Wempy Dyocta Koto (LITE) - Investor & World Traveler

Intro:
Hi, and welcome to the Peace of Persistence, the show where we seek to uncover the keys to happiness and success, one honest conversation at a time. I'm your host, Abigail Wright, and today we get to talk with my old friend, Wempy Dyocta Koto! Wempy. I met Wempy, who was beginning his entrepreneurial journey in 2009. Today, he's primarily in investing, and we're finding out what he's doing as I'm catching up with him today!

Bonus Content:
Join us and subscribe at Patreon to hear the extended version (for all our guests!), and hear how Wempy's parents intuitively molded him into the man he is today, the benefits of martial arts and training physically, the art of true charity, and how to leave a real legacy in life with your family. 

Show links:
Muay Thai, MMA & Fitness training Camp Phuket Thailand
https://www.tigermuaythai.com/

Our Full Versions on Patreon
https://patreon.com/peaceofpersistence

Review us on Apple Podcasts:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peace-of-persistence/id985068016?mt=2

Review us on IMDb:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5659398/

Show summary:
We first met almost a decade in NYC, and I haven't seen you in person since we last caught up in London back in 2012. How has life changed for you during that time on your journey?
Wempy describes his life as going through abrupt changes every 4-5 years, often involving moving from place to place, for example, from Singapore to London. He says there are no small evolutions in his life - it's either an abrupt change, or no change at all. When were first met, in 2009, Wempy was living in the States in New York and San Francisco, and then he moved home a bit with his family in London. After that, he decided to move to Jakarta in Indonesia and says nothing in his life is ever permanent. In that short time, he's gone from being an employee of a corporation, to being an entrepreneur in consulting, which he eventually evolved into doing mostly investing.

Are you still working with the company you founded, Wardour and Oxford?
Absolutely. He says that's where he does a lot of his "brain work." He does still work with governments, large, multinational companies, and rising and emerging companies on the consultancy side. He realized that consultancy doesn't scale quickly and decided to instead invest his money into companies that were scaling. He gives the analogy of being the chip inside of the computer that provides the financial support, advice, mentorship, and guidance to help evolve their companies. He doesn't enjoy the daily grind and wants to be where his ideas are needed, so that's where he spends a lot of his passion and therefore, a lot of his time.

I read an interview you posted on Linkedin with Suzanne Kaplan, where you said, "Our time on earth is not negotiable," referring to your business and the fact that you love your work, clients, and partners. What are some of the most important things you do to make every moment count in your life?
He says whether you believe in a supreme being or not, when your time is up, your time is up and not negotiable. He simply tries to live every second in the moment. He believes that the happiest people live with a conscious sense of living on purpose, with gratitude for yesterday and purpose for today and tomorrow.  "Here I am. I am alive. This is what I'm grateful for for yesterday, this is what I'm living for today, and this is what I shall live for tomorrow." He also believes great people's plans revolve around what they're doing for others.

What do you think are the most important qualities to develop as a leader?
Listening. Not about listening to reply, but listening to understand and enact and then, afterwards, developing strategies or plans?

Clearly, listening to others' perspectives is important to you. How much is travel a part of that for you, has travel always been a priority for you, and how has it enhanced your life?
It's always been a priority. Wempy says he'd rather die and have traveled a lot than to die with a double story house and two cars in the garage. He talks about how "first world problems" are really different, and how when you see how the rest of the world lives, it's much harder to take everything for granted.

Wempy goes on to talk about family. He believes he'll regret not having more time to see his parents, on his deathbed. He feels that he's missed out on a lot of their lives and their growth as people, and that as they get older, he's chasing time to find ways to see them more often. It's the biggest downside, he feels, to being an independent spirit abroad. He's currently looking into moving back to Sydney or London to be closer to them.

Do you have any other habits or traits that contribute to your happiness and success?
Having self-awareness. Wempy discusses the importance of knowing yourself as a person, your possibilities, and your limitations. His self-awareness has increased a lot over the years, and it's also allowed him to have more empathy for other people. He also doesn't speak before he thinks. He's definitely not one of those people who tweets before they think and causes problems because of it; rather, he considers the impact of what he does before doing it.

Do you have any other advice for us?
"Look down." Although he believes it's great to surround yourself with great people to try to elevate your own life, he gives the advice to, every once in a while, look down. To be clear - he doesn't mean it in a derogatory way, or to suggest that you could measure someone through material wealth, good looks, ability, disability, or anything like that. That said, he says we as humans judge and know what looking down means. For example, if you're feeling like you don't have very much money right now, rather than looking up at them, look at people who don't have what you have - who don't have Skype, or electricity, or food on their plate. People who don't have arts and culture even in their pipe dream. Wempy's also grateful to not be at the top, and talks about the kind of problems someone like Mark Zuckerberg might have, about which we could know nothing. So be thankful to not be Bill Gates, but also be thankful to not be trafficked right now.

Wempy feels fortunate that in his travels, it's not something he can ignore. Although there's homelessness in London, New York, etc., it's not as prevalent as it is in Asia, or other parts of the world. "As part of our commitment to improve by looking up, our commitment to improve should also include looking down."

Thank you for joining us today on The Peace of Persistence! If you enjoyed this episode, take a minute to share us with a friend or review us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Imdb. Every share and review – or even rating – helps new people discover our show. Also, if you know anyone who's genuinely happy and has had some success in their lives, if you think they'd be a good fit for our show, let us know at peaceofpersistence@gmail.com.

In the meantime, you can subscribe to the lite version wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit us at Patreon.com/peaceofpersistence to find our full versions, or if you just want to support the show. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on The Peace of Persistence for more great content to help us all find more happiness and success in our lives.

Josh Pais - Actor, Director, Producer, & Founder of Committed Impulse

Description:
Host Abigail Wright gets to talk with her mentor, Josh Pais, actor, director, producer, and founder of Committed Impulse. They discuss how being present and increasing your tolerance for emotions and sensations can bring you joy, Josh's experience as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, 4 access points to staying present, and more.

To hear more about Josh's funniest moments as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, experiences working with other great actors (like Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep), technology in our culture, how Committed Impulse helped me heal from a major injury and changed my life, Josh's thoughts about chronic pain, addiction, and more, subscribe for the full version at http://patreon.com/peaceofpersistence.

Show Links:
Committed Impulse - http://committedimpulse.com/
Josh Pais on IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0656929/

Intro:
Josh Pais, actor, director, producer, and founder of Committed Impulse, was raised by his parents, Abraham Pais - a theoretical physicist who worked with Albert Einstein, and Lila - a bohemian painter and poet. They’ve had a tremendous influence on what has become Committed Impulse. You pick your favorite actor, and chances are, Josh has worked with them, because he's acted in over a hundred movies and TV shows. Currently, he's playing Stu Feldman in the hit Showtime series, Ray Donovan, among other shows and films. He's also a Co-creator/Co-exec Producer of a TV series that Sony is producing called PAINT. Among other films in which you might have seen Josh, his first lead in a movie was when he played Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

After college, disenchanted with styles of acting that rely on sense memory, Josh sought out theatre companies with a strong physical component in their approach. He worked with members of Joe Chaikin’s (chaykin) Open Theatre and Shuji Terayama’s Avante-garde Theatre of Tokyo. He trained with Tadashi Suzuki and his company, and worked extensively with Gabrielle Roth (to name a few of his guides and mentors). On a quest to find a way to bring all of this physical aliveness to his work as an actor, he became a member of the Circle Rep Lab Company, where he started directing. He put a group of twelve actors together and began experimenting for a 14 month period, wanting the actors to be fully alive, very tuned into one another and completely spontaneous. Much of what unfolded during that exploration has evolved into the core training of Committed Impulse, a high-performance training for actors, artists, and entrepreneurs.

Josh has been fortunate to work consistently in movies and television throughout his career and owes everything to the principles he picked up along the way, all of which are utilized in his Committed Impulse classes and Online Program. Josh currently lives in New York City, Sag Harbor, and Venice, California.

Show Summary:
To start, your parents sound amazing. Can you tell us a bit about your upbringing and how you discovered acting?
Josh grew up in the East Village, which, at the time, he describes as a vibrant, dangerous environment where everything was out in the open and nothing was hidden. A kind of third world drug culture, where heroin and acid were the drugs readily available around there when he was growing up. Although everything was completely raw and potentially unsafe for people visiting the neighborhood, those who lived in it had a sense of protection, because it was a very tight community. Josh's mom was a true artist, and they had performances in their house every two weeks. He took part in them at 9 or 10 years of age when it started, not thinking he wanted to become an actor. 30-40 people would come and perform with no judgment, and it was more of a celebration. His parents divorced when he was 3, and on his father's side of things, as much as his mother was an artist, his father was a scientist. A physicist who worked with Einstein, he was very interested in exploring the building blocks of the universe and how everything is constructed of atoms. He would tell Josh at a very young age things like “this table is made out of atoms, and this person is made out of atoms,” and it blew his mind as he pondered those things. Between the artistic side from his mother and the physical way of looking at things in his immediate environment, he took the best of both of his parents.

Tell me about being Raphael in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. You were the only actor of all the turtles to both voice your character and play him in the suit, right? What was that like for you?
Josh believes he was hired to do both because the physicality and the voice were so intertwined for him. Growing up in the East Village, he witnessed a lot of people who made themselves look bigger and more dangerous than they were, almost scooping their arms through the air. Although he'd never heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he thought that his character Raphael was trying to find his place in the world, and realized that the way people walked in his neighborhood where he was growing up seemed somewhat similar to how turtles arms move as they push through the ground. He put those two aspects together, and during the filming, they just couldn't see anyone else's voice being physically connected to the character that he had created.

In terms of the actual shooting, the costume weighed 70 pounds, and most of the time, they could barely see through a tiny slit. They trained for about 4 months in martial arts before shooting, and all of the turtles became very tuned into one another, which they had to use during the filming, because they couldn't rely fully on sight and had to had a real kinesthetic awareness of the space, especially during action sequences.

Without giving too much away for free, can you give us a bit of a primer or teaser for what Committed Impulse entails and how it was inspired?
Josh loves to give stuff away for free, so he tells us. One of the key components is increasing your tolerance for the full spectrum of who you are. When you put yourself on the line – that might be an audition (for an actor), or going on a date, or pitching your product – it's guaranteed that you're going to have an increase in body sensations. It could be in the form of anything – nervousness, fear, excitement, joy (like butterflies) – and it doesn't mean you're unprofessional, because it's human nature when you go further in the world. If you don't know what to do when you experience something like nervousness, it will happen, you'll try to suppress it, maybe with breathing or relaxation or some other technique, and you might be able to decrease that sensation by decreasing the information your body is offering. At that point, you signal to your mind that you're not going to feel, and your attention goes into your thoughts, which at that point tend to go toward a negative place (“I suck,” or “they don't like this,” etc.). The problem is, the more that any presenter is in their head, the more the audience is going to be in their heads. The more any presenter is present with what they're feeling and experiencing, the more alert and active the audience will be. We think it'll be a problem if the audience sees that we're nervous. Referring to his father, Josh asks, “What is nervousness?” and says that for most people, it's like a chaotic energy spinning around in their torso. When Josh has people just experience it without the drama that it's a bad thing, and breathe, and stay connected to what's in front of them (their audience), then that sensation is no longer an issue. When they stay with the sensation, it keeps them present, and then any sensation they fully feel will shift within 7-12 seconds.

Josh used to experience crippling anxiety during auditions and knew he had more to offer than what he was offering, and he created committed impulse as a way to crack the code. “If we can get over this idea that there's an ideal state to be in, then we can create, no matter what.” If you hold onto the idea that some sensations are good, than you're going to perceive that some sensations are bad, and when they do occur, everything will go haywire. So part of the work in classes and in the online course is helping people to feel comfortable with the full spectrum of themselves. Those who've worked with Josh for a while recognize things like anxiety and fear and realize they can create from that energy, from that fuel.

Do you have any habits or traits that contribute to your happiness or success?
He says practicing what he calls the four access points to presence is key and will pull you out of drama and despair. He practices them regularly. One is to actually see the details of your environment and what's in front of you. The second is to really feel the sensations in your body right now at this moment in time. Not about whether you like it or not, but any sensations you can access – like the feeling of your butt in the chair, or some tightness in your chest, and whatever emotions are associated with it. The third is to consciously breathe – not to exhale any feelings you don't want to feel, but to inhale and exhale consciously to wake up the information that's in your body. The fourth (my favorite) is to catch yourself when you go off into any kind of mental drama, like wondering what's going to happen in the future, or whether you screwed up the past or it was better, etc. In class, when that happens, we're taught to say, “I'm back,” out loud, whenever that happens, which trains us to come back to this moment. As you start to drift off, you visually start to see less, your breathing decreases, and you disconnect from your body. So – to reverse that, say, “I'm back,” take a breath, see what you actually see, and observe the charge – what the atoms are actually doing in your body at that moment. It's that simple. That's what opens up the creative channel, and things will come to you in ways they couldn't have using just a little part of your mind. “Your creativity's in your body. You stay in your body, you stay in your immediate environment, increase your tolerance for whatever's happening, and the world is yours.”

If there were one thing you'd like the world to see differently, what would it be?
All of the sensations in your body are just pattern­s of energy, not good or bad. By increasing our tolerance for those shifts of energy in our bodies, everything becomes more fun, easier, and will keep us out of our heads, where all the trouble starts.

What's the best way to get started in Committed Impulse, for anyone who's interested?
Go to the website, www.committedimpulse.com, where you can sign up for a free audio lesson that will cover some of the things we talked about here and more. After that, you can look at the online course, and you can see what live classes are available in New York and LA.

Do you have any other advice for us?
No. Go have some dark chocolate, drink a lot of water, and go for a walk.

Josh, thank you SO much for being here. You and your work have really made such a huge difference to me as an actor and singer and human... I can't begin to say how grateful I am for you and to have you on our show. Thank you.

And thank you for joining us today on The Peace of Persistence! If you enjoyed this episode, take a minute to share us with a friend or review us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Imdb. Every share and review – or even rating – helps new people discover our show. Also, if you know anyone who's genuinely happy and has had some success in their lives, if you think they'd be a good fit for our show, let us know at peaceofpersistence@gmail.com.

In the meantime, you can subscribe to the lite version wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit us at Patreon.com/peaceofpersistence to find our full versions, or if you just want to support the show. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on The Peace of Persistence for more great content to help us all find more happiness and success in our lives.

Craig Blum of Johnny Doughnuts (LITE)

Episode Description:
In this LITE episode, host Abigail Wright talks with Craig Blum, Owner, Founder, and Chief Enthusiast of Johnny Doughnuts about working with The Hard Rock Cafe, overcoming addiction, intuition, authenticity in parenthood, yes - doughnuts, and so much more.

In the full version, hear Craig talk about waking up Gilbert Gottfried, overcoming addiction after being in LA county prison, intuition, authenticity in parenting, travel, and more. That's at http://www.patreon.com/peaceofpersistence. 

Bio/Intro:
Born in Los Angeles, Craig Blum says he's the product of a crazy childhood environment. At the age of 16, with the help of a friend's father, he became emancipated, and lived in the maids' quarters of a friend's empty mansion with their Chauffer. After High School, Craig worked a quick stint in the entertainment world before finding his passion as part of the opening team of the first US Hard Rock Café. While he really loved the food industry, with late nights and crazy living, he quickly found his personal life spinning out of control and hit bottom with drugs and alcohol at the age of 22.

After getting sober, he decided to take his passion for food and run with it. He was part of the opening team for Chopstix restaurant Group in Los Angeles, opened multiple restaurants for them, managed the popular Authentic Café, and worked with the Border Grill. After taking some time off to travel to Israel and Europe, Craig had a moment of clarity, realizing that anything is possible and that he never had to live anywhere that he didn’t love. He fulfilled a lifelong dream and moved to Maui, opening Café Fresh on the Northwest Shore of the island. He ran Café Fresh for a few years before selling it and going to the mainland for 9 months to begin a new business.

Inspired by reading the Celestine Prophecy, he began to notice his surroundings to see where they would take him. Craig drove into Marin county, California, saw a sign that told him it was where he needed to be, and has have been there for 20 years. He started a pizza crust manufacturing company out of the back of his car and grew it to a nationally distributed product. With a lifelong interest in food trucks, he then became a student of that industry and began a quest to learn how to build the perfect truck with the perfect product…  And he is today.

In early 2012, Johnny Doughnuts was born with the question, "why do doughnuts typically taste so bad and make us feel so bad when we eat them?" After 2 years pf product development and design, as their truck was delivered, they were approached by someone at Apple to do an event for ITunes. Since then, Johnny Doughnuts has done numerous events for Apple, Facebook, Google, and YouTube, to name a few. Named one of the top 3 doughnuts in the country by Food Network and honored as small business of the year for the state of California, they're even in a newly released major motion picture with Denzel Washington. Craig's mission with Johnny Doughnuts is to be of service and share the love, while working to bring back the sense of community and legacy that was once shared culturally with doughnuts. He has a loving and growing relationship with his wife and 2 amazing children, a 16 year old girl (from a previous relationship) and a 7 year old boy. He works hard to be great father, not trying to right the wrongs gifted to him, but because he wants to share with them his authentic self.

Show links:
Johnny Doughnuts: http://johnnydoughnuts.com/

Show summary:
You've led such a fascinating life. It seems you've been chasing freedom for a long time - what was it like, being emancipated at 16, and how has it affected you throughout your adult life?
He felt older than that when it happened at the time, and it was incredibly liberating because he realized he had the ability to make choices for himself. While it felt exciting to have his own space, he also experienced loneliness, but he needed that experience. It taught him that he can always make a change when times feel desperate.

You opened a lot of restaurants in your early career. What are some of your favorite take-aways or lessons from that time?
Craig feels grateful to have witnessed Peter Morton's early inspiration to make the Hard Rock Cafe the worldwide brand that it is today. It was holistically about branding. It wasn't just about the food, the environment, or the perception of the community - it was all of the above. From the lines outside, to the quality of the food, to the music and experience, it was a journey where people could leave their struggles behind for a moment. He basically created the whole "eatertainment" industry.

What fascinates you about food trucks?
Craig has always loved food trucks as a vehicle to get amazing food to anywhere in the world. They used to be unclean and sold bad food, but when he saw them starting to improve and carry great products, he got excited and started brainstorming how he could use one to make a profitable food business. With his current CFO, he created a business model for a pizza truck. He felt like he was swimming upstream with that concept and decided if he couldn't get past this one more hurdle, he would make a doughnut truck, because he was more excited about the doughnut holes on his pizza truck's menu than the rest of it. Within two weeks of making the mental shift, he had the whole project completely funded and ready to go.

It sounds like your strongest skill is networking. Although it probably comes naturally to you, do you have any advice about networking or meeting people?
As we get more interested in others, others become more interested in us. Get curious and interested.

I love your particular interest in the cultural sense of community that used to be a part of the doughnut culture. Do you have any favorite stories you've heard from your customers, or from your past?
Originally, community was not a part of the plan, but when he opened the first shop, Craig realized that people wanted a place to be able to hang and tell their story. There are so many stories people have surrounding doughnuts, and he didn't realize this whole part of American culture even existed. Now, they're here to share the love and be of service. He wants to help people find their favorite doughnut, even if they don't know what it is yet, so they can leave and feel satisfied.

If there were one thing you'd like the world to see differently, what would it be?
He would love all of us to spend less time racing around and more time enjoying the moment.

Thanks, Craig. And thanks to all of you who listen. Again, if you want to hear about waking up Gilbert Gottfried, overcoming addiction after being in LA county prison, intuition, authenticity in parenting, travel, and more, visit us at http://www.patreon.com/peaceofpersistence.

Now, go have a doughnut!

Extras: 5 Ways to Wellbeing #3 - Take Notice