Topaz Adizes On How To Ask Questions (And Sell Them, Too.)
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I don't like humans, but I love humanity. But I don't believe humanity is in us. I think it's between us. And that's what the and is. Because the and is a space between. Like a relationship is not you or I, us or them. It's you and I. It's us and them. It's the and that connects us. That space between, the conjunction is the and. And that's where humanity lives, in my opinion.

Welcome to the Unspeakable Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. We are back from the holiday break. I hope you had a happy and relaxing and healthy holiday season. I'm really excited to kick off the new year with this guest. My guest is a guy named Topaz Adizes.

And I have never interviewed someone quite like him. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He started off as a film director and even went to the Cannes Film Festival back in 2011. But after that serendipitous turn of events,

made him start to think about how creativity could thrive on the internet in ways he had never imagined. And back in 2011, people weren't necessarily thinking about the internet as the default medium for artistic expression. And he began to think about this and really radically altered his vision. He started thinking about how seeking answers was really a process of seeking questions and not necessarily the obvious questions.

He went on to found something called The Skin Deep, which is an experience design studio that has many different components, the best known of which is a project called The And. OK, so The And encompasses more than 1,200 videos featuring two people sitting face to face talking to one another and using a series of questions that Topaz has developed over time as a way of bringing them closer.

So these duos can be romantic couples, it can be parents and children, friends, colleagues, even strangers. Topaz has published a book about this called "12 Questions for Love" and also developed sets of playing cards with these questions on them. Very smart.

I'm going into a lot of detail here because if this is your first introduction to Topaz and his work, I want you to be able to take this interview in the best way possible without going, "Who is this guy and what is this all about?"

So much of what Topaz is interested in overlaps with what I do here on this podcast, as well as with the Unspeakeasy, which is all about bringing these kinds of conversations to in-person, real-life settings. And I just really enjoyed talking with him. So with that, I think I've given you enough context for this surprising and truly unique conversation with Topaz Adizes. Enjoy. ♪

Topaz Adizes, welcome to The Unspeakable. Hey, good to be here. Excited for this one. Very excited for this one.

Me too. The reason I was interested in talking with you, I guess it's twofold. So first, your work is devoted to fostering productive conversations, which is what my own work has centered on over the last several years, both on this podcast and in my community, The Unspeakeasy. The second is that you've made a career pivot from being a filmmaker, trying to work in the legacy Hollywood system, to carving out your own niche. And

And that kind of pivot is something we talk about a lot around here. So I think that that would be a good place to start just by way of getting into your work. So like once upon a time, you were just a simple caveman film director. You had a film in the Cannes Film Festival, which is like what everybody wants. You've made it.

And then you kind of got off the path that you thought you were on. So tell us what that film was and what happened there. I guess it's all about the questions you ask yourself. And then sometimes the questions you ask yourself, they're not your questions. They're someone else's questions. So in my 20s and 30s, the question I was asking myself is, how can I be a film director? How can I be a famous film director and win an Oscar?

And that really was a question that I think I adopted from my dad, which was basically being a genius and fame. Not necessarily fame, but being a genius and well-known. And that was my way to kind of try to pursue that. Long-winded way of saying that, like when I had the film at Cannes, it was a short film. And I had actually a script that I had working on with Tim Hetherington, who was a war photographer who died in Misrata, actually a month before I went to Cannes.

And the previous two years, I had been at Sundance. So, it was like three years in a row as a film director. And I had a feature film, which was really beautiful. Beautiful script. But no one really... I didn't attract the interest of Hollywood agents. And it wasn't really like... It was like swimming upstream. I think because I had shorts and there was more room in shorts to make films that weren't necessarily commercial. Right? What era was this? Sorry to interrupt you. This is 2000...

9, 10, 11. Okay. And were you like in your 20s or 30s? I was in my early 30s. Okay. And I'm 48 now. And basically, after I went to Cannes, I put the film on Vimeo without a password by mistake because it was still in that early era before streaming and everything. Whereas like, you know, don't put it online until it's in the festivals. Right. Right.

And I just by, it was like July, I was in Russia for something. I had to post it and I forgot to put password. And Vimeo picked it up as short of the week. And in a week, I had 400 and a half a million views in a week. And that sparked the question, what game am I playing? I've been playing the game of, well, how do I be a film director? And how can they see that I'm a genius? And which is really a question that my father offered me that I adopted.

But then I was saying, well, what game am I playing? What about playing the game about how to inject ideas into the mainstream? That sounds interesting. And if that's the case, why am I spending so much time in the theatrical world? Because how much time, money, and energy would it have taken me to get half a million people to watch my short film in the theaters, in that mechanism, in that marketplace? Wait, this question of how do I inject ideas in the mainstream, where I go digital on your phone, digital media, that's a more interesting question. Ooh, let me pursue that.

And that's where the shift started for me. So, what had been your relationship to online media at this point? I mean, did you look down on it? I'm trying to think what was going on around that time. No, I knew that was the way forward. Okay. I mean, in 2000, I think it was eight, I did this project as a shooter, like director, a shooter, like for this thing called IMG, which is a – IMG is like a –

big fashion modeling agency. Right. And we did this thing called fashion lot model fashion live or something where we literally went to the four fashion weeks and there are four shooters like me and we filmed four different models and we literally were

filming them and uploading like with little chips on the laptop footage to the internet to then download to just stream live or like weekly Instagram content or weekly YouTube content. And that was like the early version of 2007, eight. And it was just clear, even though it was clunky, it was clear that there was so much space here to explore, to play with. And it would different type of engagement with your audience in the digital media space than it is in their traditional films, radio, TV. Yeah.

which is really a binary experience for the audience. It's like, do I watch or do I not? And here the digital is like, at least you can share, at least you can engage, at least you can do more. And there's a lot more we can go with that. But for me, that was an interesting playground to play. And it was clear I had to go there. And at some point when can happen and afterwards, and I saw it go kind of file on Vimeo said, okay, it's time to like change my, the question I'm asking myself. And then it became, well, then what is ideas I want to share with the world?

Were they leaving comments? And can you tell us like a little bit about what the film was about? I know that's not the focus of the conversation. Yeah, the film was called Boy. And it was about the coming of age of a young man to, you know, who was a boy to a man by killing a coyote. And kind of how he, you know, spending a weekend with his father, who he's kind of estranged from. Then they come across a coyote and his dad's like, well, you got to get rid of the pest.

And so the kid who's like 11, you got to kill the coyote. And he shoots him and wounds the coyote. And then he's got to, the dad's like, well, you got to finish him off. You can't just leave him there. For him to follow up and go over the hill and decide if he's going to finish off this coyote

coyote that's dying in front of them. And for me, A, it was based on a true story of a friend of mine, Nick, who's a firefighter in Santa Barbara. He once told me that story and I was like, this is a great story. But also more importantly, it just, it's about the perpetual pattern that we have in masculinity of like passing your way down of how do you go from boy to a man? And why is it, why oftentimes is it about a killing and does it have to be? And really it's beyond the killing. It's about trauma.

So put trauma down the line and generationally, how do we, why is it like that? And what's the cost of that? Okay. And were you getting comments on Vimeo? People were saying, I love this. Were they, were they critical? Like what was that like? I mean, for me, it was just, I rarely read comments because it can, I rarely read comments. I just don't go there. Um,

But what's nice is when you hear someone liked it, someone liked it, and you get those emails coming in, someone else shared in the group, share and share. And you see the numbers go up and you're like, okay, I had an idea. My team and I created this idea. We executed this short film. We shared it. And boom, it's able to reach people that much easier. And it was just clear that that was, for me, it became a more interesting question to ask. How to create, how to engage with the mainstream, how to inject ideas in the mainstream and have conversation with the mainstream.

Okay. So, and obviously now you have created this large platform. It's really interesting. There's a lot of different elements to it. You have something called Skin Deep, which is an experience design studio. And I want you to sort of explain what experience design is. And you have this project called The And, which has to do with conversations between two people. So how did you get from this moment with Vimeo to...

what you have now built. I know that's probably a long story. No, no, no, no. It's because right there, I was like, okay, I want to inject into ideas in mainstream. Okay, great. Well, what kind of ideas? What is worthy of speaking about? And if, you know, that's what I was thinking about. Okay, great. You want to inject ideas in the mainstream, but like what kind of ideas you want to have conversations around? What is worthwhile speaking about?

And I was this 2011 when I had, okay, the new question, but then what subject matter? And it took me three years, four years to discover what it was for me that I was really passionate about, which was how's the emotional experience of being human shifting in lieu of all this technology? Because it was, you know, between 2011 and 2014, I was living in New York. I lived there for 18 years. But in that time, when I was looking for like, what conversations, what themes can I start offering to the mainstream that are interesting?

and worthwhile investing time and energy and thought into was the fact that my brother was 16, 17 years younger than I. And I just saw how he was engaging and dating totally different than I was. Dating. Dating, absolutely. And how was he utilizing Tinder and messaging and communicating in a way that was fundamentally different than I was? And I had this, you know, and I just...

It was, we're just different generations, right? And then what really brought it home was I was dating a woman. I was in Sun Valley, Idaho. I was dating her in Brooklyn. So she was in Brooklyn working on a script and we were texting because we've been together for a few weeks, months. And she said, Topaz, when you write love in your texts, do you mean that like the English mean it love, like kind of friend or whatever? Or do you actually mean love? Like, what do you mean? I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. So I called her and we had an hour conversation about our relationship.

And what struck me most was at the end of the conversation, she said, Topaz, thank you so much for having this conversation because I met her on a dating app, right? And we started dating for a few weeks, months. At the end of the conversation, she said, thanks so much for this because all my previous kind of relationships, anytime we talked about something intimate like this, it was over text. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. And what struck me most about it wasn't that statement. What the statement was that struck me most was the fact that she was

five years younger than I. I was going to ask how old she was. I was 37. She was 32. So, even in a five-year gap, there was a big enough shift in the way we engage with each other through relationships by the technology that's in our hands. For me, it was not thinking about like, no, this is where we need to talk. And if it was in person, if I was in Brooklyn, I would have gone to her house, gone to the park for a walk. Because

You want to see someone's eye to eye. But she said, no, no, this is how we're doing it now. It's only five year difference. And I thought, wow, we humans are so good at adapting to change that what we once thought was impossible or crazy or ridiculous soon becomes norm. So even though we use the term love now, I don't think it's the same thing.

So not to get into the details of that particular relationship, but when you were saying love, were you saying it like in a context of a larger sentence? Like, were you saying I love you or were you saying I love ice cream? Like, what was it? Sounds good, love. I'll see you in a week. Something like that.

Oh, okay. You know, for me, it was more in the English usage. Oh, like a pet, like a pet name, like honey or deer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it, got it. Okay. It was like that. I mean, I lived in England for a year and I have a lot of English friends. So I think I've adopted that or, you know. Okay. Wow. Okay. So you noticed this difference in communication styles? Totally. And how we were, you know, how my brother was 16 years younger than I was using technology in a completely different way than I was. And I just saw that the emotional experience of being human is shifting right now.

And the questions we ask ourselves in lieu of that are imperative. And the question that at the time was 11, 12, 15, is social media good or bad?

You know, I'm sorry. It's not a good question. Why? Because if you're in a flood, you want to talk about if a flood is good or bad. It doesn't matter. The flood is there. Your house is flooded. Maybe a better question is, how do I utilize this flood to my benefit? What can I learn from this situation to make it better? You know, like the flood's here. Now we're talking about AI. Is it good or bad? What can we do right now to manage the flood of AI that's coming?

And I think throughout my life, especially with the book out and everything that forced me to kind of distill my learnings for doing this and project for 11 years is like a pile of questions. Like what questions are you asking yourself? And I just thought that, you know, I was living in New York and I was dating and I was looking for love and hopeless romantic. And I just noticed how maybe because I studied philosophy and able to look at some things from a distance as an object, you look at an idea as an object, you know, you can rotate it around. It's like, okay, what,

What does it look like from this angle? Wait, what does it look like? What does the idea look like from these different angles? I think philosophy, studying philosophy gives you that kind of skill set or purview. I just apply that to relationships, which I've always been interested in.

Studying philosophy will also drive you crazy, but yes. That's what you just got to know. To be in a relationship with somebody who studied philosophy is a whole other thing. Well, I wasn't very good at it. I'll tell you that much. I studied it, but I wasn't very good at it. All right. That's a good answer. Okay. So now you have this project called The And, and the concept is two people sit down and you –

present them with a series of questions that you have formulated over the years that brings out a more productive dialogue than they probably would have had otherwise. So can you kind of explain how you came up with this and how it works? If I'm asking the right question. Now I'm self-conscious. No, don't be self-conscious. I'm the interviewer. No, I'm trying... Here's the thing. The truth is I'm trying to think about how to give...

A unique response in a way that's not similar to all the other podcasts I've done to offer a new way in. And the way in right now for me is like, I don't like humans, but I love humanity. But I don't believe humanity is in us. I think it's between us. And that's what the and is. Because the and is a space between. Okay. Like a relationship is not you or I, us or them. It's you and I. It's us and them. It's the and that connects us.

That space between the conjunction is the end. And that's where humanity lives, in my opinion. And so the question is, how do we cultivate that? How do we create that space to feel it, to see it, to engage with it? And the end, to me, the project is a wonderful manifestation of that. Why? Bring two people in a room who are in a relationship, facing each other. You give them questions that are custom-made to them, that you've chosen for their relationship, for what they're going through.

that are well constructed. We can talk about that. But you film it with three cameras, right? Two over the shoulders and one wide shot. So what we're always showing you as the viewer, we're always showing you at a minimal, a bi-panel, two people's faces at the same time. Okay. Maybe a triptych so you can see a wide shot of their posture. But basically, you're always seeing both faces at the same time. Why? Because what we're saying is it's not about the speaker.

It's also about the listener. And more than just the speaker and the listener, it's about the space that connects them. And the way you can see that and feel that is when you see them reacting to each other in real time at the same time. That's the end. And we should say these are not just two people in a romantic relationship. These are parents and kids and siblings and friends. Megan, for the last 11 years, we're about to start the 12th year, we filmed over 1,250 pairs in 10 countries.

having these conversations and not only do we have a breadth of conversations you tell me like give me a dynamic a grandparent with grandchild a mother with their son um an incarcerated father with their daughter whatever you give me we have a lot of them not that every story is the same actually every story is different but we have a lot of these dynamics that a library of experience a library of relationships with them conversing through their relationship

And not only do we have that breadth, but we have depth too. Why? Because we have people that come back year after year after year. We have people, Sidra and Ben, who Sidra and Ben, they're a couple. The first time they were on, she was two weeks away from giving birth to their daughter, Naya. They've been on since eight times. And the last time, Sidra's talking to Naya, who's nine. Oh, wow. So you have...

depth over time. You see how people and couples change from dating to getting married, to being parents, to maybe getting divorced. You can see that over time just by virtually the legacy of time that we've been operating.

So, is there one set of questions or do you sort of craft the questions based on that particular duo? We read through the questionnaire that they fill out. Okay. And we feel into where there's room and opportunity for growth, opportunity to explore. And then there's an architecture to the questions. Okay.

There's a construction to each question. And then I choose them and I place them there so that I'm hoping to create the space to invite them to have a conversation they wouldn't have otherwise, but it's only an invitation. That's what makes it safe. They're not pushed against the wall. You have to answer this. And so, yeah, over this time, I've learned about how do you create the space for these incredible conversations? And then how do you construct questions that explore and reinforce the relationship?

Okay. So let's, I want the audience. Have you seen an ad video? Yeah, I have seen a few of them and I'm trying, and I am trying to, um, I'm trying to figure out the best way to get the listeners to, to understand this. So just for example, so if there's, if there's two people, let's say they're a couple, they filled out the form. What to you is a good, what, what, what makes for a good question or a series of questions in your mind? Wow. Um,

Okay, so there's five things that make a well-constructed question in the virtue of a relationship. One is don't make it binary. If you want to have a cathartic conversation with your partner or anybody in your life that you're intimate with, that you care about, how was your day? Good, bad? Do you love me? Are we doing the right thing? I mean, do not ask a binary question. Second, shaping the question, the shape of the question shapes the answer, right? You ask your kids, do you want to go to sleep?

the options are yes or no. If instead you say, do you want to sleep on the bed or on the couch? Option of not sleeping is not, it's not a part of the answer. Right, right, right. So you, we shape the answers are reflections of the question. And we are brought up in society to always look for the answers where all the emphasis, matter of fact, should be on the question because that's where the power lies. The question shapes the answer. So why do they vote for Trump? Why, you know,

Why were they so stupid to vote for Trump, for instance? Okay. How helpful is those responses going to be for you in terms of engaging with them? Maybe a better question is like, what experiences has led them to be in a position that they've chose Trump? I'm going to give an example of politics. But the point is, the question shapes the answer. And so, shape a question that fetches you a constructive answer.

So like a very simple example that we can all relate to is like, why did he or she dump me? Okay. Okay. Well, how helpful of an answer are you going to get? That question is going to fetch you how useful of an answer. Instead, you could say, what am I going to carry from this relationship into the next? What am I learning from this relationship that I'll take into the next? Like the questions we ask yourself shape the answer. So ask yourself,

Questions that are going to fetch you empowering answers that give you agency. Okay. So it's not, when you say a binary question, it's not necessarily a yes or no question because why did you dump me is not a yes or no question. No, no, that's the second. Yeah. A binary is if the question starts with is, are, do, would, should, I don't care what comes after it. It's a binary question.

Is, are, should, do. Okay. Right? Okay. Because those are all yes or no's? Yes, no's, left, right, wrong, good. Okay. Right? Okay. The second one is constructive question. Like ask a question that's constructive. Third one is a connective question. This is really interesting. This is people often miss. Look, if I ask you, Megan, what scares you the most? Now your best friend says, hey, Megan, what scares you the most? And your mom says,

Says, hey, Megan, what scares you the most? You're going to give the same answer to the three of us, but we're not the same person. I'm definitely different than your best friend and your best friend and I are definitely different than your mom. So tweak it and make it a connective question, which acknowledges the person you're in conversation with, which would be, hey, Megan, what do you think scares us both the most? You see how if I ask you that and your best friend and your mom ask you that, it's different answers.

So when you think of a question, say, try to shift it in a way that makes it acknowledge the people in conversation. So it's about the relationship and that makes it unique. And isn't every moment that we have once in a lifetime unique?

Yes. Although that's frightening to think about. That's what scares me the most. There's the answer to that question. So did you like, how did people start coming to you? You know, presumably you just sort of started, you know, experimenting with this. Were you putting it on YouTube? Like how did this evolve? Totally. Well, it evolved by, I had the question, how's the emotional experience of being human shifting in lieu of all this technology?

I started an experience design studio. It's called The Skin Deep, which would create all these different experiences that would explore that emotional experience of being alive right now, being human. So we did the end and that's what won the Emmy and that's what

One file, and that's what's really like the flagship. But we also have something called the window and the dig and these other experiences, whether they're digital interactive or video formats or even a retreat that we did called Grace that explores different aspects of what it means to be human, to be alive, and in relationship with yourself and with others.

All under the banner of the Skin Deep and Experience Design Studio, right? Okay. Now, the ant is the most successful because it's the most famous. We have car games that we sell around the world. We have the book. We have da-da-da-da-da. And that's what I talk about the most. But that's kind of the impetus was, look, the flood is here. The technology is here. Things are to shift. The question is like, what questions are we asking ourselves so that we're conscientious of the tools that are now at our disposal? So, to what end are we using them? For what?

Can you explain what experience design means? Yeah. Give me an example. When you walk into an In-N-Out burger, every In-N-Out burger is the same. Okay. That's, yes. Like if you walk into any In-N-Out burger, you know where the cashier register is and you know where the bathroom is. It's off to your right. They're all designed exactly the same. Why? Because they want you to have the same experience. The color is the same. The lighting is the same. The costumes that the staff are wearing are the same. That's a certain experience. Okay.

When you sit by the fire at night, sitting around with your friends and you're hearing the coyotes in the distance. Don't say coyotes now. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. The coyotes being killed. The wolves howling in the distance. Men coming of age. Okay. Yes. But, you know, there's, that's an experience. Okay. Right. And bringing conscientiousness to an experience is experience design.

I mean, I call myself an experienced design architect because there's design which is like the nuances of things, like the interior design of a home, but the architecture are the building blocks. And the ultimate aim is the experience. Right, right. You know, Frank Lowe, you asked him what he designs his homes. Like, there is an experience he has you attending.

You come in through a low arch door and then you come into the living foyer. It's low. Why? Because he doesn't want you spending too much time there. He wants you moving into the living room where the ceiling goes double the height so it's more comfortable and you feel that whether you know it or not. But that's an experience. Designing experience is to put people in the position to have a certain type of illumination. Not specifically, but creating the space for exploration of that. That's experience design.

How much of this came from your awareness that people were just not experiencing things the way they used to? I mean, this may be an obvious question, but I would like to explore this a little bit because we talk so much about the disembodied nature of our interactions now and just the fact that somebody could, you know, conduct major relationship conversations over text and.

we are in a different age and you picked up on that and you sort of created these experiences and opportunities for people. But like, how conscious were you of like, Oh, I'm identifying a problem and it's kind of abstract and I can't quite articulate it, but I know it's there and I'm going to create these series of, of opportunities as a way of addressing that. Or did this just kind of evolve? Cause you were like, liked doing all these different things. I mean,

I knew what the question I was asking myself was. I knew what I was exploring and my feelings about it. And then I embarked. Yeah. And everything I'm telling you now was, I mean, definitely more refined now. But when I started the endeavor, no one also had any idea what I was talking about. And what I had to do when I started the Skin Deep was I had to show them this previous film I had made.

That worked. And when they saw that, yeah, that's great. I'm like, and do you remember when I talked about this film? When I talked about the film before I made it, you also had no idea what I was talking about. But now it works, right? So we're in the same position right now. What I'm saying, it sounds philosophical and out there, doesn't make sense. But give me two years and it's going to make perfect sense. So that's,

You know, I'm looking at you now, signs with your face. And I think sometimes I think I remember giving a talk once in London. And at the end, this woman comes up. She said, wow, listen, half of that was brilliant. And half of that, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And sometimes I feel like at least... That's a pretty good ratio, actually. Is it really? Not bad. Not bad. But yeah, it was very conscientious. I didn't know what the answer was. I knew what the questions I was asking. The question was the emotional experience of... And in terms of the end is...

How are we relating to one another? And are we aware of it? And how can we share that connection, not just with ourselves and feel it, but with others, with the viewer? So I'm really interested in the business aspect of this. So did you see this as like...

like a business venture or were you going to do this as like an art project? How did you conceive of it? And then are you going and like getting investors and, and, you know, making like, you know, business models and pitch decks. So I'm 11 years in and personally, the journey has been from artist to business person. And what does that mean for me? If I had to distill it down, which was,

Seeing something as purely value to building something that's sustainable. Right. Because seven years in, we built beautiful things. We won awards. It was moving people. But we were draining of energy.

I was getting depressed. My team was not getting paid what they should have gotten paid just because we didn't have the money for it. Yes, I raised money from friends and family. It was the same group that supported me in films that didn't make their money back. This was basically their last view of support. Thank God he's finally doing a business instead of just a film. But carrying that weight of trying to pay the bills for the staff and

to make it sustainable was exhausting. And it took me to depression. It took me to lower back pain to the point that I couldn't walk anymore. And it took a lot of pain. It took having letting go of people to then understanding that, oh, I see I have an issue with money. So, I'm going to substitute. Money is energy. Okay. So, when you put something out there in the world, you put energy out and it offers value.

And it comes back to you with more energy because it's valuable. It comes back to you. Some people call that excess energy profit, right? You put something out there. I was doing a substitution. Excess energy profit. I've never heard that. So like you put some energy out there that has value and it gives you back more energy. Why? So that you're sustainable and then you could even put more out there. Okay. Right. And so for me, it wasn't about money. It was about contribution.

Right. And that's the value. That's how I was raised. My parents like, what value are you offering? Yeah. To who, you know, what value offering? So contribution, like it's not just, but then when I realized, no, no, no. The excess profit is actually excess energy, which then makes it sustainable. So I'm not depressed. So I'm not worrying about the bills every two weeks. So I'm not stressed and wanting to stay in bed out of depression and like, you know, carrying that load to then making it sustainable so that we can do more projects and grow this in a sustainable way.

And that was basically, okay, I got to stop talking about interactive media. I got to stop talking about these big pictures. I'm going to keep it simple. What works right now is that people see these conversations on the end, on our YouTube channel for the Skin Deep of the end format. They want to have it. So I'm going to sell boxes of questions. It comes very simple. It's like year, four, five years in. And it became, okay, you want to have these conversations that you see on YouTube? $30. Buy a box of 200 questions. And we became an e-commerce business. Right? Yeah.

That's the model right now. That is fascinating. Yeah. And I remember my friend telling me early on, Justin, who actually I've done an and with. You can see it on YouTube. He's one of my very good friends. And he's like, Topaz, just sell car games. I'm like, selling car games? You don't understand what I'm doing here. I'm doing interactive media. This is like two point. This is like the future of media. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

And it went from long 20-minute diatribe about what I did to when I met my wife finally, she goes, what do you do? I say, I sell questions. Okay. Three words. Not card decks. Okay. No, I sell questions. And that's been my journey as an arc, you know, manifested in three words. Not necessarily the words themselves, but the ability to just sell like, what do you do? I sell questions. And we can talk from there, but...

Personally, it was a long journey from like artists who just valued things, but then it was unsustainable. And you end up going and asking people for money to continue supporting this artistic habit you have. It's like, no, you're going to be sustainable. You got to make this a sustainable model for yourself, for your family and for your co-workers.

I totally relate to this because I've been a creative person my whole career, writer, etc. People know this. And I've started a business the last couple of years that has to do with experiences and conversations and retreats. And we have an online community. But I never thought I would be an entrepreneur. And the learning curve is steep. And it's really exciting. But it also...

And money is, I have a totally tortured relationship to money as well. And I think most creative people do. That's why I had to do the substitution. Yeah. Substitute money and energy. And then it was another way I could deal, I can handle it in a way that was sustainable for myself. Okay. But say more about that because you still need money. I mean, that sounds nice. No, it's still money, but it's just energy. Like I'm not...

I'm just like, it is money, but it's, I'm not make, I'm not going for the money to make the money. I'm going for the money so that I have a recycling of sustainable energy so that I can offer more of it out to the world. Right. If it offers people value, but then pays for the time and for the, and then even excess so we can grow more and offer different experiences. I mean, I have, we have a new experience called cadulting. We have another one about sexual expression called, um, and sexual exploration called honest X. I mean,

The excess energy we get from the sales of the card goes into making more experiences so that people can benefit more. And how are you marketing the cards? Is the YouTube platform your main portal? YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Google Ads, Facebook Ads. Okay. Doing podcasts like this and just kind of across the board. I mean, we have an incredible niche community of people that love our products. And...

We hear about it all the time. We have a production in LA coming up for three days, first week of January and people are flying in for it. It's amazing. You know, we don't pay anybody for anything, but people fly in. People are flying in from London for three days. Yeah. And it's an honor. And they don't, you know, I think half the people are flying in and I don't know where they're coming from, but it just, and when you send out, say, hey, because we have so many applicants,

You say, hey, you've been selected. I got to tell you, one of the best feelings is getting that response in 20 minutes from sending the email. Like, oh my God, we're so excited. Thank you so much. And it almost feels like a family. It feels like the best side, the best version of a family Thanksgiving. They're not the bad side where you're all anxious, but the good side where you can't wait to meet that uncle or that cousin again and hang out. And that's what it feels like with these complete strangers. Why? Because...

They watch the end. They play the card games. They know the value of sitting in the space of exploring one another's experience of being alive. And I know it speaks to you because of the virtue of the work that you've been doing for so many years and

You know, it's just a privileged position to be in that I can do something that I love, that I know benefits people and that pays the bills. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's shift away from the business side of this and actually talk about the substance. So, so what, like people apply, what do you look for? I mean, how many people, when you come to LA, for instance, like how many people are you going to shoot? I'm presumably you want like...

maybe one couple you know one father son whatever we do seven a day seven a day okay okay yeah it's like a full day of it's like yeah it's an incredible experience for for my whole team that the crew's there they don't know i was about to hit them so so that means you have like 20 people if you're here for three days you're gonna do how many well 22 pairs okay wow 22 so what do you look for if somebody wants to apply what do they need to do so that they can get picked

It's a good question. I mean, honestly, I don't, what's beautiful about the format is that you can take anybody. You really could, because it doesn't matter. Even if they don't talk, even if they don't talk and they just pass on every question because you're not required, the rules are you have to ask every question, but you don't have to answer anything you don't want. Why? Because, well, what has that taught me? That's taught me that it's actually not about the answer. It's about sitting in the discomfort of the question.

And when you film it with three cameras and you have two people's faces at the same time, you can ask a really hard question. You read it out loud. They look at each other. They look up, they look down, and they go past. That 10 seconds of silence as a viewer, you're witnessing like a conversation they don't want to have right there. There's a lot of value there. And you don't have to know what it is that they're avoiding, but you can feel it because then you project your own

The things that you avoid yourself in the relationships in your life. And there's value there too. Because then you're asking the question, ooh, what are the things I don't talk about? Why do I think they don't want to talk about it? Oh, okay. And so what's beautiful about the format is that like we don't need people to answer the questions. You see both faces and we're feeling like the reality of feeling. Not reality TV. It's reality of feeling. Right. And in today's internet world, like you don't have too many places where you can go and get a digital dose of humanity.

The silences are a challenge. I have to say it's unusual to see something these days that has long pauses and a lot of oxygen in the conversation, in the space. And a lot of people can't tolerate it. I mean, I'm guilty of this. I don't like it when there's a silence and I'm guilty of jumping in, right? Save the day.

But so is that when you're in a conversation or is it also apply to when you're watching a conversation? Well, I mean, if I'm watching it, I don't talk back at the screen usually. But if you're watching the end and two people go into silence. Oh, I don't like it. Really? No, I don't know. I'm like, oh, no, no, no. They feel uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, as an interviewer, I think we learn to not jump in. I mean, there's nothing I'm sure that you've experienced this. So like you conduct an interview and you're watching, you know, you're listening back to it and you can tell, oh, my gosh, the guest is about to say something great. But I just jumped in and interrupted them. It's like you ruin the whole thing. I mean, every every journalist knows this. I mean, all of us who've been recording our interviews, you know, back in the like

mini cassette days, you would play back your thing when you're transcribing the interview, when you're like, you idiot, you just completely cut off this person. And no, so it's valuable to learn. So, but I mean, are people coming because they feel that they have issues in their relationships that they want to fix? Like, what do they want to get out of this experience? I think they want to get a deeper connection.

I think they want to get a deeper connection. And you can get it from playing the card games. And that's a lot of them do. And they are. But then they want, they see these videos that they know have changed their lives. Because there are a lot of our, you know, our audience, I mean, I can't tell you, this is a common story. A couple comes in, Bree and Eric Brown, they come in from DC, they fly into Atlanta, they have the conversation. This is, what is it, one or two years ago in Atlanta.

They're like, hey, yeah, we came across you first when we were in last one or two years of college. And we saw Ben and Sidra conversation and we realized, oh, those are the kinds of relationships I want to be in. Then they met each other. They got married. They even played the and for their wedding video because for some reason we couldn't cast them in New York.

And here it is like five, six, seven years later, you see a casting like, no, we want to have this experience. Why? Because the end videos has informed our life. The playing the card game is informing my life. And we know that like stepping into that space is a space that's going to be conducive to a conversation we wouldn't have otherwise. Why? Because it's a safe, albeit uncomfortable space, which is a good place to be. Don't confuse safety with comfort. You can be safe and uncomfortable. Yeah.

And then you ask really well-constructed questions and people go, ooh, and they take a pause. You want to ask questions that makes people pause. Why? Because they're jumping out of their normal script. They're jumping out of the normal neural nodal connections that they make in their brains, the normal stories that they give. And they have to create a new one. And in that space, they can explore each other. They can explore their own experience of living in relation with this other person.

And I think that's what they're coming for. They're like, I want to have a deeper experience. And I think on a simple antidote, anecdote, sorry, anecdote. You know, my dad, my dad's classic. He's amazing. I did it twice with him on the end. You can see it there. I watched you. Yeah. He's like, he's like, I don't get it, son. I don't get it. I don't get that. I don't get do people talking. I don't get it. Then he came to live experience. He's like, I still don't, I don't get it. I don't get this. What is this? I don't get it. And finally I was able to bring them to production. We sat down.

And we had the conversation. And afterwards, he goes, ah, now I get it. He's like, anybody who does this, you want investors, anyone, you just have to have them play the ant because then they get it. Because it's like sex. You could talk about sex, but until you have sex, you don't get it. Right. And it's kind of like that profound. And I'm not saying that exactly, but my dad is a bit like that. He says things like that, but...

I think they come because they want to deepen and have a more profound moment in their experience of living together, of being together. Whatever that means, you know, family members or romantic or friends, doesn't matter. They know the power of having that moment. They need to create those moments. Okay. I just want to give a couple of examples of these questions. So people understand. I mean, I'm recalling there was a couple, I don't know if it's the couple you're referring to, but I remember one of the questions is something like, when was the moment...

in our relationship when we first got together, that you sort of realized that you wanted to be together forever or that we could be together forever. I'm sure I'm mangling this, but it was something like along those lines. So like a question like that. So it's a five act structure. So the beginning is about the unique connection that they have. So it harks to the past. So the question there would be, what was the first moment you knew that I knew I loved you? Right. Right.

Then that makes it a little different. When was the first time you knew that I knew I loved you? Because usually it's like, when was the first time you knew you loved me? That's like the general question everyone gets. And maybe you know that answer already. But if I ask you, when was the first time you knew that I knew I loved you? Oh, let me go explore that. You know? What do you think are my three favorite memories that we share and why? Oh, yeah. You know? Or the simpler version, what are your three favorite memories we share and why? But, you know...

What do you, oh, this one always works. It's like in the book, you know, when do you feel closest to me? And that's always nice to watch because it's not usually the biggest things, right? It's like the small things. And usually when people answer that, you can see them going back into a moment of that. And they go, you know, when we wash dishes together or when we lie in bed after and tell stories, you can see that in their eyes. But in the first act, you want to hark back to the past. You want to remind these people of,

What is the bedrock of their relationship? Where did the love begin? How did it cultivate in the beginning? You know, what unique experiences did they create in virtue of their synergies together? Okay. And then you go into act two where we could break down the five acts if you want, but yeah, just quickly. What are the five acts? You start leaning into discomfort. So it's like, you know, what are you hesitant to tell me? What do you think I'm hesitant to tell you? What do you think I'm hesitant to ask you? You know, what do you think is the biggest challenge in our relationship right now?

Why do you think it is? Or what do you think it's teaching us? Even better, right? Then, you know, so that's number two as we start warming up. Then three is the climax. You're asking climax like questions. In the second act, you've kind of warmed up, you know, when was the last time I disappointed you and how do you feel about it now? It's like warming it up, right? Now in the climax, you've built up to this. You're building an architecture of an experience. You're building architecture of a home. So, you know, you don't go to the peak immediately.

You build up to that. Why? Because you've created us. You reminded them of their shared experience. You've built this trust. You've leaned into the conflict, right? What's the pain in me you wish you could heal and why? What have you learned about loving me from our worst fight? The last time we were courageous, where did the courage come from? Or where do you think the courage came from?

And then you start landing the plane and talking about gratitude because at the end of the day, you've had this conversation with someone. And even if you don't have the answers, they're sitting there across from you. You're sitting across from them. You're holding space for each other. And it's very, I think it's important to just acknowledge that. So questions like, what do you think you're learning from me? What do you admire most about me and why? What's my superpower that I don't realize I have? You know, you know,

Why am I in your life? Why do you think I'm in your life? And then there's also the very end where we really like resolve it by just making sure we talk about the things that we should make sure we talk about before we die, basically. Just to make sure that like you never know when things are going to end. Right. And I think it's worth a lot of time. Yeah. So one is like if this were our last conversation, what's one thing you never want me to forget?

For a parent and child, what's one value you never want me to forget and why? The classic is like, why do you love me? Or what does my love feel like? How does my love feel like? How do you love me? That's a hard one to answer. What does my love feel like? That's tough. Great. That feels like trying to describe an abstract painting or something. Why should it be clear? Why does it need to be clear? It feels like a porcupine. I mean, why can't it be? I mean-

Life is nuanced. Yeah. And the ability to just sit in the nuance, the discomfort of it, means that we can cherish it because we know we don't have to have the answer to it. And I just think we're cultivated in this. We ourselves, our behaviors are cultivated to have the answers. And by that, we miss out in the pauses. And it's in the pauses, the discomfort of those pauses, where there's richness. Yeah. Yeah.

It's something we talk about a lot around here, this concept of epistemic humility as mostly applies when, you know, in this sort of intellectual space or talking about,

political issues or cultural issues or just, you know, the ability to say, I don't know. Like epistemic humility is just not needing to have an answer saying, I either don't understand this or this is not really understandable. This is so complex that there's no one way to think about this. I mean, I always say like, there's never two sides of the story. There's always like infinite sides of the story. But it's hard to

monetize this kind of humility, right? Because we're in a culture and a media space that the algorithm prefers certainty. Yeah.

And so you have built a business on this nuance and in, you know, the bedrock of your, of your project is this space in between of, of not knowing or just silence. So how do you make that work? But not knowing doesn't mean there's nothing there. It's actually maybe sometimes when you're not knowing you can feel. Of course. I mean, there's more there. The not knowing is there's more there, but, but the,

We are just in the attention economy does not favor this. So how have you hacked this as a business person? Well, A, I think we're really fortunate because it wasn't like I'm going to hack it. I'm just going to offer it. And I believe there's value here. And hopefully, I can find other people who see value in it. And hopefully, it can be enough to sustain us. And it has been. And I think people have a natural hunger for connection. And what does connection mean? Because it's such an overused word. I think it's about seeing people.

Like being seen and seeing people. You know, it's, yeah. And when we say vulnerability, there's a connection to seeing and being seen to vulnerability. And oftentimes when we see someone's being vulnerable, you think that they're opening themselves up so that they can be seen. But we should also need to acknowledge that seeing someone is also an act of vulnerability. Let me give you an example. We don't talk about that. So you got the uncle who voted somebody that you can't believe they voted for.

sitting there and listening to them, if you come to them and say, hey, I'd like to know the things that have happened to bring you to a place. Let's do a better example. It's mother and son. The son goes and mom goes, mom, how the hell could you vote for Trump? You raised me with these values and I'm going on the left and you're on the right. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Mom, what have you experienced that has led you to this place to vote? I'd like to know. Because it's helpful to come from curiosity, right? But you really want to know and invite her into a space to share information

And it is vulnerable for you to then hear that because maybe it's someone that disagree and has viewpoints or facts or figures that are not the way you see the world. But that's also vulnerable for you. And maybe in fact, their opinion, you feel it's an attack on you. For you not to respond, but instead to listen is also a vulnerable act. And we in our society, if you look at all the media we get, because what you practice is what you get good at. We're not practicing listening.

We're not practicing being vulnerable in the listening. And I promise you, the more we practice sitting in the listening, the vulnerability of listening, the more others will see you too. It goes around, comes around. And I think love connection is about seeing and being seen.

the people that come to you, obviously they are interested in the relationship aspect of this. This is about relationships, but do they talk about just kind of the way that public discourse has broken down and like, they're tired of, you know, what's happening on social media. They're tired of what's happening on Twitter. Like, does that sort of come into play at all? I mean, it does, but the questions I shape around are,

So like in 2020, COVID and Black Lives Matter, we had a lot of people in quarantine. So we had a lot of Zoom ands. And we had a lot of conversations where you had interracial couples, for instance, who are quarantined and apart. But we didn't ask them questions directly about Black Lives Matter. But we asked questions that set that up, that leads them into it. Because what I think is that if we talk specifically about the issue at hand, then people go into their heads. And what moves people is their hearts. And what I mean by hearts is the emotional stories, right? So...

The example I like to give is like, which is interesting now with Syria and everything. I always give the example of Syria. Like let's say you want, you're making a film about a Syrian refugee family that moves to Germany. And you want people to understand the refugee experience and the war in Syria and da, da, da. Okay. So you make a documentary about it and they're talking to you about how they feel. This is how I feel. Okay. And they show you, they go to work, they come back and they're in Germany learning German. Okay. I will never know what it's like to get bombed.

I will never know what it's like to be a refugee crossing the Mediterranean. Or we could even use it for like Latin America, come to the States. Okay. But if I put that father and that son, who are now living in Germany, who fled Syria, and I have them facing each other. And the son asked the father, dad, what was the hardest part for you in our journey to get here to Germany? And the father looks down and looks up at the son. And the son looks at him and waits. And he goes, that one morning, that morning,

And the son goes, yeah, I know. I remember. And the dad goes, that was scary. Now, we don't know even what they're talking about. But we all feel it. Why? Because why we cannot relate to being refugees or being civil war like refugees and fleeing from that. And look, we can all relate to a father-son connection, to a parent-child connection. That's our way in.

Right? So whenever I talk about these subjects, I don't talk specifically about the subject. I talk about the relationship in context of that subject because that's the way in for people. As soon as you talk about the subject, we go to our heads and it's like, oh, this, that, either, or, da, da, da. No, no, no. At the end of the day, we are relational animals. So speak about the relationship. That's our way in, in my opinion.

How does this work for your own relationships? Are you able to apply this? Are you married? Are you a father? Yeah, I'm a father of two. I have two and my wife, you know, it's like the greatest thing that ever happened to me was the first time I found home was when I found her. I was 42, 48 now. I mean, sometimes I hate playing the game because I know like if you're going to ask me a question, I'm going to go there. That's just my style.

But I'll tell you, my wife loves the game. Why does my wife love the game? Because she hates every other board game. She hates games. Why? Because she's like, there's always a winner. And in this game, there's no winner. It's just being. It's talking. It's connecting. It's exploring. There's no right answer. There's no way to win. She's an artist. She's a musician. Now, when do I pull out the card games? You know when you just don't want to talk to your partner and you're just pissed off?

And you're like in the same space. It could be your friend, anybody. And you're just like growling at each other because you're pissed off. You're like, that's when I pull them out. Why? Because we need some, for sake of a better term, lubrication. We need something to like open up this conversation. Now, if I ask a question in that space, I hold the power because why are we talking about the question I decided?

If she asks a question, she has the power. Because like, well, why are we talking about? Why this question shapes the answer. So, whoever asked the question has a sense of power. So, instead, let's choose a question. Okay.

You know, I'm just saying. And then it comes out and it's like, oh, okay. There's equanimity there. Right, right. Neither of us is choosing the question. And then it creates that lubrication. And the space is like, hey, we're going to play the end. It's a game. That creates a space. Then you pull out a well-constructed question that's not driven by one of our political, our agendas, if you will, but what we want. And that's what we're going to talk about. Okay, yeah. You have a deck of cards in your hand. So pull out a random card and read the question. This is from the self deck, which is one of my favorite decks.

Okay, what does that mean, the self? So like we have friends, family, couples, coworkers, team building. We have –

strangers and dating and long-term couples this is self this is what you play with yourself okay this is solitaire okay so like yeah solitaire but like you have a dilemma and then you ask a question to that dilemma right oh that's better than the magic eight ball so like i know you do one about memoir writing you could use the cards oh yeah well i teach class in it yeah this could be good for writers okay yeah tell me what it's like okay exactly tell me you want to stop all right stop

So now you're choosing this question. What's the question say? Okay. You hold it up to the, it's not, uh, what do you, sorry, I can't, what do I fear? What do I fear? I can't read that. What do I fear? I, what do I fear is coming up? What do I fear is coming up? Oh boy. Yeah. And I can in life, in the world and in this day, it would be like, in this case, you would write like your profound question that you're thinking about and then you'd pull that question.

So, you're like, you know, the podcast or the retreat or this relationship and you're like, okay, what? Then you ask another question. Here's another one. Okay. What do I fear regretting? Oh, yeah. Where do I feel the most capable? What about me? What about it makes me feel so capable? What three experiences from the past shape my current perception? Okay. I love this one. This is like a little poetic. Describe your mountain. Oh, okay.

Okay. That's better than what color is your parachute. Okay. I like that. Copy that. Yeah. Okay.

And to be clear, you're calling it a game, but you're just looking at the cards and reading the questions. There's not like rules and we're not playing bridge or something. No, it's just the rules would be you have to read out every question, but you don't have to answer it. And you can earn the right to pass by. Okay. And so, yeah. And okay. So how many different versions are there? 12? We have 15 physical. And then I think we have four digital. Okay. Like on motherhood, on fatherhood.

parenting, good times, good vibes. What does that mean? Just general. I need a fun deck. My team was like, Tokaj, you ask all these deep questions. We got to have a fun deck. I have an amusing one, but apparently the amusing one that I made is not amusing enough. So let's call it good vibes. I tend to go deep. What is it? Just like trivial questions? What do you mean? No, it's like my favorite is like, okay, make the sound of my presence.

Oh, that's like the sound of one hand clapping. That's weird. Okay. The sound of your presence. These are like song lyrics. Okay. All right. I think it's, I love that question. Okay. You know, you know, go, I think like physicalization, like giving you time, place to explore, to do something. Which is the best selling game. Couples. Couples. Dating. Long term couples. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so, I mean, before we wrap up, what do you think of the state of dating and relationships? This comes up a lot. It's especially coming up a lot now. I don't know if you're following like what's sort of been identified as...

Not just a masculinity crisis, but an intimacy crisis, a dating crisis. People apparently are not having sex. They don't care. They're conducting entire relationships over text. I actually had a conversation with somebody in this past year, a younger person, and they were talking about, oh, yeah, I broke up with my boyfriend and blah, blah, blah. And it became clear at one point they had actually never met in real life. The whole thing was being conducted over FaceTime. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's amazing. It's like we have superpowers at our disposal. How are you using the superpowers? I mean, what experience do you want to have? I mean, there's nothing wrong. I don't see any issue with that. I mean, there's going to be the joke I used to tell 10 years ago. I was like, look, our grandkids are going to call you up one day and say, Grandma, I just found the love of my life. We're getting married next month. Amazing. Wonderful. What do they smell like? I don't know. I don't know what they smell like.

We've never met, but we're getting married. And we're not even going to physically be together. Like physical proximity is not necessary anymore. You know? And this tool, look at this tool. I mean, like 10 years ago, this would never happen. We wouldn't be having a podcast miles, miles apart, having this opportunity to connect. And it's a superpower because who, I know you do quite a bit of work in this space, but who you used to see yourself was based upon physical proximity. Why? Because you'd find other people like you

and physical proximity. I'm talking about before the internet was out. Yeah. You know, you'd find your partner, you'd find your friends, like you'd have to meet them. Like at the party, you'd meet your wife at church or at school or at the supermarket. Yeah. Now that's gone. Now it's about what are my interests? Yeah.

What do I value? I can find someone across the globe who resonates in the same way and loves anime or whatever, roses or whatever, like I do. Yeah. I can create my community around people who love horticultural cooking. I don't know. We can find our uniqueness and we can give it a name. We can create our own community. And that's a superpower. We're no longer limited by physical proximity. So what are we doing with this superpower? And that's where it comes down to what are the questions you're asking yourself.

And that's what I think is imperative because all the power is in the question because it shapes the answer. And no one's taught us how to ask really good questions. Therefore, we adopt the questions that our parents gave you, that our parents gave us, that society gives us, that media gives us, that the mainstream gives us, that a little niche that we end ourselves in gives us. When we ask more unique questions to ourselves, we go on a more unique path. And then you can utilize technology to whatever end you want.

Are you suggesting that calling up your grandmother and saying I'm engaged to somebody I've never met in real life is not necessarily a bad thing that we can adapt? Depends on what you want. I mean, I'm not going to make a judgment call on that level of love. I mean, that's why I think love is shifting. We say the same word, but there's distinctions. We should be different.

Grandma used to bleed ink into paper when she wrote her love letter and she would lick that envelope and she'd put it away and she'd wait for three to four weeks for her lover to write back. Right. She would think about nothing else. I mean, I had that when I was high school.

Now you don't get a message in two minutes back. You think you're getting ghosted. But if you get a thumbs up emoji with this or that, oh, connection. The investment of energy is different. I'm not saying it's a different emotion. I'm just saying it's a different investment. It's a different commitment. It's a different focus. We should call it something else. And I'm not saying it's better or worse. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying it's different. And the human experience is different. And we should be aware of the differences that we want to experience.

I love that you're saying it's not better or worse because most people are very catastrophizing about all of this. That said, what are you afraid of in terms of the future, people's relationship dynamics? I have a lot of fear in my blood, my lineage. You're Serbian, correct? No, I'm Jewish. My dad was born in Macedonia. Okay. March 11, 1943, the population of Jews in Macedonia was 7,300.

All but 169 were liquidated in Treblinka. My family was nine of the 169 who survived. They fled to Albania, where for two years, a year and a half, two years, they posed as Muslims, pretending to be Muslims. In 94, when a film maker went with my dad to make the film about their life and their hiding, he asked the two brothers who had my family, said, did you know they were Jewish? Oh yeah, we knew they were Jews from the day they arrived.

So my family was in fear of being discovered and liquidated like all the other Jews. And I carry that fear in me. And what scares me when I, so I'm aware of that. I'm aware that I have a lot of fear and it's like not just my own fear. It's like lineage fear. It's like that. And so it's not me. It's epigenetic. Epigenetic, absolutely. So I'm aware of that. I can feel it in my bones at times. I'm trying my best not to pass that on to my children. What scares me the most right now is that we're not listening.

We're just not listening to each other. And look at the content you watch. Is it listening to you? Do you see people listening in the content that you watch? I mean, what's nice about your podcast is you have an audience that listens to the conversation. I mean, that's a beautiful thing about podcasts. I think people want to be in that space of hearing. Yeah. Right? And what's nice about conversations is when people are hearing each other and you can see that. And I think...

Hearing and listening, I'm not sure quite what the distinction is in that sense. I'm using them synonymously right now. But that's what scares me is that when Trump won in 2016, I started looking for plan B immediately. And it wasn't because Trump won. He's just a manifestation of the deeper problem, which was post-truth era. Nobody was interested in going to Hillary's website to see the facts. Nobody cared. People cared about their own emotions and the story that they chose to believe in.

And that's why she was losing the debates. It was obviously like, no one's going to go to the website. No one cares about the facts. No one's listening. When no one listens and the rate of change is that much increased, which means there's more conflict and we're not managing the conflict because we're not listening to each other, bad things happen. And I think part of the work that we do is creating spaces of listening, examples of listening. And what does listening cultivate? A sense of humanity.

Well, you're doing amazing work and I cannot thank you enough for having this conversation. It's really surprising. I wasn't quite sure what to expect and you probably weren't either. So I'm really glad we connected. Tell us the best place to find you, including if somebody wants to apply to be on the end. So theskindeep.com, all the social media handles are theskindeep.com.

Uh, we're really big on, on Instagram and Tik TOK and YouTube. Um, I have a personal website, topazadesus.com, but really all my work, all my energy, everything's on the skin deep.com and my team and I, they're just, that's where we're focused. So, um, yeah. All right. Well, Topaz, thank you so much. And, um, hopefully we'll talk again sometime. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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I will be back next week with another super nuanced guest. Thanks for joining me. See you then.