Topaz [00:02:10]:
And then that was kind of in my head. And then by accident I the film that went to can I put on Vimeo by accident without a password right this back, this is 2014.

Mark Divine [00:02:20]:
That’s the universe working through you like this needs to be.

Topaz [00:02:23]:
And I didn’t realize it cuz that I put it without a password until they picked up as short of the week. And in half, in a week I got half a million views.

Mark Divine [00:02:30]:
Holy cow, that’s awesome.

Topaz [00:02:31]:
And I thought and that was a question, what game am I playing right Cuz before that, I was playing basically the game of film director game. I was playing the game my dad, which is I want to be. He’s like, you got to be a genius. So I was like, I’ll be a genius. The film director. And it was like, accolades. And that was a game I was playing. And I was kind of good at it, but I wasn’t commercially good at it.

Mark Divine [00:02:53]:
Right.

Topaz [00:02:53]:
That’s why I didn’t have more success in, like, making. But I was like, what game am I playing? And I was like, well, am I doing cinema, popular culture, meditation, you know, 90 minutes, people there, breathing pounds consistent. They’re not moving. They’re focused. Okay, that’s cool. And I’m trying to prove myself as the director with the scarf and the look, you know? Or am I in the game of injecting ideas into the mainstream? I was like, ooh, that’s an interesting question. I like that. It’s like, okay, well, if I.

Topaz [00:03:18]:
That’s an interesting game. Well, then what ideas can I inject in the mainstream? Like, where can I contribute? And at that time, I was 37, single, living in New York. I’ve been in New York 18 years. You were there for. You understand like that, Pat.

Mark Divine [00:03:32]:
Actually, I grew up in upstate New York.

Topaz [00:03:34]:
Upstate New York. No, but. I know. But you spent four years New York City in.

Mark Divine [00:03:36]:
In the Big Apple.

Topaz [00:03:37]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:03:37]:
I don’t know how you made 18.

Topaz [00:03:38]:
I’m a man at the end. At the end, I would go back to my apartment with a bad back, couldn’t walk. I was depressed. And I would play crickets and play sounds on Spotify of crickets and, like, Stream just to get nature at the end. After 18 years. But I had a brother. This is, like, early, you know, what, 10 years, 11 years ago, when I started this project, I had a brother who was 16 years younger than I. And I saw how him and I, both single in New York, were dating completely differently and relating to personal potential partners and relationships.

Topaz [00:04:12]:
Romantic, intimate relationships in a fundamental different way, because our relationship to technology was so profoundly different.

Mark Divine [00:04:18]:
Right.

Topaz [00:04:18]:
You know.

Mark Divine [00:04:19]:
Right.

Topaz [00:04:20]:
And I remember having this one experience where, you know, I was dating a woman for a few weeks, six weeks. I was in writing a script in Sun Valley, Idaho, and we were texting, and she asked me, look, Topaz, when you write love on your text messages, do you mean love like, love me? Or are you using that like, the English use that vernacular, just like passing love.

Mark Divine [00:04:41]:
Hey, love, blessings or. Yeah, good luck or whatever.

Topaz [00:04:44]:
And I realized, oh, wait, we should talk. So I called her and we had an hour conversation about our relationship. And what moved me at the end was she said, topaz, thank you for having this convo because all the other people I’ve been dating recently, whenever we have an intimate conversation, it’s been over text.

Mark Divine [00:05:01]:
Oh my gosh.

Topaz [00:05:02]:
And what blew my mind was that she was only five years younger than I. I was 37, she was 32. I said whoa. Cuz for me it was like we’re.

Mark Divine [00:05:09]:
Not going to roughly 12 years ago.

Topaz [00:05:10]:
So this is. Yeah, this is 12 years ago. Mean still 2012. 13.

Mark Divine [00:05:16]:
Yeah, that’s right when social media and texting were starting. So that’s early in.

Topaz [00:05:21]:
I just saw like how. So the question was inject 90 is in the mainstream. Great. Around what subject? Here’s the question. How’s the emotional experience of being human shifting in lie of all this technology that’s coming out? That was the question. And I launched this experience design studio called the Skin Deep without knowing what I was going to do. I just had that question in mind.

Mark Divine [00:05:41]:
Define what an experienced design studio is.

Topaz [00:05:44]:
Because these days you’re not just a production studio that makes podcasts or movies.

Mark Divine [00:05:48]:
It’s like you’re creating experiences that are multifaceted, multi dimensional.

Topaz [00:05:52]:
Exactly. It could be. It just gives me more permission.

Mark Divine [00:05:55]:
Right.

Topaz [00:05:55]:
You know, for me, for a long time I was a film director. So I call myself film director, which gives me, well, this is what film directors do. And then one day I’m like, you know what? I was at this Tony Robbins date with Destiny event.

Mark Divine [00:06:07]:
I did one of those sitting next to Gavin Newson.

Topaz [00:06:11]:
Oh really? No. Were you in the VIP1 section?

Mark Divine [00:06:16]:
Yeah, I was an invite. I was, I was a guest.

Topaz [00:06:19]:
I was there 4 years in a row in that VIP section. Cuz he loves my dad.

Mark Divine [00:06:23]:
That’s cool.

Topaz [00:06:23]:
Like a lot of his stuff in business, mastery.

Mark Divine [00:06:25]:
Right.

Topaz [00:06:26]:
The two biggest concepts are my father’s.

Mark Divine [00:06:27]:
Oh, no kidding, that’s cool.

Topaz [00:06:28]:
The life cycle one.

Mark Divine [00:06:29]:
Right.

Topaz [00:06:30]:
And the kind of different archetypes. So he invite. So that was a great entree to me in that experience. And the first year opened my mind, I was just like, okay, I’m not going to be a film director because that’s limiting my possibilities. I’m actually going to call myself a story breaker. The hell’s a story breaker? I was like, well, a story breaker. We all tell ourselves stories about who we are.

Mark Divine [00:06:50]:
You got to break those stories down in order to rebuild.

Topaz [00:06:52]:
So I’m going to create a story breaking experiences and that’s just not the things I do is also how I be. We can do it in conversation. So same thing with experience design. So it’s like, I’m gonna design experiences. That’s what our studio is going to do around. The question is, how’s the experience of being human, emotional experience of being human, shifting in lieu of all these changes? The first thing we launched was called the. And. And that’s kind of our flagship.

Topaz [00:07:16]:
It won the Emmy. It went viral.

Mark Divine [00:07:17]:
Called an interactive documentary.

Topaz [00:07:20]:
Yeah. When we launched, we had the videos, but we knew in order to break through kind of the mainstream, we wanted to pack it, package it, like, episodic.

Mark Divine [00:07:30]:
And people can comment and respond.

Topaz [00:07:31]:
No, no, no. It’s. It’s basically we. The interactive experience, which was the one off, which is what won the Emmy, which I co created with a gentleman named Nathan Phillips, who literally passed away three months ago. Yeah. Bless him. Genius of a man. He.

Topaz [00:07:45]:
It was a website where the offering was interactive completely, where it would create a customized experience to you. So it says, how do you. Do you know how you experience love in a relationship? Do you want to find out? Yeah. Answer these four questions. You answer the four questions, goes into our database of all these conversations and customize.

Mark Divine [00:08:05]:
On video or on video? On video.

Topaz [00:08:07]:
And customizes a playlist for you right there and then. And then offers you an experience to, like, play the questions with someone in your life. That was in 2014.

Mark Divine [00:08:16]:
That’s cool.

Topaz [00:08:17]:
Um, and then. But we’ve just continued the format at that point. We had 30 interviews, like 30 participants. And I’ve been continuing that since then for now 11 years now. We’re starting our 12th, and we bring two people in a room. They face each other like this. I pose questions that I create for them, and they just have a conversation for an hour, an hour and a half. We film it, and then we post that every week on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram.

Topaz [00:08:43]:
But we always show you both faces.

Mark Divine [00:08:45]:
Yeah, that’s cool. I love about that, first of all, what a cathartic experience for the participants, I imagine. Right. Because most people don’t get to spend that intimate time together, and they don’t know how to ask the right questions. And so you’re providing kind of like that therapist’s guide through the process, which is really cool.

Topaz [00:09:04]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:09:05]:
And of course, I’ve done a lot of that, so I know a lot about that. But also, I love what you’re saying is that, you know, most people, of course, we’re trained. Our mind is trained. Catherine. I were just having this Conversation to, to look at everything is objective, everything is outside of you. And to think that you’re all these separate beings and you know, like little ping pong balls. Right. And reality is when you spend a lot of time really investigating the true nature of things, you see that that’s not true.

Mark Divine [00:09:35]:
Right.

Topaz [00:09:35]:
That things are not separate.

Mark Divine [00:09:36]:
We are immersed in the context and everything that we think, affect and everything that people were engaged with are thinking, affects everything. And so there’s this co creative or codependent arising process that is not separate from the context or from the everythingness from the space. And what I saw in that brief 90 seconds, because you had the two faces is like every, every facial expression, every emotion, every thought was being received. It changed the nature of what was happening back and forth and an infinite number of possibilities and in the space is just pure possibility, but it’s being rippled with all the energy. So that’s why I love, like one of my spiritual teachers says, like free will is kind of a joke because there’s an infinite number of things happening to cause things to happen. And so for you to take ownership of it is kind of silly. So now that’s, that’s the most radical perspective.

Topaz [00:10:40]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s beautiful. So the way. So I’m going to drop this and see how that sits there because I think it sits perfectly. But like to see how it lands with you is that I say what I’ve seen from doing this for 11 years now of watching people in that space, holding the space and offering them well constructed questions and seeing their convos, is that it’s actually not about the answer.

Mark Divine [00:11:00]:
No.

Topaz [00:11:01]:
It’s about sitting in the discomfort of the question.

Mark Divine [00:11:03]:
Right.

Topaz [00:11:04]:
And just being in that.

Mark Divine [00:11:05]:
I love that. Yeah.

Topaz [00:11:07]:
Sitting. You’re saying all the infinite possibilities, like we can just ask the question and sit in that together and all those possibilities are occurring. Can be occurring or can be laying their seeds for later flourishing.

Mark Divine [00:11:21]:
Right, right. I think that’s good because what you’re speaking to is the ego, the resistance. Right. And the ego wants to be in its lane, wants to go with what’s comfortable. And what’s comfortable is what they remember, what you know, it’s the memory. Ego is just memory based living. Right. It’s being projected in the future which corrupts the present or just being dwelling in the past which corrupts the present.

Mark Divine [00:11:47]:
And so by, by sitting in this conversation and like just having committed to it, I’m sure you’ve had individuals who probably pack up and say it’s not for me have you had people who just like, sorry, I, I couldn’t do. I can’t do this. I thought I would or could.

Topaz [00:12:03]:
We’ve only had one pair that says we have to end early. And then I would say, okay, let’s land the plane with these questions to heal it. But what, what, what is. Happens is some people, people say, let’s talk about it later.

Mark Divine [00:12:14]:
Okay.

Topaz [00:12:15]:
You know, we don’t have.

Mark Divine [00:12:16]:
Can’t get there.

Topaz [00:12:16]:
Yeah, it’s okay. And that’s part of what I think is beautiful, is that we are allowing humans to be humans and then sharing that with a wider audience. And so there’s also that third conversation that the audience is having when they watch a convo.

Mark Divine [00:12:29]:
Right.

Topaz [00:12:29]:
Because we say that you don’t have, like we have. We create a safe space. And the rules are you have to ask every question, but you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want. And you also don’t have to explain anything to the camera because it’s our convo. When was the time when I hurt you most? That one time. Yeah, I know that sucked. You and I know it. We don’t have to explain for anyone else.

Topaz [00:12:47]:
But the audience is then projecting themselves into that combo. They’re filling in what they think the answers are. And even if we say we’ll talk about it later or we’ll pass, everyone else is projecting what they think got.

Mark Divine [00:12:58]:
The solved in their head.

Topaz [00:12:59]:
Yeah, the conversations are happening. I think that’s what I mean by we don’t need the answers. We just need to sit in the discomfort of the questions because we’re having the conversations also in our heads.

Mark Divine [00:13:08]:
What are some of the types of questions that you ask?

Topaz [00:13:11]:
So what I’ve learned from doing it for so long and then obviously in the process of putting it into the book is the construction 12 questions you love. Yeah. The guide to intimate conversations. Deeper relationships, which frankly, we don’t really learn how to have those things.

Mark Divine [00:13:29]:
Right.

Topaz [00:13:30]:
You know, we, we model them in our families and our friend groups, but we don’t learn how to.

Mark Divine [00:13:36]:
Not necessarily optimal conversations.

Topaz [00:13:38]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:13:39]:
Modeling. Yeah.

Topaz [00:13:39]:
And basically, fundamentally what I’ve learned for me is that it’s two things. It’s creating the space and having well constructed questions. It’s not right or wrong questions, just like well constructed questions, you know, and, and there’s a sequence of the quality.

Mark Divine [00:13:52]:
Of your life would be determined by the quality of the questions you ask. So it’s not easy.

Topaz [00:13:56]:
No.

Mark Divine [00:13:57]:
To ask good questions.

Topaz [00:13:58]:
Oh, no, we’re not training in school. We Don’t.

Mark Divine [00:14:00]:
And you teach you to, you know, basically research and you know, that memory bank.

Topaz [00:14:06]:
But also like critical thinking even is like critical thinking is an application of critical thinking to someone else’s question.

Mark Divine [00:14:12]:
Right.

Topaz [00:14:12]:
What about the profound thing of the question itself?

Mark Divine [00:14:14]:
Right.

Topaz [00:14:14]:
And one thing I’m realizing in this year of not just the book, but now talking about it in all these podcasts, is that the question is the answer.

Mark Divine [00:14:23]:
If you can ask the question, then part of you already knows the answer.

Topaz [00:14:28]:
Well, that’s a good one. I haven’t.

Mark Divine [00:14:30]:
I.

Topaz [00:14:31]:
Do you think that’s.

Mark Divine [00:14:32]:
I.

Topaz [00:14:32]:
What I will say. I don’t know if that’s.

Mark Divine [00:14:34]:
Formulate the question. You already know the answer. It’s true.

Topaz [00:14:38]:
Okay, just. I have to meditate on that one. That.

Mark Divine [00:14:41]:
Yeah, yeah, meditate on that.

Topaz [00:14:42]:
Because what I do know is that the question shapes the answer level. I know the question level.

Mark Divine [00:14:46]:
You know the answer. That’s the, that’s the, that’s the essential answer to that.

Topaz [00:14:50]:
My, my feeling is that we spend way too much time focusing on the answer and we should spend instead, you know, the 2080 rule. You’re talking about that in the book. And curiosity.

Mark Divine [00:14:58]:
Just keep the curiosity cat going.

Topaz [00:15:00]:
But, but how do you construct it? Like, I could be. But how do you construct really good questions?

Mark Divine [00:15:04]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:15:05]:
And the better the question, the better the answer. And oftentimes we’re answering questions that our parents gave us, the society gives us that, our community, instead of actually going away. What. It’s like just another way of saying why. But how do you construct really good questions?

Mark Divine [00:15:19]:
You know, and, and I think where my head is going with this is the best questions don’t actually have an answer or they have multiple answers. Right, Right.

Topaz [00:15:32]:
But the question shapes the answer and how you.

Mark Divine [00:15:35]:
Yeah. Who you are will shape the answer.

Topaz [00:15:38]:
Who you are. Who you are shapes the answer. Because who you are can, if you pay attention, shapes the question. Is. Creates the question. But like, but like the question is if I, I use this simple example. Two kids. If I go to.

Topaz [00:15:49]:
My kids go, you want to go to sleep? The answer is either yes or no. The question gives two answers, yes or no, and they’re going to say no.

Mark Divine [00:15:56]:
That’s not a well constructed question.

Topaz [00:15:57]:
No, but if I ask them, you want to sleep on the bed or on the couch? The option of saying no is the question has shaped that. No is not an option.

Mark Divine [00:16:05]:
Right.

Topaz [00:16:05]:
The option is we’re going to sleep. But the, the answers are the couch or the bed. Because the questions shape the possibilities.

Mark Divine [00:16:11]:
Right. So the question That I saw. Like, tell me about the first time you saw me. Yeah, I mean, that, that’s going to be a different answer for everybody.

Topaz [00:16:20]:
Of course, obviously, every time, and not only every time, there’s no right answer.

Mark Divine [00:16:23]:
There’s no, there might not even be an answer. Because, you know, when I, I think my media thought was like, what if I don’t remember?

Topaz [00:16:29]:
Right. And you might remember something now and then in three months you have the same combo.

Mark Divine [00:16:33]:
Right.

Topaz [00:16:33]:
You actually know what, I have a new memory.

Mark Divine [00:16:35]:
Right.

Topaz [00:16:36]:
Right. And. But there are ways to have. In the context of relationship, there’s five qualities that make a really quality question. We can go into that. And then in the context of asking yourself questions, there’s three things that three, three sections to fill in as a process. Anytime someone comes to me with, hey, I want to know if I should get married or like, should I go into this business or I’m racking my head on this thing, instead of giving them an answer, I’m like, brainstorm 30 to 50 good questions. Here’s how you do it.

Topaz [00:17:07]:
And then circle the question that you love that inspires you. Then that’ll give you the answer. Because whenever you’re racking your head against the wall, it’s because you’re not asking a quality question. Improve the question, the answer becomes obvious.

Mark Divine [00:17:23]:
So what are the five things construct.

Topaz [00:17:25]:
A good question for in a relationship?

Mark Divine [00:17:27]:
In a relationship?

Topaz [00:17:27]:
Yeah. If you want deeper connection. And the thing is, you say like the quality of your Esther Perel, you know, thought leader book shows, you know, quality of your life is connected. The quality measured to the quality of relationships. Well, one way to have quality relationships, quality conversations. Great. How do you have quality conversations? What I’m suggesting, what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned is create the space, ask well constructed questions. What are the five things that make well constructed questions? The context of a relationship? 1.

Topaz [00:17:53]:
Don’t ask a binary question. If you start a question with have is, are, do, would, or should. If you just. If this question starts with any of those six words, the answer is a binary. It’s a yes, no, I eat right, left, go, don’t go. It’s binary. And life is not binary.

Mark Divine [00:18:13]:
Right.

Topaz [00:18:13]:
Necessarily. Right. So don’t, don’t ask a binary question. Two, ask a constructive question. Why do we fight someone as opposed.

Mark Divine [00:18:20]:
To a destructive question?

Topaz [00:18:22]:
Well, why do we fight so much? You know, for me, I see the mind is a very faithful, committed dog.

Mark Divine [00:18:29]:
Right.

Topaz [00:18:29]:
That chases any sticky throw. So the question you throw is the stick. Right?

Mark Divine [00:18:35]:
Right.

Topaz [00:18:35]:
You’re throwing. So if you throw the stick, why do we fight so much? Your mind, the faithful dog will come back with answers. The sticks, the answers. It brings back that it fetches you. How helpful are those we fight so much because what do we do with that?

Mark Divine [00:18:49]:
Because you want to be right or you want to, you know, instead it.

Topaz [00:18:52]:
Goes, what are we learning from our fights?

Mark Divine [00:18:54]:
Right.

Topaz [00:18:55]:
Oh, the stick comes back. That stick is something we can use to improve our relationship. So ask questions that fetch answers, that give you empowerment, that give you agency, that can actually be constructive.

Mark Divine [00:19:08]:
Interesting. Yeah.

Topaz [00:19:09]:
Three, this is oftentimes people miss all the time. And this is, this is actually our superpower because there’s a lot of, you know, we have decks that gave you decks. Our decks are much more powerful than many’s because they have one quality that many people miss, which is they’re connective. And what I mean by that is that they acknowledge.

Mark Divine [00:19:32]:
As opposed to like cards against humanity.

Topaz [00:19:34]:
No, no, as opposed to like 36 questions for love that the New York Times made famous by Arthur Aaron, which is great. But if you look at those 36 questions, I think four or five are connective. And what I mean by that is that if I ask you, hey, Mark, what do you think about love?

Mark Divine [00:19:51]:
All right.

Topaz [00:19:51]:
You’ll talk for half an hour about love.

Mark Divine [00:19:53]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:19:54]:
And I’m going to lose interest.

Mark Divine [00:19:55]:
It has nothing to do with this relationship.

Topaz [00:19:57]:
But if I say, hey, Mark, what do you. How do you think we see love differently in the same. You’re going to answer that differently if I ask it and if Catherine ask it, than if you’re a stranger asking.

Mark Divine [00:20:08]:
Right.

Topaz [00:20:08]:
Because it’s a projection of our connection, of our relationship. It’s. It’s actually harking to what’s unique about this moment, about our relationship. So ask questions that acknowledge the relationship you’re in. The moment you’re having right now is unique. So don’t ask these questions that are like, what do you think about love? You know, what do you like work? I mean, not. That’s a yes, no answer, but like, what do you love most about work? Okay, what do you think we both love most about work? What do you think we. What do you think? I misunderstand about you?

Mark Divine [00:20:39]:
What I love about that is in order for me to even answer the question, I’ve got to get to know you better. Or so it’s going to lead to me kind of like probing you with some questions, which is going to deepen our connection or understanding or.

Topaz [00:20:52]:
Or maybe it’s, you know, you’re with Catherine, who you knew for, obviously, but then you’re still, it’s still harken to your relationship to her, right? You know, and you’re, and you’re projecting your. What you know of her. And she go, oh, that’s it. And the listener who asked the question is actually more interested in the answer. Why? Because it’s a reflection of them too. So the question is actually not just about your own solo world, it’s about our world. So make the question connective, right? Which means it makes it unique to the conversation you’re having right now, to the person you’re speaking to. And the very simple litmus test is, okay, if I ask this question, will it be a different answer depending on who’s asking it? Right.

Mark Divine [00:21:33]:
Just, just on that note, like, I think that’s so profound because all language can either continue separation or dissolve the barrier, right? And so that is in itself a practice, right. To be thoughtful right back to the Amish, is what I’m about to say, right? Is it factually true? Is it accurate, Is it helpful, Is it kind? Is it going to connect or separate?

Topaz [00:21:59]:
Is that what the Amish asks themselves?

Mark Divine [00:22:01]:
No, they don’t do the last part. I’m just saying that all of those attributes, yeah, they do that. There’s a practice. They’re not the only ones. It’s classic and 12 step traditions have similar lines. Language, just pause, breathe and think about how your words are going to land. Because your words can either drive a wedge further or dissolve that barrier and create that opening. And honestly, I think our language is biased toward separation because it’s built on Judeo Christian values, staunch individualism, fighting to get what is yours and right in this world.

Mark Divine [00:22:36]:
And so our language tends to have that violence. That’s why Marshall Goldsmith’s work was so, so powerful, non violent communication. Was it Goldsmith or. No, that was Rosenthal. Yeah, Marshall Rosenthal.

Topaz [00:22:47]:
I mean, I find that interesting because in America it’s a lot. It’s like you killed it. Which is like you killed it. But that’s such a violent word.

Mark Divine [00:22:54]:
Such a violent word.

Topaz [00:22:55]:
Yeah, strike that, strike that. You nailed it. Or like you crushed it, you know, so in my. Yes. And I tell my team, like, okay, we gotta come up with a better. We’re like, we lit it on fire. It’s like, that’s also kind of us, like we inspired it. You’re like, that doesn’t does like we’re trying to find the word where it’s like, yeah, awesome.

Mark Divine [00:23:13]:
Like awesome. Yeah.

Topaz [00:23:14]:
But I think I Agree with you. The language. Right.

Mark Divine [00:23:17]:
Who, yeah, we who are.

Topaz [00:23:20]:
So I agree with you. I think the language. So the fourth one would be offering questions as a gift instead of. And that really is about not having an agenda.

Mark Divine [00:23:32]:
Well instead of an expectation or a.

Topaz [00:23:34]:
Demand or demand or. And for me that’s that, that’s where like curiosity comes in. Cuz people say well I’m having, Asking a question. I’m saying offer a question that’s as a gift, which is an offering, which means it doesn’t have an agenda, doesn’t have. I’m not asking you a question to get the answer.

Mark Divine [00:23:50]:
I want this in contrast to like how I grew up where all questions posed to me from my family, mom, primarily a mom, were to get something is to fulfill her need.

Topaz [00:24:01]:
And you know that. And you said.

Mark Divine [00:24:03]:
I knew. I felt that. And so I felt like, you know. And to this day I have a adverse reaction to her playing a thousand questions with me.

Topaz [00:24:10]:
Yeah. Well, my mom.

Mark Divine [00:24:12]:
Bless you mom. I love you.

Topaz [00:24:13]:
Yeah, no, I love my mom too. She’s a therapist. Every time she asked me a question I feel she’s analyzing me.

Mark Divine [00:24:17]:
Right.

Topaz [00:24:18]:
I’m in therapy, so I don’t want to answer it or it makes me think of lawyers who they’re, they’re, they’re saying is don’t ask a question you don’t know the answer to.

Mark Divine [00:24:26]:
Interesting. Right.

Topaz [00:24:27]:
So every time. No wonder it’s hard to have a conversation, you know, because if you want to invite someone to a space to explore, you have to start at the same place. Not knowing where you’re going to end up.

Mark Divine [00:24:40]:
Right. Yeah. Curiosity is, is to lean into the unknown.

Topaz [00:24:44]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:24:44]:
And not have to like have your ego already know the answer to frame it up.

Topaz [00:24:48]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:24:48]:
Like you jump and then you, you know, you have fun.

Topaz [00:24:51]:
And if you feel like you, you have an intention where you want to end up, the way to tap in your curiosity and you can articulate that. Like listen, I’m inclined that I want to get to here, but I want to have the space around it because I don’t know if that’s where we’re going to end up.

Mark Divine [00:25:03]:
Yeah. This is so hard for people, but it’s so such a great practice, you know, because again putting yourself in that space where you just don’t know. And the question, it’s very uncomfortable like you said before. So you just have to sit with that. You have to sit because the ego wants to know the answer. It wants to seize on it. It’s like feels pressure and yet you got to just sit in the discomfort, being okay in that discomfort and being okay. Not having.

Mark Divine [00:25:29]:
And then what happens? So something. Eventually something wells up and words start coming out of your mouth and you’re like.

Topaz [00:25:36]:
And you have to be okay with. We don’t have to get to the answer. Also not right now.

Mark Divine [00:25:39]:
And there’s no right. You don’t have to worry about what you’re saying either because what you’re saying is coming from a truer place.

Topaz [00:25:46]:
I mean, and so what’s. Again, if you can have these quality conversations, you have a quality relationship.

Mark Divine [00:25:51]:
That’s right.

Topaz [00:25:52]:
You have that. You have to amplify your life.

Mark Divine [00:25:54]:
Just being able to communicate at that level for most people is rare because.

Topaz [00:25:58]:
We don’t create the spaces and we don’t ask well constructed questions.

Mark Divine [00:26:01]:
Right.

Topaz [00:26:02]:
If we. That’s where I feel my offering is. In this last year of doing all these podcasts, I’m like, oh, there’s my offering you found.

Mark Divine [00:26:08]:
Yeah, it kind of came.

Topaz [00:26:08]:
You know, it’s not from the book because I write the book, which is distillation of what I’ve learned. But in talking to people and seeing the feedback loop and having these comments, I’m like, oh, there’s my offering.

Mark Divine [00:26:18]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:26:19]:
Which is like here’s. Here’s the pieces.

Mark Divine [00:26:20]:
And what’s the fifth thing, by the way? Before we forget.

Topaz [00:26:22]:
No problem. The fifth thing is it’s got. It’s like a two double edged sword or two sides of a coin. It’s. You have to connect. You have to create that pause. You have to create that connection between two disparate things. And that.

Topaz [00:26:41]:
That’s where the pause is because it’s like neuroplasticity. Like finding a new Nord. So it’s like this is a per. Would be a personal one, but like, you know, Mark, what’s. And you’re in a relationship. What’s the favorite lie we love telling ourselves?

Mark Divine [00:26:58]:
Pause. Breathe. That’s an awesome one. Because my ego’s like, oh man, I don’t. I really want to have the perfect answer because we’re being videotaped right now.

Topaz [00:27:07]:
But what do you have to answer?

Mark Divine [00:27:08]:
But I don’t have the answer, but.

Topaz [00:27:09]:
I want to answer it, you know, or what’s. What’s the truth we hate telling ourselves, you know, or, or, you know, you’re in a company setting and you’re like, okay, what. What’s the value we do not share with our clients? You know, is those things like connecting how much is a pursuit of earning profit or money costing us?

Mark Divine [00:27:29]:
Right.

Topaz [00:27:30]:
You know, bringing two things together that you don’t. So that you have to go, wait, okay, wait, I haven’t thought about that. Right. And the flip side is asking questions that put you in each other’s shoes or someone else’s shoes. So, Mark, what’s the hardest thing? Being your daughter, your son, your friend?

Mark Divine [00:27:49]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:27:50]:
You’re like, oh, I have to go put myself in my friend’s shoes or daughter’s, whatever, and see, look at myself through that lens. And to answer that question, I can.

Mark Divine [00:28:00]:
See how that would really develop compassion and empathy in perspective.

Topaz [00:28:04]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:28:05]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:28:05]:
So that’s the fifth quality. Now, if you could do all of them or part of them, that helps construct quality questions to ask within a relationship. Yeah, any relationship.

Mark Divine [00:28:14]:
You’re taking this into organizations now?

Topaz [00:28:17]:
We want to. We start to. Yeah. I mean, there’s. I feel like companies should not have mission statements. They should have mission questions, especially because we’re in. What’s. What do you call it? Things are changing.

Mark Divine [00:28:29]:
Uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Yeah.

Topaz [00:28:32]:
And, you know, your mission now can change as soon as the environment changes. So it’s more of a what’s the question that we have to answer? And then we. We’re always asking that question. That’s our anchor. And it may have different answers different times, depending on the environment. You know, if Xerox asked that question, they wouldn’t still be around. Instead of photos, like, you know, if their question was not, we make photocopies as a statement, it was, how do we create better communication between people? They’d be making computers now. Right, Right.

Topaz [00:29:02]:
Ask a question, don’t have a statement. The changes change. Change is happening so fast in the Vuku environment that statements are outdated by the time you finish the period, you’ll put an explanation point on it.

Mark Divine [00:29:14]:
I think you’re right. Where I’m going with this is like, knowledge has become ubiquitous. It’s free. And it’s actually. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge just becomes a limitation. Right. Because if it’s already known and factualized.

Mark Divine [00:29:32]:
Right. And identified and categorized, then it’s ancient history.

Topaz [00:29:36]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:29:38]:
And knowledge is different than knowing. And so the key for leaders. That’s kind of what I teach is forget about knowledge. Right. Knowledge comes and goes. And you don’t want to develop your brain to be one of those people who just stores, like the PhD, the academic. Right. Just stores all this stuff and regurgitates it.

Topaz [00:29:55]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:29:56]:
Thinking that that’s, you know, that’s knowledge, or that knowledge makes them so much special. Right. So what we want to do is like clear your mind of all that stuff. Like, you know the Zen saying, empty your cup, Just keep emptying the cup of all that stuff. It’ll be there for you.

Topaz [00:30:12]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:30:12]:
You know, even if I don’t remember, I deliberately tried not to, like when I got my doctorate and I just finished to like remember all the different sources and articles and all, you know, I had to know it for my dissertation. But I don’t try to store it because that’s a waste of energy. Now, constantly clean.

Topaz [00:30:30]:
Is that because of AI and everything available now?

Mark Divine [00:30:33]:
Yeah. You know, tap on my phone or talking my phone to perplexity and it’ll give me way more context than what I could have possibly remembered. Right. So it’s a waste of time to train your mind that way anymore.

Topaz [00:30:45]:
Right.

Mark Divine [00:30:45]:
So what we want to do is actually the opposite. We want to train our minds to be like. Like just blank slates. Just tapping into the field of potential, you know, the matrix or whatever you want to call it. And so then you. And then what you’re saying is so important because what you want to do then is to seed the field of potential with a really, really good question, something really interesting, and then just see what happens. Just allow. And so this is what the yogis called direct perception.

Mark Divine [00:31:13]:
You will perceive something without knowing that you know it.

Topaz [00:31:17]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:31:18]:
And you never see that.

Topaz [00:31:19]:
What do they call that feel?

Mark Divine [00:31:21]:
Direct perception. And it can also be transrational. Right. So if you’re. That what is trans. Rational, meaning it actually not coming from you.

Topaz [00:31:30]:
Yeah. You mean it’s like a download?

Mark Divine [00:31:32]:
It’s a download.

Topaz [00:31:33]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:31:34]:
Or an upload or even some support maybe from, you know, a subtler dimension that we can’t perceive non physical because we, you know, human beings exist on like point zero five of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Topaz [00:31:52]:
Dude, I’m with. You know what I mean?

Mark Divine [00:31:54]:
So we think that this is it.

Topaz [00:31:56]:
No, it ain’t. Well, I mean, I love your thought about the work. You. Who are you talking to? Was it Marcus Owens? Was that. Oh yeah, the men’s group guy. Yeah, Owens, Marcus. Marcus Owen. You talk in.

Topaz [00:32:09]:
I think in that podcast you talk about your work about. Oh, no. Or no, no, no, no, no. The guy from Google with the something. Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:32:18]:
Frederick Furts First. Who?

Topaz [00:32:19]:
You can’t.

Mark Divine [00:32:20]:
Fred first is like the most.

Topaz [00:32:21]:
Yeah, but the last name you can’t pronounce that. You talk about the memory from the future, right?

Mark Divine [00:32:27]:
Oh yeah.

Topaz [00:32:27]:
The memory from the future create a new envisioning memory that becomes a memory and then you live into that memory.

Mark Divine [00:32:34]:
Right.

Topaz [00:32:35]:
I love that exercise. And you ask him a question there, which was, you know, have you ever talked to your future self? Which he. I don’t think he. Look, I have.

Mark Divine [00:32:47]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:32:47]:
And you have.

Mark Divine [00:32:48]:
I have, yeah.

Topaz [00:32:49]:
And not only have I taught, like, I’ve been in a certain point through somatic exercise, super high level somatic exercise, 10, 12 minutes of this deep breathing, that I found a zone where it wasn’t just the future self. It was a meeting of five versions of Topaz having a conversation.

Mark Divine [00:33:08]:
That’s awesome.

Topaz [00:33:08]:
Right?

Mark Divine [00:33:09]:
I love it.

Topaz [00:33:09]:
And I realized, oh, I’ve been here before, but I forgot that I’ve been here before. And I leave messages here before. Right, right. And I just echo that. And I love the idea that it’s. Was it Johnny Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five? Have you read that book? That looks amazing. He is kidnapped. It’s about Slaughterhouse Five of the bombing of Dresden, but it’s also about getting kidnapped in Aliens.

Topaz [00:33:33]:
And he talks about time. Talk about how there is no time for that name.

Mark Divine [00:33:37]:
I’m gonna read it.

Topaz [00:33:38]:
But you. It’s mind blowing. Tim Hetherington, my friend, he. He put me on that.

Mark Divine [00:33:42]:
It’s all construct. Time is a construct, just like space.

Topaz [00:33:45]:
So he says in the book. It’s great. Time is like looking at the mountains. Like, imagine the Rocky Mountains. It’s all existing at the same time.

Mark Divine [00:33:53]:
Right.

Topaz [00:33:53]:
You know, if you’re walking on the ridge, you think you’re going on this linear experience, but actually it’s pop.

Mark Divine [00:33:58]:
Right? It’s all there.

Topaz [00:33:59]:
It’s all there. And so we can. We just stretch it out. We stretch it out. And we have to, I think, in order for us to survive and feel a level of safety and comfort, forget a lot. And I think what I. I have.

Mark Divine [00:34:10]:
A. I went into a psychedelic journey once, and as soon as I.

Topaz [00:34:15]:
As soon as I kind of like landed or entered.

Mark Divine [00:34:19]:
Entered. Right. And everything started to shift. Right?

Topaz [00:34:23]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:34:24]:
I heard like, as loud as you can imagine. Remember who you are. And so the whole journey was me remembering who I. Who I am, but I really am.

Topaz [00:34:40]:
And did you. Did you find it?

Mark Divine [00:34:42]:
I saw.

Topaz [00:34:43]:
And as humans, not just this lifetime.

Mark Divine [00:34:45]:
I experienced things that were probably, you would say, karmic energy. So there’s that part of who I am.

Topaz [00:34:50]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:34:51]:
But then I also had a direct experience of that non, dual, you know, nature of non personal awareness. And I like, okay, that’s who I really am too. And so the answer I got from that very, very good question, by the way, remember who you are, was that I Am a multidimensional character. And it really just depends upon which level you want to perceive from. Because at the level of source, we are all source. But at the level of a metaphysical multidimensional being, we’re that right. And we design this life. And so at the level of non duality, physical reality, we are the constructed reality of what we call ourselves.

Mark Divine [00:35:37]:
Mark or Topaz. Yeah, that feels very real. But it’s not as real in the, you know, when you look at it in the context of the metaphysical, it looks like a dream. And when you die, it’s like shedding, you know, taking off an old coat. And then you go up and you design your life, next life, and you put on a new coat, which is a new body. But from the ultimate level, we’re all just source and all of this is just God playing out, you know, this incredible dance of life.

Topaz [00:36:07]:
That’s why when I hear reincarnation. Yes and yes and yeah, yes, it’s not the same.

Mark Divine [00:36:14]:
Topaz doesn’t get reincarnated.

Topaz [00:36:15]:
No, exactly. And that’s why I say so. That’s why when I say, oh, I was in a life, this, you know, in the past life I was a Native American, you know, doing this, that’s one of mine. And I realized, hold on a sec. In a past life, because energy, it’s not like one for one exchange. You and I could have shared a past life, an energetic exchange, you know what I’m saying? Like our energy dissipates and goes off and we have these experiences, some the.

Mark Divine [00:36:37]:
Spiritual practice of yoga, not practice, but tradition of yoga agrees with that. But it also says that it’s like a Maharaj describes it as like a packet of memories. So it’s like a cloud. So out in the world, right, let’s, let’s call space like source. Yeah, but it has a bunch of little clouds of energy and they stick together and they come together. Sometimes they fused. That’s where like soul clusters would come from. Okay, but your cloud of energy is what is full of desires and energetic kind of needs.

Mark Divine [00:37:14]:
And we call that karma. And so that’s why enlightenment dissolves that, because it’s all ego based stuff and it dissolves it. And so through lifetimes, eventually enlightenment says, okay, that’s all gone. You’ve burned off all karma and you have no need to re embody. Same as saying reincarnate is to re embody. But that could take some souls, some clouds of knowingness. Thousands, hundreds, thousands million lifetimes. I don’t know.

Topaz [00:37:43]:
Let me ask you this.

Mark Divine [00:37:45]:
And by the way, I’m telling you more than I really know. It’s just stuff that I have had insights from.

Topaz [00:37:51]:
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Divine [00:37:51]:
Here’s a book that’s going to tell you that.

Topaz [00:37:53]:
But what, when you were in active duty or when you did reserve duty for the, what, 11 years, did you have conversation? What was the SEAL community that you were serving with and your team members, were they also open for these, or were you an anomaly in that community?

Mark Divine [00:38:09]:
I was definitely an anomaly, yeah. How do you know anyone else who was a meditator or. You know, I came in at 25 and I had had that experience that you read about in the way of the SEAL where I. I had Nakamura. I had my Sado karate studio on 23rd Street. And unbeknownst to me, I was being trained by a Zen master. Right. He was my.

Mark Divine [00:38:33]:
He’s my teacher. Even though I only spent four years with him, he’s still with me.

Topaz [00:38:37]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:38:38]:
And so I went into the seals and also the way I was raised and, you know, I was all. I was basically con. I was being shaped was destiny. I was being shaped for that.

Topaz [00:38:48]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:38:52]:
I would say, you know, I was on active duty from 9089 until 2011, so I didn’t start teaching this stuff until 2006.

Topaz [00:39:01]:
But you had this mentality and I.

Mark Divine [00:39:03]:
Had the inclination doing the work and I was actually even. I’d also even pulled together kind of the essence of my training regimen, this integrated development before I ever started teaching it, which is what caused me to want to teach it to others, because I found it to be so incredibly effective. Right. But anyways, where I’m going with this is I think you would find way more special operators who are open to this because of the psychedelics.

Topaz [00:39:32]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:39:33]:
Because of all the.

Topaz [00:39:34]:
Now.

Mark Divine [00:39:34]:
Because of all the trauma. Yeah, now, now, now. And this is just in the last maybe five years.

Topaz [00:39:38]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:39:39]:
And because of my work, and now the work of others in basically introducing yoga, meditation, mindfulness, concentration training, breath work to the seals and then other special ops through SEAL fit. And now they actually teach it at buds. And so you have this like the whole force, if you can imagine what work that doing the ripple effects. Right.

Topaz [00:40:01]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:40:02]:
So you have guys now who are routinely meditating, routinely doing yoga, whereas 10 years ago, 20 years ago, they’re like, whatever, don’t even tell me, don’t even talk to them.

Topaz [00:40:10]:
Yeah, practical.

Mark Divine [00:40:10]:
If I can’t cut it, shoot it. You know, it doesn’t matter.

Topaz [00:40:13]:
But how did you balance and how do they balance now those kind of ideas and thoughts with the hard nose reality of like the work that you have to do at the end of the day, that’s about like physical reality and life and death.

Mark Divine [00:40:27]:
Yeah.

Topaz [00:40:27]:
You know, it’s like we have a.

Mark Divine [00:40:29]:
Lot of those conversations. If you’re called, if you’re doing the warrior path for the right reason, it’s karma. You can’t not do it. Right. It’s like, you know, that that was the whole Bhagavad Gita and that’s why that was why that. One of the reasons that book was written, besides, you know, to expose the whole. All the different yogas, was to help people understand that if you avoid your calling, you will actually do harm to yourself and others. And if your calling is to be a warrior, like this entire thing is a battleground, right? Humanity is a battleground or it could be heaven on earth, but for most, 95%, it’s a battleground.

Mark Divine [00:41:07]:
Right? And in battleground, there’s going to be war, there’s going to be weapons, there’s going to be people need protecting and there’s going to be. Right, protect. There’s going to be people who need to go out, who need to leave this world because they’re evil. And who’s going to do that, right. If everyone’s sitting around all spiritual, you know, no one’s willing to pick up the weapon. Even the native traditions, right. They, they train warriors, but they train warriors to be the last one to apply force. And only if it’s absolutely necessary.

Mark Divine [00:41:37]:
There’s no other option.

Topaz [00:41:40]:
One thing.

Mark Divine [00:41:41]:
So that’s how I rectify. I said, okay, this is my calling, or else I wouldn’t be here. I wasn’t becoming a Navy SEAL because they were, you know, I saw Charlie Sheen. There was no movies or anything about it. When I was.

Topaz [00:41:53]:
Wait, where you saw Charlie in Apocalypse Now.

Mark Divine [00:41:55]:
Movie called Navy seals. It was the first movie about the seals.

Topaz [00:41:57]:
Oh, with Demi Moore in that? Was that with Demi Moore?

Mark Divine [00:41:59]:
I think so.

Topaz [00:42:00]:
That was the first movie about.

Mark Divine [00:42:01]:
No, Demi Moore did G.I. jane. Aha.

Topaz [00:42:03]:
Okay. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. With really.

Mark Divine [00:42:05]:
But my point was we didn’t have movies or very, you know, when I had no reference because I wanted to be a warrior, I knew that was my path. And I also was okay that if I had to kill another, an enemy combatant, then so be it, because that’s my path. That’s my calling. And 95% of the seals that I work with and other special operators, they get that. Like, that’s. That’s what they’re, that’s what they’re supposed to do. The moral injury comes when something happens and you end up stepping outside or being pushed outside the bounds of, of doing that in a way that is ethically reasonable to you. Right.

Mark Divine [00:42:50]:
And so I think in a lot of cases the torture and the, you know, just the atrocity of the way it went down, you know, because the war on terror, because the enemy was atrocious. That’s one. And then the other is when you kill someone who doesn’t deserve to be killed. Right. And so I have peers who ended up killing, you know, children and civilians just in the line of combat. And then that brings great moral injury. Right. Causes you to really question.

Mark Divine [00:43:25]:
Yeah, it’s not, it’s not easy. It’s a complicated thing. But like we say that, you know, the sheepdog exists for a reason. Sheepdog is the individual who is called upon to protect and to serve. You know, protect the flock, the sheep. And so they’re capable of violence, but they abhor violence. You know, and all these kind of who are out there blowing things up or former military people think, oh, all the military are violent. People are going to fly off of the hinges.

Mark Divine [00:43:58]:
Those are the outliers. Right. You know, anyways, that’s a good question. Thanks for asking that.

Topaz [00:44:04]:
I have many more, but I have the question, man. Well, one thing that I. We talk. Well, can I ask another question?

Mark Divine [00:44:15]:
Of course. By the way, I love the conversations as opposed to interviews, so I’m moving away from interview style podcasts anyways, so thank you.

Topaz [00:44:25]:
Well, yeah, I mean my. One thing I’ve. One thing I find interesting is, and it’s only in speaking to you. So give me a moment, I gotta set it up. Sure. You know, I talk about life, relationships, conversations. What does that. Well constructed questions in the space.

Topaz [00:44:43]:
And when I talk about the space, I say like we. The first thing when we talk about the space is we need to make a distinction and not confound safety with comfort. Because sometimes a you need safety. If I want to have a deep conversation with you, we’re going to explore, we need safety. But actually it’s not comfort. So. And sometimes people say, well, I’m uncomfortable, therefore I’m not safe. That’s not necessarily true.

Mark Divine [00:45:08]:
Two different things.

Topaz [00:45:09]:
If I jump off a. But if I do bungee jumping, in theory, I should be safe because these guys have been doing it for years. They’ve tested the rope, they know what they’re doing. I’m going to be uncomfortable, but I should be Safe. And then I come out and I feel that much more alive. I got the adrenaline running. I had this incredible, incredible view. I felt like a bird for a moment.

Topaz [00:45:26]:
Right. Safe, uncomfortable. Same thing in a conversation. Seems to me like Navy seals are trained for the exact opposite. To be comfortable in absolute unsafe conditions.

Mark Divine [00:45:43]:
That’s true.

Topaz [00:45:44]:
And then if what I find interesting.

Mark Divine [00:45:47]:
When you were talking, I was thinking more about psychological safety.

Topaz [00:45:55]:
Right.

Mark Divine [00:45:55]:
But you’re right, any type of situation that is remotely unsafe is going to be uncomfortable. And, and so we can relate this to fear. And so it’s going to bring up emotions or, or energy of like, extreme discomfort that’s going to be interpreted as fear. And so seals recognize that and say, okay, everything that we were called upon to do is going to be dangerous, and we’re going to. And it’s going to be uncomfortable. We, we deal with the danger part by training our asses off tactically. Skill development and crawl, walk, run, and get better and better and better so that, that what would kill the average person to us becomes routine.

Topaz [00:46:36]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:46:37]:
And then we deal with the discomfort by staring down our fear and saying, you know what? I’m just going to do the 10% solution and I’m going to prove that I can do it. Great. And then I’m going to do the 15%. I’m just going to keep on edging closer and closer and closer. And through that RePet, you develop the mental model, or I would say you kind of like dissolve the, the old mental model. That said, that’s scary. Right. Jumping out of an airplane at 40,000ft at night into the ocean scares the out of me.

Mark Divine [00:47:07]:
But you just start jumping, right? Crawl, walk, run. Pretty soon you’re jumping at 10,000ft. Then you equipment during the day, and then suddenly you’re on your first night jump at 40,000ft, and you’re like, man, this is cool. But then you’ve got a few hundred jumps under your belt.

Topaz [00:47:24]:
Right?

Mark Divine [00:47:24]:
Right. This can be applied to everybody and everything. Right. So you look at your life like, ask yourself, talk about good questions. What scares the shit out of me?

Topaz [00:47:34]:
Right.

Mark Divine [00:47:35]:
Or conversely, what makes me really uncomfortable. And then just be willing to, like we say in the seals, run toward the sound of gunfire instead of away from it.

Topaz [00:47:45]:
Well, in the scope of my work, which is not anywhere as high risk, but can be as scary sometimes in terms of you want to have an intimate conversation with your loved one.

Mark Divine [00:47:55]:
That’s great.

Topaz [00:47:56]:
Is practice. You get good at what you practice, and oftentimes you’ll have a partnership where one partner wants to talk, right. They generally, when we find they buy the card games we have, you know, and they want to talk and the other partner is like, hell no.

Mark Divine [00:48:10]:
Have you read any Arturi reels work?

Topaz [00:48:13]:
Of course. Us.

Mark Divine [00:48:14]:
Yeah, yeah, just finish that.

Topaz [00:48:16]:
Really?

Mark Divine [00:48:16]:
That’s about fierce intimacy. And this exactly what you’re talking about, like it’s, it’s uncomfortable. But if you want to really develop a relationship that is not just about me or you, but about us, well.

Topaz [00:48:26]:
That’S what the end is. That’s what I’m saying. It’s. It’s not you or I. It’s you and I. It’s us. So how do you cult? Look, I don’t know if I like humans, Mark. I don’t know if I like humans.

Topaz [00:48:37]:
I don’t know if I like myself. No, I’m being honest. I’m a super judgmental guy.

Mark Divine [00:48:40]:
I’m working a lot of damage to this place, by the way. Oh yeah, so we’ve got some redeemed that too. We need some redemption.

Topaz [00:48:46]:
No, you talk about our indigenous forefathers, how. And mothers, how would they feel about what we’ve done, who we’re being? It’s a question worth asking. But I’ll tell you what I love. I love humanity. But I don’t think humanity is in us. I think it’s between us. I think it’s the thing that’s between us. So the question is, how do you cultivate it?

Mark Divine [00:49:06]:
How do you break down the barriers?

Topaz [00:49:08]:
How do you cultivate that sense of like us? How do you cultivate that space between us? And for me it’s, you create the space. You ask well constructed questions and then just sit in the discomfort of the questions. You don’t need the answers per se. The answers will come in time. And time itself is its own construction.

Mark Divine [00:49:25]:
Right. What are the 12 questions?

Topaz [00:49:28]:
So the 12 questions basically is, you know, the editor had been a fan of ours for years, called me up one day and said, what are the me and 12 potato 12 questions at work? And so they’re in the book. But more important than the book, it’s why they work. How do you construct well constructed questions? How do you create the space? Space well constructed, and then what’s the sequence? And this is basically teaching you how to ride the bike so that you can apply that you can, I guarantee. Look, prescriptive, you take the 12 questions, you go home, play with your wife, Sandy, right? I promise you, you have a three hour epic convo that you’ve never had before. And if I’m wrong, call me and tell me, give me the book back.

Mark Divine [00:50:09]:
I want my money back.

Topaz [00:50:10]:
Well, you didn’t buy it. I gave it to you. But you know what I’m saying, You set it back. Tell me to write another book. On the other level, more importantly, is that you learn like, oh, wait, I need to have this conversation with my co worker. I need to have a conversation with my brother. I need, okay, hold on. Let me create the space.

Topaz [00:50:26]:
What does that mean? How do I do that?

Mark Divine [00:50:28]:
Gotta ask.

Topaz [00:50:29]:
You know, I’m not talking about fufu, lighting candles and doing sage, which could be helpful or not. But I’m not saying that. I’m saying how do you create the space? And we could double click on that. And then what are the well constructed questions to ask? You know, and then if you actually. Because look, even in the asking of the question, that’s where all the power is at. I mean, if you and you and your wife have a fight, you and I have a disagreement. We’re work partners, right? Not right, hey, I want to, you know, why do we do this? By the fact that I’m asking the question, I have more power. Because I’m saying this is what we’re focused.

Topaz [00:51:04]:
This is the answer we’re both going to seek. Now why are we seeking that one? And are you aware of the. That the question you’re asking is already shaping the answer? You know, I did a podcast yesterday and he was throwing questions at me. He’s like, how would you improve this question? One of them is, why is everyone else so, so much better than me? If you get that question, how.

Mark Divine [00:51:24]:
How do you work with that?

Topaz [00:51:25]:
How do you work. The faithful dog is going to bring tons of answers. But you know what, how do you.

Mark Divine [00:51:30]:
How do you work with low self esteem would be the.

Topaz [00:51:32]:
So when you’re in conflict with someone where you feel pain, therefore you rush, one of you is going to throw out a question. Is it a well constructed question? And two, is there a sense of equanimity? Because whoever is asking the question has the power. Because saying. That’s what we’re talking about. I see, right. So what happens with a book? For instance, you say, here, I have a game.

Mark Divine [00:51:50]:
It’s not my question, it’s a question.

Topaz [00:51:52]:
A question. And that’s why, like the card game boxes I send you, we have 15 different editions. Best friends. We have friends, whatever. Yeah, lovers. It’s like you have a fight, you’re like, you know what, let’s play. Oh, here’s the question.

Mark Divine [00:52:08]:
Immediately get back and intimacy.

Topaz [00:52:10]:
And the questions constructed in a way that a supports the safe space, albeit uncomfortable space we’re in.

Mark Divine [00:52:20]:
Do you have a favorite question for a significant other and a favorite question for a co worker that have just really proven time and time again to get to that fierce intimacy?

Topaz [00:52:32]:
Well, so I mean, okay, so in the structure of 12 Questions for Love there is, there’s a structure, there’s a five act structure. So I apply this 12 questions whenever. Like for instance this weekend, upcoming of three days where participants come into a room, they sit off of each other, they filled out a questionnaire. I’ve read it or I’ve trained my team to read it. And then we create questions for them and we put it in a structure. When you play the card game, it’s random and it’s almost like a tarot card. So it has its own magical power. It’s almost like the I Ching, you know, like.

Topaz [00:53:02]:
But when the structure is a five act structure, much like a film. Yeah. You know, because I’ve come from that is you create the first three questions this book and I’ll to answer your question with my favorite I’ll get in the climax first one is you build the space of trust and respect, reminding them of what’s their connection so they heart to the past. What do you first remember from the first time we met? What are the three favorite experience we share? Right. Things that remind people of the unique synergy that they have that they’ve shared. Right. Then you move to the next three questions which is around conflict. What’s our biggest challenge? What do you feel is our biggest challenge and what do you think is teaching us what was the last time I disappointed you and how do you feel about it now? And we can double click on those questions.

Topaz [00:53:45]:
They’re constructed in a way that offer you the opportunity to go deep, but also in a way that creates empathy. So if I ask you like when was the last time you felt disappointed and how do you feel about it now? Me adding how do you feel about now? Offers you to really tell me the last time I disappointed you, but say but since then I felt like this and I understand more. So it enables you to go deeper because you have a hook at the if I just said when’s the last time I disappointed you? You’d be like, oh, do I really want to tell him that time? Because I’m stuck, you know. But how does it make you feel now? Gives you an opportunity to answer, really go there, but then kind of reel it back in. So it’s like.

Mark Divine [00:54:24]:
It brings you back to the present as opposed to, like going back to the version of yourself that just was.

Topaz [00:54:30]:
Disappointed and gives you a way to temper that kind of disappointment.

Mark Divine [00:54:33]:
That’s cool.

Topaz [00:54:34]:
Then we get to the climax. Those are questions seven and eight. So seventh is, what’s the pain in me you wish you could heal? And why? What’s the pain in me you wish you could heal? And why?

Mark Divine [00:54:45]:
That’s powerful. Wow. Interesting.

Topaz [00:54:50]:
That always takes a pause. And what’s beautiful?

Mark Divine [00:54:53]:
Seven and eight. And that’s.

Topaz [00:54:54]:
No, that’s seven. Oh, that’s no, sorry, that’s seven. No, eight is what’s one experience you wish we never had? And why? Which is a collective.

Mark Divine [00:55:04]:
Oh.

Topaz [00:55:04]:
And sometimes there’s a relationship between the two. Or not.

Mark Divine [00:55:06]:
Right.

Topaz [00:55:07]:
And what’s beautiful here is, in my book, there’s QR codes so you can scan and go and see other people having the conversations. Because I have a library of 10, 11 years of 12, 50 pairs talking about it. So those are the climax. Now, if you pull out the question in a carn game, which can happen and you ask that depending on the environment, what happened before and after? You may answer deeper. Not. But if we do it in a sequence, we’re built to trust, we’ve leaned into conflict. Now we’re here, you’ll probably go deeper.

Mark Divine [00:55:41]:
Yeah, probably.

Topaz [00:55:42]:
Then 9 and 10 are starting to talk about appreciation and gratitude. We’re starting to land the plane. You know, what is what is what is what do you. What is something you feel I’m teaching you? You know, what do you appreciate most about me that I may not realize? Right. And then the last two are really acknowledging the fact that we should say things that we may never know when we’ll be able to say them. Like this one. Always. If this were to be our last conversation, what’s one thing you never want me to forget? And then the last one, for instance, is the classic.

Topaz [00:56:19]:
Is like, why do you love me? Or how do you love me? Or what does my love feel like to you?

Mark Divine [00:56:30]:
Yeah, I see that.

Topaz [00:56:34]:
There’s an arc to that. And we start with 30 seconds of grounding in the space, and then they begin, and the space is theirs. And the rules are, you know, the rules. Yeah, The. The rules are boundaries, and boundaries help with the safety. But there’s no agenda. There’s only an intention. And that’s something that is, how do.

Mark Divine [00:56:56]:
You find the people that come. Come do this with you? Oh.

Topaz [00:56:58]:
At this point, they flat mean we have a mom flying in from London to play with her daughter. And then later that night, they’re both flying back to London.

Mark Divine [00:57:07]:
No kidding.

Topaz [00:57:08]:
We pay no one. We don’t pay any flights.

Mark Divine [00:57:11]:
Right.

Topaz [00:57:11]:
We have people who, at this point, it’s just. I mean, it’s always been an honor, but at this point, it’s incredible because now you. Because we’ve been doing it for 12 years now. I have people who are. Who are informed of their current relationship because of what they saw eight years ago. And then they play the card games. And so their level of conversation is that much more elevated and what I call emotionally articulate because they’re more versed at it, you know, and that’s a really privileged, honored position. And frankly, this work and my ability to be here and everything is predicated on the courage of the people sharing.

Mark Divine [00:57:52]:
Sure.

Topaz [00:57:52]:
A bit of themselves. Even if they don’t give the answer, the fact that they asked the question from the other, and even if they passed. You both know they’re thinking about it. You both. We all know they’re going to think about when they get home.

Mark Divine [00:58:02]:
Right.

Topaz [00:58:03]:
That seat has been laid. So they’re. Courage to sit in the space and share a bit of themselves. You know, that’s awesome.

Mark Divine [00:58:11]:
You know, my book, Starring down the Wolf, I called the seven commitments that forge elite teams. You could also just replace elite teams that forge deep connection. The first three commitments are courage, trust, and respect. And that’s the foundation. Without those three, you can’t get anywhere. And so what you’re doing is creating this vehicle for people to courageously step in, to be vulnerable together. Creating the. And space or the US which develops great trust.

Mark Divine [00:58:43]:
And out of trust comes respect. And then the deeper you go into courage, trust and respect, the more. The more we should riff on that.

Topaz [00:58:51]:
You and I, because I wonder if they come in a certain order. Courage, trust, respect. Or can they come on their own paths? Because I feel like I wouldn’t get into one of these intimate conversations if I didn’t trust somebody.

Mark Divine [00:59:04]:
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think.

Topaz [00:59:05]:
Or maybe I respect them, but I don’t trust them. But then I.

Mark Divine [00:59:08]:
That’s a great question. I look at it more like a Ken Wilbur would say, more of a holism. Right. They. They’re enmeshed. They’re embedded within each other. But like drawing on Dr. Hawkins work, like courage is the.

Mark Divine [00:59:23]:
Is the jumping off point to all the positive qualities. Right. All the love, power qualities.

Topaz [00:59:31]:
Force and power versus force. Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:59:33]:
Right. And so. And I know, you know, courage to me is heart. Right. So courage means Core courage means stepping into your heart and getting out of your head. So to me, that feels like a foundational, like prerequisite. Right. Courageous heart.

Mark Divine [00:59:49]:
Forget about the content.

Topaz [00:59:50]:
Is courage heart or heart fuels courage?

Mark Divine [00:59:55]:
Both. It’s omnidirectional because heart doesn’t. It’s not. That’s where linearity stops. Right. And time stops. And so courage just is. Heart just is.

Topaz [01:00:10]:
But we don’t always tap into courage.

Mark Divine [01:00:12]:
True. Because you’re not.

Topaz [01:00:13]:
So it’s there from your heart. So do you. So then you connect to courage through your heart.

Mark Divine [01:00:17]:
Right? Right. And from there you begin to trust. And that’s also omnidirectional because in order to trust someone else, you have to trust yourself first. It’s impossible to trust others without trusting yourself. Because that’s simply. That’s a transactional trust. It’s not authentic. Right.

Mark Divine [01:00:42]:
And if trust doesn’t exist, then respect will be ephemeral. You might experience it it, but it won’t be there.

Topaz [01:00:52]:
So when we hold on to it. When you talk about this stuff, like, what for me is like, my dad’s his. My dad is a forefather of organizational change since the late 70s and he’s written so many.

Mark Divine [01:01:04]:
And he’s probably read some of his.

Topaz [01:01:05]:
Work, a disease methodology. And he talks about the fundamental thing is mutual trust and respect, which are equal. And he has definitions. So when you’re talking, I’m like harking back to my father’s.

Mark Divine [01:01:16]:
I bet.

Topaz [01:01:16]:
Well, how he like imbued in me is, you know, 49 years, 48 years. And I would love to riff on that, you know, and he. We just had. He and I just had a con. Was the first time in my life that my dad took notes on stuff I said that’s cool. Which was a huge compliment.

Mark Divine [01:01:32]:
Still doing.

Topaz [01:01:32]:
He’s my dad, 87, still writing blogs about love and God and then going. Realizing love and goes, wait. My son cultivates questions in love. Let me find out what that was. A conversation we had. Which first of all was, dad, you’re an awesome soul. That you’re 87 and you still have curiosity.

Mark Divine [01:01:50]:
Sure.

Topaz [01:01:51]:
Even at your kind of success and you’re still trying to figure it out.

Mark Divine [01:01:55]:
Someone who’s opened up and doesn’t hang their hat on knowledge. But knowing this is always curious.

Topaz [01:02:03]:
Always curious. And he’s always downloading, uploading.

Mark Divine [01:02:05]:
Yeah.

Topaz [01:02:06]:
And it’s sharing that. And I. Kudos to him.

Mark Divine [01:02:08]:
Like example for you.

Topaz [01:02:10]:
I’m gonna introduce him to you one day.

Mark Divine [01:02:11]:
Yeah. I’d love to meet him. Yeah, that’s cool.

Topaz [01:02:13]:
But I, I find that like we can practice the courage of being vulnerable, but I also think we should acknowledge that when we hear vulnerability, we often think of the person who’s sharing, but there’s also the vulnerability of the person who’s listening or receiving or listening. Because if you’re going to share vulnerability with me of something that maybe it’s about our relationship, I have to sit in that because maybe it’s like, you know, because I hurt you in some way and I have to listen and have to. There’s also vulnerability for me, for sure. And I think that’s. That’s often overlooked or not acknowledged.

Mark Divine [01:02:50]:
Right. Yeah. In fact, that, that, that art of listening. Right. It’s something that we teach like for, you know, we. We use a model of 4. 4 domains. The.

Mark Divine [01:03:01]:
The just the interior sense of self. This is again built on Wilbur’s four quadrants. Now I. We. It knit.

Topaz [01:03:07]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [01:03:07]:
So we work on the field of potential. That’s the interior of the individual. And then the field of performance, which is the exterior of individual, like peak performance. So we want to cover all those bases.

Topaz [01:03:16]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [01:03:17]:
But the interior work is where the work, real work, is done. Because that’s how you tap into greater potential, expand your vision, create that future self identity that then you, you know, is that magnetic pole. But then below, we drop below the line and we do the same thing relationally. Right. Because we recognize, develop. I reckon that development is not a monostructural or an individual thing. Right. You can’t only develop your self so much alone.

Topaz [01:03:43]:
When you say relation with other people or with your relationship with yourself.

Mark Divine [01:03:49]:
Right. You could put all four quadrants into that first quadrant. That’s a whole different discussion. Right. Because you have an IWI it in it within yourself. But I’m really more, you know, first layer is like other people.

Topaz [01:04:01]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [01:04:02]:
Both one on one, whatever the relationship. And then with a team or a group or a larger group, which concludes ultimately all of humanity. Relationship with all sentient beings is the highest form. And so in order to really develop your relatability and your. Your ability to connect deeply and to feel into the presence of that sameness, we got to get really good at asking questions. And I’m really good at listening. And people listen through the same filter as they judge and they speak. And so it’s an incredibly powerful practice to be able to watch, to be mindful while you’re listening and to watch the machinations of how you’re automatically trying to classify, store Judge, particularize, organize.

Mark Divine [01:04:49]:
And put everything you think you’re hearing into some sort of category or file cabinet that you know. So you think you know.

Topaz [01:04:56]:
Right.

Mark Divine [01:04:58]:
So and so that listening is to be like. It’s a masterful skill to be able to just not do any of that. Just to sit in pure receptivity, which you call vulnerability or Bernard. Pure receptivity.

Topaz [01:05:13]:
I’m so. I’m smiling. I’m smiling right now. Jump in because. Because I’m not fully listening in the same way you’re talking and what I’m about to say. Because in my book I talk about deeper.

Mark Divine [01:05:22]:
Because you’re so excited.

Topaz [01:05:23]:
I’m like, I want to jump in but. Because everything you’re saying is what I call. And I’ve learned From watching for 11 years now, people is called deep listening. And like. Well, what is that? It’s like feeling to listen.

Mark Divine [01:05:35]:
Yeah. It’s like you’re merged with the person.

Topaz [01:05:37]:
It’s just like not talking from here.

Mark Divine [01:05:38]:
Right.

Topaz [01:05:38]:
Because we’re like often we’re in conversation. It’s like what’s the response?

Mark Divine [01:05:41]:
Yeah, the space between us goes away.

Topaz [01:05:44]:
But I’m. And so how do you do that? You breathe and you listen to your body.

Mark Divine [01:05:47]:
That’s right.

Topaz [01:05:47]:
Don’t listen from here. In a response, see what comes up in your body.

Mark Divine [01:05:51]:
In your body. We just did a podcast, Kath and I, talking about how the body is the mind. The mind is the body, not two things. The mind isn’t just up here, it’s everywhere. And so listening with your whole mind is listening with your whole body. So excellent point. How do you get there? Takes practice.

Topaz [01:06:11]:
Well, I tell people breathe like breath is the key. Like, and start in practice. And I didn’t realize it until I sat and watched all these couples and there was a couple that came in and they had an incredible conversation and it was slow and it was profound. And then there was another couple who did the similar thing and then another pair and they’re just like, what’s the common trait here? And I noticed that they’re really listening with their bodies and their breathing, the breath, you know, and they’re discovering what the response is from the body, not from the head.

Mark Divine [01:06:45]:
Right, right. I noticed that and looking like a lot of the responses were to the body language and body perception and feeling. And so there was all this kind of like dance that was preceded and went also during whatever words are being spoken. Yeah, that’s that communications multi faceted. Most of communication is non verbal.

Topaz [01:07:08]:
Yeah.

Mark Divine [01:07:09]:
No. Fascinating. Where do you go from here, like, just keep doing this until you have like 24 years of. I don’t know of the conversation.

Topaz [01:07:20]:
I mean, right now I’m. I have two questions I ask myself at this phase of life. One is how do I prepare what, what experiences do I. Environments do I immerse my children in to prepare them for a world that I have no idea, whatever.

Mark Divine [01:07:34]:
You moved to Uruguay.

Topaz [01:07:35]:
Uruguay. And like, what are the experiences I’m going to offer them or immerse them in? So, and the other one is, I do believe that the. And format is an incredibly powerful format for deep listening, for humanity, for empathy, even though that’s an overused word, but important one. And so how do I apply that to different life experiences? Right.

Mark Divine [01:07:59]:
Do you train people in it yet? Like, I see a certified coach program.

Topaz [01:08:03]:
I have and I haven’t figured out that model. And frankly, you know, scaling is such a big word, but I don’t know if I. For me it’s about scaling, it’s about depth. So this year, for instance, for me is because our business now is at a place now where it’s operational and have incredible team. So now there’s space for me. So emptying the cup is what I’m doing this year to see what fills in. So I’m doing a 10 day silent retreat. Nice to doing that.

Topaz [01:08:31]:
I am. I’ve started this podcast which is called Getting on the sky, which is about basically the fundamental question is just what do you believe life has designed you for? And what have you seen and experience that shaped you for it, that makes you think that? And how are you developing that gift and how are you sharing it?

Mark Divine [01:08:49]:
Right.

Topaz [01:08:50]:
So I’m doing that. And then, and then I just. And so how do I apply the ant and more. Can I, can I go to different communities and have different. Can I have Palestinian and Israeli moms talking about to each other during the end about the loss of their children? Can I apply that? Can I talk about the fires, someone losing their fire, their home and fire with their son, with their daughter, with their wife, because that’ll resonate with everyone else who’s had a natural disaster? How can I apply? Can I. Can I get indigenous, indigenous grandparents to speak to their sons about their culture and change over time? And how can I apply these conversations to the human experience right now to create a library of what you know? That’s what I’m. That’s the second question I have.

Mark Divine [01:09:41]:
Yeah, so you just ask those and just sit in curiosity, see what comes up. See what comes up.

Topaz [01:09:50]:
See what comes up, you know?

Mark Divine [01:09:52]:
Yeah. You’re awesome. I’m so glad you came down here. Oh, I appreciate it very much. Yeah, it’s huge.

Topaz [01:09:58]:
Thanks for having me.

Mark Divine [01:09:59]:
Yeah. No, it’s been an honor. My wife, for this book. That’s going to be a good one.

Topaz [01:10:04]:
Yeah. And I got you the family edition, too. I got you the healing one for maybe for in your working, for all the work that you do, all the work that you’re doing. Maybe that could be helpful, you know, or who knows, maybe something comes up and we can do something together. I don’t know.

Mark Divine [01:10:19]:
Yeah. Very open to that. How do people reach out to you? Do you like, do people.

Topaz [01:10:25]:
I direct everyone to the skindeep.com or the skin Deep on social tags. You know, I have my personal web, but it’s. It’s about my team and I. It’s the Skin Deep. Like, you want to reach me and my team. The Skin Deep. And we’re always looking for what communities can we bring this conversation to? How can we, you know, could we bring this to more vets who are suffering PTSD to talk to their loved ones, to bring that to the foreground? Like What? How? What? Skindeep.com Social media tags. We’re all over the place.

Mark Divine [01:10:54]:
Yeah. Good pass. Thanks so much, my friend.

Topaz [01:10:57]:
Appreciate it.

Mark Divine [01:10:58]:
Thank you.

Topaz [01:10:59]:
Yeah.