really brutally honest, over the first 45 years of my life, I put off that inquiry inside and just said, well, don't know the answer to that, but I'll pile up this thing or that accomplishment or whatever on the outside and, um, come back to that harder question later until later had to be now.

Hmm. Hmm. So there's this thought that, that I have, which is that the reason people change is because of pain. And you're reinforcing it, but I'm also looking for it. It's a little bit of a selective bias here. But the thought underneath of it is that so many people do go through pain, but don't actually change. So pain is part of the process, but then actually the commitment to change is really hard. And what, what would you recommend to somebody? Let's look, you know, many of the folks that I spent a lot of time with, they're 25 years old. They have ridiculous amounts of attention. They have

ridiculous amounts of money and they, it's not, it's, I think it's a fair statement to say 90% of them are still trying to sort out who they are. You know, parts of the brain aren't even fully developed yet, you know, before the age of 25. So what would you suggest to them that you lived a, I'm going to add some color to this, a progressive life where you had outwardly success, but had a bit of a hollow experience on the interior. Is that fair? Okay. So then if you could install a thought or help shape a thought for somebody that is running as hard as they possibly can to, you know, for whatever model of success they have, but they feel a bit empty inside, just a bit disconnected from the deeper stuff. What would you suggest to them? First of all, stop.

Because you can't, I don't know how, and I don't actually think there's a way to figure out the kind of questions that you're asking on the run. And this will probably sound trite because it's been said various ways, but it's at least it's my experiences. I know when I was in my sport at 25 or 30 or 35 or 40, for that matter, if I'm really, you know, as I've tried to be with myself, honest about it, it was all in this desperate pursuit of admiration and acknowledgement and respect. And even though I, you know, framed it for myself in ways

that made it sound much grander than all that, and we did create a lot of jobs for a lot of people and change a lot of lives and blah, blah, blah. Um, and I'm proud of those things. I don't mean to say it like, you know, they don't matter, like it isn't real or what happened, but if I really describing the motivations of it at the sort of the ego level. It was so that I'd be well thought of and so that I could be this person that I was wishing that I was and that I wanted people to think of me as. And I don't frankly know how to say this to a 25 year old, although there's some, you know, there's a whole phenomenon going on now has been for a while called the quarter life crisis.

And there's a lot of 25 year olds that are saying, I don't need to become 40, 45 to ask these questions. So, um, there's plenty of kids thinking about this long before I did, but there isn't enough stuff or accomplishments or trophies or championships in the world to, to scratch that itch inside of us. And the sooner that anybody can stare at that and look elsewhere, and it doesn't have to be instead of, it doesn't mean stop working, earning, succeeding, just understand it differently.

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all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at checkout again that's felix gray you spell it f-e-l-i-x g-r-a-y dot com and use the code finding mastery 20 at felix gray dot com for 20 off okay so if we go way back um before you were successful as an as a entrepreneur turned a relatively large business is that even fair to say? Is $4 billion a large business in global? Or is that like... Compared to some. Well, compared to most.

But yeah, there's some sort of imaginary line of what America considers big business. Well, you know, I suppose you could borrow this simple term that gets thrown around, the Fortune 500. It's enough to make a Fortune 500 company. There you go. Okay, wonderful. It's enough to get squashed by most of the people in the Fortune 500 that are bigger.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So go back to early life. What were the events and the people or what were the things that shaped you? Mostly refusal to conform. Is there a story that brings that up for you? Or a point in time that you could point to?

Well, I don't know. I suppose the psychoanalysis of it is just demanding my own way. My mom and I fought a lot, loved each other, but fought a lot in a way that if you had this experience with a parent or a family member, it can be ugly. Because they know, especially mom, knew, and so did I in return. That's what made it so ugly, how to get to the thing that really would hurt the most. And that taught me a lot of resilience because I had to defend myself and be able to fight back. And it wasn't my goal, And I don't think it was her goal. It's just what happened. Is mom still alive? No, she passed in 2009.

So they both died relatively young. Yeah. And it sounds like it was hard to grow up with mom. You know, in some ways, I mean, we'd also, she grew up in Ohio and she was a huge Reds fan and we'd go to 50 cent nights at the bleachers and watch the Oakland A's win World Series back in the 70s. And so, you know, there were great things about it. But I also think that's a lot of what taught me to fight for myself. And when authority would say, this is how it works, I'd say, no, it doesn't. Or I hear you saying that, but until I convince myself, I don't accept it. And if somebody says, you know, you can have A or you can have B, my first response is I reject the trade-off. I'll take A and B. And unless it's, you know, you can convince me that that's not possible, then I'm not.

And maybe I'll take C too. Did you guys grow up with wealth or did you grow up middle class? What was that like? We just, my folks divorced and we lived with my mom for a while and I moved out and lived with my dad for a while. And I went to – and this is not – don't mean to cast some sort of rags to riches story here. It's not like that. We had a roof over our heads and we had food to eat. But, you know, I went to a junior college out of high school because it was two bucks a unit and, um, worked in a gas station through a lot of high school and all of college fixing cars, um, which was great. I mean, I didn't know any different and it was fine. So it's not

any kind of, it's no hardship story really. It was just, just was just, you know, my folks live paycheck to paycheck. And, you know, we had paper routes and did, you know, just everyday stuff. So why work so hard to make so much money or to build such a big business? Where did that come from? Obviously, it's the need you said earlier. Excuse me, not obviously, but it was the need to know that you mattered. But where did that come from? You know, when I said earlier, my sport is business, it's the competition of it. You know, it was, it was, and it still is today. Most of the things I do these days, I guess I like to think is just to see if I could mostly for myself, you know, and, and I, I don't, I don't, um, disown the ego in all of it or the

desire to have that be seen as an accomplishment or, or a reason for acknowledgement by others. And that's certainly, you know, I know enough of my own ego that that's in there. But I don't have any need for anybody to know that that doesn't take the time on their own to recognize it. It's this kind of a weird mix, I guess. It's not humility. I hope it not arrogance it's i'm just at this stage and it actually has been for a while i just want to see when i became a ceo it was just to see if i could do it i didn't want to get old and never know the answer to that question you know i was looking forward to this conversation because you know i'm i feel like i'm on this relentless pursuit to try to figure out what's true. And the path to truth is really hard to get to, both interpersonally, like within myself,

but then also to try to tease out what's true for other people and the rawness and openness and ability for you to manage and thoughtfully say the things that are true for you even the things that are publicly maybe ugly to say i can't tell you how refreshing it is and i have lots of these conversations and some with microphones some with not microphones and i'll tell you the amount of time it takes to get the marketing mind to quiet down. And, you know, I learned that first in, in the trenches as a psychologist working, you know, 50 hours a week, 45 minute sessions. And so that's 50 clients, so to speak a week, right? It would take 40 minutes for people to get to the real stuff. And we had five minutes left. And then they say something profound in the hallway as they're walking out.

You know, it's like, I just want to shortcut the 40 minutes. But I know it's part of the dance. But you got there early. In this conversation, you've gotten there early. What amount of work have you done on the interior? How would you describe the work you've done inside yourself? A lot of reflection. I began a meditation practice just right after I lost my dad in 2004.

Not seriously at the time. It became more serious a year or two after that. And I've done it every day for the last 10 years or so. And I try and journal every day. But all just tools. There's no brilliance to – I think sometimes that's the problem with things like meditation or any particular claim is there's no one answer to all things. It's more about making the personal commitment, you know, and the real commitment that's required is to be willing to look with eyes wide open at the inside of oneself.

And for me, that had to start by saying, I'm not who I wish I was, and I'm not who I've been trying to be. I'm just me. And I still don't have that mastered. I don't know if it's possible. All I can report is it's ongoing. But and then the other for me admission that was really still I don't do this that well, is I need help. I need the help of others. And, you know, it's paradoxical in a way, because this is a lonely journey. You know, this thing called life, it starts alone, it ends alone, and the things that are going to make the most

difference in it have to be done alone. You can't, I think, but you can commiserate, and there's great value in community, and there's lots to be learned from the paths of others and it's also true at the end of the day each of us has on our own journey and each of us has to live our own path and you know it's makes it scary because you'd like to think, you know, that if I only find the right teacher, if only I get in the right group, you know, if I only get the right advice. I don't think it works that way. I'm as convinced as you're saying it with your humbleness. I'm equally saying the same thing. And I might say it differently. I might say that you have to earn insight and wisdom, and that can only come from

within. You can't read it from others. You can't absorb it from others. You might have a version of some sort of shell mark of it if you're around really switched on people because you start picking up their language and the way that they think about things. That's all great and wonderful. And the community that we're part of really does help shape who we are. But to go the true distance for your authentic self, you have to reveal it. It's already in there. You just got to get through the stuff to get to the truth of whatever is that for you. And then what I'm so interested in is how do we express that? And that's why I'm attracted to crafts, whatever the craft might be, the craft of parenting, the craft of business, entrepreneurship, certainly different variations in sports and the arts.

I feel like that's a way for us to express. And maybe if we're masterful from the inside out, we can express a living masterpiece. I agree and. Cool. It depends on the authenticity of the expression. Keep going. Yeah. You know, because in my book, the definition of authenticity is when myself or anyone, when I'm sharing what I believe and who I actually am, best I can tell.

As opposed to what I want you to believe and who I want you to think that I am. Right. And so a lot of expression, whether it's in any craft, sport or arts or anything else, and this is not to take any shot at anybody in particular, but just because I believe this partly because it's my own experience for a lot of years, it wasn't an authentic expression. It was who I wanted to be seen as. I'm not in my head a thousand percent. And who I wished I was. And so can a craft or, or, you know, a commitment or an expression be a path to self? Absolutely can. Is it more often than not? I think not. Oh, I agree. I think that in modern times, mastery of craft is substituted for high performance

and high performance is substituted for the need to look good and to get paid well. And that's falling right into the trap, you know? So the, but the reverse engineering is mastery of the inner experience. And then a lot of the parallel track is mastery of a craft to express whether that's words. Like, I think we would say that some of the most influential teachers of the world, and we can look at political leaders and or religious leaders, like they understood concepts and understood the inner experience and understood words to be able to articulate it. So mastery could be through words, it could be through, you know, physical form. Leonardo da Vinci did it that way, you know, so I don't know

without that inner, that inner engineering or inner awareness, it becomes relatively flat. It lacks the dimension and the tone and the fabric that something or something comes alive. And I think people can feel it in its presence or in its absence. You know what I was going to ask you? Yes. And you know what I was going to ask you is when you were, let's rewind if you could, and I kind of missed the moment, let's say two minutes ago, when you were describing, um, your view of the world, so to speak, the relationships and that you have to go, go the journey on your own. Where were you feeling it? Where was it coming from? Was it your head, your heart? You're like, where does, where does, yeah. Where do things come from for you?

The manufactured stuff comes out of my head. The heartfelt stuff for me is harder to get to. How close are you to that in this conversation? This is, uh, this is, this is what I believe. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, and I, I guess I also want to be careful to only say it in those terms. It's not a declaration of right or wrong, you know, but it's, it's my experience. And, and as a result, this is where I wrestle with this. You know, my dad was an incredibly quiet, humble guy. He would always say, you know, you're better off listening to others than you are talking. Because presumably if you're talking, hopefully you know what you're talking about, which means you're not learning anything.

So spend a lot more time listening, son, because you'll be adding. And so I say that only because there's this part of me that, and this is one of my current struggles actually, is taking the podium and saying with conviction what I believe. And if it is, whether it's advice or just words of offering others to consider my, one of my struggles is I I'm not comfortable doing it. You and me both. I want to ask if you're an introvert or extrovert, but a quick story is that it was a number of years ago.

I think it was like eight years ago I was writing a book and it was good. If I say so myself, like it was good because like the ideas that were coming out of the person I was writing it with, we were both like, like we knew, like you just know when something, when you're adding to a body of knowledge, like that hasn't been said in that way before. And could that be right? And so we kept writing things like many people on the world, many, many elite extreme athletes think this. And we could never pin ourselves down to say it works like, it absolutely works like this because there's no such thing. And the editor kept coming back to us on every draft saying, you have to say something. Be a stronger voice. You have to say something. I say, well, I am actually adding to it by saying, I don't know.

And I'm not sure how many people do know. So there's something refreshing about what you're saying to me. It's just circulating a breath of fresh air. Well, you know, the thing that falls short, I think, when we just, and I'll just speak for myself here, because you know, sort of shrinking from a bold claim is actually a disservice to the lessons of life. Say things, and this is me speaking to me, say things with confidence and conviction. You know, I do believe that it's worth spending time on self-awareness and learning about self. And then it's worth showing up authentically. And it's worth reaching out with an intention of building trust in a relationship. And I think that's worth as much time as anything else that anybody's doing.

I don't care what it is. And so, you know, I'm going to declare that. And I challenge someone to give me a more worthwhile use of their time or a better way to get to whatever it is that they do think is more important. And so a lot of the work I do now and a lot of what I believe is that that call to action is the best thing I can offer. And how do you do it? And, and what is it? What does it mean? You know, there's a lot of work, but damn, do it, do the work because it's worth it. It's probably better than what you're doing. It's really cool. So those are three parts, right? Um, let's see if I can paraphrase. The first part was like, understand who you are. ways that you, if you were to help somebody become better at learning about their inner experience or who they are, how would you help

them? First thing I'd say is be courageous. And the definition of courage is not mastery of or overcoming of fear. The definition of courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. So good. You know, when it comes time to say that I'm not who I wish I was or I need help because, yes, it's a journey we take alone, but I need the help and support and love of others. And I need some reinforcement along the way because this is hard and I don't want to. Maybe I can't do it alone. Have the courage to say that out loud and to face the monster under the bed. Shine your flashlight under the bed at the monster that says, yes, you might be seen as weak. Yes, you might be seen as needy. Yes, you're not the person that has the answers that is always the one that everyone should look up to for being more than whatever

they are. That's not you. Stand up and say it. And then growth. Now you're on on that edge, the better it's going to be. The more that you're going to learn, the better able I think we are to show up then in the second piece of the puzzle, which is the authenticity of it. If I know these things about myself, I also know some things that I do have confidence in and that I do believe and that I can offer. And along with all these things I don't know and aren't true and wish otherwise, I'm just going to show up with all that. It's a mess. I'm a mess. Life is a mess. You know, stop trying to pretend that it's not or that you figured it out or that if only other people could be like you, they could have what you have. Get rid of that.

It's just, it's not real. I love it. Yeah. Because, you know, just that thought helps to shape. Ah, yeah. You know, take a breath. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure glad I could take that sack of bricks off my shoulder. Right. Yeah. Right. I, my first, I don't know, 20, I'm 46, 45, 46, probably first 40 years. I, Oh my God, the need to, um, have it just right was exhausting. Yep. That was me. I was your age when my dad died. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. That'll, that'll shape you a little bit. It created pause that I never have had before. Yeah. And then, so the third would be the third part, which is extending to, for other people.

Trust, which is something that, um, can only be received after it's been offered. And so I have this analogy that has always been my favorite. If you think back to high school dancing in the gym, at the start of the dance, the boys are on one side, the girls are on the other, the music's playing. Somebody has to be the first to walk across the dance floor in front of everybody, fear of rejection, paralyzing them, break through that and ask for the dance. And five minutes later, everybody's dancing because everybody wants to dance. And I think everybody's afraid to walk alone across the dance floor and be the first to offer.

And I think that's how trust works. It has to be offered and not insincerely. In fact, that's the death of it, right? That's why this challenge of authenticity is so critical is I've got to not just go over the other side of the dance floor, but I have to do it and show up with all of my shortcomings and imperfections and in plain view and ask anyway. And who knows, I may get turned down once or twice or 100 times. And do we have in us the fortitude to continue to show up like that? And I think that if it is comfort, the comfort I take is everybody wants to dance. And can we really develop the inner resolve that I'm not going to make it my problem if she says no.

I can say that. Who needs her? But can I walk it? Or am I just talking it? Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that

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for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. If you are a CEO, a CEO of a startup, and you're right in that beginning phase where you've gone from 10 people to 20 people, somewhere in that range, and you've got a nice little future trajectory, but there's not great stability yet. Is this how you would lead? Would you suggest people to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to work on the authentic place, which only comes from right on the radical edge of instability, internal instability. And then, um, and then remind people that we all want to dance. And so take a shot, take some risks. Is this how you would lead? I'd tell you a short story in junipers evolution, as we went through the internet crash, just after 2001, thereabouts.

What was the scale of your business at that point? It was a billion and a half dollars, a couple thousand people. Okay. And we had to lay off about 10% of our workforce at a time when they weren't likely to get another job. And we had to get rid of 200 people that were mostly friends and people that had helped build the company. And we had a meeting with the company that had a meeting that day. And I said, we've had to let go 200 of those of us who helped to build this company today into a world of uncertainty. And it's the worst day in our company's history. And I feel awful. And to make the story short, in years to come, as well as immediately after. People said it was probably the best

company meeting that we'd ever had because it was just raw truth. It wasn't a rah-rah, you know, the archetype of the, you know, the ship captain in the storm who stares straight ahead and tells everybody there's nothing to worry about, that's old, dead ways in my view. And so whether it's 20 people or 2,000 or more, stand up and say what's true and say what you really believe and say how you really feel because people know it anyway. And the worst thing you can do is withhold that because, you know, Gladwell always talked about this, the thin slice. We all take a thin slice when we're in an interaction with somebody, not even consciously sometimes. Is this story real? Or am I just being sold something? And if it's the latter, I'm leaning back, I'm out. And you've lost your way and you've lost the way of the people that are relying on you to tell them the truth.

Did you tell them? Okay, so the fearless leader is now scared. Did you tell them you were scared? Yeah. I said, well, I can't read language exactly, but yeah, I said, I'm worried for the people that are affected because I don't know where they're going to go to find another job. All of us have to be on the lookout for any situation for a company that needs any of these people, because this isn't going to be easy for them to just rebound from in these times and go get another job. They need us to help them like they've helped us. Yeah. Okay. And then tactically, how did you fire people? Were they the bottom earners or if the bottom earners had a family of six, would you keep them? Like,

how did you make that decision? And I don't want to force you into it, just like, maybe it wasn't bottom earners, maybe it was some other metric that you used. That's one of the really harsh challenges of leadership is your primary responsibility is to the people in the boat. And if there are people that have to leave the boat and be on their own in the water, I guess, or however you'd want to carry the analogy, you can't prioritize the ones that are going overboard or you do a greater disservice to the ones in the boat. And so it's brutal, but it can't be driven by how hard it's going to be for that person, in my opinion. Now, people tried a lot of different things, cutting everybody's salary to keep more people and things like that.

So there'll be a lot of schools of thought on tactics for the situation. But if you're really forced in the proverbial lifeboat to throw somebody overboard, I think it has to be done for the benefit of the best interest of the people left in the boat. Otherwise, you shouldn't be the leader. If you don't have the fortitude to do that, then step down and let somebody else do it or you're going to kill more people. Wow. That perspective only comes from being there so thank you how has being a chairman changed your view of the world and how you understand the global rhythms of the world you went from startup to ceo i don't know if you're always ceo or not but you were

a founder is that right i joined a team engineers. There was about a dozen of them when I started. And I've always been the chairman since I joined. And I was the CEO for 12 years and have continued to be the chairman for now 22 or three. It's a very different job than being the one in the trenches every day. You know, and I think there's two kinds of people in the world. There's operators and advisors. I'm not a great advisor because my advice is don't listen to anybody else's advice. The best thing you should do is what you think you should do. And if other people have perspectives, you can synthesize those to the best of your abilities and process them as you choose. But ultimately, whatever you do, don't do what I say.

Do what you think and what you can own and what you believe in your heart serves the mission. By definition, that's what you ought to do. Because most of success is not about making the right decision. It's about making the decision right once made. And so there's no magic behind, you know, the grand prize of door number one or the booby prize of door number two. It's kind of like, you know, to borrow the sports analogy, if you're going to commit, if your decision is we're going to run the ball,

then go get big linemen and a quick back. If you're going to throw the ball, then go get big linemen and a quick back. If you're going to throw the ball, then get a left tackle and get a guy with a strong arm. There's not a right or wrong answer. You just have to make the decision that you choose right once made. Where did you come up with that phrase? Were you taught that or is that something that you've contemplated? I love it. I just boiled down the words to the essence of

making it as simple as possible to communicate. Cause I've said it, I don't even know how many times and it's the simplest way to say it. Yeah. It's really good. What challenges you most as a man and then as a businessman and then now as a, I don't know if it's, I don't know if what you're doing here at multiversity is philanthropy or not, but I don't, it doesn't quite feel that way, but it's close. But as a business, as a man, as a businessman and fill in the blanks for where we're going next. And to do what I really do or what people will expect. And we are taught and supported and rewarded to live in a three-dimensional world. But what about the larger world? You know, what if I want to do something that might not be blessed or approved? Or what if I want a bigger life? The five-dimensional world, it gets called sometimes, that isn't conformed to what you

should. I hate that word. If there was a word I could X out of the dictionary, it would be should. Yeah. Psychologists are not funny, but they say, stop shooting on yourself. It smells. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not funny, but yeah. It's just nothing good happens when you do it. Yeah. It leaves a residue of not being good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess to answer your question, the current struggle of mine is really being and doing what I want to do and finding out in the process who I really am. And in doing that, being willing to not show up in the way I'm expected to for others. God, I love that. Do you know John Donahoe? Yeah.

Yeah. I figured you would. Former CEO of PayPal and eBay. And eBay, yeah. And he said almost the same exact thing. Different words and language. When I asked him what's the hardest thing for him. Now, these are big firms. That's a significant shaker in the world of digital. And he said, you know,

I'm in a phase right now. He was on the podcast. I'm in a phase right now where people are expecting me to go be a CEO of another large, successful corporation. He goes, maybe I want to do photography next. I don't know. And so it's that other expect others expectations that can keep us pigeonholed or stuck in a lane or a groove that maybe isn't exactly where we want to go. So I love that. Yeah. It's, uh, sometimes I call it the cocktail party curse. It's my least favorite question in the world. You know which question that is, right? What do you do?

So what are you up to lately? What are you doing now? And even worse if it comes from somebody who knows you or knows what you have done. And your answer is, well, I'm on a deep inner journey to try and discover who I am. And they look over your right shoulder. That's right. Okay. Who else is here?

Who else is at this party? And so the easy thing is to stop going to cocktail parties. I'm not going to go get that question asked. I'll just stay home. What question do you ask people when you first see them or first meet them? I never really thought about that, actually. I read parts of it. I didn't read the whole thing, but I read parts of Option B.

I don't know if you've read it. I didn't read it, but I'm familiar with the book. One of that was Sheryl Sandberg wrote, and she was talking about grief and loss and losing her husband and the impossibility of the question that would be asked or people that would just shy away because they didn't know what to say. But if they did, they'd say, when they'd meet her and see her, they'd say, how are you? She said, well, you know, I've lost my husband and I don't know how I'm going to raise my children. And I haven't left the house for three weeks. I'm awful. And what she learned out of that when she found herself in the position of being the questioner was the question you could ask was, how are you doing today? What about now? And so I don't know that that makes some of that.

Maybe that's a heavy cocktail question. But it's the one I'm most interested in. If I was just free to ask and actually have a substantive conversation. You know, you asked me or you mentioned earlier this question of are you an introvert or an extrovert? And, you know, they say introverts get their energy being by themselves and extroverts have to go out and be around other people to get their energy. And I've, I can't fit myself into that box exactly. Because I, I'm an introvert who enjoys getting energy from other people who care. So to me, if I die and end up in the wrong end of things, it'll be, I'll be in cocktail parties, hell for eternity. A bunch of meaningless questions from people that

don't care and aren't really listening to the answer is hell on earth. You know, this world-class skateboarder rodney mullen is his name and i grew up watching him skate like he grew up in the same area that i did and he was uh tip of the arrow when it came to skateboarding and i so i met him like 25 years later at a conference not a conference at a small gathering with like i I don't know, 20 or 30 professionals. And I was like, that's Rodney Mullen. Like there he is. And what's up Rodney. And so he, he walked over and he says to me, we didn't know each other. And so it was just kind of an introduction that was taking place. And he says, so what's the most interesting way that you've spent your time this week? I was like, yeah, and I looked at him, I

said, I don't know. I got, I got to really think about maybe right now. Yeah. It was awesome. So I think that maybe he's, he's pretty introverted, man. Maybe you guys would enjoy knowing each other, make that connection for you. But wouldn't you like, you know, I'd like to know if you were to look for a simple question, how are you really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, the mechanics of it is that we don't have time to hear it unless we create enough time to have a meaningful relationship.

But most of the time it's like, Hey, how you doing? Good. Oh, good. How you doing? Oh, good. Yeah. Family. Good.

Yeah. Great. But not great. Yeah. Everything's great. You know, Instagram creates a highlight reel for everything. So instead of like, how are you really doing? Yeah. And I'm, I'm guilty of that when asked, you know, I, I skip over the real answer cause I don't feel like getting into it. And so, you know, I'm far

from sitting here. I'm throwing stones from my glass house. And I don't know, is that because I don't feel like getting into it or because I think the other person doesn't really want to hear it? And who's going to walk across the dance floor first and really trust having a conversation? And either I want to try and be that person or I want to be around that person. Well, you've certainly created a place for it. Is the full title here called 1440 Multiversity? Multiversity, yep. So it's not Multiversity, it's 1440 Multiversity? Correct.

Okay, so 1440, obviously the number of minutes in a day. Yep. And then Multiversity, it sounds like it's two words put together, university and something. It's got a lot of different meanings to us. Okay, cool. University is sort of one-dimensional, and a multiversity is a place to come and explore the multiple dimensions of yourself. And that includes not just the intellectual or maybe the physical education we got in our traditional schooling, but the emotional, relational, social rest of self that makes up the whole self. So one way we use multiversity is an invitation to inqu the fact that there's, in many ways, we talked about

relationship or about building trust or learning self-awareness, but there's multiple doors into that room. Usually, to your point earlier, motivated by pain, loss, whether that's death, divorce, difficulties and challenges with yourself or your work life or your personal life or your children or whatever. We all have struggles and usually that's what motivates action. It'd be nice to think it wasn't true. Yeah. But I think it is.

I know. I wish it wasn't that way too. And then I soften it with this thought a little bit. I'd like to hear your take on it is that we all have different levels and thresholds of pain. If you and I are going to go run a marathon and we'll use me as the kind of the early pain adopters that maybe I feel like my sock is just a little bit off and I might get a blister because I've heard other people got blisters and I stop and

I adjust my stock too early in the race and it ends up costing me a lot. But I finished the race without a blister. Like too low of a threshold of pain is problematic to be able to go the distance. And then some people get the end of the marathon, their feet are bleeding. And because their sock was not put on properly and they get to the end and it's a bloody mess and they say, wow, that really hurts. But then the next start of the next race, they don't adjust their sock properly. Right. I mean, that's the definition of like insanity or addiction or whatever. So I, for me, it's not always like the amount of pain isn't important. It's the perception of pain and then the willingness to do something constructive or productive around it is important. So certainly loss of a loved one would do that, but not necessarily as I think I hinted at earlier as well.

I mean, we can lose lots and not change a damn thing. I lost, there were people in my life that passed well before my 45th year when I lost my dad. And I just put those in a box and figured out a way to insulate myself from any deep affection by any of that. And just continued along my way until I couldn't. And then that led you to 1440 Multiversity, eventually. It did. Can you describe that for us? The path was really, the first thing I did after losing him was to figure out, kind of throw myself back into work best

I could. But the thing that I was still carrying around was what matters. And it wasn't the next widget or the next quarterly earnings call or the next dollar. It was people matter and leadership matters and developing people to lead matters. And how do you do that? Well, I got told some things that stick with me today. One is nobody cares what you know until they know that you care. And nobody cares what you know until they know who you are. And so if you're going to lead or teach leaders or exemplify leadership in a way that I think is worth it. You have to show up as who you are and care.

And that gets into all the things we were talking about, the vulnerability and the self-awareness and so forth. And that became my initial, that was the door I went through. Did you realize that people don't know you because you didn't maybe know yourself or that they weren't listening because you really didn't care? I cared and I've always cared, I think. I'm better at that part. But who I was was safely locked in a box. Prison of my own design, I say sometimes. And then what kind of grew out of that was actually, it's all about relationship and showing up with courage, with vulnerability,

with skills to actually listen and listen for understanding and not just for counterpoint. Empathy, compassion, some of this has been reduced to very teachable skills by lots of people that have thought about it a lot longer than I did or have. But this pursuit of really rich, meaningful, deep relationship is actually, it's certainly a great thing for a leader of a corporate team, but it's equally valuable for a doctor trying to heal a patient or a teacher trying to teach a student or a parent trying to parent a, and so on. So what has become the passion for me is that this pursuit of being really deeply aware of self, being courageous enough to show up as fully oneself, the big part I still wrestle with, and being willing to walk across the dance floor, all to that work for whatever the outcomes are. And so how many square feet of building space are we talking about that's spread out over how many acres?

There's 75 acres of land here, and there's about 150,000 square feet of space between sleeping rooms and classrooms and, and dining and coffee shops and everything. And as we're looking out the window from one of your offices here that it looking right at some redwoods and is, I mean, it's beautifully situated. Um, where are we? It's not San Francisco. It's not what's Sunnyvale.'re just outside of santa cruz yeah uh on the coast we're about six miles off the coast of of the ocean here and we're you know i just got off the fruit off the airport so i don't know exactly where we are yeah yeah i didn't know you were that close to the ocean yeah we're right better we're and these are all coastal redwoods that you're looking at so there's a redwood forest that surrounds the whole property with redwoods as old as the oldest we have here is about 1200 years. And the whole campus here sits

nestled in combination of redwood forest on one end of the campus and oak trees and another forest that sits on the other side of it. And there's about four miles of walking trails. It is gorgeous. You know, the tour that you gave me earlier, it is gorgeous and it's a non-profit. That's right. So, um, meaning it's self-contained and it feeds itself back into the system, like for growth. Right. And so there's no money popping out to pay for debt on your new car. No, everything in 1440 is all within the confines of the foundation. So the proceeds from people who come and stay here and tuition paid to teachers and so forth that is part of 1440 either goes back into scholarships to help other people that can't afford to be here or grants made to organizations that are doing work that we believe in that pursues the mission here.

This is built around a vision. We call it, there's five words, really important words to us, compassionate communities leading generative lives. And compassion is naturally resident in all of us, but it's hidden sometimes, nevertheless there. Communities are places where what might not be possible alone becomes possible with the support of others, even though you still have to do it alone. And generative lives are lives that create more energy than they consume. And we've all had generative experiences when you work all day and all night and you sleep three hours and wake up with more energy the next day. It's that.

Got it. Yeah. And so. Yeah, very. Is that your mission? That's our statement. That's your statement. That's our vision statement. The thing we want to see in the world is compassionate communities full of leaders leading generative lives and creating more energy than they put into it for those and those that are around them. So the business model is for people that have

something to teach, right? There's a curriculum that they're working from that they would invite their, they would invite people to come for two days, three days, two weeks, whatever it might be. And those folks would stay and live here for that time. And they'd be fed here. They'd move here. They'd be educated here by that particular teacher. That's one half of the business model, which is exactly as you've described it. It's teachers with content and curriculum to offer and people who want to come and consume it and, and, um, learn from it and grow with it. Case example, before we get to the second half is, um, Jack Kornfield is here with X number,

a hundred students, and he's teaching. Is it one or two weeks, two weeks of training? He's here for one week and he's teaching 300 teachers. He and Tara Brock are here. Teaching them on the practice of meditation. On, yeah, meditation and training. So that those teachers are from 17 different countries, actually, so that they can take it all back out into their places and build their communities. So that's one. Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed are coming here in a few months. Krista Tippett is coming here with David White and some people in a conference beginning of next year.

Rob Bell was just here last weekend, did a great program. Sharon Salzberg is one of the great meditation teachers. Dan Siegel, who's a neuroscientist out of UCLA that's written a number of books on the brain and on the science of it, Richie Davidson, a whole bunch of people, all luminaries in their field that come here and offer their teachings to people that come and stay and immerse in the work. The other half of it, though, is what we're calling the 1440 experience, which isn't necessarily about a particular teacher. There's two ways, I think, at least two, but for the sake of simplifying it, two ways to be brought to the work of what's important in one's life.

One is through self-discovery and motivation. One is through teachers and their teachings and the attractiveness of coming to be a student. And that's the luminary part of it. But the other is, and like we said, driven by trauma, tragedy, loss, sadness, need, pain, whatever. But it's equally likely that someone just wants to come and get a little better, be a little more well somehow. You don't have to be sick to get well. No. And you might just want to come and thrive.

And so that could mean coming here for a healthy nutrition program or taking meditation or a yoga class. It could be walking. Is it a full-day program or would it be one of your in-house quote unquote experts? These would be in-house offerings. Yeah. So you come for two hours or? You could come for a day, come for the night, come for an afternoon, come in to our healing arts building, have a massage, come to a meal, listen to a talk from an author that night, go home at eight o'clock. You could be here five or six hours and

that's fine. That's plenty. You could come and stay for a couple of days and not have an agenda. You could journal on your own time, take one of the meditation or Tai Chi programs. We could coordinate a program, which we'll be doing around a sampler of offerings for meditation or yoga or kayaking in the ocean or mountain biking in the woods or hiking with a naturalist and learning about the redwood forest and coming back for healthy nutrition and rest. It's all these different combinations all kind of under this big headline called 1440 Experience, which doesn't require anyone to come and be in a program of a luminary. Got it. Yeah. Just come of your own motivation and of your own interest and let us help with

whatever your journey is and support it in any of the ways that, you know, that we might be able to do that. And you, you walk me through your teaching kitchen, right? So it's, uh, maybe 40 students could fit in there? Yeah, you can put about 40 people in there, and that'll be a place where teachers will be at the cooktop and the oven, and they'll be having a room full of students there that'll be learning how to do. Actually, a lot of what we do at our, we call kitchen table, which is our main dining facility here,

70-plus percent of what we do here is all plant-based, very little dairy, very little sugar. And yet if you cook as Kenny does, our chef here, with the right ingredients, it's some of the, we hear this from people, it's some of the best food and meals that they've had. And much of it is vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, not because it has to be for somebody that has to have that, but because you don't need to put all of that into fresh vegetables, farm-to-table offerings, and preparations that just celebrate the food that you're eating without trying to turn it into anything else. And you can have incredibly healthy meals that are as tasty as anything that, you know,

you can go have dressed up and delivered from a restaurant that you might think of more typically. So nutrition is one of the ways, one of the avenues towards healthy lifestyle and well-being that's obviously central, as you know. So it's a big part of what we offer. So what does it take to pull something like this together? And I'm thinking about economic terms. And you don't need to tell me exact dollars, but how does that happen? Is this your personal money? Did you go collect from your friends enough money to pull this together? Like, how did that happen?, is you got to be really naive at the start.

Otherwise, you probably talk yourself out of it. It's just such a monster, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, looking at what you've created is a massive undertaking. But as we got into it, the relationships that formed around it and the way too many, it's actually statistically impossible for it to be coincidence. The number of people that have come to our aid, the number of circumstances that have come together to make this possible, the relationships that have been formed around it and the contributions that have been made. It's just this organic emergent thing that, that is bigger than any of us. And we're all just, it's generative. We're just energized to be around it. And that's what we want it to be as an offering to anybody who comes here. You should leave here with more energy than you came with. If you do that,

we've succeeded. How many moments have you had or times have you had where you said you and your wife has said, what have we done? Like, is it too late to stop? Have you had any of those moments where the, you know, the buyer's remorse, the, the afterglow of regret, regret, have you had any of that? Yeah. Recently. Yeah. How'd you get through it? How'd you get through it? That's a good question. You know, um, for me, I, it, to, to get away from it, you know, to step away from it makes it worse. So if, if I'm in a real moment of doubt or uncertainty or fear, it's really what it is, I just have to lean into it and do more of it or stare at it closer. And it's not probably

the healthiest, frankly. You might learn faster and it might be easier to reflect and step back. And, you know, I still try and do my meditations, my journaling, all that stuff. But it doesn't do any good to go on vacation or get away from it. I just need to get closer to it until, you know, and it's part intention, part will, part just insistence that there must be an answer to whatever this is that we're afraid of. And there's a part of it that I think is, I'm not really a huge fan of this word, but it's real, which is faith. And to me, it's faith in the universe. So many things have happened here at times of desperate need and of shortfalls in what we thought and what we wanted to do and expected to work and all that, and then as it didn't, something came along that became the answer to that problem.

And after a while, you can't do that as many times as it's happened to us putting this together and, and, and ignore that. I like the question, which is like, what is the word that cuts to the center of what you understand most or a word that cuts the center of how that guides your life? Those are very different. It is the simplest word, which comes a little bit from the left brain, is authenticity. And the challenge of the moment is, for me now, is are you really living that or just saying that? You know, the call to action, the demand is be real without apology.

That's hard for me. Yeah, it's hard for me too. So I wish I had something to say. You know, I wish I knew how. It's like for me, one of the tests of whether you're on to something is when it's simple and hard. And so when it's simple to understand it means you probably get it and if it's really important it's probably really hard because that's how life works and so be real without apology which isn't something i thought about before you asked me the question at least in those words

meets that test for me yeah i, I think it certainly does. It's not hard to understand. No. And damn, it's hard to do. And then that leads me to mindfulness. Can you, super simple to understand, really challenging to do. I, you know, I hear some gurus say, it's not hard. I say, I do not live in your brain. Like I don't, my mind is so different than your mind then because it's fricking hard. And I've been practicing a long time and it, it, it hasn't gotten easier for me. And you've been practicing for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, something in that range. And, um, we were at a, um, I don't want to call it a retreat. We were at a training together, you and I, and I think that that was a sentiment for people in that room that is freaking hard.

Yeah. So what does your training look like? Insufficient. It's a mix of these daily, you know, I try and start every day with a meditation in the morning. Are you mechanical? Do you set a clock? Yeah. I use an insight timer on my phone.

It's simple. Yeah. And what do you normally set it for? 23 minutes. Why 23? It's 20 minutes of meditation and three minutes of coming out time. Okay.

To return to the world. Got it. Okay. It's actually kind of a habit that came from a teacher we've done some work with over the last few years. There's no magic to the number. And then that, for me, that has to be nourished with some deep commitment of time, extended immersion.

You know, I... What does does that mean about a year ago and it's kind of like you mean like going and doing like the retreat trainings to take a couple of days of of a lot of silence and a lot of reflection and meditation um i i did a program like that a little more than a year ago with the same teachers, with John Kabat-Zinn and his son Will, as you and I did. And it was over five days. And it was one of the more powerful times of my life. With 14-hour days of meditation? 6 a.m. to like 9 or 10 at night. I mean, when folks are just listening to that, they're thinking, I can't do six minutes.

What do you mean 14 hours? Yeah. When you throw yourself into it, you can do it. It's freaking hard. It is. In that 14 hours, I don't know if you remember that's to me what I found really powerful to experience. And it took some time getting into it over a few years to be willing to do that. So you have a daily consistent basis and then a few intensive immersion type experiences throughout your year.

Is it one or two? It's usually two or three if I can do that. Sometimes it's one or two. Depends on what's going on. And then in that 23 minutes, are you doing more single point or is it more contemplative where you're just seeing where you go without judgment? Well, at least John's, Kevin Sin's definition and many others of mindfulness is being in the present moment non-judgmentally. And if that's the one to hang on to as a definition, then it means that you can't do it right or wrong. As you know, you heard John say, and sometimes for me, it's more or less quiet. Sometimes it's more or less cluttered.

And it's in this paradox of, you know, trying to not trying not to try too hard to force an outcome. But as much as anything else, I think it's the rigor of the discipline of the practice. It's not, or at least my experience is, it's not the, you know, particular five minutes or 10 minutes or any one day. It's, you know, it's just showing up and being there. In many ways, it's the same with physical training. Packing your gym bag before you go to work is a significant contributor to actually getting to the gym. And then, so packing your gym bag before you go to work and then making the commitment to, instead of going home right after work to go straight to the gym, if that's

kind of a normal rhythm, just showing up and you get there and then you get on the treadmill or you lift some weights for, I don't know, six minutes and you're going to go with the remaining 56 minutes or 54 minutes for a good hour workout. Same type of thing here, right? Waking up and just, I love what John Kabat-Zinn said. He said in the morning, this is, uh, it's a favorite time for mine in the morning when you wake up your body, he says, just finish the job, wake up your mind, wake up your spirit. That's really good. Okay. All right. So let's see if we can close this out a little bit. What are the mental skills that have been significant and important in your life? You mentioned resiliency early. calm is one being able to call on calm and composure and to some degree it's not really a healthy thing it's just something i learned early on as a technique for resiliency was to compartmentalize. I'm going to put that in a box so that I can be completely clear-minded right now about whatever this thing is.

But if, so if I were to translate it into a healthier way of thinking about it, or to make it an intention, for me it's just been a thing that I did for survival. But it's still, I think, worth cultivating intentionally for a lot of uses is to be able to, you know, the biology of it is engaging your parasympathetic nervous system. You know, take a deep breath or a couple of them. But to be able to detach from the fight or flight, life is in the balance here when really it isn't, and just stay focused and composed. And again, I almost hate to say it because it's like easy words to say, you know, oh, sure. Be calm. Relax.

Why not? Why didn't I think of that? However, like anything and like everything, there's no magic. It's not necessarily easy, but the more you practice it, the easier it is. Can you think of a time when you weren't calm and you really wish that you had that skill a little better baked? You're probably going to have to go back 20 years. I will. It happens all the time, but I can tell you one that is to borrow an early story about it or an early condition was that was the guaranteed way to lose the argument with my mom.

Whoever could break the other's calm and get them to yell and scream. I've had that situation happen to me. I guess it's the circle of life. Parenting with the children and times where I've gotten so frustrated with whatever it was that I lost my temper. And those are some of the times i regret as much as anything during the journey of being a parent is you know losing my composure and saying things i wish i didn't say and hadn't said it's hard to get those back yeah yeah it's really hard a lot of work has to go into repairing it and so and I know

that even just hearing the tone in your voice describing it, that there was, I feel almost badly asking you to think about that, but at the same time, it's like, yup. Okay. Remember, calm is so significant in our ability to think clearly. And so, um, here's the tricky part of it though. I mean, think about some of the other things we've been talking about. Yep. Sure. That's great. Good.

Be composed. Don't say things you wish you hadn't said. But the paradox is at the same time, be real. Be authentic. So if don't say things you wish you hadn't said translates to become don't share how you really feel, then you've lost the battle, right? That's why this is so hard. Yeah, that is the tension between the two. Yeah. And so on the both end, are you pessimist or optimistic? Are you a pessimist or an optimist? I'm a recovering pessimist. So you are saying optimism is what you want to be more of? And I'm not so good at

sometimes. Why, why optimism for you? So if optimism is believing that something good is about to take place, why is that important for you? It's better than the alternative. When I, um, was 20 some years ago, deciding about becoming a CEO. When I look back on it, the reason I did it was because I didn't want to not do it. So living a life in pursuit of the resolution of double negatives is not, for me, not a great formula. Because? Because it's a life of fear, right? I being, I don't want to have something

bad happen is another way of saying I'm afraid of everything. And so, you know, I think the pessimist, or at least I'll say it in words that are familiar to me, if I assume the worst, then I won't be hurt by a bad surprise because I've already declared it. It seems like a safer place to live from, which is all crazy upside down, right? Because no one's better off living in fear. And that's part of the journey, part of the challenge, is if you're going to be real without apology, then you can't be afraid of fear. If you want to reach for the best possible life that you can live, then it can't be done in the shadow of fear about what might happen if it doesn't turn out well, or you're beaten before you start. Love it. Okay. Scott, thank you for sharing

your journey. Thank you for sharing your insights and some of the practices that you've trained your mind. And then it's leading us to almost the final question, which is how do you understand or define or think about the concept of mastery? I think about it in terms of mastery of self. And as we started to talk about earlier, it's very different than mastery of sport or craft. Because it's about being willing to show up naked, not armed, not clothed, not protected by what I wish was true or conforming to what I should do. But real mastery would be unapologetic, whole-life self whole life self with all the messiness and all of the quote unquote shortcomings that imperfections we all have showing up? It all comes down to courage. The courage to do that. Right. I can't, you know what? I just said last question,

but how about this? Like for you, what is success? How do you define success? How do I define success? I guess it's just another way of the word of using the words that we've used. It's showing up as we are and not needing. I suppose if there was a utopian definition of success, it would be living life without the need for the acceptance of others. If we could do that, any of us get as close to it as we can. I'm going to call that pretty successful.

Love it. I'm stoked that we had this conversation. So this is awesome. Yeah. I appreciate you. Fun to sit and talk with you. It was so good. So where can folks follow along with what you're doing? Like online? Um, I don't know if you have any social media. I think you've probably connected to LinkedIn or other sites. But how can we follow you and what you're doing? There's a little bit of that out there. I've not been a huge fan of all that being as old as I am. But 1440.org is the place to find out about multiversity.

And we're going to be standing up and saying a lot more about what we believe and inviting people to come and bring their gifts and be a part of all this. So all of that will be at 1440.org, including myself, but really the whole mission and purpose here is for everyone that has the energy and the interest to, to embrace the possibility. Love it. And for folks that are listening, you can also go over to iTunes and download minutes on mastery, which is pearls of wisdom, slices of gems. And so you can get those for three minutes or less pearls of wisdom. So you're going to be loaded with, I mean, the gold dust that you sprinkled on this conversation is great. So it's over there.

And then findingmastery.net. And then Michael Gervais, at Michael Gervais on Twitter and at Finding Mastery on Instagram. And Scott, again, thank you. Awesome, Michael. Loved it. Thank you. all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you we really appreciate you being part of this community and if you're enjoying the show the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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