Pioneering Innovation and Purposeful Play - Sam Sokol is RightOffTrack

Anya Smith:
Hello everyone, welcome to another exciting episode of RightOffTrack. I'm your host Anya Smith and today we're diving headfirst into the realm of innovation, gamification and a life well played. Join us as we shine a spotlight on a wonderful individual who is weaving together technology and gamified learning to create something truly meaningful. Our guest today is Sam Sokol or So-Cool. An innovator whose staff has taken him from technology consulting to the heart of in-person gamified learning experiences. Picture a world where technology dances hand in hand with FLEI illuminating pathways of growth and connection. Sam is our guide through this fascinating landscape where he seamlessly navigates through the realm of Web3, e-commerce, and learning management systems. Together with his dedicated team, Sam's crafted experiences that spark positive change and leave a lasting impact. They have also collaborated with businesses, organizations, and community groups and influential figures like United Nations and Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Dr. Deepak Chopra. And this energy has paved this way for the advancement of Sam's recent innovative game, Gratikube. I'm gonna show that right over here. A true testament to the potential of shared vision. Gratikube is not merely a tabletop game, it's a vessel of curiosity and gratitude. Gratitude, sorry, I'm gonna repeat that. Gratitude is not merely a tabletop game. It's a vessel of curiosity and gratitude, meticulously designed to unite perfect strangers, best friends, family members, and coworkers in an enchanting atmosphere of camaraderie. Gratitude serves as a bridge, seamlessly bridging people together, nurturing connections, and crafting memories to transcend the ordinary. So without further ado, let's give a warm welcome to the kind innovator himself, the driving force behind Gratitude. the advocate of life well played Sam Sokol. Welcome to Write Off Track, Sam.

Sam Sokol:
Wow, okay, I think I'm just gonna take you with me wherever I go for that intro. That was fantastic, thank you.

Anya Smith:
Thank you for being here. This is so fun. This is the first time we're talking about a game. To me, as somebody who has little children and really enjoys those rich experiences, games are always a fun way to do that. And you're taking that to the next level. So when you tell them what you're doing, it's like, I'm not sure. How is that even possible? How do we build a connection through a game between different strangers? So I'm fascinated and excited to... share your story and like the meaningful work you're doing with this.

Sam Sokol:
Thank you very much. It's a curious question, right? I mean, games, when we were looking around at sort of the history of games, they go back to the beginning, the very beginning. It was probably somebody was walking along, they kicked a rock and they said, oh, we could turn that into a game.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
So it's time in Memorial, 5,000 years old, at least, you know, we go back and look at these games. And I think those games can be uniting. You know, you can remember the time around the dinner table you played, maybe the first time you played checkers. And the nervousness like, oh, I'm going to win. How am I going to do this? Can I beat the other person?

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Or maybe you got beaten badly at monopoly and you're like, I'm never doing that again. So it really brings out a lot about who we are, how we interact and who the people are around us.

Anya Smith:
Absolutely, what's funny about that is like my husband apparently won the Monopoly championship in fifth grade, he's very proud of, but also Monopoly cannot be played with his family because they're from the East Coast and it becomes a very competitive atmosphere. So it's funny the experiences that games bring into our kind of environment, things that we choose to do and not to do and yeah, great habits

Sam Sokol:
Well,

Anya Smith:
in there.

Sam Sokol:
it's curious to think what makes a game too, because in some ways it's funny you mentioned the East Coast because when we introduced this game called Gratikube to people, they say, oh, cool, how do I win? And then,

Anya Smith:
I have the most amount of gratitude.

Sam Sokol:
exactly, like, I'm gonna get all the cards, all the Gratikube cards, so do I get all those and I win? And it's a very intense energy, and yet there's something beautiful about having the mind active and looking for those

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
ways to win, and yet win-lose sucks when you lose. And

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
so what is it like when it feels good to everyone? What does that winners all feel like? And so some people say, oh, that's not a game.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Yes, not a game because it seems like everyone wins. I'm like, well, we have this card in the game called No Rules. It's K-N-O-W

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Rules. And it's a way to let people go with a, you know, strong structure if they want around the rules or a lighter structure or play the way they want, make it personal. And I think that's really important with

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
whatever you're doing is like you make it yours, however it is, it should be yours. And this is a versatile game that can be played. However people choose.

Anya Smith:
Yeah, and just to give our listeners a little bit of a kind of context of what we anticipate, we're gonna do a little demo. We each picked a card that we don't know from this game, and I'll describe it in a moment, and we'll look at it. But before we talk about it, one thing I also think is interesting about games, sometimes, again, we don't want to have that loser experience. I have a wonderful 10-year-old, my son, and the moment he loses, he loses interest in the game, right? That's one downside of a game. The other part is sometimes you don't even want to engage in games because you've done them and it's so repetitive. You know, like the experience you're going to encounter. So you take the card, you play the game once, you're like, well, I'm not going to play it again. What I love about this is that every time the experience is going to be unique. And it's going to go beyond just like a fun kind of like, oh, let's just do something we have to think about. It's really that meaningful opportunity, which is exciting to me. Like I don't think we'll talk about that more, but like prefacing like that. This game is so powerful because of its unique. element where every time the experience is going to be different and to your point, there's no losers. So like you don't have to like feel like something negative could potentially even come out of it.

Sam Sokol:
It's such a good point. I mean, just the choice to play is an option to grow. And there's this old quote, I don't know exactly where it comes from, but they say the river is never the same river twice. So if you cross the

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
river, both the river is changing and you're changing. If you come back a year later, maybe the river is still there, you walk through it, but you're not the same. And so this sense of, and people have described, and I didn't know at the time, but describe the game as a liminal space. And I had heard of subliminal, but I didn't know what liminal was until I looked it up. And Liminal is basically like a doorway. If you look at architecture, it's the thing between things that allows you to go from one room to another, from the outside to the inside. And so in the sense that we're always changing, this is a space to explore that expansion. And where in some games you sort of know the moves, you know what you're gonna do in life, it's similar. Where are you from, what do you do? And that's kind of a common

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
set of questions. It's the default. And in this game, you're given an opportunity and an invitation. to explore something deeper inside yourself. So yes, it's about connecting with others, but it's also about that ever-changing relationship with self.

Anya Smith:
Absolutely. And to take it back a little bit, like, unpeel the onion. We're

Sam Sokol:
Yeah

Anya Smith:
not going to cry. We're just going to peel it delicately. Before we dive into how you founded Gratitude, because it has an amazing, fun story, I want to know behind the layer of Sam. You are such an innovator. If anybody looks at your background, you're constantly founding something, co-founding something, being in that space. How did you even get to a mindset where this is what I want to do? How did you get that confidence to say, I'm just gonna try and build stuff from the ground up? And thirdly, how did you get to a place where I'm gonna do something, all of that, and it's gonna matter and help people?

Sam Sokol:
Oh, great questions. Thank you for that. Those are great questions. I think in some ways, I don't know this to be absolutely true, but sometimes I feel like you're either an entrepreneur or you're not. And I can't say that's always true. I think people can convert and find the entrepreneurial spirit inside them and nurture that. I felt like I had that when I was born. And when I was a kid, we didn't have a lot of money, right? Our family didn't have a lot of money. And so for me, it was like, okay, how do I get this thing called money is gonna allow me to do the things I want to do? And so I can go, Oh, I can push that lawn mower with it. Oh, nope, you're not old enough. You can't push that yet. You're too young. Okay, well, how about a snow shovel? Oh, a snow shovel, okay. So I found whatever the basic thing was that I could do at the youngest age and just started figuring it out. In school, I was like, I can sell candy to my friends. I get the better deal with this. So it was always sort of like, how can I make that happen? And I did along the way. So that was sort of the initial thing was like, wow, this is possible. You can form a path for yourself and go do it. And that really appealed to me because I wanted the freedom. I wanted to be able to enjoy the freedom and have money and do the things. So if it was school, they said, well, hey, you can sell these pies. And they were like dessert pies that you could sell to your family. I'm like, well, I don't have a huge family, but there's a neighborhood. So I went door to door, and no one said you couldn't. So it was

Anya Smith:
Adorable

Sam Sokol:
like that,

Anya Smith:
so

Sam Sokol:
thinking

Anya Smith:
adorable

Sam Sokol:
outside the box, yeah, so there I am, this little kid knocking on the door. Will you buy a pie? And you know. Most people said yes. It was, I mean,

Anya Smith:
Aww.

Sam Sokol:
you also get rejection, right? You know, wait

Anya Smith:
Pie

Sam Sokol:
a minute,

Anya Smith:
rejection.

Sam Sokol:
you have pie rejection. No pies in the face, but pie rejection.

Anya Smith:
Ugh.

Sam Sokol:
Well, it'd be good to pie in the face because then you go, well, now you need a new pie, right?

Anya Smith:
Yeah,

Sam Sokol:
That'd

Anya Smith:
I'm gonna

Sam Sokol:
be a good.

Anya Smith:
charge you for that one

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, that's one we'll charge you for. So anyway, it was just a path of entrepreneurship that kind of grew as time went on. And I think as an entrepreneur and as a human, you ask, well, okay, to kind of your next question, how do you build something? How do you do that with greater leverage? So that was missing for me. And I had a friend, she said, well, there's this guy, he teaches these classes, seminars, workshops, go check it out. And I've got a ticket for you. It's normally 1500 bucks, but you're in. And so that appealed to me because she liked this person. It was a transfer of trust, which is important. And I went to this three-day workshop called Success Secrets for the 21st Century, which sounds pretty hokey, but I showed up and was blown away.

Anya Smith:
Ha ha ha.

Sam Sokol:
I was blown away. And it was like pushing, all the brain was pushing on the skull. Like it was literally mind expanding. That's literally how it felt for three days. Just go on. Wow, this is amazing. And then invited other people back and it was teaching these principles about leverage, right? It's cool to have a business. Great. But now what, how do you go from, you've got a great burger to now your burger's made in every city in the country, right? Every major city. And

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
so I didn't have that. It was something I was very hungry for, the burger and the opportunity.

Anya Smith:
Are you a foodie? Because I feel like all of your successes are.

Sam Sokol:
I love food. I eat breakfast thinking about lunch, yes.

Anya Smith:
I can tell that in your entrepreneurial journey as a theme.

Sam Sokol:
Yes, definitely, definitely. There's a hunger for life and a hunger for food. They go together.

Anya Smith:
Didn't mean to interrupt your story. Please keep going.

Sam Sokol:
Not at all, not at all. So I think it's just that you look at these ways to build and you also say, well, I need a team. I want to work with great people. And so being at that workshop was mind expanding for the content, but also amazing for the networking opportunity. And in one way I had this quote unquote normal life, normal friends, whatever. And then I would go to these ascended experiences and feel like, wow, these people are amazing in the traveling the world and they have these businesses and they have these great ideas. And it was just. opening and opening and opening my perspective of what was possible. So that was a big piece to my journey was then following this like personal development, self growth, and I had done school and I got my MBA and I still felt like there was a lot more that I didn't have. Even with that education, a good education, I didn't feel like I had what I needed. So that was the second piece. Then the third was baked into the second piece, which is I think when you're looking for relationships, the number one thing that matters is values, right? People will say, well, I can go make money at this. We make money at a lot of things, right? Bernie Madoff figured out how to make money and he made a lot of it and he went to jail, right? He was caught. And there were a lot of people out there that will make a lot of money, but not be delivering in a way that adds the value that I wanted. So integrity is a question for each of us. We answer that for ourselves. And that was one that I was hoping to answer. Like, what does it mean to have integrity? And my conception of that is that I have a sense that we're all here to do something, right? I'm a certain kind of animal, I'm a hungry animal, a foodie hungry animal that likes entrepreneurship, naturally, and so how can I follow those natural tendencies and really honor that kind of inner drive, whatever it is that wants to be expressed through me? And I think that's the essence of the third question, which is, what are you building towards? What does it mean to do something that has purpose or ultimately has value?

Anya Smith:
That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that so thoughtfully. And if you mind me asking, I'm just fascinated on the subject, what is your personal attitude towards failure? Because I find that relationship, let's say, is very indicative of what people do in life and their entrepreneurial journey.

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, it's a great question. So I think there's a big difference between making a mistake and a failure. To me, the mistakes are necessary. It's like course corrections. If you think about something simple as like walking, right? So we say that the fastest between A and B is straight line, right? You got to walk that straight line. Yet nobody walks in a straight line unless you're on a tightrope. And that's kind of awkward. You see these people walking in a tightrope. So there's really no such thing as A to B being the fastest with a direct line. First, you make a mistake with your left foot. Because you're off target, you're headed left. And then you make a mistake with your right foot, you're off target to right, left, right. And you're just making course corrections towards something. And even then, A to B, you've decided B is the place to be, or maybe someone told you you've got to go from A to B, and maybe it's not. Maybe you get halfway there and you go, oh, but look at this thing off to the side that I just noticed in the process that wasn't my original idea, but I'm gonna choose to learn. So I think the process of making mistakes is inherent in what we do. We should celebrate it. And... If we choose not to learn from those mistakes, then there's that possibility for failure. And another piece about failure that's really important, I think people have embraced making mistakes, which is good. But I think there's also the space of not giving up. In other words, if you make a promise to do something, fulfill that promise. If you're A to B is like, I promise I'm gonna do this. And if you can't, then communicate that right away. Okay, you know, look, I broke my leg. I can't make it from A to B the same way. I'm gonna get some crutches or a wheelchair. It's gonna take a minute. But I think failure is choosing not to learn from the mistakes. And failure, yes, if they say failure is not an option, failure is an option. And I think we should say that you choose that. If you choose it, you choose failure. Let's choose something bigger. Let's choose commitment. I think it's important to be committed and accomplish what you say you're going to do.

Anya Smith:
Thank you. Just side conversation, side topic, but I love that. I find it so interesting like how people approach that and how it shapes them. So let's get back to Gratitude. And there's an amazing story behind that. So I'd love to hear, like you told me about this, like how this came about, but I'd love to hear like your story on how you even came up with the idea, why it mattered to you and like where you drew inspiration.

Sam Sokol:
Thank you. So the inspiration in part came from the personal development, self-growth, gamified learning, because all of that was gamified. And I didn't mention that before, but essentially you'd go, you'd be given instructions about playing a game with other people in the room. I have 30 people in a room and you take on a task and one of them, they call the X Y game, right? So you and your partner, there are eight total people. You get four groups of two and you go, okay. round one, let's look at what we get if we throw an X or if we throw a Y. And then you participate in that way. And then when you're all done, you get scored in some way. They say you did this or you didn't do this or whatever. And there's a debrief. That tells you something about how you show up, not just for the game, but how you show up in life. Okay. So that was fascinating to me, not this rote memorization, someone blabbing at the board and you're sleeping because it's boring, but that you get to play. And you'll never forget that because it's personal. So that was part of the background for me. The context was, okay, this has got to be fun. It's got to be colorful to do it. The next part was I had gone to Burning Man and it was my third time at Burning Man. I had been four times. It was my third time at Burning Man. And I was driving home at the end, feeling like I didn't connect like I wanted to with people. Like it didn't quite show up. And I kept wondering, what was it? What happened? Why didn't I connect with them? And a lot of things about Burning Man are... radical, like radical inclusion, radical self-reliance, all these kinds of things. And so I wanted to say, all right, how can I embrace radical connection? What would that look like? Could I be a better listener? So as I thought about that, I realized, yeah, I could probably be a way better listener. So let me be silent for a day at Burning Man. And then as I thought about some more, well, that's not really radical. That's kind of, you know, just dipping your toe in the water, Sam. How about the whole week? What would it be? Radical silence. Practice that for a whole week. And so I had the idea that next year, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go back. I'll be silent for a week. And I had this little card in my pocket for people if they noticed that I was silent. So not like a sign around my neck to say, hey, I'm the silent guy, come talk to me. But really just a pocket with a card in it. And it said, since I learned to speak, I haven't stopped. So I'm choosing this week at Burning Man to be silent. And... If you have a story you might like to share, I promise I won't interrupt. And that was extraordinary. People shared tremendous things. And I think in part because they had the invitation and the other part because they weren't going to be interrupted. At least they, they trusted that I was going to be silent. And, and it was, and so there were, there were really profound moments where when listening in my mind, I started to think about are they done or not? It was awkward. to not have a follow-up question or to go a little deeper and say, well, could you tell me more or whatever? And yet, when you gave people that time, they opened up even more. And of course it depended on some other variables. So I had a tremendous time at Burning Man for this week and some of it was very uncomfortable, some of it was just extraordinary and soul-nourishing. I mean, I had one interaction with these three people. I was kind of guiding them through the camp, showing them different things. We had a geodesic dome, all these things. And after 30 minutes of walking them around, this guy patted me on the back, he says, oh man, I really like you. This was great, what a great conversation. And I never showed him my card.

Anya Smith:
hilarious.

Sam Sokol:
I never told him I was silent. And yet he was certain we had a conversation. And in a way we did, right? We had interaction. But I think for some people they never noticed that I was silent. And I know that there are quiet parts of the world or quiet corners of the world that sometimes go unnoticed. So that got me thinking. I had these cards to prompt for a question each day, and some of them were goods or more. So I had seven cards for the seven days. And then I started to look at the ones that worked really well, and I talked to my business partner, Terry, and I said, Terry, we were friends at that time, not yet in this business. And I said, hey, what do you think about these questions? And what if we came up with other questions? He's like, okay, yeah, sure, right? I mean, it was a cool experience, but he didn't know

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
what was gonna come yet. And so I thought, all right, nobody probably is gonna go to Burning Man. and choose to be silent for a week because I told him it was a great experience. Probably

Anya Smith:
Ha ha ha.

Sam Sokol:
not gonna happen, right? It's not gonna happen. And so what could I do then to encourage people to do this a little differently, to do human interaction, human connection a little differently? What were the elements then? And so as I started to think about the elements, I realized, well, there's gotta be vulnerability. There should be trust, right? What about gratitude? Well, gratitude should be there. How about love? And so it was this umbrella curiosity, all the different things, and it's like kind of whirling this in a mind blender. Like, what does it look like on the other side? And what about a game? Would people play a game like that if they could have tremendous output like that?

Anya Smith:
Okay, so I was fascinated by your story because like that sounds wonderful, but how is it even possible? You know what I mean? Like you described this to me like conceptually I'm curious, right? But then like

Sam Sokol:
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Anya Smith:
how do we actually take something where you want to have this experience of changing connection and then make it into a game? Like will that work? So should we play? Should we like

Sam Sokol:
Let's do

Anya Smith:
explain

Sam Sokol:
it, let's

Anya Smith:
the

Sam Sokol:
do

Anya Smith:
game

Sam Sokol:
it, let's

Anya Smith:
and

Sam Sokol:
play.

Anya Smith:
test it out and then share experiences and I'll share my feedback from like what I thought

Sam Sokol:
100%.

Anya Smith:
about it. Okay. So just to describe it, of course, if you were just listening on podcast, fantastic. There's also a YouTube version of this where you can see this beautiful box. I'm just to be very transparent. Sam sent me very, very kindly two games. I was like expecting maybe one very generously and I was like, oh, it's beautiful. So I opened it and what I love like how much thought and care you put into every part of it, right? There was like a little like note and like listen to this, right? And there was like you and is it your co-founder? Like you had an audio message. just welcoming people into the experience. So here's a little, I've got a cube, like a little beautiful design. You can see it over here if you're looking for it. 13 plus, 13 plus, I'm sure if you're under 13, you can still play, we'll see. But what I love, like every, again, part is beautiful. There's this beautiful die. Is that the right term, or is there a different term for it?

Sam Sokol:
We call them cubes dice, yeah.

Anya Smith:
Cube, dice, okay. And they have, so they have words like courage, and joy, and regret, and trust. And you can explain what they do. And then the other one is the die that has So a time element, right? So there's future and never and sometime and now. So what are these for? These beautiful little dyes for.

Sam Sokol:
So the dice, I mean, if you want, we can go way deep into it. I'll keep stay cursory until if you want to go deeper. But basically they set the time and space, which is tone for the story. And some people will look at the dice and go, I don't get it. What are the dice for? Cause you get this prompt, which is a story card, right? So you pull the prompt and you

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
roll the dice. So you roll the dice, you pull the prompt in any order you want. Again, no rules. You make up the rules as you go as you wish. We have nice framework for those rules if you want to follow those. And the idea is that in our lives, we have time. which is an illusion, yet we have lunchtime and we came together at the same time to be here. So there's something about time together. And then emotions, and these emotions are human, we share them. All of us have had at some point in our life, joy or anger or courage, gratitude, love. So these connect us, and sometimes it's really obvious how the dice play into the story, and sometimes you have to give it a moment, like really just sit with it. And so I advise people, like when you get a story card. whatever first comes to your mind when you're prompted with that story, go for it. And then the dice will make it into the story. It's really kind of amazing, the magic of the dice.

Anya Smith:
All of it. Okay. Let's just go for it without any hesitation and we'll just think about it be authentic and then share experiences That's not fun. So again, we drew little cards like we don't know what they are one for each other Do I don't care if you go first so I go first. Do you want me to go first?

Sam Sokol:
I want you to go first. If you're cool with

Anya Smith:
Of

Sam Sokol:
that.

Anya Smith:
course you do. Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready Okay, so you're gonna you're gonna

Sam Sokol:
I'm gonna

Anya Smith:
roll

Sam Sokol:
roll

Anya Smith:
the

Sam Sokol:
the

Anya Smith:
dice

Sam Sokol:
dice

Anya Smith:
for

Sam Sokol:
for

Anya Smith:
me.

Sam Sokol:
you,

Anya Smith:
Okay, okay

Sam Sokol:
and then you're gonna pull the card. You have the card, we haven't seen it yet, but I'm gonna roll

Anya Smith:
Okay,

Sam Sokol:
now.

Anya Smith:
let's do it. Let's roll it.

Sam Sokol:
Okay, big roll. We've got trust and never, or never and trust, however you put those together.

Anya Smith:
Oh, yeah, let's do it. Trust never, okay, good.

Sam Sokol:
And then did I pull your card or do you, I think I have your card, right? I have

Anya Smith:
Yeah,

Sam Sokol:
this one for you.

Anya Smith:
you read my card and I'll read your card. Yeah, so

Sam Sokol:
Perfect,

Anya Smith:
you take that.

Sam Sokol:
okay. This is, what is something you have watched or read more than once? Wow, this is incredible, but this is the card we did authentically pull at the beginning here. So it says, what is something you have watched or read more than once and watched?

Anya Smith:
Okay, I'm gonna take it out of that context, but it's just gonna be for me. So one thing that I watched, and I know this would like naturally make it seem like it's like on a movie where like, I'm gonna say what I watched my mom, like what I watched my mom, so my mom came to the States when I was seven, and she got remarried here. And I don't have a great relationship with my stepdad, and that's okay. But like to me, that experience was around like, I need to be very self-reliant and be very independent. and where that ties is like, I didn't want to try. It limited my ability to trust other people. Like I had the sense that I could never fully trust other people and that was not great. Right? So what I saw, although this is just where probably it's like, I saw an example and I love my mom a lot, but I wanted to be different and I wanted my relationship to be different. And I took an extreme with that seven brain, seven year old brain. of how I should not trust other people and have to be fully self-reliant so I don't get hurt. So you don't expose the possibility that if you do trust somebody, it can be unsafe. It can lead to disappointment. It can lead to vulnerability. And throughout my life, I had to adjust that because I was having relationships that also weren't working for me. You have to get to a place where like, yes, I might get hurt, but there's... requirement for being vulnerable and giving faith into trust in order to have those connections. Now I have my amazing husband and I fully trust and love him and support him. But it took time, it took even a realization later on like that was not working for me. Because there's also something that does work for you when you don't trust others and you're very independent, you do make shit happen. You're like, well, I can happen on my own. I can do it all, all of my own. I don't need help. I'm not going to ask for help. So that's my experience.

Sam Sokol:
I love that. Okay, so I have a curiosity question and.

Anya Smith:
Do you want to explain the curiosity cards?

Sam Sokol:
Yeah,

Anya Smith:
Or is it?

Sam Sokol:
absolutely. Right. So, so in the game you get two curiosity cards. If you're playing like the full version of this, you'd have three gratitude cards or two, your choice, two or three gratitude cards and the two curiosity cards. And there are different prompts written on the curiosity cards. The gratitude cards are the same. All those are the same. So you have these red cards you can pass to say, thank you, share gratitude, a few words, why you're passing the card and the curiosities go a little deeper to understand a little bit more about that. So my question. This question says, would you be willing to share more and or deeper? And the question is when you think about, I mean, you talk about the seven-year-old brain and the way that you were pre-wired and then there was a moment that it shifted. How would you advise, I know there are people out there that probably are in the same place as that seven-year-old brain, as where you were. And maybe that continued for you until later, your 20s or 30s. I don't know at what point you had that realization, but what would you advise to those people? What advice would you give them on how to mitigate who to trust and who not to trust and sort of how to navigate that.

Anya Smith:
That's a really hard question. I

Sam Sokol:
Yeah.

Anya Smith:
encourage, I appreciate you asking. And again, this is my humble opinion. I think I'm just, I'm learning to trust more in people and be mindful of their actions. It's like, I'm opening myself up to it and saying, Hey, even if something that happens that hurts me, I can learn from it and kind of trust my own judgment of people and then create the right boundaries. but initially I'm gonna be more open to the sense like I have to give a certain level of trust to another person without expecting anything initially. So it's still a learning process, but it's instead just opening myself up to say, in order to have even a possibility for a quality relationship with another human being, I need to be open to that vulnerability. I need to trust another person for them to trust me. And if that... doesn't if that relationship doesn't start in that way, there's no possibility of it. And so that's been my learning is that I don't know the perfect route. And I think that I'm learning to also trust my gut about other people and like how I sense them come into my life and build the boundaries around that because my like I'm like, let's support everybody. I want to talk to everybody even when it's a little uncomfortable for me. I'm learning to also say no, honestly, you don't need to interact with every person. You need to say no. But for those connections of other people, like that just getting to know them and it's not starting up in kind of negative condition, I need to be open to trusting because I know that that's the only foundation for real quality relationship.

Sam Sokol:
All right, well, I have this gratitude card for you. So I'm going to virtually pass this through,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
let the technology

Anya Smith:
Oh,

Sam Sokol:
suck

Anya Smith:
I feel

Sam Sokol:
that through.

Anya Smith:
it. It got

Sam Sokol:
And

Anya Smith:
delivered

Sam Sokol:
whoof.

Anya Smith:
right here through my screen.

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, I really appreciate what you said, Anya. And I appreciate your willingness to trust because whatever that path has been brought us here to this moment. And I'm

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
grateful to be here with you.

Anya Smith:
I appreciate you too. Yeah, again, unscripted. I knew this was gonna be really cool. And my experience, so we did an entry call with you like a little bit ago, right? And we didn't even play the full game, although I think kindly you dedicate enough time to do that. And I was listening to just the game questions and the prompts and the discussion. And my initial reaction was like, this is brilliant because... I'm somebody who can talk to anybody, but I don't enjoy talking about little stuff. I don't watch a lot of TV. I don't have a lot to contribute on the latest in whatever show is happening, which is not saying it's good or bad, but I really want to know what's your passion? What is your big dream? What is truly meaningful to you? And people, if you reach out to them, you don't know. They're like, you're crazy, you need to back up, I need a little person to be like, there's a natural order that happens to relationships, right? And even then, when you know somebody, and we can talk about that a little bit, sometimes we get into established kind of like parameters of how we engage with another person, like, will they listen to me fully? Like, will they judge me through it? So we don't always fully show up in every conversation, expecting to have this really full engaging communication and connection. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Especially people who don't know that takes time and it's very rare. But here you're creating this unique structure where you're taking the potatoes, meat and potatoes to your context about food, and you're creating like this very safe structural way to do that, where you still get to have the flexibility of making your own rules, but you're giving everybody the context to freely talk about something that is meaningful. without giving them any kind of reason to be guarded, without giving them any judgment and making it natural space to do that, people you don't even know. And that's powerful.

Sam Sokol:
I really love how you describe that because I think it's exactly what I wanted to see happen and so often I feel like conversation focuses on content where when we back up and we look at the context, it becomes really more important, right? We have to start with the context, not start with the content because the context is what shapes how we're going to connect, right? So if the context is, well, which of these two terrible political leaders do you want to talk about? Right? The context of politics is often arguing. The context of that is a system that doesn't work, that we really don't like, the lesser of two evils when we get to these final candidates. So that's divisive by the context. And therefore, the context is going to inform the content. If it's a divisive context, it's probably going to be a divisive conversation. You may find a really nice middle path because you're very skilled in conversation. But again, coming back to the context, so to me, the context of this game is curiosity. It is non-judgment. It would be nice to have a word that's not non-judgment like love. Love is the space of without a non in front of something, right? Yes, there it is. There's the heart.

Anya Smith:
little hearts.

Sam Sokol:
And, you know, when we have curiosity, you've got gratitude, you've got trust, respect, all these things hold for a really great conversation. When you desire to listen to somebody and you choose to do that. People at Burning Man, one of the things I noticed, it was very frustrating. because I kept seeing it as an outsider. I know I had done it too, so I wasn't sort of an angel in this. I've been guilty of it too, was, hey, I don't mean to interrupt, but. And it's constant. People get interrupted all the time, and then it becomes defensive. When you get into a conversation, like, well, I'm not really gonna share it, because every time I do, I get shut down. And if that's your narrative, then you stop sharing. And if that narrative is set at seven, or six, or eight, or whatever that time in life, you're like, wow, people really don't care. what I have to say, because only the loudest voice is gonna win, I'm not gonna speak anymore. So I wanna be the loudest voice. And when you're Burning Man, it's big lights, and it's big sound, and it's lots of other stuff, which you can imagine, that could be the draw. And yet some of the most beautiful things in life are free, are filled with love, and if we stop to admire them, are really soul-nerging. So anyway, I think it does come back to the context. My friends who played this game told me that as a married couple, they have their fights, as everyone has their disagreements, and they have one daughter, and they basically said that when they play the game, they don't fight.

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Sam Sokol:
They have the same conversation, same elements, same content, later, they do fight. And it's that choice to show up, it's the choice to listen, it's the choice to be vulnerable and to really listen to that other person without judgment that I think creates that space for that. fighting not to happen. So again, going back to context, I think being a powerful, powerful piece of this.

Anya Smith:
Yeah, I think it gives people permission to partake in this conversation without expecting any judgment out of it. Right, you're setting the stage, like, we're gonna, it's a game, we're having fun. There's a question that I'm gonna listen and you're gonna respond, vice versa. Like, it's very interesting, like, the whole area, if you don't mind me backing up, like. the whole reason like gamification is interesting because we're learning through play and that's actually the best way to learn. Do you mind if we take a slight detour and we ask like why did you get fascinated about gamification like as you were thinking about a medium for good?

Sam Sokol:
I experienced it. I mean, when I went to those courses on self-growth and they had accelerated learning and experiential learning as part of the course, I was just blown away how effective it was. And it was effective for my learning. So I saw other people enjoying it, I enjoyed it, and I remembered the content. So I walked out of that going, wow, if it was a regular course of black and white, somebody at the board yelling at me what the facts are, I might get what, 20% of that, 30% of that,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
that I'd really remember. And this... I can tell you what I experienced the very first time I went now. So my retention of that and the impact it made on me to then go deeper. And I think that's one of the benefits of this opportunity of games is that you play and then let's say it's not competitive. Okay. Let's say there's not a win lose to it. There's still a sense of, oh, could I have done that better? Right. Some people are like, oh, I have an answer, but I don't know if it's the best answer. Well guess what? Your subconscious will begin to work on another answer. And that other answer might be important because it was a good question, right? Just having an answer doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you ask a good question.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
So if you ask a question that gets down to the heart or the essence of who you are and how you show up or the things you want out of life, well then you may say, you know, there's some cards in there about, you know, before the end of the year, what's something you might want to accomplish? Well then you give an answer. And then the next day you think, well, is that right? Or do I want to refine that? Do I want to make that a little better? So I think... Games are a way for us to challenge ourselves to grow and to explore and to, I don't know, be playful. We should be more playful in life.

Anya Smith:
Yeah, I love that. Okay, one last question and then it's your turn. So I love like what you're doing. I love that you constantly say like, well, this is what's meaningful to me, right? Helping others to be meaningful to me. I don't think it's always natural to start out that way, right? And maybe it is for you, which is amazing. Like, was there a way like, or maybe role models or inspiration where you feel like, hey, this is kind of why I want to be doing good. This is why I want to have people connect like... What drew you to that in your life? Or maybe you were born of it, which is amazing.

Sam Sokol:
Well, yeah, no, I think some of it was I was born with it. And I think we're all born, we're not all born the same, but we have a certain desire to share. There's a moment when you experience something, maybe it's a beautiful sunset, maybe it's a beautiful food. You're like, oh my God, this ice cream, you have to try it, right? And there's that desire, if there's someone next to you that you like, right? And even if it's someone you're like, I don't know if I like them, let's find out if they like this ice cream flavor. And if they don't, maybe I don't like them, right? Or if they offer me some food that I really don't like, maybe we don't hang out because we're not going to enjoy that together. But there's this desire to be together and joy. I

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
think that's an innate desire. And so I find joy when others are joyful as well. That's kind of my sense of it. And to go a little deeper, one of my sort of role models, if you will, or someone I'm inspired by is Buckminster Fuller. And the question he was asking, he was a geodesic dome guy. Some people don't know who he is. And the people that know him really know him. But there are a lot of people that don't know who he is. It's like the Epcot Center, that's a geodesic dome. You see a lot of Burning Man in particular and it's the largest structure you can make without any internal support. And so he designed by science, they call it design science based on nature. He said, well, nature's most efficient, right? There aren't any extra things like, you don't see like a bird with a really, really long tail that it can't support because nature wouldn't allow that. It wouldn't work, right? If you're

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
gonna survive in nature, it's become very efficient. So he would design all these things based on nature. And his question was, how do we make the world work? for 100% of humanity without any disadvantage to anyone through spontaneous cooperation. And I think it's a good question. I think it's the question that I find myself asking the most, how can I cooperate with others and see the bigger picture as opposed to sort of the selfish things that might drive a little bit of behavior. Because you could have lots of millions of dollars and no friends, right? And you could have lots of friends and no money, but there's probably a balance. So. I think there's a way to balance it for everyone where we all can live in this and do it peacefully and get the best out of what's inside of us. I think that's really what is most interesting to me as an experiment.

Anya Smith:
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate you. I like to understand the why behind people and their intentions. I hope our listeners also appreciate that. The genuine message, the quote, you can tell your passion behind it. So it's very beautiful. Thank you.

Sam Sokol:
Oh, I appreciate that. And I love when people, I think for me, the game, when I first saw this game played with others when I wasn't facilitating, that's when I got really happy. Because I heard how they played it and how they experienced it. And I didn't need to know the stories, but I saw their smiles, I saw them connecting. It makes new connections. And

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
one of my curiosities about when I was driving away and it felt like I didn't make those connections at Burning Man, I noticed that happen with other people. People who I thought individually were really cool. And then they came together, newly meeting each other as strangers and kind of bumped off of each other. There wasn't a connection, they didn't form

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
that. And I kept wondering why, what was the difference? Why did I connect with this person, not the other? And that could be me, of course, but it could also be because the conversation they had was about the weather or their job or where they were from, something that was superficial or surface level.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
And what would it be like then if we explored some of these great curiosities that we all carry about

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
the world? What would happen if we turned to each other and be like, yeah, How do you think they make this great ice cream?

Anya Smith:
Yeah,

Sam Sokol:
And what would that conversation

Anya Smith:
of course.

Sam Sokol:
be like?

Anya Smith:
Yeah, you know what's funny, sorry, I'm just reading some things. You know what's funny is that you mentioned a topic of like the context, like the situation creating like the context that we drive off of. And I truly believe we have more in common than we have different. And we just again, we don't always have, by whatever reason, like we're not engaging those conversations from that perspective. Instead of having curiosity about like... what are you doing? What do we have in common to help each other? We choose to see the superficial things that divide us. And I imagine the beauty of life, like where we explore things a little bit kinder, both to ourselves and to others with a little bit more curiosity. And again, really challenge yourself to see like the common humanity of another human being. I don't care what color hair they have, I don't care what religion they have, I don't care what political beliefs they have. We're all human. We all want to be happy. We all experience pain and suffering. We all crave connection. I like that this game talks about those deeper things beyond things that divide us, commonly. And we want to see in the news how different we are, how we should be angry at each other for whatever. That's bullshit. There's so much more beauty to connection, people who are maybe different, but so much alike still on the big things.

Sam Sokol:
I think that's really well said, Anya, well said. And when it comes up in conversation, you'll hear people talk about like-mindedness. And I want to challenge that a little bit because I think like-mindedness is nice, right? We might be seeking like-mindedness, but like-heartedness is what really does connect us, right?

Anya Smith:
Hmm

Sam Sokol:
We all have a certain drive. in us that's connected through love and respect and trust. We all have that. Those are values that are important. Those are where we become like hearted from who we are and our values. And the like mindedness is, if you hang out with all like minded people, then probably it gets kind of boring, right? You have the same.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
So I like people with divergent thinking, people that are a little bit different, have a different perspective than I do, but a similar value set. And that to me starts with kindness, right? So I value integrity first. And then second is kindness. And if you're kind, let's hang out. If you're over there to kick the dog, you know, we're not, we're not going to get along, even if our ideas are similar. I'm not probably going to want to hang out with you because our hearts aren't.

Anya Smith:
Okay, friend, are you ready for your role?

Sam Sokol:
I'm ready. What you got?

Anya Smith:
Okay, I got the dice. I got the dice, so let's do this. We'll see, if it falls on the floor, just like give me a moment. I might head down and do this.

Sam Sokol:
Hahaha

Anya Smith:
Okay. I have limited space here. We're just gonna do, okay. Okay, so yours are fear and future.

Sam Sokol:
Mmm.

Anya Smith:
Fear and future, I don't know why we have sex. Fear and trust, okay. Fear and future and your card is, just showing for authenticity, is, oh, what is a worthy investment of your time?

Sam Sokol:
Oh man, this is loaded, it's good.

Anya Smith:
Oh, wow. Wow. I love this.

Sam Sokol:
It's good, are the dice loaded? Yes, the dice are loaded, okay.

Anya Smith:
You heard me!

Sam Sokol:
No, I trust, the dice over here say never trust for you, but I do, I trust you, I trust you.

Anya Smith:
Aww.

Sam Sokol:
No, I absolutely trust you. So yeah, fear and future and an investment of my time. So I think about this a lot. I could be making more money in a lot of other things, right? This pursuit of selling a game, by the way, we became a nonprofit. So that was part of this journey of saying, how can we be in support of our mission, whatever that mission is, right? If your mission is best served by being an LLC or a corporation, cool. And if it's best by being a B Corp, we had these conversations early on. We said, what is the best vehicle for us to make a difference? And as we moved along, we were actually at the United Nations playing this game. And one of the directors there said, it'd be a lot easier to work with you if you were a nonprofit. And it's really something we had to sit with and say, well, we see that there could be great work being done here, a lot of action being taken inside of even a structure that people would say there's not a lot of action in the United Nations. We think we could be really effective then as a nonprofit. So we changed the structure. And a lot of people know that nonprofit, you can make money. Like the NFL I found out is a nonprofit, which is astounding.

Anya Smith:
Wow.

Sam Sokol:
And of course there are people they're really upset about that. They go, wait a minute, is it really, you know, this is a lot of

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
scrutiny now on that and by the IRS and there's some changes coming out now about that. But

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
to say, okay, what is a worthy investment of my time if I'm not making a lot of money? Is that okay? And there are people around me, my friends who are capitalists kind of looking over like, well, that's nice. Right. And people will say, Oh, is that your passion project? You know, these kind of diminutive things people would say. So

Anya Smith:
Yeah, that's hard.

Sam Sokol:
It is hard. It's hard to be in that environment. And yet other people will say, wow, this amazing is going to change the world. So there's, there's a full spectrum of what it is. And often things that make a lot of money aren't terribly noteworthy, right? Oil, right? Putting gas in your car. It's valuable. Sure. If you want to get from here to here. And yet it does a lot of damage in the world as well. So finding that balance, I think is, is challenging. I know that doing this is a, is a worthwhile investment of my time and yet it's challenged. Some of people have. Sometimes I feel a little bit of that fear like, oh, maybe I'm the naive one thinking that this is a good pursuit. But then when I see the interaction that someone has, my friend said, well, hey, I played this with my mom. Like he went back to see his mom in the UK, right? And she's French and he was born in the UK. And he said that often she asks very pointed questions of him, it kind of paints him in a corner. Like she's driving towards the direction, but he doesn't really get to share what he wants to share. which is part of the context, right? She wants the content, he wants to share more of the context. And there's a card in here in the instructions that says, would you be willing to listen more fully? And what he told me was that she did. She read that, she took it to heart. And for one of the first times, he felt like he could share with her and she could really listen. So I don't know if that made any money. I mean, I gave him the box for free. I don't know if it's gonna be a moneymaker in that sense. And yet I have the sense of that being profound, purposeful and worthwhile. So that's what I'm following. I'm following that inner voice. And I know there's pressure, especially when I talk to kids that are coming out of college, right? Maybe they're in high school and they're looking whether or not to go to college. And they're feeling that pressure, investment, money, make a family happen, you know, what's a legacy? And some people, legacy is a donation for a park or museum, cool, maybe that's their path. And so I think it's really a worthy investment. My time is to connect into the integrity of what wants to be expressed through me. and let go of the fear. Let go of the fear. The future is gonna be whatever the future is gonna be. I'm gonna be that conduit for it.

Anya Smith:
That's funny. I think you got ahead of me. I got this card. It's like, what advice would you give yourself about this?

Sam Sokol:
Hahaha

Anya Smith:
And then you kind of answered that one.

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, I think to be really specific, the answer to that for me is to keep strong in my meditation practice, keep strong in what I know to be true. You know, if I wanted to turn on network TV and be unmotivated, I could do that. If you want to watch the world of news that tells you about how our humans, we as humans, are different, then that's immediately accessible. Right. You can find where there's difference. And so it's really tune in. to these places where people want it. Look, there's a, Cards Against Humanity will make $50 million a year again and again. It was valued at $500 million.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
There's nothing wrong with that game. People play it however they want. I've played it, it's fun for a few minutes. But to your point, like some games you don't go back to. And that's one I don't feel like I need to go back to. It's not that deep of a game. It's not where I want to play. The sandbox where I want to play, the advice I give myself is stay in those sandboxes where I want to play. Stop trying to conform to someone else's Cards Against Humanity world. stay true to what I know to be true. That's my advice to myself. And I do that through meditation and through connecting with like-hearted people who are resonant with these same kind of things to accomplish for humanity.

Anya Smith:
I can give you my graduate card. I, you know what's interesting is that I see you and to me, like again, we're virtually seeing each other, like you seem calm and you have like this, you know, very peaceful demeanor and I'm sure that's meditation, but I know like what you're sharing is so genuine and vulnerable. Like it's true, it can both be true where you feel really passionate about what you're doing and still acknowledge that there's a fear about like, well, is this worthwhile? Like, will it resonate with other people? Will it be sustainable? Right? Uh, what is the impact of that? So that sometimes could be challenging to share with others, especially when you are pursuing it, but it's, it's sharing that down along the way it could be hard. But can I also share like, we need more of this in our life, right? Like that's what I valued about this. Like we need more deep connection. There's a hunger for people. I had a friend and I just had a really beautiful conversation where she was saying, like, I just feel like my cup is not filled. and the conversations that I'm having of others are just shallow. And I'm really looking for these connections that feel deeper. And it's hard to have that. Like it's hard to have that just naturally sometimes, right? And I love that this creates this invitation and simplicity and like not everybody will have the time to spend an hour. So I was like, Sam, what about 30 minutes? Like wherever you find this game, use it to your liking, use it to your timeframe, like use a card or two. If somebody's like, hey, do you have 10 minutes just to play with this? I want to try it out. If you resonate with this idea of wanting a deeper connection, but you're not sure how, for whatever reason, for maybe like, I'm not super outgoing, I'm a little bit introverted, I don't know how to approach this subject in a way that seems inviting to other people who maybe don't seem like they're thinking about this. Use this game as a permission to make it right for the context that you have, for the people that you have, for the desires that you have, because that makes it really easy. So can you share though, can you add to that? But Kichak, I love your big scary goal. Like where you, like your dream of where this could go.

Sam Sokol:
Well, first, yes, I'm happy to share that. And I want to go back to a couple of things you said, because I think what we're talking about is profound. It's profound for the human experience. I would love to see Gratikube be the most gifted game in the world. I would love this to be something. Originally, you talked about selling. You could never buy one Gratikube, but when you purchased it was always two. And that way you could share it

Anya Smith:
Aw.

Sam Sokol:
with someone you cared about, someone you love. And even when you have a relationship of 20 years, someone you love, you learn more about them. I think that's profound too, that journey when you feel like there's nothing left to say. Guess what? There are probably some new questions to ask. And so that's a profound truth for me. And when I think about this, you know, it's courage. There's a certain level of courage to being human. I think that's one thing that really sets us apart in some ways from maybe even the animal kingdom. They're probably courageous acts. You watch, you know, a squirrel jump and fly from this. They're not sure where they're going to go. Or you know, all these different things we might say is very courageous. But There's courage that drives us to new levels. And I feel like often it's something difficult that gives me the greatest learning. So how can I then lean in a little bit more of that discomfort to try something new, to get to a new place in my life, to ask a question of a stranger, but follow what's in my heart? Sometimes we have that ping, right? Oh, maybe I should do that. I got feeling the inner wisdom coming up. Just, it's a softer voice sometimes than the... analytical mind inside the suit of armor that's like, I got to go exist in the world with all these spikes or I'm going to get squished, you know. So just leaning into that more. What if, you know, I mentioned Buckminster 4 and there was a lady at Yale, a brilliant, brilliant lady, who said the greatest gift she got from Bucky was that she no longer felt fear. And wouldn't it be cool as a life goal to get to that place, to get to that place where you're like, okay, I know I'm serving a purpose. Is this next thing going to kill me or not? Right? If it's a really ask and kind of poke at the amygdala, I know this is not about neuroscience, but if we looked at the neuroscience of it, our amygdala is this very old part of our brain. It's like the reptilian part, very, very old and not terribly useful. Right? If there's a rattlesnake there, you're in traffic and like, oh, I got to, you know, put on all my spidey senses. Cool.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
But otherwise you're probably not going to die. So I think it's asking that question saying, am I going to die? Okay, no. Can I lean into the discomfort a little bit? And might I become stronger? through the interaction versus some giant collapse of who I am. What is the fear? Like really asking that and leaning into the discomfort for the growth.

Anya Smith:
That's beautiful. Yeah, I think that, yeah, so I'm just processing everything you said, like there is so much wisdom about things that are not serving us and then like the beauty that comes when we reflect on it and find and put attention and action towards things that do serve us, right? And then one thing that I mentioned, like when we were talking, you said like, hey, if I had this beautiful vision of where this would be successful, I want you to describe it like, You described it to me so beautifully. So like, sorry, I'm gonna backtrack this. You described to me this vision where like, this game is played widely by the community and like we have this fun. Can you describe that like beautiful vision? I think in your own words, it was really beautiful for me to hear like, what this could be, where you feel successful if this turned out.

Sam Sokol:
I think that I see this as a game that can be in anyone's living room, right? This if I went into someone else's home who I didn't know and I saw this on their coffee table, which actually happened the other day. So it was local in Denver.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
But so it's a little easier. It's going to be local. But I was there and actually someone sent me a picture of it. They said, hey, we're at this living room. They have your game. Look, it's out there, which is so cool. And I know that it could be in more places. I think it's it's one of those things when people say, look, I'm a coach or hey. I'm in a college and we use this and we now have a group of friends that's tight. We're close to each other. I ran out the top of my house. The people that are renting from me told me we were roommates. We kind of knew each other before, you know, we didn't come into this as friends, but we were like, Hey, we're going to rent this place out there.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Four of us, whatever. And now this is my best friend. And those are the things when I feel like this is awesome.

Anya Smith:
Ugh.

Sam Sokol:
It's doing what I want to do in the world. I think there are places where people want to build community. Community can be hard to build because you have to say around what. Right? It could be a sport, right?

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Pickleball. All right. It grew quickly because everyone loves pickleball. Awesome. And it's also competitive and it has its own things, right? And then someone else says, oh, we have this community around drinking. How strong is that community around drinking?

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
Is it doing what you want? So for me, the success of this is where people are authentically coming together. And ultimately what I think great success would be is someone plays this game and they hear story after story after story after story. They see the dice, they see the cards. Maybe they hear some of the same. shares, maybe they hear something different, but they start to recognize that that's just one of many stories. And if I look at that story and say, gosh, I looked at those dice and I might have answered it this way, they answered it that way. Oh, so I can choose my story. And then you choose the story of your life the way you want it, versus letting it be written for you. I think that would be great success.

Anya Smith:
Do you mind if like one other thing that you described to me, and maybe I misremembered it, but I think you described like one thing you loved is like an event where we have a thousand people come together and each, we divide them into like, you know, four person group where everybody's playing and like what that experience could look like where we have this beautiful kind of connection with people that don't know each other and just see like what experience could that turn into where at the end of the time like. these four person groups, like just share emotions and feelings and you hear somebody across the table and laughing and experiencing and maybe hugging at the end of it. Like you just shared with me a video, like a game, right? Where you guys like had random people just come together who don't know each other and played this game, right? Can I share that?

Sam Sokol:
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We were fortunate enough to connect with Deepak Chopra and we

Anya Smith:
Is that okay? Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
haven't really shared that part of the story. I realize we're maybe it's a good time to

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
mention that. So my friend Terry, the person I mentioned, my business partner, he met Deepak

Anya Smith:
Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.

Sam Sokol:
Chopra about 20 years ago and basically he's kept in touch with them and they become very good friends. And so Terry said, well, we have this game Gratacube. It pulls these story questions. Could those story questions be inspired by or even derived from someone's work? It could be music, it could be this. And we started really thinking about, okay, I don't know, let's try it. So we read a couple of his books.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
One was total meditation and another was abundance, the path, the inner wealth. And we mind mapped it. We came up with lots of questions that would drive interesting conversation about that topic of abundance. And... Then we put it on the cards. We made a full prototype, the dice, everything, brought it, sat down at dinner. We got invited to dinner with Deepak Chopra, which is a pretty cool story in and of itself. And we're at this little Indian restaurant. It's like car dealership, pawn shop, CVS. And then, you know, here we are at this little Indian restaurant and his friends started to play. She pulled a card, rolled the dice, started to tell a story and she loved it. And people were passing around these gratitude cards.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
And then on the other side of the table. is Deepak having a conversation with someone, looks over, he says, well, what's going on over here? She's, oh, Deepak, this is your game. You should come play it.

Anya Smith:
Aww.

Sam Sokol:
And that was his first exposure. So he pulled a card and rolled the dice.

Anya Smith:
Wow.

Sam Sokol:
The card he pulled was describe success and invite each person here to share one sentence of what success means to them. So the dice he rolled were joy, joy and now. And he said, The only measure of success is joy.

Anya Smith:
Aww.

Sam Sokol:
And instead of thinking joy is somewhere outside of me and I need to go, like people say follow your bliss or follow your path to joy. The path is joy. The path is joy. It's not like the sign that says free beer tomorrow, right? And then you come back the next day, it's still the same sign. It's not free beer today. If your idea of joy is always out there, you never get to it. So the path itself is joy and that's what he shared. It's the only measure of success. And my friend shared his, and then Deepak stood up and said, we're taking this to Random House. And if they don't want it, we'll take it somewhere else. But we'll get it published. And that's how that started. So we have the original game called Gratikube, and then this next version called Abundance. So the game of Abundance is the next one. And then we'll have our roadmap is to approach manifestation and build a game for the Earth, right? So a game about an Earth game. And we're working with possibly NASA on that. So I don't know yet where that'll go. I can't say for sure, but really very interesting.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
I think as we explore space, the power of the spacecraft we're already on called Earth.

Anya Smith:
Yeah, you're incredible. I love where this is going. I am grateful for you sharing this experience, this game with me again. There's so much power. There's so much versatility. There's so many places like I was thinking like when I went to school, right. I was staying at Like living on campus. Right. And I wish I wasn't cool. I was like more introverted and I didn't make a lot of great experience. I moved out pretty much as quickly as possible. I didn't connect to my roommates. They were lovely people, but we just never had that and like I imagine what value this would have provided for somebody like that. Where maybe you're connecting people out of necessity, whatever, you just don't think you're fully connecting. And maybe you're not sure how to go, what a fun and easy way to give that opportunity to somebody. I'm really excited what new relationships, what conversations, what deeper interactions this game is driving and will drive in the future. And I know if your passion, your work ethic, and all of this as a combination, it's gonna grow.

Sam Sokol:
Well, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. And I was also not the popular, very social person. Didn't get to know my roommates very well in college either. So I feel like we probably would have been friends because we weren't interacting in that way.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
But I do think that that tool would have been really useful had it been offered. So it's often somebody in leadership, right? Whatever that leadership means, it could be the super social person who otherwise nobody at the school would be like, that guy's a leader. But they might say, well, you know, that person's in a frat or that person's in a sorority or that person, whatever, they have the potential to guide people in a really lovely way. You can go in a lot of different ways with that power, right? But how do you do it? So I think it's amazing. I think it's also interesting to see in the timeline, one thing, so when we launched it, we had our launch party at Meow Wolf in Denver, which is a lot of people may not know what Meow Wolf is. It's kind of a contemporary art place.

Anya Smith:
Oh

Sam Sokol:
Imagine like really colorful things everywhere.

Anya Smith:
cool.

Sam Sokol:
on the walls and you walk into this like jungle of art and it's an immersive experience,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
absolutely extraordinary and so different. They have a few of them Denver and Las Vegas and there's another one in Santa Fe that Santa Fe was the first one. Anyway, we had our launch party there with this 3D, not 3D projection, but immersive projection where the floor has projection out the walls. It's very colorful, very lit up, music happening and also this game called Gratitude. We had all these different, we had 19 tables.

Anya Smith:
Wow.

Sam Sokol:
were people playing the game. And it was exactly what you described. It was laughter, it was tears, it was bonding. And a group that we didn't expect that loved it was college guys. College guys, eight of them, standing around a table like a huddle. And when someone got a card like, oh, I can't, oh my God, what? Those dice, would you get those dice? My God, what was your card? Dude! Crazy, and it was so tight, you couldn't fit in, you couldn't even look at what they were doing, right? It was this bubble. And it was funny to see like, 19 little bubbles all coming into the space of gratitude and trust and respect and curiosity

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
and that was magical. So yes, the vision you described is one that I have that for big events

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
imagine what's happened. I sort of if you could see auras or if you see the color of connection people come in this kind of black and white maybe a little yellow just a little bit right like muted

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
colors and then they start connecting you see bubble bubble bubble bubble pop pop pop pop and Ultimately, there's more color for everyone individually and for the entire event. So that's my vision is that we fill the world with more color through this colorful interactions.

Anya Smith:
Yeah, you know what I love to see in here shortly, I know we're taking a lot of time, but like, I see all these lists about things to gift, right? You know, like the top gift ideas. And I don't know if you had an experience, but oftentimes, like I'm looking for my husband, I'm looking for a birthday. And like, oftentimes, I'm going to say, like, that person won't need this, like, 99% like it's no offense to anybody who loves those are fine. Like there's things I'm like, oh, that could be interesting. But a lot of like, that's not interesting. That's not this person. Like, I've already have something like that. Like there's just so many reasons why I don't like them. Like I like the idea of them, but oftentimes they just don't fit. And I see this being such a lovely gift where people appreciate, I wish it was the same thing with books. I like the idea of gifting books, but people have very different needs. Like they're

Sam Sokol:
I'm gonna go.

Anya Smith:
like, oh, thank you. I really love this. I'm gonna put this away and never read it, right? For a variety of reasons, right? But like board games are a really fun gift. But it's also like, what is their taste, right? Like, will they like it? Will they play it once then put it away? That's what I fear with board games. Like, that's where I'm getting to. It's like, what a beautiful gift this is to a friend. It's like, hey, I really value your connection and like, what a fun experience we can have with this. Or hey, like, you know, like somebody I don't know. Like, can we just share this fun game and get to know each other better? Like, it's such a beautiful sentiment comes out of this being a gift, an experience that you're buying for yourself or others.

Sam Sokol:
I think you're right that it's very versatile and it's always hard when you go to a party. You wanna bring that unique thing that 50 other people are not gonna bring, right? You don't wanna be the other toaster at the wedding, right? So you're looking for that thing that's unique and fun and lifelong and that they'll really appreciate

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
that you get to share a little bit of your heart with them, something that's useful. And I've heard from people that play this game, one guy, he said, I haven't played that many times. That's cool. He says, but I've take it with me. He says, what he does is he takes a few of the cards that he likes, he'll take like 10 cards with him,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
put it in his suit pocket. And then when he meets somebody, he'll hand them the card. And that's his way of just opening up the conversation. He says, I've probably only done that, you know, 15 times. And I probably only played the game three times. I said, well, I think you've actually played quite a bit. That's cool. But it's that versatility and how you might want to use it.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
I'll go to parties and just set out the cards and the dice and walk away. I won't even put the rules there. And then people, when I step up to the table, I say, Oh, what is this? You know, a little, a little coy and they'll say, Oh, well, here's how you play it.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
And I love that because they've made their way to play it and they personalized it

Anya Smith:
Like, oh really?

Sam Sokol:
and it's theirs and they own it. And it's, uh, it brings smiles to people's faces. And so is this game for everyone? No. You know, some people are going to look at the dice and they're going to say, Oh, guilt, I don't want to talk about guilt.

Anya Smith:
Yeah,

Sam Sokol:
And that's okay.

Anya Smith:
showing these

Sam Sokol:
Right.

Anya Smith:
beautiful.

Sam Sokol:
And you may say, I want to, I'm okay. Talking about you know, shame, it's a shame we don't get together more often. And so you can find creative ways to play it, you could take the dice out, you could play just a dice. So it's that versatile thing that can be used in a lot of different ways. You could open up at a business conference, right? So instead of the small talk that normally happens, where it's an ice breaker, well, this is a heart warmer, you know, why are we

Anya Smith:
Oh,

Sam Sokol:
having to break anything?

Anya Smith:
I love that. Love that. Ah, I love it. And then where people find this? I hope if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm even curious, where do people find this lovely game to check it out, to order it, to play with their friends?

Sam Sokol:
We put it in this place that's very Brazilian. It's called the Amazon.

Anya Smith:
Oh, wow. I've heard of it.

Sam Sokol:
Yes, okay, you've heard of it too, cool.

Anya Smith:
I heard of

Sam Sokol:
All right, yes, it's very jungle-like.

Anya Smith:
it. Yes. Very distant place.

Sam Sokol:
There's so much stuff there. You can get just about anything in the world, not just jungle items, it's pretty cool.

Anya Smith:
Okay, okay. So

Sam Sokol:
And it's a prime directive to go check that out.

Anya Smith:
Amazon it is. Okay. Check it out Amazon. Let us know what you think. So first of all, thank you for creating this, for just being innovator with a heart, for sharing your journey as an entrepreneur and kind of what guided you to find this game. I hope our audience can resonate with so many different pieces from this story, right? For finding something that you're curious about that you find meaningful. to having your own kind of struggles and questions, but still doing something, to exploring something like where it's like, it's helping others and you just build that excitement and build this idea because you're passionate about it and seeing what can happen from that.

Sam Sokol:
Well, thank you for having me on. Deep, deep gratitude for you. You get my gratitude cards. I'm gonna give you all of them. And I appreciate your curiosity. When we first met, that was the thing I most appreciated about connecting with you was just this really authentic level of curiosity about the world and conversation. You ask great questions. You're so deeply connected to just life and what's fun and interesting. So thanks for exploring those things with me. It's truly a pleasure.

Anya Smith:
I appreciate you, my friend. And before I let you go, I have three short bit questions and then we'll wrap up. That sound good? Okay.

Sam Sokol:
Okay.

Anya Smith:
So we kind of, okay, first of all, success to me is...

Sam Sokol:
Joy! Oh, you know the punchline to that one? Okay, cool.

Anya Smith:
Do it. I heard that one. I heard that one before. Okay, I like it. That's okay, I'll let you do it. I'll let you roll with that. Okay,

Sam Sokol:
I'm out.

Anya Smith:
if I could have a superpower, it would be...

Sam Sokol:
Mmm, super power. a deep presence to allow whatever is happening to just be like a surrender to whatever's happening.

Anya Smith:
I love that. I feel like that's like a boot of super power right there.

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, the Buddhist superpower, the guy, the Buddhist superpower, yes.

Anya Smith:
Okay, last one. In the positive context, going off track is...

Sam Sokol:
Essential. It's part of the process. Bucky talked about precession, which we won't go into because it's a longer concept,

Anya Smith:
Mm-hmm.

Sam Sokol:
but basically he was saying be aware and awake to whatever's happening off that A to B path. A to B is your straight line, so to speak. And then the 90 degree angle, he says pay attention to that. Some people go to college because they want a degree, but they find the love of their life. He said that's an example then of being off track in a beautiful way that then allows your life to bloom.

Anya Smith:
That's beautiful. Well, Sam, this was amazing. And thank you to our audience for listening this. If you have questions, thoughts, feedback, we look forward to hearing it. If you play the game, share pictures, share your experiences. Like I would be thrilled to hear what you thought of it. I'm sure Sam would as well. Sam, where can people connect with you? I know we're connected on LinkedIn. Where else should people find you? And I'm going to, of course, link that on the description.

Sam Sokol:
LinkedIn is great. Sam at Gratikube.game is a way to reach me via email. Gratikube.game is also a place where we have more content, beautiful content. Definitely take a look at that website. We have a video that we just released. We talked about that. I'm inspiring about four strangers coming together and playing the game for the first time. So you can see

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
what that's like. What else? I wanted to say something else. That's it. I guess. That's where you can find it. And the Gratisphere. That's what I wanted to mention.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Sam Sokol:
The gratisphere is the concept of sharing your insights. Now you may find that there's something intimate that you don't want to share. That's not for the whole world. It might just be for your friends, your partner, whoever. But you may find that you had a positive experience and you want to share the power of that experience.

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Sam Sokol:
Maybe you gained an insight. You have to say what the insight was, or maybe you want to share the insight,

Anya Smith:
Right.

Sam Sokol:
but not the whole story. And so that's the idea of the gratisphere is to inspire others to live at the depth of integrity for them and to live with their heart.

Anya Smith:
You know what I love the idea is like I pictured this being like a social share We said like a little picture of you playing the game and like one little takeaway and challenge your friend Like hey, what's your take away in this and see like what people think? You know if you want another fun little social topic, you know Don't come up with fair tell sure specific to your share a picture of your brunch, which might look delicious Try this dress you would happen when you engage your social friends and like challenge them to your discussion. That could be fun, too

Sam Sokol:
And we do that with hashtag Gratitude, if you wanna do that, and hashtag play it forward.

Anya Smith:
Love it. Okay.

Sam Sokol:
Yeah, beautiful ideas.

Anya Smith:
Sam, thank you to you. Thank you to our audience for coming right off track with us for another adventure and we look forward to having you next time. Thank you again, Sam. My pleasure.

Sam Sokol:
Thank you so much.