Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Siri Co-Founder Adam Cheyer on Having a Vision, Approaching Insurmountable Challenges, and Authenticity

Episode Date: July 10, 2017

If you have an iPhone, you know Adam Cheyer's work. He was the Co-Founder of Siri, Inc.He's now the Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at Viv Labs.Their mission is to: Radically simplify the world by providing an intelligent interface for everything.He's also one of the founders of Sentient Technologies, which was founded in 2007 and has generated over $143 million in funding since its inception.In this conversation, we talked about having a vision for what you prioritize most (he has goals for his self, for the world, and financially). He thinks "at scale."For example, Change.org was inspired by his "for the world” goal.We talked about the inception of Siri, and where machine learning is headed next, and debated if it's good or bad for the future.We also discussed how he creates and approaches seemingly insurmountable challenges and achieves them.Oh -- and Adam is an author of 60 publications and 26 patents._________________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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of mastery. And this conversation is loaded. We're working to understand what they're searching for, how they understand the world, their craft, people, how they make sense of events, how they think about the future. And all of that is their psychological framework, which is really the basis for how they'll be able to approach difficult and challenging things. And then we also want to dig under the surface and be able to understand the mental skills that they've used to build and refine their craft along the way. 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.

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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. Now, this conversation is with Adam Shire. And if you have an iPhone or familiar with iPhones, you're familiar with Adam's work. He was the co-founder of Siri. And it was one of the first products that landed in cell phones that you could ask questions to the cell phone. Siri, tell me a joke.

Siri, what's the weather? Siri. And you can go on and on. And when we talk about this, there's a weather, Siri, and you can go on and on. And, you know, when we talk about this, there's a humility that Adam has about Siri. And there's also a really rich understanding that he knows that there is so much more that Siri and other products that involved AI can do. And that's what brings us to this conversation is he's also now the co-founder of Viv. And if you're not familiar with Viv, go check him out online. It's viv.ai. And the mission of the company is to radically

simplify the world by providing an intelligent interface for everything. Anytime you've got the words, the world and everything in a mission statement, it's obviously really big, but he understands how to work at scale. He's not just throwing those words around, series at scale. And when he thinks about how he organizes his life, he's got three verticals, goals for himself, goals for the world and financial goals. And so one of the ones for the world is change.org. He was a co-founder of change.org. Go check that out as well. So this company, Viv, is electric. It's scary. It's wonderful. It's amazing. We talk about the

complications that artificial intelligence has. And is it good for our future? Is it not so good? And he's so incredibly articulate. He's right at the pulse and at the center of what machine learning and artificial intelligence is about. So his point of view is really clear. Now, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. And it's loaded. There's pearls and wisdoms and gems that are sprinkled throughout this. So we've also created another podcast called Minutes on Mastery, where we take pearls and gems, the really rich stuff, and we just sliced them into two to three minute insights. So check out on iTunes, Minutes on Mastery, if you're looking for more of this stuff that it's more snackable, if you will. Okay, so this is a joy of a conversation. Let's

jump right into it with Adam. Adam, how are you? I'm great. How are you, Mike? Yeah, I'm fantastic. Thank you for spending time out of your, I don't know if you're busy or not, but influential days that you spend. So I'm honored to have this conversation with you about your journey and as well as what you've come to understand from artificial intelligence and the challenges that the technology has and the gifts it also has for the world. And maybe some of the dark side, if we can get to there. Sure, whatever you like. Yeah, cool.

Okay, so if the assumption is right, and I'll say it, you don't have to say it, that you're one of the tastemakers for artificial intelligence. Like you really have influenced the field through your first product, Siri, and everything that spun from Siri. And I want to understand what it was like early for you as we begin to build this inside of your story that has allowed you to become one of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. So we could go way back. You tell me when to stop.

But what was it like early for you to paint the picture of the man you are now? I guess I would start pretty early, maybe 10 or 11. And I was really interested in magic at that time, like lots of 10-year-olds are. And I think actually that fascination and wonder with the impossible and how the world works and what's possible and what's not possible. And can you get around what you think is impossible by devising a trick or a secret, or can you bend the laws of physics, so to speak, through your brain? I think that led into a lot of what I do. Okay. So 10 years old, a little kid

interested in magic and some kids watch magic and they suspend their belief system and like, wow, some are more skeptical and they're trying to figure it out. And, and then you said, I want to actually do it and I want to take it further. So did you play with magic? Oh yeah. So I, you know, I get into things pretty heavily at that time. I only did it for a couple of years. But, you know, I read every book, I started performing, I would go get cardboard boxes from the, you know, a department store and build illusions out of them and stuff my little brother into them, whatever it took. But, you know, my mom was never one to buy me things. I'd one hour of TV a week, and that one hour I'd get a few commercials. I'd say, oh, could I have that? Could you buy me that?

She'd say, no, here's some cardboard and tape. Go make it. Okay. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, West Coast. And what kind of town was that? It's a nice suburban, fairly diverse religiously town. It has a beautiful lake. It used to be kind of a – 200 years ago when the country was formed, the founding fathers would go to Sharon to have their summer vacation basically. Okay. So there's history to that part of the world, for sure. Okay.

Paul Revere built the bridge behind our house and Bell and the church in the center of our town, things of that sort. How did that shape you? I think, like I said, it was a small town. It was just not a lot going on. So to have fun, you had to invent it. You had to imagine it and create it. And I think that imagination, I didn't have access to TV. Computers didn't exist.

It was books and your imagination, and that's about it. Do you have children? I have one son, 16 years old now. 16. And how did you shape his beginning years with television? Did you do the same thing your parents did? We were not maybe as strict as my mom. Maybe that's a regret I have now.

I've always emphasized consumptive versus productive behavior. But I think like many of this generation today, there are iPhones and electronics and TV, and a lot of that comes... It's so easy to sit there and just consume what's being thrown at you. So I've tried to encourage the productive side. What's the productive side of TV or screens? Productive means producing something. So if you watch a movie, I think of it as consuming the media. Someone else has built it and you just sit and absorb it.

Productive is when you create your own movie and you get a camera and you build it, or you write a book rather than read a book, or you write a computer game rather than play a computer game. And so it's more active versus passive. That's just my phrasing. But one thing which is interesting, when he turned 13, we discovered the box of magic tricks that I had left dormant for 35 years. And so one thing we can actually do together is, you know, magic rekindled, and we can actually, you know, perform at kids' birthday parties or whatever. And it's a joy for me. And I think it's something that I can give to him to start creating and imagining and dreaming and performing and producing in a sense. So maybe that's something I've given him.

Very cool. Okay. And so he's in high school now? He is. Okay. All right. So let's go back. You had one sibling or more?

I had a younger brother, five years younger, and then a younger sister, five years younger than him. So you're the oldest? I'm the oldest. Okay. And what was your family structure like? You know, my mom stayed at home and up to a senior vice president in that company. He was in civil engineering and water treatment plants and a lot of environmental issues. Okay. Middle class? Yeah, I'd say middle or, you know, somewhat upper middle class, you know,

we were comfortable. So I spent some time in heavyweight boxing and it was really clear that the guard, if you will, the coaches and managers in heavyweight boxing, they had adopted the model that to create greatness or to create somebody who's a champion, it couldn't come from inspiration because it's too fricking hard to get in a ring with another grown person that's equally skilled and that's trying to hurt you. So it's inspiration or desperation. And they chose the desperation model. It was like apparent to them. Like you can't be great in this sport because unless you're desperate and you would be

a model of the inspiration, right? So it like, it wasn't hard for you and you took that baton that your parents had passed on to you, uh, that were running as fast as they could and they pass it on to you. And then you took it further. Does that seem as a fair assessment? Yes, I think that's right. And so how do you think about doing hard things? So I have, you know, when I got to college, there was a little bit of a transition. High school, you know, to college was hard. And soon I started taking graduate classes, which were hard. In undergrad? In undergrad, yes. Okay. And by the time I was, you know, a senior, junior, senior, I was taking all graduate classes. So at the end of the semester, I was faced with having, you know, I'd take six classes or so. Every single one would have a 25-page paper to write and or a computer program of substantial size or both. And I was a little bit of a procrastinator and I would be faced with this seemingly insurmountable task. I have final exams, I have massive amounts of work, papers, I go, there's no way I'll make it through. And it seemed impossible. But at that time, and this has served me well, I would say, well,

one way or another, time keeps moving forward. So even though I'm just three weeks away, whatever happens in three weeks from now, I'll be on the other side. So it seems like it's a wall that I can't get through, but actually time is marching ahead and I will get to that point past that thing automatically. And that was helpful to me. And then I was like – So that thought created space for you. Yeah. Because what was hard, it almost made you seem paralyzed.

Like there's no way I can do this thing. You could just freeze and say, it's impossible. Time has stopped. I'm going to fail. I can't, I can't, and you could be stopped. But for me, somehow there was comfort in the fact that one way or another, I'm going to get to the other side. I might've failed, but three weeks, the clock keeps ticking. It'll get there. It seems impossible, but I'm going to end up on the other side. And that was comforting to me somehow. And then I would actually, you know, most people would say, where do I start? I started in a really odd place. So I had these six projects or papers or whatever. I actually started by not doing any of them.

And I would go to the computer hall. I would think up something that I was excited or passionate about that had nothing to do with any of the others. And I would work on that. But I would work on it. And you're like, you have exams. What are you doing writing a chess playing program when you have – or whatever. But I would get into this mode where I would get consumed with the thing that I was excited about and it would kind of get me started. I started living around the clock doing the thing that I love or was excited about. And then since I was like, I would eat,

I would sleep, and I would work on this thing that was amazing and awesome. And you knew you had this deadline. And I had this deadline and I had these six other projects and I would finish my thing, but now I was in it and I was working hard and then I would just transition over. And I was in and I had the habit of eating, sleeping, and being in the computer center working on this thing. And it was easy to transition over. And now I was working on the paper, working on the project for class. And I would literally, for three weeks, eat, sleep, and work. But I would kick it off by doing something that I loved.

And somehow that combination of knowing I'm going to get to the other side, but I would kick it off by doing something that I loved. And somehow that combination of knowing I'm going to get to the other side, maybe I'll fail, maybe I'll succeed, seems impossible. But then I would get started and I would get started with something that I loved and was easy for me to get started with. And then I would just like flip it over. And now I'm in the mode, I'm in the groove, I'm doing it. And then I would just roll through basically all work for the semester and I'd end up on the other side and I did fine. So you're using – that was an accident, right? Like you didn't purposely say, well, let me go do something fun to get me started. That's with some hindsight. That's the model. No, I don't know. I don't know where I got it from. I really don't. But that's the thing is I have to get started. And I did this every semester. This became how I got through school or when I was faced with something hard, an insurmountable problem,

I did that. And there was a lesson that I carried from that piece and applied many times in my life afterwards, is you can actually do way more than you think you can. And so it seems like if I were to say, what would I be able to do in three weeks' time? I'd go, oh, maybe two papers of 25 pages each with all the research. No way I could do six. No way. But actually, I ended up doing all six. And I look back once I got to the other side, I'm like, huh, if I had tried to estimate or imagine what I could do, I would have way undershot what I was capable of. And it was something that forever in my life, I would always, if I thought I could do two, I would take on six, commit to six, and then go, well, I'll probably fail. But then I'd kind of do my best.

And by doing my best on six, I would get far more than if I had done that for two. And did you learn that early? Or is that something you learned? It was this college thing, the shock of having to do so much work, what seemed to me so much work in college. How do I get through?

I didn't do this freshman year, and my grades kind of figured it out progressively that this is what worked for me. But when I came through the end, nothing ever felt hard. And I would challenge because, man, if I could get through that, and way more than I thought I could, nothing ever seemed hard. And then I would challenge myself. I would say, instead of, huh, here I'm supposed to do, I did my master's at UCLA several years later. And normally it's a two to three year program. I'm like, I don't want to take the time and I don't have the money to be out of state for three years. I just don't have the money. So I want to do it in nine months.

Nine months. No one's ever done it in nine months before, said UCLA. And the fastest ever was whatever, 18 months. And I said, can I, will you let me try? I said, sure. And then I took it on. I was taking way more classes. I did a master's thesis at the same time. I took on way more than was normal. And I go, somehow I'll figure a way through it. And I'll do my best and maybe I'll fail. But if I fail, I'll just do it in two. But I took it on, do more than I think I can. And I didn't worry about the failure. So sometimes people are afraid they might fail. And I'm like, no, there's no way I can succeed, I'm saying to myself. But I kind of believe I will because I can do more than I think I can. And that removes the charge. Yeah, there you go. So the thought was I can do more than I think I can. And that removes the charge. Yeah, there you go.

So the thought was I can do more than I think I can. So then I need, in order for that to be true, I need to build capacity or I need to push some limits, right? And the way that you would build your capacity is to bite off more than you think that you can do because it's based on the philosophical axiom that I can do more than I think. So I have to actually sign can do more than I think. So I have to actually sign

up for more than I think. And you would prime your experiences with fun and vibrance and like dopamine releases and some kind of way. And then that would actually create some pressure because you're now shortening or reducing the time to get that goal done. Okay. And then that pressure you would thrive under in some kind of way as well, because you're already primed with the good vibes, so to speak, serotonin, dopamine, all that good stuff. And then, uh, what you're able to do is create more space by saying, if I fail, well, I signed up for more than anyone thinks is possible anyways. So there's no cost to your ego, your identity, your self-esteem based on your model.

So do you have a big ego? You've had incredible success. I do and I don't. I think I have a belief in myself and a confidence that I can succeed and that I'm good ultimately. Where does confidence come from for you? It's a, so that's an interesting, an interesting question. I have a belief and, and it goes all the way back to my sort of philosophy of life.

And, you know, it goes like, why are we here and all of this type of thing. But generally, I'm an optimist. And I believe that life is a gift, that we don't know why we're here, but it's the most, that the time we have on this earth, however it happened, it's the most precious thing we have. And the cardinal sin, the most important cardinal sin is not to waste it. And I do believe, I'm not religious in any way, any typical way,

but I believe there's a path and that if the goal in life is to try to stay true to yourself, like what's really important and to isolate it and think about it and feel what do I need to be fulfilled during this phase of my life. And if I stay on my true path, I will be successful. Right. And a lot of times people stray or they don't think about it. They're not optimizing to stay true to what's important, really important.

But it comes from an optimism that if I can be true, I'll stay on the path of what's meant for me and it will be good. So I guess where does confidence come? Confidence comes from a belief that I will be successful somehow, that somehow in the universe it's meant for all of us to be successful. And our job is to figure out what is it we're meant to do now at this point or what's important to us to do. Okay, so brilliant. Is your philosophy about, no, I want to hear like in a sentence, because there's nothing you just said that I disagree with. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what are the best practices to help people find their authentic self? And then what are the best practices to help people push into their capacity? Okay. And so you're teaching me about how you push into capacity, that like your model's pretty clean. And then do you have a model or a practice or a way to figure out not only who you are, but what you're supposed to do with that who. Yeah. Right? Do you have a way that you... So here's how I think about it. So life is the most valuable thing. A successful life is like a book that you can be part author to in the universe,

whatever that is, authors, the rest. A book has chapters in it, and it has some continuity across. So for me, the perfect life is one where you, because you're a different person at different stages, you know, it's not one thing, but you want to have some themes that give you satisfaction that it's not, you know, there's a meaning, there's a purpose. I've been exploring something or interested in something over many of my chapters, and that gives a little bit of fulfillment. So the way it works for me is every time you're unhappy in life or you're coming up to what I call a chapter change, right? Maybe you're graduating. You know, my first one was I was graduating from undergraduate. Well, what do I do? Do I take this job?

It's a question, a decision. At each chapter, I can tell something's going to change or has to change because I'm frustrated in my job or just got married. There are these moments that something's going to change. What I do is I isolate the core emotion that I'm feeling. And I literally take the emotion and let it settle into my chest and feel it. And I feel it over days, months, to turn that emotion, that true emotion, into words that capture that emotion and are actionable. And that's what I call a verbally stated goal. So what does this mean? Every word is important and meaningful and feels true to that emotion. And then when you have it, a phrase, a goal, you then have to tell everyone you meet, this is what I'm doing, even if you have no idea how

you're going to do it. And I can tell you the story of my life when I graduated from college, when I, you know, at this point, this point, this point, my entire life story can be in these chapter headings. And I can tell you what was important to me at that time. And I would go out and I'm, you know, maybe I'm at a Christmas party or whatever. And so, hey, how's it going? What are you doing? Oh, I'm doing X. This is my verbally stated goal. And then you're like, I just told 100 people. I better get working on it. You get to back yourself into the corner a little bit. You commit yourself to it.

And then people start to help you. They say, oh, I know this guy who's doing this and that. So that two things, by stating a goal that's true, that captures the emotion, telling people about it. It gives commitment, real commitment that even though I have no idea how I'm going to accomplish it, I'm going to do it. And then people help. And it comes back to that truth of if I had that right core emotion, I will be successful even though it's a crazy goal I've probably taken on more than I can chew. But somehow I believe I will be successful. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous.

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It's been different at different times, so I'll give you a few of mine. When I graduated from college, I had all these job offer that paid well and that was in the place I wanted to be and this and that. But my grandfather could walk down the street and I had never been anywhere in my life, but he spoke seven languages and it was so worldly. And I wanted a bit of my grandfather in me. I wanted some of him. And that was the core emotion. And so I translated it into the goal, foreign perspective. So that was the phrase that I said. This is what I want, foreign perspective.

And this is like chapter five in your life. Chapter one. This is my first one because I only figured this out. My first creation of this approach was right when I was graduating. How do I choose which job or what do I do now? And that became a core goal. And so I didn't choose the job with the most money, didn't choose the job in the right place. but I chose the job that might get me to France where I could work. And I go, once I had a goal, there were all these opportunities, and it helped guide my choice. Like, what is important to me?

Is it the money? Is it the interest of the job? Or, no, I have this goal, foreign perspective. Let me try this one because that might get me what I'm seeking at this stage. I love it for so many reasons because words matter so much. They are a clear representation of thought. And what you've done is you said, I'm using feeling to help articulate the most important thought that's attached to it. And then I'm going to put that, I'm going to make sure that that's real for me and it's authentic.

And then I'm going to put that into my conversations with other people. Yes. And that's going to be how I'm going to build some sort of roadmap. I don't know where it's going yet, but as long as I stay true to those two words or these six words or whatever they are for you, then I'm on the right path. Yes. So this is how you've been the architect of a path of meaning. Yes. And I believe that somehow, because if I'm true, following my true path,

I will be successful somehow. And I'm the biggest skeptic in the world. Remember, I started out as a magician who won't believe anything. There's always a trick. Yeah, right. So I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in religion. I don't, you know, I'm a skeptic, but I believe in this somehow. And I know that I'm fooling myself in a way, like I'm going, oh, I'm just telling myself the story, but it works for me. So it's a cyclical belief system in a sense. And then I do it, I'm successful at this goal and I'm successful at that goal. And even though I'm like, maybe this is hokum, it works for me and I believe it. So there's both disbelief in it

and belief, but confidence that it will work out. Skeptic or optimist? I heard both of those for you. I'm both. I'm skeptical about most things in life. You know, if there's someone selling me something, I won't believe. You know, my wife is more of a believer than this. She'll see something, oh, maybe this is true. I'm like, it's not true.

Right? So I'm a skeptic. And I'm an optimist. I believe the best in people. I believe that good will happen in the world and should happen in the world. And I believe that I will be, have a, have a good life if I can stay true. And then how many chapters have you had? Uh, that's a good question. So they happen about, my average length is about four years, I'm finding. I started at 21 and I'm 50 now. So, you know, let's say 30, so maybe eight.

Yeah. And they've ranged from wanting to travel, obviously, far in perspective, to at one point I wanted to have a career. I thought that's what I needed to do, work for a company. And so one of them was, where could I work for 10 years and not get bored? Because I loved my job in France, but I wasn't learning anymore. And I'm like, you know, I thought that's what I needed to do, find the place. And I was trying to conceive of that. And it was, you know, it seems silly, but it was an important question as a young man, you know,

what do I want to do seriously? What's my career going to be? I love this Adam, because like we started the conversation about being a tastemaker and so often we're overwhelmed by what other people, what their taste is or their preferences and how something should look or ought to look. And then we're over-indexed on the world's point of view. And what you've done is you've spent time being mindful and aware of your own experience and then having the courage to carve that path. So early on in my life, I want to share something with you. I think you'll appreciate it. Maybe, maybe not. But when I was developing my philosophy, one of the things that was really clear to me is

that I had to have the courage to carve my own path. So guided by an inner spirit is what I would call, I think, the same process that you have. So how did I start it off? Be guided by your inner spirit and have the courage to carve that path with grace, excellence, and right fucking now. Like there's no time other than right now to do it. So the courage to listen and then the courage to have, you know, carve that path is really hard. And so, and then I wanted to do it in harmony with excellence and then do it now and again now and again now. And that guided me for probably 15 years. And then I have what I would call a version two of that. So it sounds like in some ways we have a very similar approach to how we've carved our own unique experiences.

Yeah, I think that captures it really pretty well. And it's about listening to what's important to you now. And how long does that take for you? Well, I usually know a change is coming because I'm unhappy. Agitated or unhappy. I'm unhappy or I have a need. So I'll give you a few other of these moments. One is I never needed money before in my life. But at one point I got married and I said, I'd like to have, you know, it's a goal, it's a feeling that I should be able to have the down payment for a house and the money to be able

to afford to have a child. So that, and that became like a need. And I looked at my salary, the job I was making and the house I was renting. And in Palo Alto, it was worth at the time, a million dollars. I'm like, where am I going to get a million dollars? I have $25,000 in the bank and I'm making $75,000 a year. I don't understand. And I don't even like the house I'm renting. Right. So how do I do that?

And to have a child, we needed some medical help. And that takes more money than I had, much more money than I had in savings. So for the first time, money was a goal. But precisely for the emotion was I want to provide – have a house and a child. So that was – so then the money was the extension of the authentic want or desire or need that you had. Right. And that was – tell me if I'm wrong here, because I've got this thought that the reason people change is because of pain.

And I don't, I would love to see if you'd ascribe or disagree, it doesn't matter. Like I would like to have that honest conversation, but it sounds to me, and I don't want to back into my own model, but I am, is that you had pain, awareness of that pain. Yeah, I had a need.

I wouldn't, in this case sometimes it is pain it can be frustration or here was for me in need but it was a core fundamental need right not about the money and and when I look back on my career like that moment so I loved my job but if you adopt and commit to this need as really important, I can look at my job and go, there's no way. It's not supporting that goal. And when an opportunity came along, which I would never have considered, when I evaluated this path or this path or this path, according to my verbally stated goals that I'm telling everyone all the time. I'm like, you know, this one leads me closer to that goal.

And one year, he said, how long does it take? So I got married, started to grow this feeling and need over maybe a year after being married, became like, man, I really should do this. Once I committed to it, one year to the day after, and I figured out how much money do I need in cash to have a down payment for a house? And I had a number. And so I figured it out for that. One year to the day, I had that number in cash after taxes, and I could put the down payment to my house. And my wife said, oh, you should have asked the universe for more. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not how it works. It has to be truthful in the core need. But it really was that fast. And that set me in,

it changed the vector of my life in a certain way. How do you, when, okay, authenticity and alignment, that's what I'm hearing. And then, so from, I've got this model that I work from, from, from clarity to conviction. Yes. And I love the word conviction. Me too. Oh, you do. Yeah. I like, love, I love that. Because once you know who you are or the principles that you stand for most, you'll do whatever it takes to be able to live authentically. Okay. So from clarity to conviction. And my challenge to want to understand from you is once you've got that clarity and then you go out into the world and you get some no's or doesn't work or people raise their eyebrow or whatever it is. And you're not gaining the thing, the traction that you hope that you would get.

And everyone's got plans. But what do you do when they don't go according to plan? Like how do you buffer yourself from swallowing or digesting or hearing the reality of the world? I can't, you know, I'm just confident. And so I do think, oh, that one wasn't the one. So when I look back, if I believe if I'm true, like there are a lot of decisions you make in life. And you never know, you know, could I should I have done the other thing, taking the other job or gone to the other path. But I really believe if I follow this process and I'm true to myself, there's no way

I can't succeed. And so often, like when I went to France, I didn't choose the job that was going to pay me the most money, salary, right? But I took the one that would lead me to France, but I ended up, it turned out, working on an expense account. I was out of the country, so I had $180 a day for food in Paris and for living. I was out of the country and didn't have to pay taxes on my salary. So even though I took the lower salary job, I looked back and go, my gosh, even from a financial perspective, this was the path. So many times if you follow the process, I just had this self-reflective kind of thing that, oh, man, it's always the right path. I love it. And I will get there. So any little bump, sometimes what seems like a failure, for me, if you have enough confidence, it just means that that little thing that you thought was so important wasn't.

It's just a temporary bump. And it can seem devastating. But when you look back, you go, oh, there's something better. Imagine a girlfriend. You break up with your girlfriend. Life seems like it's going to end. If you're confident, you break up with your girlfriend, life seems like it's going to end. If you're confident, you're like, well, that just wasn't the one. So it's that kind of thing. I think if you pursue with confidence,

life can't give you a failure. You just keep going and you go, that wasn't the one. When I hear you saying pursue with confidence, I'm actually hearing in my head with clarity. And I think that the three steps are connect, you've connected, then you have clarity, and then you live with some conviction. I think it's actually three that you've done. And then you have this, from that clarity, it seems like you have this perspective. And so the little bump is a little bump, even though it can feel big. And you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. There's a much grander thing that I'm pursuing.

So then how does that get us to you cooking up Siri? Yeah. So let me tell you about that chapter. So I was at a job. I had chosen the right path to get there. But after a little while, I grew and I had frustration. The two emotions were I was feeling frustrated that this wasn't going out anywhere to impact people. And I had all of these ideas that were being stifled. So I wanted to create and I wanted to get something that would matter, core emotions. So my verbally stated goal for 2007 was five projects that can impact users in 2007. Why five? Do more than you think you can,

right? There it comes back to you. And I would tell everyone I met, what are you doing? Hey, what's your up to? Oh, I'm doing five projects that can impact users in 2007. And then I'd be like, crap, I only have two ideas. I better get on to it, right? But so what I ended up doing, and this was from a business point, I built working prototypes of five different things that I was excited about. And then I could show them to people. I could get feedback on them and I could learn about them by getting in and building these prototypes. And then my verbally stated goal for 2008 was one major, one minor. So out of the five, pick two, the best two, make one my day job, make one my night job, and take them into the world and make them real.

And you're an engineer by trade. Yes. And so when you say you would build a prototype, it was a software prototype? Software prototype. Okay. So you're building a product. Mm-hmm. and you had two that you liked out of the gate. You came up with another three. You tested those out.

Well, I came up with five and learned about them and then chose two out of the five. Then you chose a major and a minor. Yes. And you would test those with people? Is that how you get feedback? Yes. During that first year on the five, I would show them to people. I'd go say, what do you think? I'd talk to people about them. I'd try them. And this was artificial intelligence-based products or something else?

Not all. So out of those five projects, three of them actually ended up as companies. So in a sense, my major was Siri. So I started it as a spin out. We raised $8.5 million, built a team to go build Siri. So that was my major. My minor was another artificial intelligence company called Sentient Technologies. They've now raised over $150 million. This is 10 years later, and they're doing amazing things helping the world. And then the third was change.org. So I had built a prototype. It's now the world's largest petition platform for

good with close to 200 million members and anytime you see something wrong in the world you can start a petition. You say, I want this organization or person to change this thing, and here's why. People click on it, and you get enough people clicking on it, things actually change in the world. So in a sense, it was the most prolific time, but my core was I want to impact and I want to create. I have ideas. And it just was an explosion of get this out on paper. And all three of them, 10 years later, you know, Siri is probably on half a billion devices or more. Change.org is, you know, helping hundreds of millions of people and Sentient is saving lives and doing important things in AI.

All of that came from one core emotion, one do more than you think you can, and then taking things forward for real in the form of companies. 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.

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And then how did you have the resources to build those five? Was that, and when I think of resources, build those five? Was that there's, and when I think of resources, I think of the creative resource. Okay. Got it. Because you were listening to yourself and from that, um, you were putting it into the world. And so you started, you kind of back in back ending the creative process for you based on your process. Okay. And then there's financial and then there's time and then there's people as resources. So what kind of resources did you have to create those five that turned to three? So I basically did them while I had a full-time job. So I was working at SRI International.

Stanford Research Institute. Stanford Research Institute, it used to be called. As my day job, I was leading one of the largest AI projects in U.S. history. It was a $250 million project over five years funded by DARPA. 400 people, and my job was kind of the VP engineering, deliver the system that would come out of this massive project. Was there an aim for that project? It was. It was about building cognitive software. So software that didn't know how to do anything in particular, but could learn on its own

with no code changes how to do anything. Was that the beginnings of machine learning? It had huge influence. It was the largest machine learning project ever in U.S. academic research history, funded a lot of people, and in a sense, it was kind of the mother of Siri. So you can think of Siri in some ways as a spin out of a little piece of that, but done the way I wanted to do it as opposed to this giant monolithic government run project. So I had some frustrations with that original project, but the goals and the ideas were right. And I said, how would I do it? That was one of my five projects. Although it was not funded, I did it on the side. You know, Siri was not directly funded by that project, for instance.

Did you need to, like, wrestle Siri from DARPA? Or was it really clear that you did it on off hours or whatever that protocol would be? In this case, Siri was an SRI spin-out. So that means I actually went and asked for some corporate dollars to develop it. And DARPA, the way SRI works is DARPA is using public money. SRI is a nonprofit, builds research software for the government that they can use for whatever they want, but they get to own commercial rights to it. SRI does. So that's, it's the Bay Dole Act of 1970 or something that sets it up that way. So SRI has the right to commercialize some of the research that it's done for the government.

And so with that, we took some of the patents and some of the software. It wasn't paid directly by this project, but some of the inspiration came from that project. But SRI gave money, and they helped us raise money through VCs. Okay, so essentially SRI was your partner? Yes, they were a partner, and they owned part of the company. The company. Okay. Whereas the other two were completely, so sentient and change.org were completely my own machine, my own time, had no connection to SRI at all. And I just did them as extra. And that was part of an arrangement that I had with my boss.

I was so frustrated and stifled. I said, I quit. And he goes, you can't quit. You're leading our most important project. And I said, okay, I will stay, but I need a little bit of latitude to have my own ideas on the side. Won't use machines or time from the company. And he said, great. Got it. Okay. And then can you talk about your model of influencing your product development or service development from people to people to people to machine and machine to machine? Can you walk us through that? So I mentioned that a good life, a rewarding life is many chapters as you change through who you are and what you need at different times, and some themes. And for me, my career themes form a triangle. And so what I say

is, what am I interested in? It's these three axes. One is human to machine. How can people interact with computers in a more natural and efficient way? So Siri is an example of that. Second is human to human. How can you harness the collective intelligence of the world? How can you get the entire world working together more efficiently to problem solve? And change.org is an example of that. And the third is machine to machine. If you could have millions of computers and pose to them at massive scale problems that no human could solve on their own, could machines solve those

problems? And that's really what Sentient was about. So I kind of formed these companies as along the axis of interest, but I've been doing projects throughout the decades. You know, Siri is one type of system, but I had my first version of Siri 17 years earlier than that in, you know, early 90s before I ever saw a web browser, I had a version of Siri where you could talk to services running on lots of computers. And I thought this was the way people would interact with remote computers. That whole document thing just completely passed me over in the beginning. And it's funny that now that we went through the web piece, the notion of an assistant, meaning as a better way to execute tasks, it's not by clicking on web pages and links and filling in forms. You just tell an assistant, this is what I want to do.

Help me do it. And it will go to all the right providers in the world and orchestrate that for you. I think it's now coming back. A lot of companies are spending, you know, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and now Samsung, we're all investing billions of dollars into this vision, which I had in early 90s. What a fun time for you. Oh, look, what a fun time. Now, tell me if this is naive, but I would imagine that Siri and other AI engines that people are familiar with is doing only 10% of what they can actually do. Is that a fair assumption or is Siri maxed out? And what are the other ones? What is Echo? Is it Echo?

Amazon is Echo. Amazon Echo. Or Alexa. Alexa. Okay. Who's doing Alexa? It's the same. The speaker is called Echo, but the assistant inside of the speaker is called Alexa. Alexa. So are they at 10%, 50%? Is it scary if we had these things really unleashed? Teach me about that sure so um so they're all assistants uh today they're they're kind of maxed out on today's or on yesterday's technology right they can all do about 30 things well they can set a timer they can you know send a. They can tell you a sports score, look up finance, and they can return a web result. But that's about it. They only know 30 or so things.

And why is it? It's because they've been programmed by one company. It's either Amazon or Google or an Apple. And they have lots of engineers, and they type in all of the things that the system can do and they write code and they hook it up to backend services. But even if they have a hundred people, there's only so much a hundred people can do. What I'm trying to do with Viv now- This is your new product. My newest company, which recently sold to Samsung. And so it'll be on-

Thank you. I get a second chance to take my ideas and software and distribute it to hundreds of millions of people. So this next generation set of assistants, the goal is to truly open them up to the world's developers. So think of it like a website. Any company can type in a lot of pages, but it was Wikipedia that knows, has a page for everything, so to speak, and is instantly updated by, you know, millions of people around the world on every subject, right? That's scale. It's a much bigger website than any website from one company. So what we're doing with Viv is we're going to create the world's greatest assistant as a showcase. We'll

be able to do things that no other assistant can do today, but a limited number of them. But we're going to release the tools and the, think of it like an app store, a marketplace where every developer in the world, every industry, every use case can be added into this assistant in a truly scalable way with the right business models and incentives. And if you have that, now you have an intelligent assistant who doesn't just know about sports scores and timers and messaging. It can know about use cases in every domain. So if somebody has a product, a biofeedback product or a biodata management product, they can hook into your AI frame, if you will, and develop a product just for them, but then other people can also use it.

Yes. And it'll be, think of the assistant as like the new browser or the new smartphone, right? It's really the smartphone, the iPhone is like a shell, right? And you can load in the knowledge you want, the apps, and then you can do all sorts of things. Well, what I want is a single assistant, one assistant, we'll call it Viv, that you can access from anywhere, any device. So maybe from my smartwatch, if I'm watching TV and the speaker in my kitchen while I'm driving in my car,

or if I'm in my web browser, I want to be able to say, Viv, can you do this for me or get me this or do this or take care of this complex task? And all the services of the world, so everyone with a website, everyone with a mobile app, their knowledge and capabilities will be part of Viv. And Viv can say, no problem. I'm going to go look up the, you know, you want the cheapest ticket to the place where your sister is getting married next month. Let me go check the calendar, find out where that is. Let me book the hotel, get you the flights.

And I'm going to do that by going to the websites. So Viv will take care of applying my preferences to get the data and services that are needed and to take care of it for me. So multimodal decision-making on the fly. Yes. And those multimodal decision-making may be based on preference or instructions that you would front-load or give to Viv in real time. Yes. It's like an assistant, a human assistant. They'll have to learn about you and what you like, and you'll give them direct, specific instructions. And over time, you can give them more general instructions because they know the specificity. What the movie was it machina no what was the x machina was one or there was her also that came out one was a mission like a computer that was she was started to date it

she started to date the computer is that her yeah i think that was the x machina that's x machina not an actual physical form but like yeah so are you going down that path? Like a love relationship? Are we taking it there as well? Well, I don't think so. I hope not. Let me just say, I believe in the old fashioned human to human side for the love story, not the human to machine or the machine to machine. Okay. So this fits on machine to machine and human to machine? So Viv is the first project I've ever done that will unite all three corners of the triangle. It's also human. Well, how is it human? Oh, because the hub.

It's the world's developer. So what is it? There's a human to machine assistant interface, like a Siri, but it's built by the developers of the world, like a Wikipedia or a collaborative, how do you harness the collective intelligence of the world's developers in this case. without me having to get in the middle and arbitrate between different providers and what's good and what's not. You need a lot of pure automated machine-to-machine learning or intelligence to kind of orchestrate it all and keep it going so that I don't have to be making any decisions personally or our team or our company. It needs to be a fair, balanced ecosystem that runs itself, Kind of like Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, anyone can modify every page. Why doesn't it just all fall apart into gunk with people destroying it and putting in falsehoods? They've set up the rules of the game such that quality is maintained. And we need to do that. But in this world, you need some machine learning

to help that along. And then do you have a timeframe? Like an optimistic window? It's not announced, but I can tell you what will be coming soon. I love that. And Viv is based on Vivian. Do you know a Vivian? I don't know a Vivian. So yeah, the meaning of names are kind of interesting. My son has had to live with me. All of my creations have names. So I have an Iris and a Kalo and a Siri and a Viv. So they all have kind of these human elements. So Viv comes from the Latin for life, and the idea is we're going to animate these kind of more inanimate services by adding conversational and all this assistant-like on top. So it really, it's kind of bringing to life the world's services and devices. What keeps you up at night about artificial intelligence?

What do you worry most about what's coming next? So there are a lot of famous people who have kind of signaled an alert that, boy, if AI progresses, it could become, it could surpass human intellectual capacity. And in certain very narrow domains, it already has. It can beat the world chess champion. Watson beat the world's Jeopardy playing programs. Go, all of these kind of pillars of intellectual achievement, like chess, are falling one after another. Even poker just happened in the last month, where you have to bluff and read expressions. But it doesn't keep me up at night. So people like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking and others say, well, maybe they'll become so smart, they'll take over.

That would be bad for humanity. Everyone I know who works in the field realizes while we're very good at having computers solve very narrow problems, we have almost no ability to let them generalize, to let them be flexible, to take something they've learned in one area and apply it to another area. The world's best chess computer can't play checkers worth a darn, right? And doesn't know how to apply the learnings, even though there's a lot of similarity, right? And so, you know, we believe, at least everyone I know in the field, feels like we haven't even seen the spark of life. You know, there's no notion of what consciousness means. There's no intelligence even at a level of a two-year-old in generality and flexibility. So I don't believe such a thing is going to ever

happen in my lifetime or maybe thousands of years. Is it possible? Yes. Is it worth thinking about? Kind of like, boy, there's probably extraterrestrials out there somewhere, given the number of galaxies and stars. And it's unlikely we're the only place where life started. Why would we be that special? So it's a real thing to think about. Because if we ever met an extraterrestrial, it would be bad for humanity. But it's not something that keeps me up at night because it's so remote. It's so long out there. I don't believe it's going to happen in my lifetime, my son's lifetime, or anyone. What are you searching for?

I think, as I said, my goal is to maximize the time I have on this planet. I'm always searching for, am I working on, you know, am I focused on the most important thing at this time for me? And if not, I need to change it because otherwise I'm wasting the most precious gift we have, which is the time on this earth. So I think that's what I'm doing. I'm really trying to make the most out of life, to do it by staying present to what's important, by developing the themes that interest me career-wise and family-wise and others over time. And I think that's kind of how I'm living my life. Do you have a spiritual framework that's part of that mechanism?

Not in a formal way. I like religion as, I like the good parts of the cultural sides of religion, having some rituals and get togethers and, you know, it makes commonness across humanity. I hate when religion divides people and is used as a negative, a divider. So I'm very skeptical life isn't random, but I don't really know much more than that. I don't believe in a thinking, conscious God who's guiding something. That seems too simple. So I don't know. It's this kind of, I have a belief, and I'm not quite sure in what, but that's enough for me.

And then I know we talked about your philosophy already, but is there, like, how would you finish the statement, my philosophy is? Hmm. I don't have a quick answer. I'd say my philosophy is seek the truth and make it come true. Something like that. Is there a word that cuts to the center of what you understand most? I don't know. A word. I don't think I can maybe believe in this. I have a framework. Yeah, you do. It's not really a word. It's a belief system or a way that guides me, and I think it's working well.

I'm so excited. I just turned 50 this year and I kind of believe I'll probably make it to 100, say. So I say that I've lived the first half of my life and it's been absolutely phenomenal so far, the best I could imagine. But now I get to start all over again and create life number two, so to speak. And I'm going to take the framework that I've lived much of my life by, and I can't wait to see what it creates next. But it's like a refresh. It's like I get to restart and re-dream it. I cannot wait to see which... I'm eagerly waiting for Viv. Yeah, thank you. Me too. Yeah, I bet you are. And I've got like one more question about AI, and then I've got a few quick hits for us, is that on the AI piece, there was a recent,

I think it was a murder or criminal act that one of the AI systems overheard in somebody's home. And I didn't realize that they're always on and listening. They're listening for your voice to give a command. And so it picked up a murder. And I'm like, what do you think of that? Should they release the tapes? Is that a privacy, a violation of privacy? I haven't heard about that. I could believe it.

Mostly the systems that pick up your voice, they are listening, but it doesn't go anywhere. It's not recorded. There are no tapes. There's no tape. So it's literally, if you say, hey Siri, it'll turn on or Alexa. And then you say, there's a wake word. And so they have a chip. That's only job is to listen for that wake word. And it listening listen But it's not storing it or sending it anywhere at least it should not in my I don't know of any product that sends it Somewhere okay now once you say hey Siri or Alexa Then it wakes up and now it's going to listen and process and send What you said after the wake word somewhere because it needs to go to a server to understand it and do it. I'm going to go find that link that I read and, um, you know, I'll,

I'll dig a little deeper with that model. So it's possible someone said the wake word or it was mistaken as a wake word. It started listening, sent whatever you said next as an accident. Um, so, but the perception that it's someone is always listening and recording to everything you say, that's not accurate. That's not accurate to my knowledge. Maybe NSA knows, but that is not good. Okay. That is not good. It should not be true. And it's not, uh, to my knowledge, any, you know, no company would do that. Okay. Cool. Street smart or analytical? This is you. Analytical.

Are you, do you make better decisions in fast paced environments or slower paced environments? I guess I would say slower. I mean, the most important decisions, as I said, are really global. What should I be doing now type decisions. And they grow. A feeling grows. Maybe I'll capture one word that's related. But it takes me time and work. It's work. but it takes me time and work. It's work.

I love that. To formulate the mission statement that's actionable, measurable, that's useful, but that captures the words. Which captures the feelings for you. The words capture the feeling and every word is meaningful. Like when I – if I tell you any of my statements like five projects that will impact users in 2007, you can't shorten it and every word is valuable. And I've spent time thinking about those words and each one resonates with some different part. And you can't – it captures the full commitment of what i'm going to do and i can tell you if i did i do five in 2007 or not did they impact users or not did i you know it's it's actionable measurable um and it captures that emotion frustration creation i love it okay are you a rule follower or a risk taker?

I'd say rule follower or more than a risk taker. If you could be the first person to go to Mars with a 50% chance of coming back? No. No interest. I believe you. Just a bunch of powder. What is your need for control? That's an interesting one. I'd say relatively, I'm mostly for good and for bad focused on myself. I don't want to be controlled by others. I want to listen to myself, follow my path, you know, have control over, you know, my, you know, I'm not going to let, I'm not going to be

passive and let, you know, be led into something I don't want to do or go, you know, down. I'm not going to take a job because someone offered it. I'm going to, I want to be in control of myself, but I don't need to be in control of others. Um, and I'm going to point away. I'm going to demonstrate. I'm going to tell you what I think. Like my son, very different from me. I can give examples, but it's not about control. It's about sending a message. And I try to point, I try to demonstrate, I try to create a vision and say, this is where I think we should go. But whether people follow me or not, that's their own decision. Are you self-critical or self-positive? I'd say self-positive. And under stress, do you still maintain optimism?

Yes. Do you have a tendency to be more anxious or depressed if there was one of the two? I'm not depressed. I mean, I'm pretty even keel with, you know, slightly towards the, you know, loving life and appreciating. I know how to appreciate every minute. And I fully, that was the first part of my lesson, which I learned earlier than the rest, how to just look around and say, this moment, I will never get back. And if I'm not, you know, this is a miracle to be here. I tell my wife 10 times a day how appreciative I am to have her in my life. I don't take, and we've been together

for 20 years. It's just, I know how to appreciate the moment. And I think that makes me happy most of the time, unless there's some, you know, frustration or. Have you done any sort of mindfulness or meditation as a way to practice the ability to be present? Or is this something that you've cultivated in different ways? I have not. So I remember being in high school, all of my friends were, I can't wait to get out of this hellhole and get to college. That's where it's going to be great. And a friend of mine was anxious and depressed, I think.

And I said, are you having fun? He's like, no, no, no, but I'm, you know. Later I will. Later, later. It's always better later. And I'm like, you're 17, man. This is the best time of your life. You will never, I mean, college will be great too, but wow, you will never get this moment back. And that's when by talking to my friend, I'm like, oh man. And so I really believe if you can appreciate every moment you have, you'll have a happy life because you're appreciating the whole way along. And there's up moments and down moments in a local way, but if it gets to a global not happy, you have an obligation to change it because you're wasting it.

Brilliant. High trust of others or low trust? Do I have high trust of others? I'm a skeptic and an optimist. I believe the good in people, but I'm skeptical of if they're selling me something or I'll be very skeptical. And then what do you hope the next generation gets right? Knowing what you know about artificial intelligence, building companies, you know, creating at scale, change.org, like, you know,

what do you hope that the next generation gets right? I guess it goes back to the consumptive versus productive, meaning don't just sit on your butt and consume, create whatever that producing, whether it's creating music or toys or artificial intelligence creations. I see a generation who, in my son's age, who are just watching a lot of screens being come at them. The news is coming at them in little bits. And I think it washes over them and they get a little peace, but they're not having to do that mindful creation work. And I hope that either it's not true or that they get it right and really take an active role in creating and producing things.

I want to know when's the last time you saw mastery in action. But first, I want to start with how do you articulate or think about the concept of mastery? And if you want to be so bold to take a stab at defining it, but how do you think about mastery? So I have mixed feelings about the word mastery. I love your title of finding mastery. So, you know, for me, mastery is achieving a certain level of skill, you know, a high level of skill. But it has a negative to me that, you know, like I have mastered the ability to eat with a fork. In the beginning, I didn't, right? It was hard. I had to actually think about the mechanics and figure out how to do it. But now that I've mastered that, I don't think about it anymore. I kind of coast. It's

like I'm on autopilot. I've mastered how to drive and drive along the highway with almost no cognitive load. So for me, the people who are peak at the top of their game, if you ask them, they would say they haven't mastered anything. And it's the finding mastery. If mastery is this still putting it out there and this unreachable goal, but you're doing more than you think you can, but you're heading towards it, it's the finding that's important. And once you achieve mastery, it's kind of disappointing because now you can do it in your sleep because you've mastered it. Whatever that you're so good at it, you don't have to work anymore. And so I guess for me,

mastery, mastery, the word as an ideal to head to find or to head towards or to want to achieve is a great thing. Like you want to get to your goal, I guess is how I would put it. But once you achieve it, it's kind of now, it's not all that you cut out to it. And now you can plateau. And so my said, well, go master something else, go find another goal to work on. I so appreciate what you just said, because the two words are really important. I think it's the, the find it's not, and it's not, it's not being a master or that's three words. It's not, it's not achieving mastery. No, it's, it's finding, it's finding it. And it's the process of becoming a mastery of self and mastery of craft it's that evolving process where we get

to explore the nuances of the understanding and the new nuances of the ability and i'll tell you what i like for me it's it's bottomless it's topless whatever whatever way you want to look at it and i love that i love i love how you just put the conflict of the stopping of mastery as opposed to the action of being able to continue it. So, you know, and then when's the last time you saw mastery? When's the last time I saw mastery? Or witnessed it? Maybe yourself or somebody? Well, last night. What was it?

You know, I'm a huge basketball fan. So when I think of mastery, one of the highest forms of skill is basketball. It's one of the, you know, it's the best athletes doing things that are nearly impossible. And, you know, a couple years ago, Stephen Curry of the Warriors was the MVP. And then he went over the summer and he came back so improved. He could have been the reigning MVP and most improved player, right? So he clearly didn't think he had achieved mastery. Somehow during the summer where he's traveling and doing this, was frustrated enough to work on his game more, even though he was named the best player in the league.

And then he won it again and was the first unanimous MVP. So last night, the Warriors' third quarter, they went on a 28-2 run. I don't think I've ever seen in my decades such cohesive mastery where an entire team was playing to near perfection for a span like that. So for me, that's an example of mastery. But I like that even the best don't think they have achieved it, I believe, because they're still working on their scheme. They're still hungry

to improve. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you for the thoughtfulness and sharing and authentic and true expression of who you are and where you've come from. So I'm grateful the time we've spent. Yeah. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Yeah, for sure. And then where can people find out more about what you're doing or what you're up to? Where's the place for us to follow along on your journey? I have a website, so you can go to adam.chayer.com, C-H-E-Y-E-R, C-H-E-Y-E-R. And it's nothing much, but, um, that's probably the best place to find me. Brilliant. So for everyone listening, thank you for your time. Uh, we are honored that you're paying attention to the path and the process of becoming. And if you want to follow along,

you can follow Adam on his website, adamcheyer.com. Adam.cheyer.com. And you can also go to change.org, follow along the change-making experiences and be part of that. And then keep your eye on Viv. Yeah, viv.ai.

Viv.ai, brilliant. And then also you can follow me on at michaelgervais. eye on Viv. Yeah, Viv.ai. Viv.ai, brilliant. And then also you can follow me on at MichaelGervais.com on Twitter. And then on Instagram is at Finding Mastery. Punch over to our website, FindingMastery.net. And then we have a community, Adam. Would you be open to answering a few questions if we post a few questions on that community? Sure, I would love to. Yeah, they're phenomenal.

It's like thousands of people that are supporting each other on this path of mastery and they ask hard questions. Yeah, that's how you learn, right? That's the people to people. It's, you know, that's lifting each other up. That's how to do it. It's amazing.

And I'm listening, like in the background of our conversation, I know that we've got this other app, or not app, what's it called? Podcast called Minutes on Mastery. And it's little bite-sized nuggets and pearls of wisdom. of our conversation, I know that we've got this other app or not app, what's it called? Podcast called Minutes on Mastery. And it's a little bite-sized nuggets and pearls of wisdom. They're just not in context, but they're pearls of wisdom. And you just dropped about 15 of them. So we're going to have lots of content there too. Great. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us

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