Welcome to our conversation with Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True. The depth of her honesty, insight and spiritual intelligence comes shining through in this dialogue. This is not to be missed. Welcome to Deep Transformation, Self, Society, Spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists. With Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy join us in the evolutionary fast lane as we take a deep dive into transformational practice. Peak experience, profound understanding, powerful contribution.

I'm Roger Walsh and our co host is John Dupuy. And with us today is Tammy Simon, multifaceted woman and best known for being the creator of Sounds True, a multimedia, now very multimedia enterprise. She's an entrepreneur, an author herself, producer and host of the very well known podcast Sounds Insights at the Edge. And Tammy, you started Sounds True. John, I just love the story as you describe yourself, one woman with a tape recorder back in 1985 and over almost four decades that has grown into really one of the great multimedia publishing companies of our, of our time. And with I think you now have over 3,000 titles. And I think when I was thinking of how this dialogue and looking ahead to it, I was really excited to ask you about all the people you've dialogued with and published and their ideas. But as I began reading about Sounds True, I was just, I know nothing about this is really inspiring. I want and know more about your business and I love the mission statement. Your mission statement for Sounds True is to wake up the world. And you're a Colorado public benefits corporation, meaning that you're really, your organization is really oriented towards service at multiple levels and at all, all the people you interact with. I guess I'd love first to just have you speak to what's the spirit or ideal that animates you, how to create such a wonderful institution to have the incredible impact you've had. What's the underlying ideal or purpose here?

Well, it's interesting, Roger and John, that I would have the chance to answer this question in a broadcast medium like this, a podcast. And I'm so pleased to be with both of you just to say that here at the outset as and with the Deep transformation audience, because the underlying animating principle is broadcast awakening.

Yes.

All right, what are we doing? So it's giving a felt communication of what is possible in a way that is embracing simultaneously of all of the ways that we're contracted and not yet there in that expanded free, fluid, dynamic state and inviting people in, into their own process, into greater freedom and fluidity. So that's what I want to be up to with my life. And I'm so happy to have this chance to be doing it with you.

Yeah. And Tammy, did that the vision you started out with, or did that starting becoming more apparent as you began doing things and things started coming together? And this is like, wow, this is powerful.

What was your impetus in the very beginning? So we're now back in 1985, and I'm just 22 years old. And I was fortunate in that I was given three words by, you could say the universe, or you could say angelic force whispering in my ear, my own deep soul speaking. I don't know what. But those three words were disseminate spiritual wisdom. So that was my beginning sort of animating principle, the kind of sort of core origin of sounds true. Disseminate spiritual wisdom. And that's still true later on in my life. I was on a retreat, this was maybe 15 years ago. And I was seeking a renewal from my sense of purpose. And this phrase broadcast awakening came to me. And I think it's simply a kind of further evolutionary development of disseminating spiritual wisdom. And I think the broadcast part was important to me because personally, just as this Tami Simon instrument being in the world, I have an excitement about live broadcasting. So disseminate spiritual wisdom was the principle that has been there, our mission. It sounds true. And then Hammy Simon broadcast awakening. That's what turns me on.

And how did that original inspiration come to you, Tammy?

Sure. So it's a story, and it's interesting because it involves the energy and support of another person. So here, 22 years old, I am at the time, working at a Chinese restaurant, Mr. Lee's in Boulder, Colorado, on Spruce street, where everybody knew the special sauce, and it had little bit of oil. And then, you know, he was drinking his beer while he was cooking and smoking a cigarette, and everything went into this. Okay, so here I am, I'm working as a waitress and volunteering at kgnu, Boulder County Public Radio. And one of the people I'm interviewing, ball things, had on his door a yin yang symbol with a dollar sign through the center and the words transacon, which stood for transformational economy above the circle. And I was interviewing him not about transformational economy, but about something else that he had in his window that was facing Pearl Street, 18th and Pearl in Boulder, Colorado, which was these huge crystals, giant crystals, we're talking, like 2ft tall. And, you know, and I was like, what the heck is this guy doing with all these crystals? And he shared with me that they were part of his Spiritual practice, spiritual life, working with crystal energy. So I was very curious about this. And he and I became friends and in the process of interviewing him for my volunteer role at Boulder County Community Radio, hosting a show. Live from Planet Earth was the name of my interview show. My father died during this period and I inherited a small amount of money and it was $50,000, and it didn't seem small to me at that time as a 22 year old and with inflation and everything, if you brought it up to today's amount of money, it would be like inheriting $200,000. So it was to me a significant sum of what am I going to do with this money? And I didn't know what to do. And for whatever reason, I had this not terrific association with just putting it in a bank and letting the bank invest however they would. I thought, no, there's something better. And this gentleman had the sign transformational economy. I'm going to talk to him about it. So I'm sharing with him, I've inherited this money. What should I do? I don't know what to do with it. And he said, why don't you put it into yourself? Why don't you invest that money into yourself? And I thought, well, that's really good idea, good suggestion. But then it was kind of like I was having a conversation with myself. If only me and myself knew what to do. Like, we don't know what we're doing. You know, I'm waitressing, you know, volunteer interview show with spiritual teachers. I don't know what I'm doing. But then this interesting thing happened. He said, why don't you come back in three days and we'll talk about it. And I was like, huh? And he also said to me, tammy, you know what you want to do? Come back in three days and we'll talk about it, huh? So I walked out of his office and that's when this strange thing happened because I suddenly felt like I wasn't walking exactly on the ground. Like I felt a little bit like I was walking two feet off the ground. And that was very odd and not something that I had experienced in my life before. So I took special note. I was like, wow, that was a powerful meeting. What just happened? What's going on? Why am I walking above the sidewalk? This is really weird. I feel really weird. But at the time I was reading a book by Eugene Gendlin on focusing, and I was practicing paying attention inwardly to a felt sense. So I was practicing that in general. And so I was like, oh, you know, the felt sense is I'm two feet off the ground. This is weird. Okay. And then that's when I heard this mysterious voice disseminate spiritual wisdom. And there was a period also, and I knew that's what I was going to do with the money I inherited. So that's the origin of sounds true.

Beautiful.

That's a great story.

Boulder at that time was one of those hubspots where lots of things were going on. Kind of like the Bay Area, you know, San Francisco, Berkeley. I kind of spent time in both. But I'm just reading a biography about HA Almas. Right. The Jewel Path. And he's talking and they're just talking. It sounds like 70s, 80s in Boulder was a happening time. There was a lot of. Lot of awakening and a lot of really important energy going on there.

And I originally made my way to Boulder to go to Naropa University and so the first accredited Buddhist university. And I was interested in studying psychology and meditation because I wanted to understand. I had been at Swarthmore College for two years. And then I left and went to Sri Lanka, India and Nepal for a year and learned how to meditate. And in that period, I was working with SN Goinka and his intensive 10 day Vipassana boot camps. And I called them boot camps because.

You woke up very appropriately.

Yeah, I mean, you wake up at 5am, you go to sleep at 10pm and you have noble signs the whole time for a ten day period. And I did four of these intensive ten day boot camps within a period of about two and a half months. And that changed me in an irrevocable way. And when I came back, I didn't feel that trying to re enter a traditional academic degree was a fit. And I thought, well, I'll come out to Boulder and at least I can at Naropa University try to understand what is happening to me. How am I possibly going to bring timelessness and time together into a well functioning, integrative personhood? Maybe Naropa can help. But when I got out to Boulder and I was still in a classroom with, you know, they still had chalkboards at the time, I was like, I can't be in a classroom. Something else is going on inside me. And so I left Naropa, but I did find myself in Boulder. And you're right, John, that many of the great spiritual teachers at the time would pass through Boulder and teach a workshop in Boulder. And so when I decided to have this volunteer radio show interviewing spiritual teachers, I wanted to keep learning. So I Couldn't follow an academic path, but I was very still interested in understanding the spiritual journey. I was fortunate that I could talk to many of those teachers when they came through Boulder as part of my radio show.

Beautiful. I'm struck by the analogy to someone whose work and life you have intersected with and helped promote, and that is Ken Wilby. You were waitressing. He was dishwashing in a restaurant at the same time. And you both had very interesting careers.

Your interviews you did with him, the DVD set Cosmic Consciousness was one of the best things I'd ever heard. You know, he was being Ken Wilbert them. You were like the rest of us, you know, you just kept them right on track and asking the obvious good questions. I helped your sales. I bought those and gave them away to a lot of people because I thought it was such a good introduction to Ken Wilbur and the Integral Model. And you did extraordinary job. And doing that interview, I had a.

Motto inside, which is that I wanted to understand everything he was saying in my body. I wanted to feel like I could get it inside my body. And if I had a question like, I don't get that. That doesn't land. I'm just gonna ask my question because I want to really understand. And if I really understand it, I'll kind of get it in my bones. Like, my bones will get it.

Yes.

And so I wasn't willing to kind of let things go by and be like, what? I was like, no, my bones are saying, come on, wait. I don't get this yet. And I was just willing. I mean, you said good and obvious questions. I was just willing to be ignorant, you know, because I didn't find it easy to understand Ken's work in the Integral Model. It wasn't easy for me. In fact, it took me a month of reading his books. And I remember I'd put a book down, and then I'd go back and pick it up. And I had to go back a few chapters in order to kind of, like, get back on the wavelength in order to keep reading in the book. And I was like, God, why is this hard for me? But it just. It was. It was a journey to really understand the Integral Model. And so, anyway, that's the kind of intent I brought to the conversation.

You came through as so grounded that you mentioned it. You had to understand it in your body. And you really brought that into just what Ken needed at that time. And it was just like Simon and Garfunkel or something. It was just such a great coming together. And I'M sure. I don't know. I bought it and gave it to a lot of people, but I'm sure that helped a lot of people to understand and open up that very important transmission that was coming through Ken.

Well, thanks, John, for the sales. And also, you know, Ken has this. I could feel it even as we were talking. This gift was. He knew what I wasn't understanding. He could sense it. He could feel in me, like, as I was getting ready to ask a question, he was like, already at the end of the question, even though I'd barely opened my mouth. So he was tracking right with my ignorance as we progressed through the dialogue, which made it easy in a way.

And I'm struck that you were doing a kind of contemplative inquiry. It sounds, Tammy, that I can feel the way your meditation practice was present with you, allowing to sense in and operate out of your felt sense. Maybe it was the Genlin focusing work as well, but it really has a feel, as so much of your work does, of this kind of you operating on a couple of levels, very present with the person as you are right now, but also very much in touch with your own experience and felt sense of what's called for in the moment.

Yeah, thanks for noticing that, Roger. And I think when I first was introduced to meditation, so this was back at Swarthmore College in my sophomore year, there was great Quaker school.

I have a lot of respect for that school. That's awesome.

So there I was in the Religious Studies department, and on a Fulbright scholarship was Professor Gunapala Dharmasiri, teaching Buddhism and existentialism. And he introduced us to meditation. So that was my very first introduction. And I remember when I started to meditate, I felt a kind of homecoming and sense of rest and belonging that I had not felt in my life up until that moment. And it was, in a way, easy and natural for me to dedicate. And that's why I left Swarthmore and went to Sri Lanka. After his one year there teaching on his Fulbright scholarship, he went back to his home at Peradeniya University in Sri Lanka. And I was like, I'm going with him and his wife and three kids, and that's where I'm going. And I'm going to learn more about meditation. And so I think that as a person, there was a way that I trusted that sense of being grounded here, that I didn't feel a sense of connectivity anywhere else in my life in the same way. And so it was my introduction to just being connected and, okay, strong language but just like, okay. Like, oh, my God, for the first time, I feel okay. I'm okay. Wow. And it took meditation to open that experience to me. And that okayness did come from something like, and I'll use this word, presence, Discovering presence. And so even in terms of, Roger, your comment about being present with other people and attuning inward, I think for me it was more like, oh, this is what presence is. This is what being is, and this is how I feel. Okay. And I can also be okay with other people a lot harder, but I can most of the time.

Beautiful combination. And how have you bought this? For me, it's one thing to do that just sitting on a cushion by myself. It's more challenging, as you implied, to do it with another. But it's a whole nother level of demand when one is working with an institution or an organization. So how do you bring that into. Sounds true. And the whole kind of a question John asked before, how do you hold both that presence and that vertical inspiration as you. Too much of an exaggeration. Say, I'm Empire, a big institution, organization.

Well, I think one of the things that got interesting to me over time was, as you said, it's not that hard to be in an open and settled place when you're by yourself. I think it's a lot harder in an intimate relationship, especially if your intimate partner is challenging you or has a bunch of needs that require that you go outside your comfort zone or all kinds of things. And it's really hard when you're under stress and the stress of working with groups and authors and contracts and getting emails that have to do with legal issues and all kinds of things. And I, as a person, have wanted to challenge myself. How much stress can I take? Can I take it? Like, that's the way that it will be an evolutionary driver for me is to find those edges and grow with them. And so business has been an incredible crucible because it is so stressful. And, you know, I found actually times when I am outside of my ability to navigate successfully, like, wow, I'm losing it. I'm losing it. Like, this is too much. This is too much pressure on me. And that's also interesting because then it's. How do you navigate that? You know, it's disconnecting from the situation. I need some time to think about this. I need to regain my composure. So I guess in answer to your question, I see it as tremendous. It's not just a training ground, because what am I training for? It is a ground of Growth, it's where it's all happening. The challenge, the failure, the apology, the regrouping, the starting again, being at a bigger level of capacity as a result of that. And then again and again and again. Rinse, wash, repeat.

My intuitive understanding of you, Tammy, is that you're eight on the Enneagram. I don't know if that's true or not.

That's correct, John.

Okay, well, I've been, I'm a six, so, man, I butt ahead eights for a lot of my adult life, but I've just been running into healthy eights now. God's shown me the other side of that. And you guys bring, I mean, you know, once you have the open heart and you've done your work, I mean, like Martin Luther King Jr. He was an 8. At least that's what they said. That you have the capacity and the strength to change the world. So you're a very powerful person and you have that big open heart. And that didn't just. You weren't sitting on the park bench. Right. You know, you got opened up. You've done a lot of practice over the years at the same time holding together this organization and pioneering something that was. I don't know if you have anybody that's rivaling you yet trying to do the same thing, but it's quite a incredible leadership achievement that you did by all that. I just want to honor that and the strength and the clarity you bring with you as a healthy eight, at least. You seem pretty healthy to me.

Well, thank you for the compliment. And it's a journey. It's a never ending journey. So I emphasize that because it's not like I don't think healthy is some destination where I can check the box. It's ever becoming more healthy. And I honor that. You honored my heart. And one of the interesting things is I've been going through a lot of heart opening of late and I didn't even know that there was so much closedness to open more. I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that. But there is. And so it makes me wonder, like, what are greater actual levels of health or opportunities for even further health that I don't even know about today? Whoa. More heart opening that I don't even know about? That's so interesting to me.

Not a lot of things I'm willing to bet on in this game, but one of them is it's a lot bigger than anything, I imagine.

Exactly.

Yeah. And Tamiyo, when you're really doing karma yoga, it seems like, you know, you're really doing, using your work and action and service in the world as the focus of your practice. And it just seems that this is a beautiful example of karma yoga in our times.

Yes, I would say that's true. And I think for each one of us, wherever we find ourselves in our life, that is our quote, unquote practice for each one of us. And I found myself in business really for the entrepreneurial joy of it. And I was interviewing a woman just two days ago, her name's Melissa Bernstein, as part of Sounds True's Inner MBA program, which is where we help people develop the inner skills that will lead to greater success in business. And she started a toy company called Melissa and Doug, which grew to be north of a billion dollars in terms of its worth, and is now running another company on sensory immersion gifts like Pension that give off a healing aroma when you work with them. So, anyway, she's a very, very, very creative person. And she was talking about how for her entrepreneurial endeavors have been her way of connecting actually with other people, giving her gifts to other people, expressing her deep sense of love and service for other people, the people who will enjoy the products she's making. And I think early in my life I had this sense, this incredible inner urge to be of benefit and help people. But I also had the feeling that I would be best at it if I did it from a distance. And maybe that tells you something about my own early life and attachment, wounding and all of the rest. And this discovery of meditation, which was so important to me, and I was like, God, you know, I want to communicate and help other people. I love the radio. I started in radio because this is such a terrific medium. It's like I can be alone in a dark closet with a microphone and help others. This is a miracle to me. But it was this connection with others that I'm trying to emphasize that I think fuels an inspired entrepreneur, at least in my case, that it's this expression of love for people and giving them a gift that you can give. And then all the business shenanigans just.

Support that terrific, wonderful attitude. Yeah, very inspiring.

The underlying ideal of service feels like it both animates and inspires and guides you in the direction of, you know, how best to do that. And as for all of us, ideally, it makes use. Service ideals make use of all of us, including our wounding and our pain and so forth. And it's a beautiful way in which our pain and limitations can become, ideally, anyway, both the fodder for our own growth and also the ways which channel or direct our contribution. It sounds like you're giving a beautiful example of that.

And I do think this notion of being of service, it's a direct outpouring of our hearts, it's directly right. Inherent in the energy of the human heart. That this is my experience, at least at an energetic level, that my heart pours through my arms and my hands and wants to make. This is like the karma action part, is that the energy of this alive sort of heart fire then streams out and says, write something, call someone, do the dishes, make something. Put your hand on your wife's shoulder, pick up the phone. I mean, it's a maker energy. And it's that making out of love and care for our environment and the people in our environment. And then that just keeps going. Our society, our world.

Yeah. I wrote a book, Essential Spirituality, the seven Central Practices. And one of the things that really struck me as I spent three years researching, looking across different traditions, what are the core qualities and capacities that the greater sages have said are really essential to live a full human life and be of most effect? And what really struck me, among other things, was that service was universally across every tradition, recommended as both a practice and the culmination of practice. And that service can be both the fuel and the inspiration and the content of an inspired life. A karma yogic life which is oriented towards using work and service for one's own spiritual awakening and contribution and awakening of all sorts. It just feels beautiful. You're giving a beautiful example of that.

I've also helped Roger's sales on that book too. I've given that one away many, many times.

Bless you, John.

And I think I was emphasizing the energy, the feeling, the fuel of the heart in that. Because sometimes people hear a word like service and they become kind of. There's like a. There can be a kind of do gooder interpretation where instead of it being actually animated by that feeling, they're so, you know, running around and doing. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I mean, it's okay. But I don't think it has the same quality of connectivity because you may or may not be attuning really to both what you need, which is important as well, because you're part of the equation as well as genuinely what's needed in the situation.

Yeah. And at its most problematic, at one problematic form is when it becomes a should and kind of a superego compulsion.

Yeah, exactly.

Rather than a trans egoic compassion orientation.

Exactly. So that's Why I wanted to emphasize it because I think sometimes think of services in the way you just described. So.

Yeah, well, yeah, I get pretty heady, but that's. That's me. But yeah, the beauty of that kind of eye, probably everyone can feel the animation the heart sent, the joy that animates as you talk about your work and your service.

Yeah. And it must bring, at least I sense off you, a lot of integrity. And evolved eights just cannot deal with bullshit very well. They just have that sword that discriminates. And I was going to ask you, I mean, you've done so many amazing products over the decades, but did you ever get in a situation, you don't have to name names, that you were with somebody you were interviewing, and you were just like, this is not working. I can't continue with this. Or have you been able pretty much to. Has that ever happened?

Yeah, it has. But first of all. And I'll talk about that. But first of all, just to say something about integrity. It's a important idea to me. And it also has a correlate in a somatic sense. Just like service to me is rooted in the heart, integrity to me is rooted in the central channel in the body. It's that line of energy. You could call it that sense of shakti, energy in the body that you can feel flowing like a river in front of your spine. And I bring that up because for me, integrity is a grace field, if you will, that I can operate successfully within. And without it, I have no idea. I could walk out and get hit by a car or something. I mean, I could get hit by a car even with the grace field. But what I'm trying to say is I just feel like random odds of who knows what. I don't feel that sense of guidance and support that I feel when I'm in my own integrity to begin with. And I'm bringing that up because there are so many things that can throw us off of our own integrity that throw me off of my own integrity. And I have to be so vigilant about that because without it, I'm lost. That's for me as a person. Without it, I'm lost. And Roger, you're going to say something here.

Yes. I was wanting to know if, for you, that experience of integrity acts in a couple of ways. One, if it gives you a kind of strength and power, know you're operating out of it. And second, if it operates like a kind of honing radar for you both.

And as I said, without it, I'm basically F U C K E D. That's what I'm trying to say. My sense of rock and compass and collaboration with the universe. And that's why using a word like grace field. So to me, it's critical. It's critical. And then we get into. So that's my own kind of work with myself. I think I'm trying to emphasize it's not easy. It's a return again and again to it if I feel off for some reason. And what kinds of things could be off? It could be saying something that I regret or maybe I exaggerated or something, which is something historically I've been known to do. Okay, Tammy, you exaggerated. What are you going to do? Are you going to go back and correct that? I might have to actually. I might have to go back and correct it, call the person up and say, you know, I said that, but I actually over inflated, you know, that number. It's not really north of 7,000. It's just shy of 7,000 or something like that. Like, there are things. That's not an actual example. I'm just saying that as a person, I have to always return to that. An apology, confession. Those are ways that that happens, and that's critical for me. Now we have interactions with other people, and there are moments when I'll be. It's not even really sometimes an ethical issue, but often it's just like, wow, this project isn't working. Like, I don't know if you've ever had this in some of the podcasts you've done, but it's like, it's not working. This is not very good. I don't know if this is going to be a good way for someone to spend 90 minutes of their time. Like, it's not going anywhere. I don't want to put this out. I don't want to distribute it. I have an obligation to my listeners and to our customers that every single thing is worthy of their time and energy. This isn't. I'm going to have to cancel the project. I'm going to have to hit the stop button right here in the middle of the conversation and say, this isn't going anywhere. And I do that. I do that, and I try to be as gracious as I can, and I often make it about me or the situation because it might be. Actually, it might not just be what's going on with them. Maybe that I'm not in the place to bring out their best right now, or something about the situation isn't working right, or we need to regroup and rethink this and do it again. But I think of myself as a listener advocate or a customer advocate, and I always have them in my mind. And if something isn't at a high enough level, then we shouldn't publish it. We'll lose our brand. But not just that. It's more like just my interpersonal commitment to the person who's giving us their time or making the purchase. Okay. And then there's the category of people who I've ended up working with, and I've discovered that either they're not qualified to really be talking about what they're talking about, or there's something unethical about how they're going about their work as a teacher, and we have to cancel the project. And that has happened as well.

That's one of the best things you could say about your company right there. I would take that blurb and put it everywhere. That's really, really so important. And you can be. That can be really scary to people who are trying to go beyond what they're capable of, or there's problems with their ethics and integrity to be with a person that's very, you know, working on theirs and. But very powerful at the same time to make you feel very safe or very terrified or maybe both at the same time. I had a mentor, a friend, Wallace Black Elk, if you remember him. And. And I would pick him up when he would go to Northern California, which the latter years of his life he did. And I was really f U K ed up at that time. And I'd seen him sit down with people that come for counseling. Sometimes he would just take out the proverbial tomahawk, the spiritual tomahawk, and just lay these people out. And I was so scared that he was going to tear into me because I knew I was a mess. And I never had anything but kindness for him. I just think he sensed out how struggling I was at the time. And you kind of remind me when you talk about that energy, you remind me of Wallace, the man I have great love for and admiration. And I still talk to him in my prayers. It's a great gift, Tammy.

I'd love to broaden this, broaden our context, because you have created, as we've been talking about, a very successful media company, multimedia, and you're a beacon in that world. And yet, if we look around the world, media is in a lot of trouble and creating a lot of trouble. And I have said on a number of occasions that I think we're going to make it as a Civilization or not, depending on the quality of our media, because the media basically reveals our world to us. We live mediated lives these days where most of what we know about the world and other people comes through screens or radios or podcasts or something. So this is what really determines our perception of the world and others, et cetera. And there is so much that is so problematic in contemporary media, particularly the social media and the new media. And we have, for example, the film, the Social dilemma. Now we have the film, the AI dilemma and so forth. So this is just getting. Unfortunately, as a technology evolves, that looks like it could get worse. So I'm throwing a lot out there and I just invite you to respond.

Well, firstly, Roger, I feel moved by the question, so thank you. And I feel moved by the question because, you know, you asked me what animates me at the beginning of our call, you didn't use that word. But what's the core mission or drive or purpose? And sometimes I question like Tammy, what you care the most about is global spiritual media, worldwide, in every language, introducing people, if possible, to the depth of awakening and what's possible for us in our spiritual journey with all of its complexity and nuance. This is what you care the most about. What kind of trip are you on and why do you care so much about it? So when I hear you ask that question, how it lands in me is a kind of validation of the mission that I'm on that I want to achieve with as much inclusion of different voices and to use Hamid's language and metaphor, the crystal for a moment from the diamond approach, showing the different facets of awakening through a media network, yes, this is. And you using the language of that our experience is mediated and how important this is. Okay, so in the midst of all the noise, in the midst of all the 10 second TikToks and God knows what, what can we do? Well, this is where we get to use all of our creativity, all of our connection to economic, resource and possibility to do whatever we can in every way we can in five second pieces, in five minute pieces, in five hour pieces, with the best and brightest multicolored, diverse representation we can, and to put it out in every language, worldwide, broadly, and to do it with a sense of joy and pride and you know, sitting around and saying, well, they're doing this and they're doing that and what? That's not going to get us anywhere. And I don't spend a lot of time critiquing what's going on because I don't see the point in that where I want to put my energy is creating a team of inspired people to work together to do this as effectively as we can and reach as many people as we can.

Beautiful. It feels like as we face into our contemporary situation with our many problems and the global. The big picture term is meta crisis that we are facing. It feels like it naturally evokes the question which I hear you responding to, what can I do? But beyond that is the question that you're also responding to, what's the most strategic thing they can do? And beyond that is the third question, what do I feel called to do? And it feels I hear in you, in your animated response, in your life and your work, the continual search to answer those questions which I think are best thought of more as than as one time questions because they're with us for life and there's no final answer to any of them. But I honor the fact that you're living into and from and towards those questions and feels very beautiful and so, so important.

And I would add on a further question, what's the economic model that enables support to come in to reach more and more people at scale? Because that's an important part of it. We can create tremendous media, but if we don't have advertising dollars behind it, it doesn't go that far. So we need those ad dollars. We need the ability to have successful economic partnerships with people in other languages so that they can also come behind and support what we're doing. So anyway, that's also a question that is a design question that's very important to me.

And if you found over the time frame of your career we probably had more changes in technology or evolution technology, anytime in human history. I mean, remember when you first got to Boulder, nobody was walking around going like this all the time. You know, it's like people just walked around. We dressed about the same and you know, we looked about the same. But the technology has changed so rapidly. So have you found that something that's aided you in your mission, this rapid technological change that just keeps year by year seeing just to get really pushed ahead to. I don't know, they talk about the Omega point. I'm not sure about that. But has this been basically a positive, exciting, challenging thing for you or do you kind of worry about it in a way?

Neither. Meaning I don't worrying about it. It's not going to help. And has it been positive? It's been challenging. My own motto, buy whatever media necessary. So I'm willing to adapt and respond. What's needed now. What's the moment asking for? Now? The moment's asking for short videos because that's what people want, that's what they're consuming. Okay. Like, I think in the beginning I was like, that's not possible. You can't put spiritual wisdom into a New York minute. And then we published a book called Meditation in a New York Mine Minute. And what I noticed was I read it and I was like, this book's really good. These are a lot of great practices. 60 seconds, that's a long time. You can do a lot in 60 seconds. So I opened my mind to it again and again. So whatever the media format is, it's possible to creatively adapt. We have to. That's what we have to do. This is where we are. You know, I'm still a long form learner myself. Like, I love the fact that you guys want to have a podcast that goes on for 90 minutes. Jesus, you know, I love that. But a lot of people there. You kidding me? You want to listen that long? A lot of the people that work at Sounds True now are like, tammy, break it down. Give it to me. If it's more than four minutes, no one's going to see it. Okay, so you asked do I feel positively about it? I feel challenged, creatively challenged by it. And I'm willing to meet the creative challenge.

Tammy, another whole line of things that just absolutely intrigued me are the fact that you've probably published and interviewed as many people as almost anyone on the planet, and you've interviewed and promoted some of the people who are really on the cutting edge of psychological, cultural, and contemplative frontiers. So I want to start with a big open question, and that is, what are some of the people and ideas that really stand out to you? You from all the people you've worked with?

It's a good question. Stay tuned for part two of our conversation with this extraordinary woman, Tammy Simon. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have which is steadily growing. But the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple, and I do that with podcasts that I support, and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence, and thank you for all you are and all you do. We love you.