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This is a show about women.
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I mean, you do?
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Finally, a show about women that isn t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare.
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It s not hosted, not narrated.
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We re just dropping into a woman s world.
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I found out when my dad was gay when I was 10.
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We were in a convertible on the 405 freeway, listening to the B-52s.
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Looking back, I should have said, this is gay.
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This is already all gay.
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Listen to finally a show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Discover a new educational and interactive podcast, Stories for Kids by Lingokids.
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Our episodes are packed with fun activities.
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We went shape hunting around the block, and we found spheres and cubes on the street.
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Join Stories for Kids, the Lingokids podcast, inspiring you to learn while having fun.
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Listen to Stories for Kids on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Black Effect presents Family Therapy, and I m your host, Elliot Connick.
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Jay is the woman in this dynamic who is currently co-parenting two young boys with her former partner, David.
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David, he is a leader.
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He just don t want to leave me.
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But how do you lead a woman?
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How do you lead in a relationship?
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Like, what s the blue part?
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David, you just asked the most important question.
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Listen to Family Therapy on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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There s a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which is fantastic.
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I mean, we all want to be more present and self-aware, more patient, less judgmental.
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We discuss all these themes on the podcast, but it s hard to actually be mindful in your day-to-day life.
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That s where Calm comes in.
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I ve been working with Calm for a few years now with the goal of making mindfulness fun and easy.
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Calm has all sorts of content to help you build positive habits, shift your self-talk, reframe your negative thoughts, and generally feel better in your daily life.
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So many incredible options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world along with renowned meditation teachers.
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You can also check out my 7-minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day.
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Right now, listeners of On Purpose get 40% off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com forward slash J. That s C-A-L-M.com forward slash J-A-Y for 40% off.
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Calm your mind, change your life.
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Do you remember how stigmatized it was?
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No one talked about it.
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Could you imagine telling your boss you were struggling with your mental health?
0
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People did have so many misconceptions about meditation.
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They thought it was either religious or connected to the counterculture or sit for hours and hours in an uncomfortable position.
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And we just wanted to let people know that that is not true.
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You can literally start with one mindful
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Before we jump into this episode, I d like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed.
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The best-selling author and host.
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The number one health and wellness podcast.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier and more healed.
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Thank you so much for tuning in.
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It means the world to me that our community is growing every single day.
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It s amazing.
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So many of you are listening to multiple episodes a week, even more than the new ones that come out.
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And it honestly, honestly means the world to me.
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Thank you so much.
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Today s guest is a very special friend, someone that I ve known for five years now, maybe even a bit longer.
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We ve been in each other s orbit for longer than that for sure.
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And I can t believe we haven t had this conversation on the podcast before.
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So please join me in welcoming Michael Acton-Smith, the co-founder and co-executive chairman of Calm, the leading mental wellness brand with the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation.
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Calm has grown to over 150 million downloads and was Apple s 2017 App of the Year and is the world s first mental health unicorn.
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Michael is fascinated by neuroscience, flow states and mental fitness and is passionate about spreading meditation as a simple but valuable skill around the world.
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Please welcome to the show my friend and incredible human, Michael Acton-Smith.
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Michael, thank you so much for being here.
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So happy to be here.
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Thank you, Jay.
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I know, I can t believe it s taken this long.
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And we were both remembering, I think it was probably like seven years ago, six, seven years ago, where you had a lot of your friends and people in your community saying you had to meet me and I had everyone in my community saying I had to meet you.
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And then we had a lunch at my first apartment in LA in 2018.
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and we were just talking about that and it s so wonderful that I feel so grateful to be the Chief Purpose Officer at CALM and that came from the relationship we built up and I always say that to people when people see partnerships like this, I always say to people it actually came from just a partnership and a friendship behind the scenes with one person and it s evolved into this incredible thing.
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I love the CALM family and I m so grateful to be a part of it.
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Oh, well, the feeling is very mutual.
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You know, I think building a partnership that has foundations in friendship and years of getting to know each other, I think makes it much, much stronger.
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So your impact at Calm has been phenomenal.
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The Daily J is just brilliant.
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I would honestly say it s the content I m most proud of that I create because the team that I work with
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in order to curate and research and build what we do.
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We have so much fun.
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I want to give a big shout out to Ben, big shout out to Chris.
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You ve developed such a phenomenal team who s so conscious and thoughtful and innovative and creative and not scared to push the boundaries too.
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And it s an amazing balance to have that where everyone s so thoughtful yet so innovative.
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And I think that that s
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It s been amazing.
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I was just talking about last year I went to the Calm Retreat.
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I missed this year s, but I went last year and what I was really moved by is everyone who s part of your team has a calm story.
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So for everyone who doesn t know what I m talking about, I was doing a Q&A with David, the CEO on stage.
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And we were doing this Q&A and people would stand up and ask me questions, but they would share their calm story.
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And everyone who worked there had this really emotional, really powerful personal story of how calm has helped their family or their friends or them.
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And I was nearly in tears like a couple of times because some of those stories were really emotional.
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It s so meaningful to be in a company where, as you say, everyone has a story, a reason, a purpose for being there.
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It s so much more than a nine to five job.
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And you can feel that.
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And obviously you felt that when you came and when you re surrounded by hundreds of the calm team, it s very, very special.
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You were such a big hit.
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You know, a year on, people still talk about it.
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You were doing selfies and chatting long, long into the night, meeting every single person and listening to those stories.
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So thank you for that.
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No, of course.
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And Michael, I want to dive in now with you because, you know, what I think, what you ve done for the world through Calm is truly remarkable.
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Like I think it s, it s historic.
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It truly is.
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You know, I think it s really interesting because today technology has become the way to serve humanity and therefore we don t often think about cultural shifts in the same way because they re through technology.
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It almost feels a bit
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robotic or a bit more kind of organized.
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And so we don t realize just how powerful these things are because we see numbers, but we don t see the deep transformation.
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But calm has helped and transformed so many people s lives.
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When you set out to popularize meditation, did you ever imagine that it would have the impact it has today?
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No, no, it s been an extraordinary journey.
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Alex Chu and I set the company up a little over a decade ago, and we were living in Soho.
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You know Soho, London?
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Love Soho.
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Obviously, it s not the most calm place in the world.
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It s full of all the best restaurants and bars, incredible energy and passion.
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And we lived in a house, and we d play video games at night, talking about business and ideas.
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And I remember Alex saying to me, he d heard about this domain name that was available, calm.com.
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and we pressed pause and I was like wow say that again calm.com and I got goosebumps and just thought what an incredible word what an incredible brand we could potentially build we felt that the world could have been because we lived in Soho but we felt the world needed more calm and it was just getting more anxious more stress and so that was the the starting point and as I say it s been a one extraordinary journey
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How was that available?
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Well, it wasn t available at GoDaddy for $10, sadly.
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It was owned by a chap in Sheffield in England and it was offered to us for about a million pounds, I think, and both of us were like, no, that s a ludicrous amount of money.
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We could never afford that.
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And about a year later, he came back to us and we were able to get it for a much lower amount.
1
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still quite expensive.
1
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I was going to use the money to put a deposit down on a house.
1
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And we decided to buy a domain name with it instead, which my parents thought was a rather strange move.
1
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But we just thought there was magic in that word.
1
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And
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We felt Alex had been meditating for many, many years.
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He was a teenager who was very interested in consciousness and meditation and breath work.
1
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And so he was a little more into this than I was, and he brought me along.
1
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But I felt that we could build almost like the Nike of the mind.
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Could we take mental health, could we take meditation and mindfulness and simplify it?
1
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Make it more accessible Sprinkle in a little bit of magic and enjoy and bring it to billions of people Because these practices have been around for thousands of years pretty much every culture and religion has something similar But it wasn t clicking it wasn t resonating with society and there was so much unnecessary Suffering there was so many issues and we felt this could be a very very powerful area to explore So that was the the little acorn that calm blossomed into
1
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Yeah.
1
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Have you meditated today, Michael?
1
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Did you meditate this morning?
1
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You know what?
1
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I take some days I m not able to do the daily calm for 10 minutes and instead I take three mindful breaths before I leave the door.
1
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So that was what I did this morning.
1
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yeah that s beautiful no and it s i think that s what s really interesting about the way calm s approach meditation and i saw this obviously from an outside point of view until we we joined forces but when i was observing what calm was doing i was really really admiring it because i felt it took such a broad-minded view to meditation which i actually think meditation is as a practice so even though you re saying you ve simplified it and made it more accessible which i agree calm has i actually think that is
1
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how meditation should be and is in reality, when you even look thousands of years ago, it was far more easy and accessible.
1
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It wasn t this mystical thing.
1
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And it s almost like as things come into the modern world, when they re older, we just kind of put this tag on them as being vintage or mystical or unknown.
1
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But the truth is that it was a part of society.
1
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It was a part of the way kids were raised and what they were taught at school.
1
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And so what even gave you the perspective to say we feel that
1
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we re going to take this broad-minded view to meditation like you started with like sleep tales and stories and when I saw that I was like this is genius because so much meditation especially of the past in my tradition too from my monk time is storytelling like so many meditations are based on stories and I think that the modern day became about like being still and being silent and but you had this really broad-minded view how did that evolve and where did that come from?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, so there were two big step changes in the early days where we saw a big, big increase in usage and audience.
1
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The first was when we introduced the Daily Calm.
1
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Tamara was our first teacher.
1
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She was just phenomenal.
1
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She is so good.
1
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But before that, we just were encouraging people to meditate, listen to the same content every single day.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s hard.
1
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People are busy sitting down, and it just wasn t connecting with people.
1
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And the beauty of the daily calm is that it s different every day, and humans like variety.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they like storytelling, as you say, and Tamara would leave everyone with a beautiful quote.
1
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It would be memorable.
1
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People actually started, instead of thinking of it as a chore every morning, people would look forward to it.
1
SPEAKER_01
they talk about what they learned in the daily calm and they share it in the daily calm community and so these ripples started to grow so that was a big early shift and secondly the sleep stories you know we um we were looking at the the data and we realized that a lot of people were using Tamara s beautiful voice to fall asleep at night and we were like
1
SPEAKER_01
no no no that s not what that s not what you re supposed to do so we thought what if we could create stories we could take the bedtime story that s been around for forever sprinkle a little magic on it and create the sleep story and so people think oh they re boring tales they bore you to sleep but it s not like that at all there s a lovely curve of interest where you start in an engaging way your mind is probably whirring away with a lot of other things and you re intrigued about this story
1
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And then we mix in music and sound effects and the voice gently gets softer, the pacing between the words get longer until before you know it, you re fast asleep.
1
SPEAKER_01
And sleep has been such a big issue.
1
SPEAKER_01
So many people knock themselves out with alcohol or sleeping pills.
1
SPEAKER_01
And this is just a delightful, joyful, simple way of drifting off every night.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s now actually the biggest part of the app because meditation again is not straightforward.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everyone goes to sleep every night, 8 billion people.
1
SPEAKER_01
that s a pretty big market to look after.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s such an important part of our life to solve, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, I think, you know, the importance of sleep.
1
SPEAKER_00
When was it, when did you find that not only, of course, 8 billion people are going to sleep, but when did you find that, like, you looked at the studies on how important sleep is for our health and well-being?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, how early did you kind of realize that was an issue you wanted to solve?
1
SPEAKER_01
So Matthew Walker s book, Why We Sleep, came out a few years ago, and I think society had a big awakening, excuse the pun, at that point around sleep.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because before then, there was this view in society that, you know, I ll sleep when I m dead.
1
SPEAKER_01
The lack of sleep you got was almost a badge of honor in the workplace.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think very importantly, that has changed.
1
SPEAKER_01
People get it now.
1
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it s not just part of your health and wellness, it s a foundation.
1
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So we were a little bit before Matthew Walker s book came out, we just felt a sense that there was something really, really key here.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then one of the big elevations there was bringing in talent and celebrities.
1
SPEAKER_01
For years we d been trying to get Hollywood interested in recording some content within Calm.
1
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We were knocking on doors and no one would answer and
1
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Eventually, Guy and Ashton from Sound Ventures, they were one of our early investors, they introduced us to Matthew McConaughey.
1
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And he used Calm for one of his charities in Texas.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we said, Matthew, would you record a sleep story for us?
1
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And he said, sure thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Great voice.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, he s got such a good voice.
1
SPEAKER_01
Very, very popular.
1
SPEAKER_01
So some of the earliest talent we had on the app was Anna Acton, my sister, Stephen Fry, Jerome Flynn from Game of Thrones.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the talent coming onto Calm suddenly made this practice and talking about your mental health and meditating and mindfulness, it popularized it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It made it almost cool.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so that really helped the growth accelerate dramatically.
1
SPEAKER_00
No it s fantastic and again I was watching all of that from the sidelines at the time and just thinking how genius it was because to me as well it was making meditation accessible and relevant as we ve already said but it was putting it into a language and a voice that people could understand, could relate to, could connect to, could see as entertainment almost
1
SPEAKER_01
Entertainment is a really good example.
1
SPEAKER_01
It seems strange to talk about this beautiful ancient practice as entertainment.
1
SPEAKER_01
And mental health is a very serious subject.
1
SPEAKER_01
But as we know, if you want to connect with people, if you want to get their attention, make something joyful, make something entertaining.
1
SPEAKER_01
The fastest way to connect with another human being is through a smile.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so we thought, could we not take ourselves too seriously?
1
SPEAKER_01
Could we have a little bit of fun with this?
1
SPEAKER_01
And we did.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so several examples over the last few years, you know, we have a brilliant person working with our PR team, Peter, who came up with the idea of creating Baba Land around the time of La La Land, the film.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he said, what if we created a movie eight hours long of sheep grazing in a field?
1
SPEAKER_01
and it was very calming and peaceful and we did our premiere with red carpet in London and had sheep walk down and we got so much publicity and attention for it, people loved it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Then when GDPR came out, do you remember the legislation?
1
SPEAKER_01
Very very serious and dare I say a little bit boring, we got someone to read it as a sleep story.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we got loads of PR for it, Falling Asleep to GDPR.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we did a lot of these kind of quirky, unusual little ideas.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that PR, again, made people go, wow, maybe I ll check this out.
1
SPEAKER_01
Maybe this isn t so weird and woo-woo.
1
SPEAKER_01
This could be for me.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, I love it.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s so genius.
1
SPEAKER_00
But at the same time,
1
SPEAKER_00
like you said there can be the view and I ve definitely talked about this before like there can be the view that it s like well this is such an ancient sacred practice and like how can you make it so you know how can you make it so silly or so one would say silly or clever or genius or or how can you make it so frivolous and it s really interesting because that perspective I think has of course validity and there s great thought behind that but
1
SPEAKER_00
I think what I ve gained or learned over time is that people starting their journey of meditation, meeting people where they re at, meeting people where they re starting with their struggle, with their challenge, is so much more compassionate and loving and kind than it is to force someone to
2
SPEAKER_01
adopt a practice that they may never adopt or may think is so alien to them that they d never have a chance and I ve always said that to people like real it s not a technique it s actually compassion and empathy where it s like I understand where you are I understand that and I think about myself in that way where as a young kid growing up in London the amount of times I laughed or
2
SPEAKER_01
was making fun of someone trying to get me to meditate when I was younger because it was just bizarre it s like I just want to go and drink and have a good time like I don t want to think about meditation but maybe if calm had been around when I was younger then it would have been an easy place to start for me and that would have been the beginning of my journey.
2
SPEAKER_01
And of course, calm has evolved so much since.
2
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, how have you kind of tackled that opinion?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I m sure you ve faced that so much.
2
SPEAKER_00
Very much so.
2
SPEAKER_00
In the early days when we d go to parties and tell people we were building a meditation app, we d get one of two reactions.
2
SPEAKER_00
One is that they d back away from us and make any excuse to go and talk to someone else.
2
SPEAKER_00
The second was that they d be like, oh, I ve heard of that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve tried it, but I can t do it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, my mind is far too busy.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it has been extraordinary how that has shifted over the last decade.
2
SPEAKER_00
Again, this is connected to mental health.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you remember how stigmatized it was?
2
SPEAKER_00
No one talked about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Could you imagine telling your boss you were struggling with your mental health years ago?
2
SPEAKER_00
It wouldn t have been a good move.
2
SPEAKER_00
And for most organizations now that has changed dramatically.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it was because people did have so many misconceptions about meditation.
2
SPEAKER_00
There were so many myths associated with it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think they thought it was either religious or connected to the counterculture.
2
SPEAKER_00
They thought they might have to dress up in robes or go to a different country or sit for hours and hours in an uncomfortable position.
2
SPEAKER_00
We just wanted to let people know that that is not true.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can literally start with one mindful breath.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you don t have time to meditate for a minute or 10 or longer, literally start with one conscious mindful breath and then build your practice from there.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no and I think that I m hoping that and I mean we know it from the fact of the amount of people that have taken up to it and it s been the beginning of their meditation practice and and just where it s gone from them as well but for you what s it been like building the business of it because that s
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, obviously it s been over 10 years now and I m guessing that it s really interesting when you re building a meditation business, it doesn t mean you re not immune to burnout and stress and pressure.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that includes the team, it includes you, it includes, there s so many things that come up in business that don t help you be mindful or on the contrary, where mindfulness can really help as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
So talk to us about that balance.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes, so Alex and I love business, you know, we love startups, taking crazy ideas and putting them out into the world.
2
SPEAKER_00
So this has been such a joy to work on.
2
SPEAKER_00
But even though we practice what we preach, and we ve learned a huge amount from Carmen this journey, we re not immune.
2
SPEAKER_00
And during the pandemic, we both really struggled
2
SPEAKER_00
We were running the company over zoom.
2
SPEAKER_00
We were on zoom for 10 12 hours sometimes more every single day and We were based in Europe.
2
SPEAKER_00
The team was over in the US.
2
SPEAKER_00
So there was time zone challenges as well and We just started to feel it.
2
SPEAKER_00
We felt it in our bodies, you know, we weren t moving around as much We felt it in our minds.
2
SPEAKER_00
We were just tired and stressed and exhausted.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I
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That was a very, very challenging time.
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And we re both in a much sharper, more energized place now.
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But that was a very tricky part of the journey.
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And it was one of the reasons why we both decided to take a new role and bring David in as the CEO, who was absolutely brilliant.
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We bought his company, Ripple.
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One of the reasons was we wanted to move more into healthcare.
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You know, healthcare in the US is a four trillion dollar industry and a very small proportion of that is spent on mental health and that is changing rapidly.
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And so Ripple was a healthcare company, so that helped.
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But we also just wanted to get back, both of us, to what we love most, which is the zero to one phase, that messy, chaotic, creative, wonderful part where you re building something that has never existed in the world before.
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And we weren t able to do that when we were on Zoom for 12 hours a day.
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We were doing, you know, 2026 financial planning and feedback with team members.
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And it was it was not lighting us up.
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We could do it.
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We can run hundreds of people company.
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But I think in life you have to focus deeply on what you are really, really good at.
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So a few sleepless nights before handing over the reins to David as CEO, but I can honestly say it s been one of the best things I ve ever done, and I think Alex feels the same.
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So we are both now co-chairmen, so we re still involved very deeply in a new way, but because we love business and creativity so much, we re now running Calm Studios in London, which is fully connected to Calm.
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but it s where we can dream up the future.
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Where is the puck going?
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What is the future of mental health?
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And what is the future products and services of calm?
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So that s what we re deeply involved in at the moment.
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When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it s powerful.
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That s where The Bright Side comes in.
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A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that s bringing you a daily dose of joy.
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I m Danielle Robay.
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And I m Simone Boyce.
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Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters.
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We ve covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy, but The Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new and get into some friendly debates.
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That s right.
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Join us five days a week to see how life can look from the bright side.
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We ll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you.
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Whether it s relationships, friend advice, or figuring out how to navigate life s transitions, we ll talk through it all together.
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Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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SPEAKER_05
Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry.
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We re going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone.
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SPEAKER_05
We re going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life.
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SPEAKER_05
We re going to be talking with some of my best friends.
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I didn t know we were going to go there.
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People that I admire.
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When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what s going on.
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Authors of books that have changed my life.
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SPEAKER_05
Now you re talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right?
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And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life.
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I already believe in myself.
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I already see myself.
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And so when people give me an opportunity, I m just like,
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Oh great, you see me too!
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We ll laugh together, we ll cry together, and find a way through all of our emotions.
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Never forget, it s okay to cry, as long as you make it a really good one.
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Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste.
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And that s where the perspective shift comes.
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That it s not a waste, that everything you ve done has built you to where you are now.
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This is She Pivots.
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the podcast where we explore the inspiring pivots women have made and dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them.
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Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, every Wednesday on She Pivots, as I sit down with inspiring women like Misty Copeland, Brooke Shields, Vanessa Hudgens, and so many more.
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SPEAKER_02
We dive into how these women made their pivot and their mindset shifts that happened as a result.
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It s a podcast about women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success.
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Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I mean, that s so exciting and it s such a beautiful example as well of just how detachment works even in business and knowing when it s okay to let go of something to create more space for something else.
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And it s interesting because you can talk about that, but to do it in a practical sense when you re building, you know, the first mental health unicorn and building one of the biggest mental health and sleep apps in the world.
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to then go, actually, we don t want to work on this part anymore.
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We have, we believe in it, we care about it, but we actually want to focus on the future again.
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And that, you know, you ve made it sound seamless, but I can imagine that s very challenging because, you know, I think we get attached to roles, we get attached to titles, we get attached to journeys.
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And we talked a lot about this when I was coming on with you.
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And it was the same for me where I had a lot of people in my business and my world saying to me like, Jay, you should start up your own app.
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And why would you partner with a calm?
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And why would you partner with anyone?
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And we had other apps that were reaching out to us.
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And I saw all of that.
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I think we talked about this very openly.
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And I said, I saw that if I went down that path, it would have been egotistic.
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I would have done it for my ego, not for what I actually want for the world.
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And what I saw you doing was so
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aligned with what i d want to do for the world i was like well wouldn t i join forces like isn t that what my meditation practice would want me to do where collaboration would be better than competition if you re trying to achieve the same
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goal for society and so it s really interesting how for me at least I m always looking for how am I still acting out of the same old mindset even though I ve been meditating for years am I still pulled by that or am I able to be self-aware and say okay and that was you know one of the biggest reasons why I came on at Calm because I was like this is a mission I believe in obviously I m friends with the team loved getting to know David now he s fantastic
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and i m like okay i want to work for the world with people that i love and care about for people that i want to serve and help as opposed to live for my ego and i m guessing there s a bit of that and when you go yeah i m not going to be ceo anymore even i ve built this thing from scratch but now i m going to start again i m guessing there s a bit of detachment there would you is that accurate or how would you put that in your words very very very accurate and i think what you re saying is is about focus as well we can t do everything in life you know you
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Like us get asked to do a lot of different things and you have to get good at saying no and no What is the elements that really light you up?
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what are the areas where you can have the biggest impact and And I think focus is so important for anyone listening wanting to build something new figure out what that is
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And don t be worried if you re not quite sure what that is.
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Take your time to find it.
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You know, I use this phrase when you want to create something new.
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Take a step back.
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Often, if you have the chance, not everyone has the luxury, but if you have the chance, go away on your own for a few days.
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Clear your head.
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Get into a new space, a new environment.
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and then marinate yourself in the areas that you re intrigued about and what starts to happen is you start connecting dots that you might not have seen before, you know, watch documentaries related to what you re thinking about, read books and autobiographies, chat to people who are expert in this area and suddenly
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the light starts to come brighter and it becomes clear what you need to do that often doesn t happen you know over a few days it can take weeks sometimes years every time i started up a new company or business there s been a huge amount of work before day one just thinking and planning and then you just have this very strong foundation that you can build your skyscraper on top of
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Calm was was that case from the very early days?
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We did a lot of research and a lot of thinking But our mission was to make the world happier and healthier and it stayed exactly the same over this last decade
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You know I love hearing that because and I love your advice on stepping back you know to kind of really understand what you re trying to do and I love the idea of you saying that it could take years.
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I think the challenge has become that today because we re living in a world where there s so many successes and there s so many more success stories in our generation.
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that people are scared to start because they re scared if it won t be big enough or it won t be like when I started creating content I wasn t even aware that it could get a million views like I didn t think about that I was happy with a hundred views or a thousand views at one point because I didn t have a false marker in the same way with business like
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I don t think most companies that today have a billion dollar valuation or even billion in revenue, they didn t start with knowing that that would be the case.
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Maybe at one point it became a strategic plan or a focus to get there, but that s not how they felt on day one.
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And it s almost like not having that pressure was better because then you were able to pivot and shift and change and not stayed so tied.
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And I think today we re
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I mean, Calm was always meant to be a meditation app, I guess, and now it s so much more.
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It s a sleep app.
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It s got, you know, like you were just saying now, like, there s now the daily move, right?
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There s so much more happening on the app that s not meditation.
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And that comes from being open and curious.
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And so how do you encourage people?
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Because I think there s so many people listening right now, and they may be like, Michael, I want to start the next app, or Jay, I want to start the next podcast, or I want to build this.
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Like, you ve given some really great insight, but
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I personally feel there s too much pressure for what you build to be big and that s actually what ruins it.
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Yes, very, very good point.
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So we live in this culture where it just looks like there s overnight successes everywhere.
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We re surrounded by people who are who are smashing it.
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And the reality is every one of those people have been on a journey and they ve spent a long time getting to that point.
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So first of all, do the deep work, as I just mentioned, do your research, there s no shortcuts, and then patience is incredibly important.
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Accept and understand that you re going on a journey and you re not going to crack it and be on front of magazines, you know, in the first week or year, maybe not even in the first decade.
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But if you believe deeply in what you re doing, if it, you know, is deeply ingrained and you ve done that foundation work,
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then you ll put one foot in front of the other and and you ll get there eventually and It s often said that compounding is the eighth wonder of the world in financial terms It s true in self-development and building a business and growing ourselves It doesn t happen overnight.
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And so being aware of that and being ready for that long journey I think is very very important
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Yeah, and I think that time that it takes to master something so that it becomes world worthy almost to speak.
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It s almost like a law of the universe that when you ve put in that much time and energy and effort and diligence, it s likely to succeed, but it s just that the patience that it takes to put in that 10 years of mastery or whatever it may be for a different skill.
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Like you just kept saying it, there s no shortcuts.
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There s no easy way through that.
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And I think one of the other challenges is people will see success around them and hear about a story or a type of business and then go and build it.
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Like a good example is there are now thousands and thousands of meditation and mindfulness and sleep apps and headspace and calm and a handful of others were there first.
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The problem is if you re building something because you re seeing it everywhere in society, you re going to be too late.
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You know, I often talk about the analogy of surfing when you re trying to catch that wave.
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If you re hearing about something in society, the wave is already broken and those surfers are far off into the sunset.
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That s why you ve got to do that work up front and figure out which wave is building in the distance, what s coming closer and closer.
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You also don t want to be too early, because you ll freeze to death before the sun comes up and before that wave ever gets to you.
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So timing is so crucial.
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But when you catch that wave, when you re ready, it s an extraordinary thing.
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And then, as I say, the compounding takes place.
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We were very fortunate with our timing and it was tricky in the early days because, as I say, no one was really talking about mental health or mindfulness.
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It took about half a decade before we were able to raise our series A investment.
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But again, we had that very deep conviction that this was eventually going to happen.
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We just needed that patience.
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And we were building day by day, step by step.
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And then, then whoosh, it s been holding onto the rocket ship ever since.
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SPEAKER_00
So would you say that that process because I love what you re saying there and I think it reminds me of something that Rick Rubin was saying when he was here and you know he was talking about from a music point of view but creating art and even with you, you re a great business person and you know that s such a you ve built companies before this as well like you have a successful track record but at the same time whenever I talk to you and this is I think why we get along as well is because
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you re an artist at heart and you re a creative at heart, I feel, at least.
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And what I m hearing is that there s, it s almost like you have to be so, like, when you talk about surfing, I m terrible at surfing.
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I ve only tried it once.
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Me too, by the way.
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Yeah, I was going to ask you.
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I was like, you sound like a pro right now.
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but when you think about surfing and you think about it s being so aligned with nature and being so aware and you re so present and conscious about the air and the wind and the wave and as you re describing it it s almost like you ve got to be so in tune
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to really know when to catch that wave.
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You re almost talking about it as if it s an intuitive art.
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SPEAKER_00
Can you expand on that for us because that s really beautiful and I think we almost talk about it through all the externals like where s the industry going and where s this and that does work for sure but I think what you re saying is actually far more of an artist conversation.
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Yeah, so surfing is a very mindful activity.
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You know, you re out there in nature and balance is important.
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So, so many different connections with meditation and mindfulness.
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And I feel that analog works with business as well.
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You can analyze stuff until you re blue in the face and look at every chart and projection.
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And sometimes you just have to step back and feel into it.
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What s the intuition?
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What is your gut instinct telling you about this opportunity?
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I listen very carefully to my mind and my body at 4 a.m.
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in the morning.
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That s a great signal.
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when I m waking up, and it alerts me to opportunity and trouble as well.
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I ve built many businesses that haven t worked, and even though I may have been winning awards and being written about positively in the press, I ll wake up every night at 4am and my body will be saying, uh-uh, this isn t working, listen to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you can ignore that voice for only so long.
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So I think business is this just beautiful mix of data and analysis very very important but when you combine it with magic and creativity and intuition, the center of that Venn diagram I think is where the
4
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the biggest, most exciting opportunities are built.
4
SPEAKER_00
What are some of the learnings that are coming out of Calm Studios?
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I m fascinated now.
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SPEAKER_00
As soon as you mentioned that, I was like, oh, that s amazing.
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I want to know what s happening there.
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What are some of the key learnings or the key kind of curiosities that have already stemmed from that work?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, next time you re in Soho, you must come and visit.
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I have to.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have to.
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And it s a tiny space.
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You wouldn t think this is, you know, calm.
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That s the best.
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It s very scrappy.
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We re barely a one pizza team.
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There s Sam and Ennis and Steve and me and Alex.
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And we re just having an absolute blast.
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So we ve been thinking very carefully, as I say, about this marinating process and thinking deeply.
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We ve been exploring a lot of different ideas.
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Psychedelics is such a fascinating area, and I think we could talk about that for hours and hours.
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I won t.
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But, you know, that could hold a huge amount of promise for how we treat and support people with mental health.
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You know, there s still a lot of research and science that needs to take place, but there s very early positive signs.
4
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So we explored the idea, could calm step in and work here.
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And I think that may be something for the future.
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We ve looked at going offline.
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SPEAKER_01
Calm has 100 million downloads, but not that much presence in the physical world.
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And there s nothing quite like looking in someone s eyes or being in the same space with them.
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SPEAKER_01
So how can Calm show up there?
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Could it be physical products?
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Could it be events and parties and creating communities around the world in different cities?
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Could it be a resort one day?
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You know, the most relaxing, calm resort in the world.
4
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So we ve explored that a little bit.
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But where we ve kind of settled and where we re going deep at the moment is an area that has really caught the attention over the last year, which is artificial intelligence.
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Now, obviously, AI has been around for decades.
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You know, we ve had the deep learning revolution over a decade ago.
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ChatGPT caught the attention last December.
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So everyone s buzzing about it now, but we ve been thinking about this for quite a bit longer and asking the question, how can these incredibly powerful silicon brains support our beautiful and fragile human brains?
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How can AI help humanity?
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So many, many different ways we re tackling that.
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Could AI be an amplifier and augment mental health professionals?
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Could it help on-board patients?
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Could it provide support 24-7 when you re not with a human therapist?
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SPEAKER_01
The average time it takes to see a therapist in the US is about six or seven weeks.
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SPEAKER_01
When you need support, that s way too long.
4
SPEAKER_01
So could there be an intermediate step?
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SPEAKER_01
And if you think of mental health as falling on a spectrum, apps like Calm are fantastic at the healthier end.
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But as you move into the sort of amber and orange and middle end, therapy becomes more valuable.
4
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But there s a big gap between an app like Calm, which is very proactive, and seeing a human therapist.
4
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Could AI play a role in that center point?
4
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So there s many different paths we re exploring there.
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I m very curious to know what your thoughts are of AI because I imagine you ve had many, many conversations on this.
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I think we have a similar approach to things where I try not to get lost in the kind of negative news that stems around any new discovery because I think we kind of do it constantly and sometimes I find we make it harder to find usefulness and solutions through new technology that s happening
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SPEAKER_00
anyway as opposed to we get so distracted by like well these are the issues and this is what s going wrong and this is where it s going to destroy humanity etc and i think that those kind of headlines kind of steal the show and they distract us from saying well actually this is happening anyway whether you like it or not it already exists
4
SPEAKER_00
how can we now make sure that as humans we are benefited by it and that it helps us and supports us by analyzing the potential challenges and coming up with solutions rather than going oh god it s the same thing we did with the internet i m sure it was the same thing that was done with tvs back in the day it was the same thing we did with social media and
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SPEAKER_00
It s kind of tiring because we kind of still having those same conversations.
4
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And I m like, look, no one s going to stop using social media.
4
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No one s going to stop using their phones.
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Let s stop talking about that as the ultimate solution to helping people with this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the same with AI.
4
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People are using chat GPT already.
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SPEAKER_00
And like you said, AI has been around.
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So I think when I think about AI, I personally think about it in a similar way to you re saying.
4
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So I ve always wanted the idea of people to have a coach in their pocket.
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So if people were able to get not only reminders, which is what our phones do already, but they re reminders that you have to put in.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I ve always had this feeling of like, if your body could notify your coach of what you need without you knowing it, and then your coach could then prescribe you whether it was content, food recommendations, diet recommendations, supplement recommendations, it would make it so much more seamless and easy because I think for so many of us, we don t actually know how we feel.
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SPEAKER_00
and unless you re looking at data and unless you re looking at what s actually happening in the body.
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So to give you an example, for me a couple of years ago I was feeling fatigue and low energy and I couldn t figure it out because I thought I was sleeping well, I thought I was eating well and I thought I was working out.
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So I was doing all the right stuff and it was only when I got my vitamin D levels checked where I realized that my vitamin D level was at a 10, supposedly healthy is around 60 and like great is like 100 and I m at 10.
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and I m living my current level of lifestyle just two, three years ago.
4
SPEAKER_00
And without that piece of data, I wouldn t have known what the problem was.
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SPEAKER_00
And I would have diagnosed the problem as, well, maybe there s something going wrong up here.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe I m not working out enough.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe I m not eating enough greens.
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SPEAKER_00
You just make stuff up.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I think a data level approach that AI could help measure, but then AI could help find solutions for, to me is very exciting because I think when humans are left to diagnose their own issues,
4
SPEAKER_00
I think we cause more issues and cause more stress and stressing about stress is, we both know, is not healthy.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I love the gaps that AI can fill.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I ve been testing a NutriSense glucose monitor just because I ve been fascinated by glucose levels and how keeping steady glucose levels is healthier for us.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I had the monitor in me for a couple of weeks.
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SPEAKER_00
I m going to put the new one in soon.
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SPEAKER_00
And while I was testing it, I could see where if I ate like, and I was eating, I was back in London.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I was back from my sister s wedding in London.
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SPEAKER_00
I literally got back two days ago.
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And when I m back in London, I m eating much unhealthier than when I m in LA.
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And I still went out and found a no sugar cereal, gluten free, whatever.
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I was trying to be really healthy.
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And I had it and it still spiked my glucose into the bad levels.
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And I was thinking I would never have known that because eating it, I felt fine.
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And so I think if AI could help us monitor, measure, and then navigate solutions, which includes meditations, which includes sleep monitors, whatever it may be, I think it s incredible what could happen, especially to make it affordable.
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And that s what I get excited about is making it affordable, which Calm has always been at the forefront of that, like making things affordable and accessible.
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Well, I love what you re saying because it s very similar to what we re thinking at Calm Studios.
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You know, one of the questions we ve asked ourselves is could we build the world s greatest health coach?
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What would that be?
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And as you say, you know, having a human coach is the best, the gold standard, but that is not cheap and not widely distributed.
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So having a coach in your pocket 24-7 that you can chat to whenever you want, nudging you, motivating you, inspiring you.
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And here s the interesting thing, the AI will get to know you better than yourself.
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It will see your health kit data, it will ask how you re feeling every day, and then start making fascinating inferences and connections and surprising you on a day-to-day basis.
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So, you know, I think it was Socrates that said many years ago, know thyself, and AI can help you really know yourself.
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But that s only one part of the puzzle.
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And I think one of the problems with AI at the moment is it s very logic driven.
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One of the foundation models we ve been so impressed with is what Inflection have built, Pi.
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I don t know if you ve had a chance to check out Pi.
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It s beautiful.
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If GPT-4 is IQ, Pi is more EQ.
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It s like chatting to a really thoughtful friend.
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It asks you questions.
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It keeps the conversation flowing.
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It s very compassionate and empathetic.
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And that s the essence that we want to capture with what we re doing.
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And the other thing to say here is that interface is so crucial.
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GPT-3 was released, I think, in about 2020, but it didn t capture the imagination.
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It was only when the wrapper of chat came about that people suddenly were able to connect with it and talk about it and make it more accessible and simple, kind of like we did with meditation back in the day.
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So we re asking ourselves, having a great AI health coach is one step.
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What do we build around it?
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Could we create something that is set in a universe with a vast array of characters?
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Could there be storytelling?
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Could there be music and magic?
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Could we add a gamified element?
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You know, look at Duolingo and what they ve done to make learning a language fun and joyful.
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And as we said at the beginning, if you can make anything fun and entertaining, that s how you cut through the noise and get people to pay
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attention.
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So I think that s one of the big shifts we re thinking about at Calm Studios and we think for this next evolution of Calm, because 100 million downloads is great, but there are 8 billion people in the world.
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There s a lot more people we want to connect with and reach.
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These are the kind of conversations that I love too, because it s so exciting trying to figure out.
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And by the way, I want to remind everyone that, look, you know, Michael said it earlier too, if you can get a physical coach, if you can get out in nature, if you can
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get out there and play pickleball, which I m doing a lot of right now.
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Whatever it is, those things are never, ever not going to help.
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Being outdoors in nature, listening to nature sounds for real.
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I use nature sounds on Calm all the time.
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I m not always in a space where I can access nature sounds.
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I can t always be in a rainforest or ever.
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Being able to have it digitally is helpful.
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and I think that s what we re saying here where it s like if you can do things physically of course do them don t don t stop doing them like it s important to talk to a real friend it s important to talk to a real human but for everyone who s struggling or those things are not immediately accessible that s where I think why we ve seen such a rise in the digital world because we are looking for alternatives and we are looking for
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support.
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And I ve definitely found that the collective approach of data and human has been really powerful for me personally.
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Like I found in my own personal mental health journey, I still need to talk to my best friend three times a week, which I don t stop doing.
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But at the same time, I do need to measure the quality of my sleep, my glucose, my vitamin D levels, whatever it may be, because they re equally affecting how I feel on a daily basis.
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Yeah, no, that s well put.
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I think the key is awareness and understanding.
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And this is what developing a mindfulness practice does.
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Attention is the most valuable resource in the 21st century, but our attention is dragged in so many different directions.
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It s so easy to go through life like a marionette on the strings of the puppet master, not being consciously aware of what s going on.
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But if you can catch yourself, if you can build a practice and know where your attention is going, you can put it where you want.
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So you can spend time in the digital world and on social media and watching Netflix and all these things that do bring value to our life, but you catch yourself and don t overdo them and suddenly find yourself three hours later after using TikTok.
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And so I think having that sense of control, knowing what s going on in your mind, knowing where you re consciously putting your attention and how you re feeling and striking that right balance
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is a superpower in our modern society.
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Yeah, and I think what we re trying to do here, which I think is key, is trying to create alternatives for viewers or listeners on the platform that we re on anyway.
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Yes.
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Like people often ask me, well, Jay, you re making social media content.
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And I m saying, yes, because we re going to be on social media anyway.
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So why not give people another option to have something that hopefully is educational, entertaining and insightful that can benefit their life.
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And so same way as you re saying, I love the idea of looking at, you know, I mean, AI is already able to, but especially with the EQ version, you re saying there with Pi, like AI is able to write movie scripts and TV show scripts and conversation scripts, and it s going to be able to
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It is already able to but going to be able to do so many things in an entertaining way to find a way that people can almost go on a unique journey that was tailored made for them.
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Like I always get asked when I coach clients everyone s like so what s your program and I m like the program is unique for every client because you can t take everyone on the same program.
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the fact that you could have a tailor-made unique program for you and visuals and universes and experiences could be created is quite crazy and phenomenal to think about.
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Like right now, we re just used to suggested for you.
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But imagine suggested for you in the metaverse and suggested for you landscapes, places to visit, people to know.
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It s quite remarkable to think how personalized it could get.
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Yeah, we think it s going to be very, very exciting combining all these things together.
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So yeah, we re having a lot of fun at Calm Studios and I just want to jump back to something you said on social media because social media gets a really bad rap in our society and there s a lot of people that are very
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stressed about it, and it does cause a lot of anxiety and polarization in society.
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But there s a lot of joy in social media as well.
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Again, when you take to it consciously, you know, I ve met some wonderful friends through social media, incredible business opportunities have flowed from it.
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It can be really joyful and entertaining, but again, it s about using it for you instead of against you, being very aware of
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how you re using it, dipping in and out.
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If you re on social media mindlessly scrolling late at night before you go to bed, that s not ideal.
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If you dip in and out every now and then, that I think is a much more powerful way of doing it.
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And you can apply this to most things in life.
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Stop, pause, take a deep breath and think, is this helping me?
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Is this serving me?
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And that fraction of a second can completely transform and change a life.
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I guess that s it though Michael, like you just hit the nail on the head there and that is the ultimate human skill of being conscious.
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It s almost like being selective about where you are, why you re there and how you want to interact with this person, app, technology, space.
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But being conscious seems to be the ultimate lesson because like you just said that doesn t just apply to social media, it applies to everything.
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How do we help people develop that?
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Because that s how I feel.
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I often talk about it with people as well.
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This idea that envy has always existed.
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Social media has just amplified it.
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Ego has always existed.
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Social media has just put a magnifying glass on it.
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The desire for competition and
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status and status and all of these pursuits that we have they ve always been there like i remember at school it was what what trainer you wore to school or sneaker you wore to school made you the cool kid now you just post your latest sneakers on instagram it s the same thing
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and so it s just amplified it and it s exposed you to far more people s trainers right like the idea that back in the day if there were 20 kids in the class in this 20 kids in the playground you know i had high techs on because my parents didn t buy me nikes
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And then it was like, I had high techs, that person had Adidas or Adidas, that person had Nike or Nikes.
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And that was the competition.
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Whereas now you can see 3 million kids shoes and now you feel 2 million and 97 on the list as opposed to 23rd.
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And so the exposure has gone high, the scale has increased, but the problem has still remained the same.
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that we don t know who we are, we don t know where our self-worth and our confidence comes from, and we re not conscious about our choices.
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That is the root, at least in my opinion.
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How have you thought about answering that question for people?
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Because that is the real problem.
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It s the fundamental question, isn t it?
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And it s what we re trying to achieve through calm.
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It s what you re doing with your work.
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You know, Sam Harris talks about it as waking up.
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It is becoming more aware and more conscious.
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So developing a mindfulness practice helps.
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You know, one of the things that I think has been very useful from doing it is this idea
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in life of responding instead of reacting to stimulus stuff happens constantly throughout the day and if you instead of from the amygdala reacting someone cuts you up in traffic and you honk your horn and suddenly you re miserable and angry all day
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If you pause for a fraction of a second and think more thoughtfully and respond, it changes everything.
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You can still get angry and honk your horn, but you re more aware you re doing it.
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I think this is really important in interpersonal relationships as well.
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So many triggers and little things that can cause arguments and stress with our partner.
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But I think pausing and thinking before responding is so, so valuable.
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So that s one step.
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But there isn t an easy answer.
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human beings are complex things.
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And even though we know what we should do, even though everyone loves the idea of being more mindful and meditating, one of the challenges, very few people sit down and do it and build it into a healthy habit every single day.
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And so this is why what we re doing at Calm is a lifelong journey, you know, decades of work ahead of us.
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I agree with you and I think it s also just, I really would love for everyone to step back and look at their decisions and choices thus far in life and ask themselves why they chose those things.
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and what was their value behind that choice and almost kind of go backwards as far as you can and figure out what made you do something and most people will track it back to parents, society or hopefully some of the things will be things that they really value and it s
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almost like how can you edit everything to be living your life based on what you really value so that there s as little noise and as little distraction from the outside world or force as you re saying responding to something s happening as opposed to this is who I want to be yeah and this is how I want to live my life and that s not an easy practice and I m not saying that
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that will solve everyone s problems.
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But I know that you ve talked about calm in healthcare, which I fully agree with, and I love that direction.
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I was really passionate about that happening.
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How hard has it been to talk about calm in schools or calm for kids?
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Where s that conversation?
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Because I know that that s something we ve talked about before, and I think we d both be passionate about it.
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How hard is that to make happen?
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Well, again, that s a long journey, but it s shifted a lot in the last decade.
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I remember some of the early conversations we had where we wanted to bring calm into schools.
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We got quite a bit of pushback.
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I think, again, people thought this was a bit weird and religious, and teachers have been opening up to it, and it is now in, you know, thousands of schools around the world start their day with silence or short meditations, which is so valuable.
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I use this quote a lot, but if you want to change the world, as we do at Calm, start with the youngest generation.
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And the Dalai Lama said, if we could teach meditation to every seven-year-old in the world, we could eradicate violence in a generation.
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Pretty profound and not easy to do.
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So that is shifting.
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The problem is kids
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are not particularly excited about meditation and mindfulness.
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They ve got a lot of other exciting things going on.
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So you have to, as you were saying earlier, bring it to them and shape it in a way that resonates with them.
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And often entertainment can do that.
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So we just did a wonderful partnership with Disney.
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And so Disney Princess is helping kids fall asleep and learn about meditation.
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We ve worked with
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Peppa Pig, and Moshi Monsters, and a whole bunch of others.
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So that s been a very powerful step in the right direction.
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And sleep has been very valuable for kids.
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So rather than trying to get them to sit down and be still for a minute, which is hard enough for adults, almost impossible for kids, when they re going to bed, sleep stories is a very mindful way, a very gentle way for them to learn about this practice.
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Yeah, I love that.
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I m so glad that you re talking about it that way, because I agree, you know, anyone who s listening is going right now, they re going, I can t get my kid to sit still.
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And so I think, you know, I love the idea of the Disney collaboration is fantastic.
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And I think more of that is so needed, these innovative ideas of how meditation and mindfulness can be presented to kids, because that s literally all it is.
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And I just, you know, this is a really great conversation to make that point that
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Please understand that when you re trying to make things more accessible, more entertaining, more practical for people, that s the only way it s going to work.
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Because if we keep forcing people to do things in what we assume is the purest way,
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it may never ever be, like you re saying, like a kid, when are they ever, how many kids are actually gonna sit down and just breathe?
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Meet people where they are, understand what s going on in their world, and then try and create and frame something that works for them.
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You know, for anyone listening who is thinking about, you know, their big idea, what their purpose in life is gonna be, one thing that I found very helpful,
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is take something that is already successful, whether it s today or in decades past, and then put a twist on it, a tweak.
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And if you look at some of the biggest successes of all time, that kind of is what s going on.
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It s a pattern that human beings have done again and again and again, but with a little tweak.
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So it s familiar, but it s got that newness and uniqueness.
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And if you can find that, that no one else has done before, as I say, lean into it, do your research, be patient, and you can have a phenomenal success.
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I love it.
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Michael, thank you so much for today.
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This has been so, this has gone in so many different directions than what we planned, but it s been so fun talking to you.
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And I m so glad that we ve, I m hoping that anyone who s listening and watching, you ve gained a bit more insight into how you can kind of tune into that voice that you ve got within you to be creative, to be reflective, to be introspective.
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And you found that you found just a bit of clarity on the direction that you need to take internally towards creating something that can help the world.
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And you can hear how,
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It can be a business, it can be an app, it can be a product, it can be a service, it can be anything you want it to be, but you ve got to be just that timing piece.
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I wanted you to go back and listen to that because I thought that was so powerful.
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If you re really aware of the problem and you re aware of the people you want to serve, then you ll find the potential solution.
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But that requires stillness, it requires sitting with that community and that problem.
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I think just to jump in here, I think you said something so important, listening to that inner voice.
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And what we re very good at human beings at doing is distracting ourselves.
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As we said earlier, there s so many distractions and we mask what we really need to hear with alcohol and drugs and Netflix and a ton of other things.
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How often are we really truly in solitude and alone and listening to ourselves?
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And I would encourage anyone listening to do to try and carve out time to do that.
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If you can, as we said earlier, go away for a few days on your own, fantastic.
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If you can t do that, a really valuable practice is first thing in the morning, before you turn your phone on, sit with a blank sheet of paper, you know, do the artist s way and just scribble and think.
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And it s amazing when you have that stillness, what starts to bubble up and the things you really need to hear only emerge in that silence.
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That s beautiful.
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Michael, is there anything you want to add?
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Anything I haven t asked you that s on your heart or mind or anything you want to share?
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Oh my goodness, we could talk for hours, Jay, but I think this was a pretty good conversation.
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I love this, thank you.
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Yeah, so do I. No, I loved it too because we totally got lost in a real conversation and that s always the best ones.
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But everyone who doesn t already, make sure that you follow Michael.
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Michael, where should people find you?
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If they want to follow you and follow your work, where would you like them to go?
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I m Acton on Twitter.
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I m Michael Acton on Instagram.
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I m not as active on social media as I used to be, but I dip in and out every now and then.
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And yeah, just come and check out Calm and join our community.
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Absolutely.
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Thank you everyone who s been listening and watching.
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I hope that you re going to share on social media, your takeaways, your insights, something that you re playing or practicing with as well.
6
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Share them with us.
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Tag both me and Michael.
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Let us know because I d love to see what ideas come from this.
6
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I d love to know that.
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this sparked some creativity for you, or brought out some genius from within you, or maybe just even made you take some time for yourself.
6
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And of course, you can go and listen to The Daily J on Calm, or The Daily Calm on Calm, or any of the incredible programs that we have on the platform.
6
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Come and join us and find an easy, accessible, and fun, and playful way of practicing mindfulness and meditation in your life every single day.
6
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Thanks everyone, and thank you so much, Michael.
6
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This was wonderful.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you.
6
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If you loved this episode, you ll enjoy my interview with Dr. Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions and how to embrace difficult feelings.
6
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You ve just got to be motivated every day, and if you re not, then what are you doing?
6
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And actually, humans don t work that way.
6
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Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion.
6
SPEAKER_02
Some days it will be there, some days it won t.
6
SPEAKER_03
Imagine you asked two people the same seven questions.
6
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I m Minnie Driver, and this was the idea I set out to explore in my podcast, Minnie Questions.
6
SPEAKER_03
This year, we bring a whole new group of guests to answer the same seven questions, including Courtney Cox, Rob Delaney, Liz Phair, and many, many more.
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Join me on Season 3 of Mini Questions on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
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Seven questions.
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SPEAKER_03
Limitless answers.
6
SPEAKER_00
For all the parents out there, picture that it s bedtime.
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You and the kids have been busy all day.
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SPEAKER_00
You know they re tired, but for some reason they just won t go to sleep.
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And for this reason, I created the podcast Bedtime History.
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Bedtime History is a series of relaxing history stories that end with an inspirational message.
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With over 2,000 positive parent reviews, Bedtime History is one of the top education podcasts.
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Join me and listen to Bedtime History every Monday and Thursday on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
6
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Hey, everybody, welcome to Across Generations, where the voices of Black women unite.
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I m your host, Tiffany Cross.
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Join me and be a part of sisterhood, friendship, wisdom, and laughter.
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SPEAKER_05
We gather a seasoned elder, myself as the middle generation, and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations, prepare to engage or hear perspectives that literally no one else has had.
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Listen to Across Generations podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.