Gosh, now I'm starting to realize there's something going on that's so much bigger than us out here. And you see it in nature all the time. It knows what it's doing. It's on time. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing. We're a part of that. Welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute. My name is Liz Severn and on this podcast we will explore graduate's journeys of self-discovery and learn how the process transformed their internal and external
worlds. Hope you enjoy Well. Hi, welcome Dar. I am so excited to have you on the podcast with us today. Thank you so much for the invitation, Liz, and it is great to be here and I'm super grateful to be. We are grateful to have you. And I would love it if you would just kick us off and tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do in the world. Sure. My name is Darius Legg. My friends call me Dar. You're welcome to call me d if you see me in the ocean or I'm on the
street. I am an award-winning filmmaker in five different disciplines. Uh, recently completed a short animated surf documentary called Stoker Machine. And I love to tell stories and draw and animate, especially surfing. And I'm really interested and curious in this whole massive experience called life. As most recently, I found that my place in it all is as a translator of what makes people, myself included, stoked, and stoked with a capital.
SS starts on the inside to me and I'm interested in what brings people joy and then sharing that through film and animation. You could say being creative is just how I show up in the world. I can definitely attest to that, but I also would love how casually you're just like, yeah, I I enjoy surfing. I know your film Stoker machine is about surfing, but uh, not only are you just a lover of the ocean, the waves and surfing, but you used to be a professional surfer, correct? That is correct.
And that definitely informed the Film Soaker Machine. 'cause the intention was to try to capture that feeling, uh, that many of us growing up surfing experience, uh, which is Stoke, surf stoke. And the intention was to try to capture the essence of that in a film. I grew up in Hawaii on the big island and I was always enamored by surfing as a little little boy growing up on my dad's sailboat. And I remember sitting on the bow of the boat watching dolphins keep up with us, right?
And I remember seeing their fins, the way their fins guide them and propel them through the water. And when I was a little bit older, like just not that much older, like maybe nine years old, I saw a surfing magazine and I saw the skaggs on the surfboard and it reminded me of the dolphins. I mean, I couldn't fathom what was happening, like seeing these guys gliding on their boards over the water,
like the dolphins do underwater. And so it, it just fully took over and really lucky that life took us from the boat to Hawaii where I ended up just learning to surf and then meeting a guy named Shane Dorian, who really took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. And I just still love the ocean to this day. It just is such a great teacher. Yeah, it also is just one of the most fun things to do. And, and competing was not for me. I gave it a good shot for pretty much 14 until I was 20.
I competed. Um, I did the world tour, like the qualifying series to try to get on the championship tour. And it just became really apparent around 19 years old, 18 or 19, I just, I started to recognize that it didn't suit my temperament, you know, to be a competitor. It's just, it takes a certain mindset and I was really forcing myself to be in a mindset that it just, uh, it felt very not me. I don't know how else to say it.
And I forced it and forced it. And it's, it was a really great lesson in what happens when you grasp and force things over and over again and expect different results because I, you know, I wasn't very successful in competition. I had a couple things here and there, but nothing that would say, Hey, like this, you know, this looks like your destiny in life, so to speak, or what you should be doing with your time. And my best friend at the time was this guy.
We were roommates at the Billabong house, um, on the North Shore, all the every season. And he was really good at all of it beyond the surfing, like the talking to people part, the competing part, the mindset that needs to go into preparation for competing and then competing itself. And I was like, wow, it just looks like it's come so easy to him, . And it just felt like the opposite for me. But if you put me in front of a blank page with a pencil or paper or like put a
movie camera in my hand, that felt natural to me. I didn't, that part never felt forced. When you never lost your love for surfing. So was it an amicable split when you decided to kind of take yourself off the circuit? That was really hard to do. My identity was so wrapped up in wanting to be a pro surfer. Like I had committed to that since I was like 13 or 14 years old. I was really identifying that if I am not sponsored,
if I am not hanging with the boys or the guys, I was really lucky. I mean, I got to be around the greatest surfers in the world and some of them are still friends to this day. And like I was at, you know, hanging around the people like the people and to go, Hey, I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm going to explore something else. It was so scary. Even though the people around me, those surfers were super supportive. , they were encouraging.
'cause you know, I wanted to go to school and I wanted to pick up filmmaking and bought like all those things. All of them were stoked for me, . But I was very shameful and I didn't know where to go from there. And just like a broken compass going in circles and, and stuck between two worlds. Uh, it took quite a few years to kind of realize, first of all, it's not about me, which was a big one. Like I, I realized like, oh, like being in the ocean with my friends is what it's about.
I'm not here to be this pro surfer, this external thing. I'm here 'cause I love it. I'm here, I'm here 'cause I love being in the water. That changed everything for me. Even with filmmaking. Like when I, when I transitioned into filmmaking, I, I held on in the first, almost the first decade, I would say to this idea that like, I'm here to do that. Like a means to an end, a means to an end. You know, I'm only a surfer if I can do it through this competing and being a pro.
I'm only a filmmaker if I like making movies in Hollywood or even TV show, whatever, versus I just really love this and it's going to teach me something , you know, um, a more just doing it for its own sake. Uh, that took a long time to learn and I was lucky that I got like two chances. One in surfing and then filmmaking. And luckily with filmmaking I figured it out.
I figured that for me out that I was approaching it through the lens of, um, equating like accomplishments and goals, reaching that makes me good enough versus like just having an open heart, open mind and using each experience for what it is and, and enjoying it and learning something about myself through the process of surfing. That's what it was like to go from surfing to filmmaking.
Well, I wanna go back even, even more. I mean, you said something so beautiful earlier, just that you had so many lessons to learn from the water, from the ocean. And so tell us a little bit more about growing up on a sailboat, because I can only imagine that was a, a once in lifetime unique learning opportunity. Yeah, so that is all thanks to my dad. My dad met my mom before I was born and he was a merchant marine
and he did that so he didn't have to go to Vietnam. Uh, he was really anti-war, still is. And he went to the Merchant Marines and on one of his times off from being on ships, he met my mom. They got married 10 days later. And my mom is from Iran, which is a world away from where my dad grew up, which was New York and my dad's Irish and my mom's Persian or Iranian. And my dad bought a boat and convinced my mom once I was born that we would get on that boat and live
a really simple life. You know, like all the things you see people doing like, um, now about like minimalism and, and just get in a van and drive the US and live simple and homeschool the kids. Like my dad thought of that in the early eighties and did it. And I was so lucky, so incredibly lucky because I was able to just be an independent thinker early. Like I was never put into a box or into a system that said I had to be a certain
way. And I didn't know that then. I only became aware of that later. But growing up on the boat was the birthplace of like my relationship to my imagination and my relationship to nature and how to live in small spaces with other people. 'cause living on an island, like in Hawaii or on a boat is not that dissimilar. They're really alike. You're surrounded by a body of water and you have to learn to get along with your neighbors or the people around you. And if you hold onto grudges, it's,
it makes for a really rough ride. So I, I kind of got all that really young and then my friends were books, you know, and I read a lot and adult books, a lot of adult books and you know, I remember reading one time the firm, I think it was, it was either Pelican Brief or the Firm, it was a John Grissom book.
But the reason that was those were the books is because like at all these harbors we'd we refuel or get food, they had, um, book swaps where you just trade books in and most of the people sailing at that time were reading like the books of the time. Right. So it was kind of the only things I had access to. Well, right, not, I'm sure not a lot of other kids out there sailing to do some children's swaps with .
Yeah, exactly. You know, it was rough, but by the time we got off the boat it was like I had already had a solid foundation of being okay alone. You know, like just knowing how to entertain myself through drawing and books and I always played imaginative games in the water or on the boat. And so, uh, that I think really set a foundation for me to just kind of be curious
at all times. Like, like just be really interested in stuff. I was the, I was the annoying kid who asked why still I'm that person, but why dad? But why ? Yeah. Well, and I know you've had decades now out on the water, but what do you think is one of the most important lessons that the ocean has taught you? That's a really good question. And the one thing that sticks out is you can't control everything. One, we know little to nothing about anything period, full stop about anything.
We know little to nothing. And I mean that as a humans as being on this planet compared to what nature and the planet actually is and does and whatever it's doing, knowing little to nothing was always kind of being shown by nature. To me. The other thing is how little we control. And that's a hard thing to accept for me a lot of times, but I've gotten better at it for sure. But the ocean has definitely shown me how little is in our control because if that thing decides to take you, you're toast.
And it's really clear what is in your control, you know, like how much you prepare, how much you train, how much you paying attention to your surroundings, how many notes are you taking in your mind about situational awareness. All those things apply to life. I can't see how they wouldn't, you know? Um, and I think, uh, those two things for sure stick out.
Beautiful. And now I know if we think about, okay, gr up on the sailboat, this incredible surfer, wild imagination, getting involved in illustration, animation to your career in the film industry. If we kind of bring all of that forward, what brought you to Hoffman? Those experiences were all bringing me to Hoffman from growing up on a boat to surfing to filmmaking because there was always, when I was really little, I was and still am a very sensitive kid and I could
feel everything. Like it was really loud in my mind all the time, even as a kid, like really loud. And in fact loud noises to this day still really jar me. And so I could feel things as a kid that were really unusual. Like if there was an argument or if there was a vibe, let's just say in the room, it really affected me. And I was aware of that as a kid. But as I got older,
I started hiding that a lot. Like I, I tried to toughen up or put a shell like a callous on that because you know, surfers too, like growing up in a surf community, like feelings are not something you really talk about. It's just not, it's a harder environment, let's just say. So I kind of put this callous on things and then my parents got divorced when I was like 15. And that was just life shattering and I was so grateful. I had surfing. Surfing was my,
my escape place I could go to to just feel good. So again, like another layer goes on, my dad was like a very interesting human being. He was part of the, I guess now they call it personal development back then they called it new age. So he was like a new age person , um, super into like Seth Speaks, which is like this um, Jane Roberts. Like she wrote these books back in the day. She channeled like the spirit. And so he was, he was into some far out stuff like took us to like a fire walk.
We walked on Kohl's. I was like probably 12. And that was like a point of contention for him and my mom. 'cause my mom's exact opposite. Nothing wrong with it, it just, just had a different point of view. Parents got divorced. My dad takes us in all his wisdom. He's like, your boys are learning. Tmm , me and my younger brother. And um, so he drove us to the other side of the island and we started to learn transcendental meditation. I was like 15 at the time.
It was scary because it was the first time when I was sitting still for longer periods of time. I think I'm remembering this correctly. So if there's any TM people out there, forgive me if I'm saying this wrong, I think it's 'cause I was 15, I was only allowed to meditate up until 15 minutes. It was something like that. I remember I wasn't supposed to go beyond 20 minutes.
And so just that sitting still, which is a long time for a 15 year old by the way, all those feelings that I was high, like I could be sensitive to when I was younger, younger will come back and I was like, oh my gosh. Like I don't wanna feel bad, but I stuck with it. And then I learned yoga from another surfer and she kind of chaperoned me a lot, taking me to the beach and just making sure I got food or, or was brought home or whatever.
She was really cool like an older sister and she took me to this guy who taught yoga. He was part of that whole crew that like came back from India in the, in the seventies or late sixties and brought like it kind of back to the west and he taught Tonga yoga. And I did that and it really helped my competition surfing and it really helped. The meditation and yoga started really helped. I was still facing enormous difficulties in all my relationships though.
I mean defensive, take everything personal. I really, really cared a lot about what people thought of me and I just, I wanted to be accepted, you know, like everybody else. Like I just really wanted to be accepted. And because of my unusual upbringing, it made it really hard for me to relate and also fit in with some of the people
around me. At that time, through my twenties and early thirties, I moved out of TM and I got into Vipasana and then I got into um, Zhan and I tried a bunch of different meditations and it was very, very, it was lifesaving, you know, and I, I'm so grateful that my dad showed us that. But I'm just so grateful that it, it stuck because I remember I could see my life happening right in front of me, like on a film strip. And so it just gave me that space and distance, which felt so nice.
It was so healing. Even if it was for a fraction of a second, it was enough to get through. I'm just so grateful that stuck. 'cause I went through some really gnarly times in my twenties and late teens and like really was like rearing its head and popping up everywhere in my life. 'cause I never really faced it, you know? You know, I transitioned out of surfing, I got into filmmaking and I was repeating the exact same things that the
patterns that I was doing in surfing but now in filmmaking. And I, and slowly started like a rocky eroding in a river. I started to really, and I think that was my ego melting. Like I started to realize, oh I'm doing this again. And I'll just do one more thing about that too. Like journaling. I've been journaling my whole life, like truly every day. And at the end of the year I tend to read back what happened that year. And I was lucky to start to see in my own writing, oh you're doing that.
You know, like I like the universe was echoing back these patterns that I was causing a lot of suffering for me and people around me. And I was lucky to pay attention to just say, okay, it got to this real boiling point in my thirties and I really, you know, was having a hard time with my brother who, who was my best friend. I just was being really critical of my brother's choices instead of like, if you're happy, I'm happy. I was like, you are happy.
I'm unhappy , so you're gonna be unhappy with me . Um, I wasn't literally thinking that, but in hindsight that's what I was doing. I nearly like lost my whole friendship with my brother and we have such a special friendship and that really broke my heart and I did it. I knew I did it by being very judgmental, not accepting him for who he was. Imposing a version of him I thought he should be instead of seeing him for what he actually is that really, uh, but like it gets exponential.
I was doing that with my artwork. I was expecting it to be one way and unhappy with the way it was. That caused a lot of suffering and losing jobs and trouble with people at work and stuff of that nature. And then the relationship side with women, it was like very similar, judgmental and not accepting and things of that nature. It all came to this head around the pandemic running parallel to all that I was reading self-help books.
I was like still practicing meditation, still seeking help, still looking for things. But it was really hard 'cause I didn't have like a community. I was doing it alone. And then, uh, yeah, Hoffman popped up on my radar twice through two different ways. One was the Tim Ferris podcast, uh, with the creator of Tom's Shoes I believe. And then the other one was Neil Strauss through his book The Truth,
an Awkward Book about Relationships. I was like, okay, when the universe shows me something more than once, I always take that as a sign that I should look into that. This thing occurred to me that like if I wanna like really ditch this dark side nonsense and at least master my own mind and be in charge of my happiness and peace, I need to treat it like it's cancer and throw everything I have at it. It was really destroying me on the inside and my artwork,
which meant everything to me was suffering so bad. Like I, I was not authentic in a lot of ways actually all the way around. That's just what it was. I wasn't authentic. So I developed the courage and made that crazy booking of like, of going to Hoffman. Yeah. And that's how I got there. I love hearing people's stories of how they get there, right. Whether how they hear about it or what they're enough is enough. I'm signing up, you know, becomes So what was it like at the process?
You get there, talk us through a little bit about what you were feeling and experiencing. So when I first got there, I was super scared. I was really, really scared. Like I couldn't believe I signed up for something like that and was actually gonna be sleeping for a week amongst strangers in this place. And I was like, when does the Kool-Aid come out? Like, did I get myself in a situation like that ? Like I knew I didn't, I knew I didn't.
Those were like real dark thoughts coming up that were trying to convince me something else, but I knew it wasn't that. But you know, it was, it was there and I was worried not for my safety, but I was worried that like I made, I was gonna maybe learn things I didn't wanna learn about myself, or I was of, and it couldn't have been more of the opposite. Got there greeted by this really lovely person. I'm sitting there and all their classmates are showing up and whatever.
I was just immediately like, no dart like you chose to be here and you wanna like, you wanna get through all this crap you're dealing with and all these weight of the world you've been carrying from your childhood and a million things that like have just been bottled up for the last 38 years.
You chose to be here. So be wide open. And, and I'm glad I did because like it was like from that moment on I was like, whatever they give me that's as long as within reason I'm going to do it because I'm going to try anything and everything to overcome these personal challenges that I have around validation from others, the divorce, judgmental, taking things personally, possibly self-absorbed,
I'm not sure. Like a lot of things, you know, a lot of shame, a lot of shame, tons of that, tons of guilt and shame had a lot to do with my mother. Had a lot to do with things that I was unaware, uh, I was kind of aware of. But I was like, okay, this week here at Hoffman's gonna be just like mouth on a fire hydrant and I was ready for it.
So after that first dinner we went and started the community aspect of it just changed everything for me, knowing that I wasn't alone, knowing that there's other people also we're all trying to do, everybody wants to be stoked. Like nobody wants to go through life suffering. It doesn't matter who you are, what your background is and what happened to you or didn't happen to you, all of it. It's just nobody. Everyone wants to be stoked. Like nobody wants to suffer.
And that clicked really first day for me and it just was relieving, it was such relief. It's like finally like I'm around a bunch of growth oriented people who in their like they wanted, they wanna do better for themselves. I was so inspired. I admired everybody in that classroom for that. I gave me a lot of strength too. And what's a, a part of the process that you have a vivid memory of or a part or a time that really changed you or stuck with you?
Quite a few things, but I would say there was just a big moment where my teacher or coach, like the person's guiding you through the process. She just, the way she looked at me, I was like, I felt so seen . It was really like, wow, this person cares. Even if it's not about me. This person caress to be here helping people and not to tell them what to do. Not to tell them how to do it, but to just point the way. You know that there's another way, here's a way you've been trying.
Here's another way you, you don't have to try it if you don't want to. But here it's, and that person really cared. And uh, Joe Mattoon, she really cared and I saw that she really cared about everyone in our group. That stuck with me and it opened me up. And then I think, 'cause that opened me up, I was just looking at everyone in the room, not through the lens of like judgmental out in the real world eyes, but like, oh my God, all these people were all alike.
So there was this one moment where we got to express what was going on inside us. And that really clicked for me because up until that point in my life had always been talking and writing and drawing and putting emotion into some projects I was working in through music. But it, it was never the kind of expression that I was being exposed to at Hoffman. And so it changed a lot. It literally was a physical transformation doing the expression with other people,
again with other people. Like not alone, hearing what's going on during the expression, not just for me but with everybody. It's like, wow, I don't know how to put it into any other words, but that really hit me like in the best way. I think I had the best sleep in years after that moving forward through it. I remember sitting in the classroom, I think it was close to the second to last day, just like for the first time in my life I like really was comfortable with who I
was. That saying like, everybody's guilty and no one's to blame. I really understood it. All the blame I had been doing towards myself, towards others, it was better understood. And I don't wanna say like it was like a switch or anything where like, oh, after Hoffman, I don't do that. No, no it's not like that. But I understand and the understanding now is like a continual practice. That part of it really is life changing.
And it was like almost like Hoffman gave me a clear operating system that it works well for my temperament, it works well for my personality. Hoffman really like set me up to come back into the world and have more tools to dig into. And by the way, I wanna say I'm really glad that I had spent so many years like reading books, doing some other prep work before I got there.
'cause I don't know if for me, I'd be personally ready to just be thrown into the Hoffman thing if I hadn't done any like years of kind of preparing on knowing that I was preparing for that. I know I remember when I first talked to you, you're like, Hoffman's been 28 years in the making , which is true for a lot of people, right? It's our life experiences that then make it ready at the right time for us whenever that is. Yeah, the universe is always on time. It's never late, it's always on time.
And sometimes I think it gives you what you need and not necessarily what you want. Oftentimes for me, I in the past would be given what I need and run away from that or just trample through it, , you know, smash through it, whatever. Gosh, now I'm starting to realize it really is magical. Like it's just so magical how there's something going on that's so much bigger than us out here and you see it in nature all the time. It knows what it's doing. It's on time.
It's doing what it's supposed to be doing. We're a part of that. So it's kind of like crazy now for me to think like I ever thought like I could control that or like, it's gonna give me something that I don't need. It's just like, uh, audacious to think that way now for me. Is. There anything that you do or think or say or any rituals that help remind you of that? Yeah, the journaling and I, I meditate every, most mornings I meditate and evenings before waking up and then going to
bed. Gratitude practices that I got from Hoffman or and continual practice in my mornings and evenings. And I think just being paying attention for sure because you, I I see it in my life all day long if I want to, like how things are happening that are, are outside of my control, and um, how I choose to meet everything is on me. The reminders for me just come from the journaling and reflecting. I'm really aware that from my life, like I, I don't want just blaze through it.
I like setting up checkpoints and going, huh, that was an interesting chapter of life. Even if it's a day only a day or a week. I think having an, I don't know mind helps too. Approaching life more curious than saying I know helps a lot. I find myself constantly feeding my mind.
Things along those lines also, you know, and then that, that thought just occurred to me right now, like I am continually feeding my mind with, with writings and talks and literature of, and art that reinforce those ideas that we've been talking about. So that's definitely a way that I, that it helps me. And I remember you once told me that Hoffman was a visceral experience in how
to love yourself and I, that has stuck with me. Um, and had, I've had my own reflection on that, but can you speak a little more to that? Yeah. Um, can I ask you what, what your reflection was like? I'm curious to know. Yeah. My, my reflection was that that's exactly what it was for me too. And I think it took me some time and space away from that. But just something about visceral experience. It was like I got to the deepest, darkest, rawest parts of me and through it all learn to love myself.
Yeah. It would appear like we have to go through the fire. We have to almost the way out is through. Certainly was uh, like million percent. It certainly was for me. And there was actually in my process, I had quite a few really vivid images and stories vol. Just that evolving fire and having to, to go through it. Absolutely. You just reminded me of a really cool, part of the process of fire walking was reflecting on my parents' childhood
and being a storyteller. I had a lot of fun writing how they grew up. Oh man. By the end of that I just had nothing but love and tears for them. 'cause again, it goes back to that everyone's guilty but no one's to blame. Gosh, did that exercise really put that in perspective for me? And then kind of doing that for myself too, right? Like writing my story. How did it go? How'd it go down? There's the painful stuff. Oh my gosh.
And, and I will say too, because I mentioned earlier about the, the sense, the high levels of sensitivity and, and it can be really hard to be in the world when we feel everything. It's a gift and curse, which I didn't realize until Hoffman because it's exactly that, that allows this stuff called creativity that floats through the air. And some of us have a, a sensitive antenna for it. Uh,
we all have the antenna. It's just some are just built differently. They, they just pick up on every little thing versus a few things. And I realized that that was like a, a gift and a curse. It doesn't have to be a curse. Once I learned that about myself, that which came through walking through the fire, 'cause a lot of the fire was related to those things, that sensitivity, I realized, okay, well now when I know that I'm by myself, like how,
how would I be my own parent, right? Like, how would I be my own best friend here? And help walk through those moments that feel like it's a curse, you know, in a, in a much more compassionate way. I love to hear a little bit, given that you are such a storyteller though, what has your story been like post-process? What has life brought you post-process? That's interesting because it's like everything got exponentially harder. Hey, we say life happens, life continues to happen.
That's the one thing we can promise you. Post-process life continues to happen. It sure does. And like it got ramped up. So I started making a film pre-process before the process and, and I made a documentary called Stoker Machine Documentaries are very difficult to make by the nature and the Medium. And I started making this film because it was a personal film. It was up until that point, let's just say a year before Hoffman, I was working for a studio that was the dream
job development executive showrunner. Uh, I get to align corporate strategy with creative and translate be the translator that takes strategy and applies it into a creative blueprint for the teams to then go execute and then manage the teams all the way through like development, pre-production, production, post-production, like all the way to the end. Like I was, I was on there, but it was the most unfulfilling work on the planet.
I put my everything into it and it was apparent to me that like I just finally reconciled the difference between art and commerce. So art is the exploration of an idea and commerce is trying to figure out what other people may or may not want or how they think. Both are fine, both are totally okay, they're just two different ways of making something. And I didn't know that and I was constantly fighting between the two.
I'm an artist. No, I'm, I'm good at marketing. No, I'm an art. Like, like there's an inner conflict. And so that all kind of came to this head where I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I have to do a personal project that's pure art. So I happened to be sitting in Hawaii where I was at the time living during the pandemic and my friend came home with this board and he was really psyched on this board. He is like,
I was about to strip the glass off of it and recycle this board. Um, I found it under my cousin's house and it's got like no dimensions on it, no shape's name, which is very unusual for a board. And it just got an email address and a phone number and it says Stoker machine on it. And I'm like, what? Like, this is so interesting. Let me just, let's just see where this goes.
And so I approached it with an open mind intentionally knowing I wasn't making commerce and I was gonna just make this project for an audience of one me. Fast forward, I go to Hoffman, I move back to California and the film's struggling because the film revolves around finding the origins of this board, this mystery board that was difficult. Documentary filmmaking was difficult and it took like a year and a half to find
the guy and it didn't look like it was gonna find the guy. It was really, really by chance that I got his number through a good family friend of mine that came over for dinner, wanted to know how my movie was going. I said, horrible. I don't have an ending. We can't find the guy. And I'm trying and he's like, you know, gimme all the information you have and then let me see what I can do. And he comes back in a week and he found him. He's also a lawyer. He gives me the phone number to the guy.
And I was really trepidatious about calling, but I did. And he also said to me when he gave me the number, good luck. He never answers his phone. We think he lives in, um, I don't wanna say where he lives 'cause he is really a private guy and we protected that in the film, but let's just, he, he lives somewhere. So I call him First ring, he picks up and he's got this really, really classic voice.
He answers the phone and goes, Hey now. And I'm like, Stoker, what's up bro, this is d I just, you don't know me, but I know you and I got your board and I just started rambling for 30 minutes. Like I've been making this movie about you and blah, blah blah. And he just was like, let me finish. And then he saw, Saul, you're an artist . I was just like, yes, can you please give me permission to make this movie and blah, blah, blah. And anyway, it went very well until it didn't.
It took a long time to build the trust to get to see him and go down there and meet him. And now I've gone to Hoffman. Okay, now everything starts going wrong.
This happens in filmmaking or Right, however you want to frame it. You know, I, I went through so many hoops like dealt with some really interesting choices people made around me that were helping me with the project from getting, uh, you know, essentially let go from the studio position I had first time in my life I'd ever been fired from a position and the relationship I was in ended.
So it was like a triple whammy. And I was thinking in my mind, oh great, those are the three areas I went to Hoffman to like cure, right. Work relationships. So I was really fortunate, as hot as it got, as unbearable and uncomfortable as it got in every one of those scenarios, I didn't lose my way. Like I was somehow able to apply deep listening to my body, my emotions, my intellect, my spiritual self, and even my guide at times.
And I'm just really grateful that like I had the practice of quad checking and the awareness that that was brought forth through understanding the people I'm dealing with are just like me. We have patterns, I have patterns, you know. So Dar life fell apart a little bit after Hoffman, but what did completing the film mean to you? Well, completing the film, it meant trusting process and it meant everything because I did it truly for myself without concerns of what other people would think.
Finishing the film for me was the success. And along the way it ended up becoming much more received by the public than I thought. Like it went on to win awards at film festivals and, and it's, it's continuing to, and I, I didn't make it for the, that reason. I didn't make it to show off to people. I made it thinking I'd enjoy it and a few of my friends would enjoy it, but I had no idea. It's been interesting engaging with an audience now the goal and the
intention of the film was to capture stoked. What does stoke really feel like? That was the goal. And it seems like some people are feeling that and it resonates with them and a way to engage with them is to ask them what makes them stoked and have them share that with me. And that's been really special because that has birthed this project I'm now working on, which is making a children's book called SSS for Stoked.
And I'm collecting all those responses from people that share with me what makes them stoked through my website. And it's just been this amazing relationship with the audience. It's been incredible. Well, and I gotta ask then, what makes you stoked? What makes me stoked is taking my admiration for others or ideas other people have and sharing it through film and art. That's what makes me stoked.
I really think of myself as a translator and intermediate between the, the creative world and the world. And I just like to share how I experience it through the medium. It just kind of comes through That makes me very happy to be able to do that. When what advice do you have for, for those who are trying to find their stoke? Remain curious. You know, you could almost say follow your stoke. Whatever it is that like you're interested in and curious about.
It might be interesting to try following it regardless if people are telling you that's stupid or that's dumb or that won't work to just go and not so much looking for purpose, but just following the thread of curiosity will take you to where you need to be again, like where the universe needs you to be. I do believe that's the compass, that's the compass for Stoke is like following your curiosity. I know we talked about what makes you stoked,
but what does the word mean to you? What does it feel like in your body? Uh, in my body it's like a warm fuzzy contradiction of things. It's excitement, it's calm, it's like joyous and nervous. . It's ineffable but it's a deep knowing. Like a deep, deep thing deep that just comes from somewhere. I can't explain it, I can't intellectualize it, but it's a, it's a feeling and it comes from inside.
I really believe Stoke with a capital S starts on the inside and uh, if you can tap into that and even just hold that little bit of space for yourself for just a fraction of a moment to ask what is it is, and even if it doesn't come on day one, just keep showing up and asking, it will come and follow it, you know, with no expectations. That's what I think it is for me.
I am stoked to, uh, no, I I really, I really am so excited to read S Is First Stoke and I know that your film is going on to debut at more film festivals and I just wish you all the luck with those endeavors. Yeah, thank you so much. If anyone is in Hawaii in the month of October, uh, Stoker Machine will be playing at the Hawaii International Film Festival.
I'm the featured artist this year, so I, I got to draw their poster and make their trailer and, and uh, it's just been an incredible thing to have platforms like this one too, to just share these stories and, and spread stoke worldwide. And, um, I wanna invite anyone listening to this to feel free to go to my website, darius leg.com and, and share with me what makes you stoked. And I'll send you the film,
keep sending you art and engage in a conversation about Stoke. I I, I would be very happy to do that. I love it. You are definitely the embodiment of stoke from your voice to your wisdom, to your calming nature. I am I think you are a beautiful representation of the word stoke and I think the listeners are, are lucky to really kind of get to have that firsthand experience too. Wow. I wanna say thank you so much for allowing me to be here and share my story with you and the audience.
I really appreciate the ability to share any of the experience I've had in hopes that it allows other people to either feel a little more comfortable, a little less alone, maybe even stoked, who knows? Yeah. I just really am grateful to be here and I'm so grateful for the Hoffman Institute and what they do, the vibes they're putting out into the world and the structure in which they do it. Like the pedagogy of it. It's just absolutely amazing to me that something like that exists.
And so it's a real, actually honor to be here. So thank you. And thank you Joe Mattoon so much. Thanks again. Dar. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza Insi. I'm the c e o and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation. And I'm Rassi Hoffman, teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute Foundation. Our mission is to provide people greater access to the wisdom and power of love. In themselves, in each other, and in the world. To find out more, please go to hoffman institute.org.