Steve Granville | The Hoffman Process: 7 Days That Changed My Life

Maeve: Today's guest actually changed my life, and I don't say that lightly. Steve Grenville is a teacher and the head of development at the Hoffman process. The intensive seven day retreat that has quietly become one of the most talked about personal growth experiences out there, and Steve was my teacher when I went through it. To be honest with you guys, the Hoffman process is the most transformative thing that I have ever done in my life. Maeve: I walked in one person and came out seeing myself in a completely new way, and Steve was right there guiding me through Maeve: you've never heard of Hoffman, you've probably heard people talk about it. Katy Perry has credited with changing her life. She's even given out Hoffman gift certificates to friends. Doctor Andrew Huberman has talked about it openly and agreed, explored it on her podcast aspire in an episode about dealing with your baggage and moving forward. Maeve: I often joke if people like em agreed can find seven days to do the process, so can you. The process is all about understanding the patterns we picked up in childhood, and finally letting go of the ones that no longer serve us. Steve has guided countless people through that work, including me. So today we're going to go inside the Hoffman process. Maeve: What really happens that week, why it works, and what it's like to come out on the other side. Steve, welcome to the inside edit. Steve: Thanks so much, MAV. I see you and I love you. As we say. Steve: I love you. Steve: Been a bit. Maeve: Yeah, it has been a bit. And I'm so happy you're here. It means so much to me. I've been wanting to give you guys this episode literally since the podcast started. This has been the Hoffman process was one of the most, like I said, transformative things I've ever done. And I, I just think it could help everyone. Yeah. Maeve: And so let's talk about it. Steve: Let's do that. Maeve: Tell me about your intro into the Hoffman process. Steve: Oh my God. I came in fast and hot to Hoffman. So, I, I'd like to say, like, your least likely Hoffman teacher. I grew up on the East Coast in a family that was not about personal work or therapy and just going out and achieving. And so that's what I was doing. I was married. I'm still married to this incredible beloved of mine. Steve: And I had two kids, and my wife and I, we had started a business together. And so outwardly things looked pretty good. We were being successful, but internally it was a shit show. We were not doing well. My parenting was off, and the business, despite my stuff was, was going well. But it could have done better. Steve: So I was really an inflection point in my life, and my marriage was at a low point, and I was doing couples therapy, group therapy and individual therapy, and I was busting some moves there, but I still wasn't getting the gains that I thought were possible, or the change or the relief or the insight that I wanted. And so at a low point, I turned to a woman at my kid, little kid drop off at our little preschool out in West Moran, and I said, man, I think this is it. Steve: I don't know if this is my marriage is going to survive. She goes, all right, look. And she's an incredible psychotherapist and has done a ton of restorative justice work in prisons in California. So I really respected her. She's a total badass in the spirit realm. And she said, go look, go do this thing. It's a week long experience, and it is the most powerful piece of personal work you'll ever do. Steve: So two weeks later, I was there, and came in not knowing really what to do, but just wanting to see if I could change. And I, if I love the metaphor, I went in thinking my life was like a planet. I was going to change some of the weather patterns, downgrade them from hurricanes or tropical depressions to something different. Steve: And I actually pushed my planet into a completely different orbit. And my life was rearranged in a way. Along with my wife, she did the process shortly thereafter that we got really clear. We want to be around a people that were serious about doing their work, and that the only way our lives could get better is if the lives of those around us get better. Steve: And so it's we've entered this like devotional relationship with love and with humans. And so it had a enormously profound impact. My, partnership got way better and continues to grow every day. My parenting is definitely way more on point, and I have a deep relationships with my kids and, I really love myself and able to grow and make mistakes and pick myself up and keep going. Steve: And so I'm it's hard to put into just like a little bit. But this is the gift of the process. Is this capacity to come home to ourselves? Unidentified: Yes. Amen. Yeah. Maeve: So how did you go from participant to teacher? It's a big jump. Steve: It is. Unidentified: A big. Maeve: By the way, I do remember calling you. We spoke on our post process call and I said I, I'm ready to quit my entire life and become. Unidentified: Hoffman teacher. Yeah. Do you remember? Oh, I totally. Maeve: I was like this, I need to be in this work, in this energy at all times. Like, this is what is meant for me. And I obviously didn't happen. Maybe one day. No. Yeah. Not yet. Yeah, but how did you actually do it? Steve: Yeah. So I, sold that company. We sold that company. And then I began doing work in prisons, essentially like a little mini Hoffman process at a women's prison and a men's prison at San Quentin and in Dublin, California. And just all these incredible. Maeve: San Quentin scenes. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: No big deal. Steve: It was no big deal, was it is a big deal. But, you know, I like to say going to men's prison was very low on my list of things I wanted to do, but I ended up going and finding that those people were really serious about doing their work. When you're looking at 25 to life. You are touching a bottom of sorts. Steve: And when people are touching a bottom they're like, you know what, I actually want to try something different in my life. So that was really healing and transformative and super nourishing as well because there are great leaders in prisons actually. But have just, you know, because of a whole set of circumstances not been supported in being leaders in the light, you know. Steve: So I was doing that and I was consulting in biotech, clinical medicine and family offices, doing cultural work and leadership, and became a member of the grad group community in Marin and ended up setting up a grad group with a buddy of mine from the process, and was just happy in the process. I had a spark like, this would be amazing. Steve: I want to be around this, but I thought, that'll never happen. And so four years later, they put out a call for teachers and I was ran into somebody at the institute and they said, hey, would you be interested in becoming a teacher? My first thing was like, nope. And then that night I was like, oh shit, I actually really want to do this if I made a mistake. Steve: So I wrote her and said, I'm actually interested, and then enter the teacher program, went through the interview process and became a teacher. And that was I think that journey was about 14 years ago. Wow. That began. Yeah. Maeve: That's amazing. Steve: Totally. Maeve: So for anyone who doesn't know, how do you even begin to describe what the Hoffman process is? Steve: Okay, so if I meet someone and they're, you know, what is the Hoffman process? And I think the boiled down version is it is a week long transformational workshop where you recover your authenticity and cultivate compassion and forgiveness for yourself and the people that raised you. And in doing so, you get to grow your ass up. You actually differentiate from your parents because there's no freedom in blame. Steve: And so we learn to survive our childhood by acting like or unlike our parents. But we surrender or, you know, avoid our authenticity. And so really, it's it's this self rescue that happens in the process. And that's like a boil down. But there's so much underneath of that as you know. Maeve: Oh I. Steve: Do yeah. Maeve: I am so grateful that you are my teacher that walked me through it. And I do think and I'm sure it's no mistake, you end up with exactly the teacher you're supposed to have. I don't know how that happens or how you guys figure it out ahead of time, but there's. So for anyone who doesn't know, there is about ten hours of homework before you arrive. Maeve: So essentially, you're arriving to the process and your teacher knows what you're coming in with. So there's no, like, catch up. You just immediately are jumping in to your work with a teacher who not only has read this ten hours of pre-work, but also we've done a zoom call where we've gotten to know each other. You kind of know what my thing is, and then you helped guide through it. Maeve: But it really is incredible how there's not a there's not a lot of like, talking about your shit. How do you explain that? Like you're not sitting in there just rambling on and on about the story, right? You're really just you guys do such an amazing job of just directing everyone to the work. And it's very within oneself, I guess, right? Steve: Yeah, it's beautifully put. So, probably one of the biggest movements in the process is there's a saying that wisdom is knowledge that is embodied and it's helping people to get out of the story that's up here and down into the truth of what really happened. And so the way we do that is we use invite people, as we say in California, to try these different things on to see what needs to be metabolized. Steve: So rather than well there is a little bit of story like what's the context. What happened to you as a kid, what was there, what wasn't there. But really, it's what is buried in allowing your system to in its own time and its own pace during that week to liberate that energy and then make new meanings about what it is for you to be a human and what the human condition is. Steve: And that's why doing the work in group is so powerful, because you're learning so much about yourself in relationship to other people. Here's an example. Somebody some people come to the process going, hey, I had a pretty good childhood. It wasn't that bad. And route that speaks to is the implicit memories that are stored down here versus the explicit memories. Steve: I had a therapist who once said, we all have an inner Nixon who erases the tapes when it's convenient. And many of us like, erase the tapes of the challenges of being a kid because it's healthy. We don't want to dwell on that. We've got to get with the family system. And so your willingness to, say, okay, here are these explicit memories, but what meanings did I make about that? Steve: So there is some your your birthday party when you're seven and your parents have a fight and dad was drunk or whatever the deal is, you have that memory of the birthday and the you're trying to blow the candles out and like, the shit show happens. But the implicit memories are I don't do birthdays, I don't like attention. Steve: It's not safe to be celebrated. I can't trust group settings. And so it's really how can we allow those to trickle up and to leave the system so that you can then recognize I actually do like birthday parties. I do want to be seen and loved and celebrated. So it's in the time travel back in time to allow that stuff to leave your system, that you're allowed to get to the deeper truths that are your truths and my truths that are we are lovable. Steve: We're worthy of having this great life. But it's this life that so many of us have trouble in happening. Maeve: That was a really good example. Steve: Okay, cool. Maeve: Yeah. That was a great example. I'm like, I think you've talked about this before. That was an incredible example. Steve: Right. Maeve: I, I had done a lot of inner work before the process. I had done even similar sort of weekend long retreats and a really similar way of therapy where my therapist really believes, like, we really do have the answers within ourselves. It's not about someone necessarily telling us about. And similar to the process, you are figuring this stuff out on your own. Maeve: You guys are prompting the questions, but you're not sitting across from me telling me, well, maybe this is this is why, because this happened to you. You you sort of figure it out on your own, which I think is such a beautiful part of the process. And I remember looking at you on like, day three, and I was like, and I was having a really profound experience. Maeve: I was really deep within myself. I was deeply moved by everything that was happening. But I hadn't had like a big emotional cry or, and, you know, people were going through it and I wasn't really having that kind of reaction to it. And I remember coming to you and I'm like, Steve, am I going to get this? Like, is it coming? Maeve: He's like, hey, it's coming. Relax. And you were right. And I think it was that very day. Obviously, I'm not gonna share the details of what goes on in the process, because there is something so magical about the mystery and not knowing what's coming next and what the exercises are. So often we ask people, you guys ask people not to share the specifics. Maeve: Yeah, because the magic is in the unfolding of it. All right. Steve: Yeah. The magic's in the reveal. On so many levels, one in the process itself. But what that really speaks to is as humans we do not like uncertainty. And these patterns of anxiety enable us to fill in the blank about the thing we don't know. And so when we're in our natural state, not only do we welcome the unknown, but we revel in it. Steve: There's like all in wonder about what can happen next. And it's this recovery of bringing these things back online that's so beautiful. And a way of thinking about this is like this I love my job as a Hoffman teacher because I'm not going to teach you anything new, but I have the privilege of reminding you of who you really are. Steve: And it's in relationship with the teacher and really with your other students in the process that we come back to this remembering, there's a there's a Ram Dass quote that's like one of my favorites and it describes, this moment we're having right now, the process, life in general. And it's this we're all just walking each other home. Steve: Yeah. And and that's the whole deal. Like, we we can't heal by ourselves. We heal in community. We are reminded of in being with others what is true for us. And so people in the process are having trouble accessing these things. They're sitting next to you and you're like, oh my God, this thing happened. And they can feel compassion for you. Steve: That then opens their heart to themselves. Exactly right. Right. Maeve: I had a really profound experience. I, I, like I said earlier, like you end up with a teacher. I swear I ended up in the seat I was supposed to be in. I don't know why I ended up. I was in the front corner and so I had no distraction other than nature, you guys. And then my buddy who is to my left, who I could share about, I could share. Steve: Their first name. Maeve: Yeah. Okay. Well, he was 93 years old. Steve: Yes, he was Jackie. Maeve: Yeah. And he was 93 years old. And it was so profound to watch someone go through this process at his age. And he kept saying over and over again, I can't wait to live the rest of my life like this. Like as if he just had, you know, unlimited life left in him. But he he was so moved by the process, so by him being. Maeve: And so he had a really emotional reaction to something that happened in the. And then therefore, it cracked something open in me to have a similar just by witnessing his emotion, I guess, and to watch someone at that age be so moved and like I said, like just he he was so excited that he had the rest of his life to live with these tools and practices. Maeve: Yeah, it was really beautiful. And I wanted to touch on one of, I think one of the greatest gifts about the process is you are asked a it's either go by your childhood nickname, there's no last names, right? Right. Yeah. No last names, first name only. And they asked you not to talk about what you do for a living. Maeve: Yeah. Which I loved so much. It was just being human with a bunch of people, and it wasn't, you know, a measure of who are you and what can you do for. I feel like we spend so much of our lives like trying to measure people up. Like, what do you do? You know, like, how can you help me? Maeve: How can I help you? It was none of that. It was so nice to just be made. No one knew what I did for a living. No one, you know, and no one really cared, to be honest, until the very last day. You get to share what you do. Yeah. What do you think is so important about that? Steve: So it was on a bunch of levels. The probably the biggest one is this so many of our lives, are about our doing this, how we define ourselves, versus who we actually are. Maeve: Yes. Maeve: That's so good. Steve: And so, so many of us spend our lives cultivating energy at being looked at versus being seen. Maeve: Yeah, that was big. Steve: For me. Yeah. Oh my God. It's it's deep medicine for just about everybody. Yeah. And it's really comes from childhood when rather than being seen in our fullness, our full emotional range, our parents couldn't handle that all the time. They were overwhelmed. They had patterns. They had their ways of parenting. They learned from their parents. So we learned to dim that light in many ways and just really focus on our doing this as a way of earning love. Steve: And that's and that's a hard thing to shake until you become really aware of it and do something like Hoffman, where you have the time and the space to really disadvantage from that doing this and trust into. Wait a minute, Steve. You're saying me just being me makes me lovable and it's like, yeah, yeah, just you sitting there doing nothing. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: That must be really big for anyone who's, like, forward facing or has any kind of which, by the way, there are many. Yeah, that make their way to Hoffman. And I think I think also how beautiful for them. Let's say a performer I mean Katy Perry has talked about doing the process. Obviously everyone knows it's fucking Katy Perry in the room, but she gets to just be Katy for that week, you know? Maeve: And I think what a beautiful gift to give someone who's who in their nature gives so much of themselves to the world to get to just be in that room. It's just one of the 40. Steve: Yeah. And it's in that beingness. When I'm radically in my beingness, it gives you permission to be in your beingness. Yeah. And because we're not efforts, it is how nourishment gets in. And we think we've got to earn and earn, improve and justify our love ability. And why I can I should just be able to be here. Steve: And it's there's this deep tone of nourishment in the process that is our birthright. It's really how we're designed to just be these like disinhibited, loving, sassy little kids. Like the whole. One of the big things about the process is you will be happy and lovable and inspire others by just being your authentic, weird ass self. Yeah. Steve: You know, it's like. Yeah. And so it's one thing to say it. It's another thing to actually own it to to plumb to the depths, to see what's getting in the way of trusting that. Maeve: Yeah, I remember leaving and really feeling I remember like not even having any desire to open social media. I'm like, what do I give a fuck about any of these people? And what they're I just I was so deep within myself and I came out with the deepest level of peace that I had ever felt. I wish you could bottle that and keep it forever, because it was like a quiet had come over my brain that had just never been there. Maeve: Like the chatter, you you guys call it something. But yeah, the chatter was gone. It was just quiet. Yeah. Peace. Steve: And we would argue or or offer that that is because of the embodiment work you did in the process, rather than just inhabiting our lives from here. You're actually in your middle and lower wisdom centers, really owning all of you, not just the part that kept you safe as a kid. Maeve: Can you talk about that part of the process with the quad? Steve: And yeah. Maeve: Yeah, I'm like, what are we allowed to. Steve: Yeah. No, we so we use a, a system called the quadrant for parts. And it's simply like an organizing principle for how to understand humanity or your experience as a human. And it's got four parts. There are the is the emotional self. Like what are these feelings I'm having? And there are qualities of the emotional self which is being emotionally fluid and resourceful and disinhibited. Steve: And then there are patterns like, I'm just a, an angry person is a pattern versus yeah, there are times I'm angry, in times I'm not. Or I can be sad all the time, or I avoid feeling I'm numb. So that's emotion itself. There's the intellect and there are patterns and qualities of the intellect, wisdom and discernment as part of the intellect. Steve: But overthinking is a pattern. Overanalyzing, being stubborn. Then there is the body. The body has qualities and patterns. And then finally the spiritual self, which is RNA wisdom, our our inner truth, our connection to spirit, to something greater. The that spiritual self has no patterns, but that's really our our inner voice. Our ability to be tolerant of being seen comes from there. Steve: It's really our guidance. And so by breaking into four parts, you can then separate them out and address what does each part need on a on a daily or hourly basis to understand that. And most importantly, you can then see what should I be aware of in each of these aspects that needs attendance when they're all smushed together, it can be overwhelming for people to go, well, I feel this and I think this my body. Unidentified: Blah blah blah blah blah. Steve: So it's a great way to slow down, organize and befriend yourself in these different ways. Yeah. Maeve: Yeah. It was a huge part of the process for me. And it really and it's something you get to work with after completely what is one of the hardest parts for most people in the process. Steve: What's different for everybody. For some people it's using their voice saying what they really want. For others, it's disadvantaging from shame. A way to think about the process or being human is it's the unacknowledged that drives us. And so within the process, we look at all of these deeply human, utterly normal things that normally we don't look at. Steve: We look at grief, we look at shame, which is the belief that there's something fundamentally wrong with me. And that's why I'm unlovable or unworthy. We look at how we hold grudges against others, and how those grudges actually come from unresolved pain, and how we learned in our childhood not to be able to self advocate so that that unresolved pain turns into resentment. Steve: And then we build a case against others. And so by looking at these disintegrated parts of us and integrating them in a really loving, clear eyed, adult way, we're able to, to grow and heal and be an integrated human out into the world. Not perfect, but willing to and able to make mistakes and learn and grow from them rather than going, oh, well, there's just more evidence of a piece of shit. Steve: And I'm a lovable, so I'm just going to give up and go become an alcoholic or something. So it's this, this ability to wrap it all together in this seven day with other people that makes it so deeply effective and so powerful. Maeve: If someone's listening and thinking about coming to the Hoffman process, what is there ever a right time? Unidentified: So. Steve: Yeah, you know, when you actually get your butt in the seat is usually the right time for some people there in real distress? Yep. That things are not going well. For others, they're really stuck. Our tagline is when you're serious about change. So needing to change implies like, some shit's not working out right. So it's usually people do that. Steve: Another track that people have is they've like Built an Amazing Life, but they're not really able to authentically inhabit it and they can't trust that it's there. And, and so but we don't have people who are, who come in typically who are like, well, I'm just interested in seeing things are different. We do have that. But we've got a wait list of months long and, people get there when it's right and usually when the pain signals are strong enough that things need to change. Steve: I know that was true for me. You know, often true for other people. Maeve: Me too. Steve: Yeah, yeah. Maeve: Yeah, it's. I was in something called, like, awareness. Hell, yeah. When I got there, I knew exactly what was going on. But I did not have the tools or the ability to change what was going on. And it was so deeply, deeply rooted in me. And I had known so many people to do the process over the years. Maeve: And thankfully, Marissa, who's one of your amazing teachers, totally. And, called her. And I was like, I have to come. Like, I have to come right now. She's like, it's not really how it works. And she's like, you know, we have a waitlist, like a year long wait list. And I'm like, okay, but just, I just, I got it, I got there. Maeve: Please, please take me take. So she's like, okay, let me just see, you know, and literally 24 hours later, she called me back and she goes, careful what you wish for. Someone dropped out for next week. Can you come? And and she was like, and there's a lot of homework, you know, you gotta start right now. And I said, sign me up, I'll be there. Maeve: And like the it's just the universe parted, the seas parted, the work disappeared. Like I just the it just opened up for me to be able to leave, to not be on my phone for seven days. That's an amazing part of this process, which I know probably scares people. But you do, in fact. Hand your phone in. Yeah. Maeve: And, that was the greatest gift ever. I didn't want it back within the first, like four hours. I was completely content and just in my body and and so present. And I remember at the end almost having anxiety, knowing my phone was coming back to me because I just didn't even want it. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: For sure. But I do feel like you, you end up there in the perfect moment. My advice to anyone listening if you're thinking about going as sign up, just take the next available date. Just say yes to that date. And oftentimes new dates become available. And then all of a sudden you're there at the exact perfect. Steve: Perfect, perfect group. Perfect people. Perfect teacher. Maeve: Totally. Steve: Yeah. And but you know, the phones and the saying what we do in the world, those are really often just distractions from acknowledging this long carried pain. And there are two things I want to point out about that. One is a pain travels through families until someone's willing to feel it, and it simply it's the feeling of it. Steve: You don't have to necessarily have the story, but we all have it, and it's our how quickly can we allow our body to let it go? Some of us carry patterns that are generationally. Sometimes it's pain from other generations, right? Yeah. And the way we do that is by welcoming it all in. There's a, you know, the way you describe post-process in your life now with joy is that is that a fair word to use? Steve: Okay. So there's a really cool saying that that describes how this works. And if you want more joy in your life, you got to let it all in. It's this a joy is the mother, the matriarch of all emotions. But she will not pay you a visit until all of her children have been welcomed. So the way you got to that joyous, self loving, glowing, radiant state in which you still are in, by the way, is by welcoming it all. Steve: The pain, the grief, the anger, the long held rage, whatever it was in there. But it's when we try and suppress those things, we suppress the joy as well. Maeve: That's so good. Steve: It is so good. Maeve: There's a Rumi poem about. Steve: The guest house. Maeve: The guest house? Yeah, exactly. Just welcoming it all in. Let it. Steve: Laughing at. Maeve: The door. Yeah. Let it beat the shit out of you. Yeah, yeah. Steve: And I think it ends with this is some message or gift from the divine. Yeah. That's coming. And so when we try and stay split, that it doesn't work out. And so the process is just about integrating it all, becoming a whole person, wholehearted, loving wholeheartedly, laughing wholeheartedly, and being authentic. Because that's true for everyone. Not just not just us. Steve: We usually think, well, it's I'm just the one that's broken and I'm the one that won't get it. Maeve: Everyone gets it by the end. Yes. For sure. Steve: Totally. Maeve: It is an amazing experience to watch 40 people. 40, right? Yeah, yeah. Go through and everyone is coming in at just completely different points in life with different awarenesses and different capacity, I think for the work or like some people have never done a day of therapy and other people like me had done a lot, you know. Steve: For our therapists. Maeve: Yeah. Unidentified: Or our therapists. Yeah. Apart. Maeve: Yeah. I'm like, I think Deepak Chopra was in. Unidentified: I'm just kidding. Maeve: But but you know, there there's just such a huge range of kinds of people who you're in the room with. And I think it's so beautiful to watch. I remember because I had done similar, similar, but certainly not on this level work in the past. I had in previous experiences been a bit more of like the wall, like the wallflower, like just sort of watching, like I might be too cool for this. Maeve: Like, I don't know if I'm going to do that dance thing that you got, you know, not to give away too much, but I don't know if I'm going to do that, you know. And I remember going into Hoffman with an understanding of like, this is a brief moment of being uncomfortable. Just go all the way, go 100 to every single exercise. Maeve: Everything they ask you to do, do not hold back. That was my personal, mantra. I guess. Steve: That's the best advice. Maeve: Thank you. Unidentified: Yeah. Maeve: Just go for it. Because it's. It is brief. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, it's over. Like I and I could have gone harder, I guess, you know, and I remember I had this I met this girl in our very first. We just handed our phones. We sat down in the cafeteria, you know, we were just chatting. Maeve: She was so nervous and so uncomfortable. I could just tell. And we, you know, we became friends. And during one of these exercises, I remember just like popping over to her and I was like, just let go. Just go for it. And she was like, that literally changed my process. And it's only because I had done, like I said, somewhat similar things to know this is just a brief, weird moment like, but they know what they're doing. Maeve: They know why they're asking us to do this. Just let go. Yeah. And she had a completely different experience because she was like, you're right. I'm just gonna look out for me. Can do. Unidentified: It right? Maeve: I'm gonna. Unidentified: Do it. Yeah. Maeve: And I feel like I and one other person in my process, we were the, like, loud, you know, we were just holding space for a lot. Unidentified: Of people. Steve: And I. Unidentified: Love it. Maeve: And that. Unidentified: Was cool. Steve: It was. Unidentified: Beautiful. Maeve: Because that actually is not like my nature is to be more pulled back. Steve: Old patterns. Maeve: Yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely. That was the best. Steve: It's totally the best. Maeve: Wish you could do it again. Steve: I know well and and the beauty is we. This is all without advertising, right? We don't advertise. But we've been doing this for 60 years. Yeah. And if you do the math, next year or 60th year, we. This whole thing was conceived in the summer of love, 1967, during this time of, like, great potential and change and growth and, Maeve: Well, and you guys are a nonprofit. Steve: We're a nonprofit. Maeve: People don't know. And I believe it's 20% of in Ted views receive a scholarship. Right. So if you're listening and you think there's no way you can afford this one, I think it's really well priced, completely, fairly priced for what it is, what you receive. But also 20% of people get to go for free, right? Steve: Yeah. Because we recognize we don't want financial barriers to get in the way of people getting in the process and reclaiming themselves. So we have a really robust scholarship program. We totally invite people to apply. One out of five people, 20% have some form of scholarship support. In fact, it's one of the biggest things we raise money for every year. Steve: And this year we'll award $1.2 million in scholarships. Wow. For all sorts of people who are just at a point in their life or timing is wrong. And we're thrilled about that. And we want to increase that. We want more people to be able to do the process that way as well. Maeve: I would I, I have an assistant who is with me for a very long time. She knows it's her, her gift from me when she's ready to go. You know, because it it is so transformative and I believe in it so deeply like that. I would just I want to give it to everyone that I love, you know. Maeve: Yeah, yeah. And, yes, you guys are a nonprofit, and they're able to do that. Steve: Yeah, we're a nonprofit, and we've been chugging along for six years. And these next six years we are so excited about. And really, what is up for us is recognizing this. We're all just walking each other home, that you cultivated this magic, this sense in your life. And we can do more with each other, with our graduates to help this, to be this lifelong journey together. Steve: And we're really animated and excited about what that means. Maeve: The main campus is in California, but there is one in Connecticut and Canada, right? Steve: Connecticut and Canada. We don't own those. We rent space. Yeah. And, we're really right now looking for a permanent East Coast home where we're pretty excited about. Yeah. Maeve: That's exciting. Yeah. I had a friend do the Connecticut location New Yorker, and they did the in Connecticut, and I loved it. Steve: Yeah, it's exact same process. Maeve: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's just. Steve: The literally the same teachers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maeve: You guys travel to all the locations right. And teach. Yep. Yeah. That's so cool. Steve: It is so cool. Maeve: I went back a few years later, I did a Q2, which is a two and a half day sort of refresher course, which was amazing. And it was so nice, by the way, just to be back. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: Well, now it's in a new location. It is. But I had a very special relationship with. Yeah, I loved the old location, but I guess everyone feels. Steve: Yeah, everyone, wherever you did, your process is totally the best place to be processed. Yeah, totally. Maeve: I know, I know for sure, but it's amazing. So one of the things I love the most about the process was the weekend after. So it is suggested, more than suggested. Strongly encouraged, strongly encouraged to spend the weekend wherever there and spend the weekend in a hotel. Steve: Just solo. Yeah, let's try and get into nature. So we call that the integration weekend. Yeah, the seven days is so jam packed with so much stuff happening. And so being primarily by yourself for that weekend, really being clean, eating healthy food, no drugs or alcohol. Yeah, it's just very strong suggestion and allow the work to begin to percolate into your body, as we say, where the spirit meets the bones. Steve: And that that is really it's about cultivating this new life. And the word cultivation is really important. We as humans need to cultivate compassion for ourselves and for others, to cultivate forgiveness, to cultivate awareness. So it's not a one time magic pill. And we understand that. Hoffman. It is this enormously seminal life event for many, many people like you and me. Steve: Yeah. And there's still work to do afterwards to then cultivate and deepen these gains. And that's like a lifelong journey. And and that's how we see this upcoming refinements to our graduate experience about providing the tools and resources and structures to help this be this lifelong integrative path. Maeve: You really go through so much in the seven days. I mean, it is like I I've said things like, you know, it's like giving birth to yourself. It's like and it's so alarming to go back into the world after you've been in this, like, beautiful cocoon with all these beautiful people healing. I mean, it's just a and then you go out of there and it's almost alarming. Maeve: You're like, whoa, the world, you know, it's it's it. And so that weekend really was like the icing on the cake. Like it's literally like baking a cake and not doing the icing. That's how I felt about it. I think you said something similar to me when I was planning on where to go after. It was just I was like, well, I just moved into my new house and I, I'm really peaceful there. Maeve: Like, I love it there. And you're like, no, no, no, no, don't do it. No no no. Yeah. Like just. Steve: Do whatever Jets. Yeah. Maeve: And I am so I it was, it was the best weekend ever. Yeah. And I was so low I ran into a few processed friends because they were in similar. Steve: Right areas. Maeve: I ran into a friend in the middle of the redwoods. Okay. Doing the walk. Steve: The walk. Maeve: And like, he was just. It was incredible, you know? But, it to me is like, the icing on the cake. Yeah. Is that weekend? Steve: Yeah. This is a really great point. The the process is this incredible container for us to recover, what it is to be human, that we can really be ourselves. And in that is, this opportunity to, co-create culture. So we had some ideas. Don't use your phone. Don't talk about work. Don't talk about sports. Really talk about what your heart really desires. Steve: Talk about what you regret, what you want to forgive yourself for, what you want to transcend, and that self-disclosure is the fuel of intimacy. And you can do that anywhere. And the process is really about what gets in the way of me self disclosing what's really important to me, what I really want. Touch me like this. Don't touch me like that. Steve: Actually, I like sushi, not Thai like so many of these things that so many people keep buried. And so the invitation is you did it during this week, now you get to go do it in your life with more people. And when you shine your light that way, living authentically, it gives other people permission to do the same. Steve: And I've tried actually, as I move through the world, I meet people. I interact with them as if they've done the process, and it's amazing how much they can relate and sort of vibe in a really beautiful way. Maeve: Yeah, it's funny to after doing it, and I must have known 50 people to do it before I went. You all of a sudden are looking at them and you're like, oh my God, you did that. Like, you know, that was so crazy. And it has, you know, I have had family members go since I've gone and yeah, I mean, you're you're like embodying the work afterwards, God willing, you know, and and people see you and you're like, wow, you really are different. Maeve: I, I want to go have this experience, you know, and I my, my sister in law went and her husband went and they were, you know, going through a rough time and it brought them back together. It's like just the most amazing ripple effect. Steve: It is the most amazing ripple effect. And that's what we really want is for this, Bob Hoffman, his, his had a saying that he wanted peace on earth one person at a time. Yeah. And it's entering doing the process and entering a more coherent relationship with ourselves rather than this feeling of incoherence or I don't know what I really want or what am I allowed to all that sort of stuff. Steve: And the more coherence we can bring into this world, the better, because we're in sort of in coherent time. And I really, we believe at Hoffman that we're on this precipice of really beautiful things on this, on this planet. And so we want our goal is to have as many people as possible to do this in these next 60 years are about that is helping many, many people globally to have access to the process. Steve: Amazing, amazing ways. Yeah. Maeve: We're going to put the info in the show notes. So you guys, if you want to look it up, it will be in this episode for you. Where can people find it's Hoffman. Steve: Yeah. Hoffman Institute. Dot oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. 501 C3 nonprofit or. Yeah, yeah. Oh, what a cool. Maeve: I would joke that like go to Hoffman, get a husband but that they're not gonna remote that. But that is what I in fact went for. Steve: Right. Maeve: And it worked out. Steve: For me. Well, here's the deal. Is you fell in love with yourself. Yeah. Which made you ready to call him? Because we can only be loved by others to the extent we love ourselves. Our relationship with ourselves dictates how the world relates to us. Maeve: That's really good. Steve: And so you end up integrating. You end up marrying yourself in some ways in the process. And that made you, I think, ready? Yeah. For some very lucky guy to get into already. Maeve: Lucky. Yeah, I was totally. What do you remember about my process? Steve: I remember. Maeve: You have my full permission to share my shit. Steve: Yeah, well, I maybe it's maybe it's not. But I remember a couple of things. One is I remember and still marvel at your availability. Thank you. You're a really available person. And that is very inspiring for other people to be available as well. And I also remember the the effort and the earnestness that you attack that process and you're like, fuck it, I'm here. Steve: I'm going for it. Yeah. And that is like memorable. Thank you. Yeah. Maeve: Yeah, that was a memory for me too. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: I had this one, homie. And we both were just like, there's all your. You can only do it once, by the way. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: You literally can only do it once other than a Q2. Steve: Well, we do have people who do it when they're in their early 20s and come back 15 or 20 years later, something like, yeah, that is it's a very rare, but there's no like hard wool. You can never do it again. Maeve: Oh great. I can't wait to do it again. Maeve: I honestly love it so much. I wish you guys could figure out like, just as long a process, but not, I don't know, like it. You can only do it once. Steve: Yeah, yeah. And and the beauty of it is that that remembering then begins in that it's that coming, that coming back. And look, we are rhythmic. We humans, we breathe in, we breathe out. We have a heartbeat. We are conscious. We're unconscious. We remember, we forget. And so doing the process, the expectation is like, well, I'm going to be great and everything's. Unidentified: Going to be awesome for the rest of my life. Steve: No, no, it's how do I surf these waves and ride this in this rhythmic way where I go out into the world, then I come home to myself. But when we have an expectation that it's all going to be great and perfect all the time, that's just a pattern. It's a setup and that's not accurate. But it's how we love ourselves through the through the screw ups. Steve: That's really where the growth is. Maeve: Yeah. And also to touch on the support that you guys offer after. Yeah. The app is amazing. I believe it's like a 30 day video. Right. Steve: There's a 30 day recycling challenge, a bunch of really cool challenges on there. Maeve: So it's not like you're, you know, finishing the process and there's just like, okay, see ya. You know. Good luck to you. There's a lot of resources after. Steve: Exactly. And probably the biggest one is this worldwide community. There are 150,000 people worldwide that have done the process. And all around the world, they're Kaufman graduate groups that get together once a month. Tools and practices reflect on the process, help each other with things they're working on in their lives. There's sort of mentorship, and the next, next couple of years are all about how we can enrich in that post-graduate process and really make that as elegant as the process itself. Maeve: But you also have a call with your teacher. Steve: You have a call with your teacher, you have people get together with small groups. Yeah, we've had classes go. And do. Maeve: You know we did one. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: We, we like outside like paid for a teacher to come and did a small group with a bunch of us who had done the process together at like our one year anniversary. Yeah. I mean, we've, we we were all still on WhatsApp group text. I did the process like 4 or 5 years ago. Steve: Exactly. Maeve: And I'm still in touch with, with my, you know, my class. Steve: Still in orbit with these other beautiful light beams. Maeve: Yeah. Made some like a massive friends like just connections that only the people who saw you go through that will really understand, you know, and just still so close with so many of those people. Yeah. It's amazing. Steve: And you'll go out into the world and meet people, you know, like, do this, I do this thing and you discover. And because the process is so established, they had very similar experiences. It's almost as if you've done the process with them. Totally. Yeah. Maeve: I've done a few of the one day refreshers too, which are really great. Steve: It's super awesome. Maeve: They're probably more in the bigger cities, right? Steve: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Maeve: Thank you. This was amazing. Steve: I love exploring this and celebrating this gift of being human. Maeve: Amen. I just literally can't scream it from the rooftops enough that I think it is one of the most profound experiences that anyone can do for themselves. It is the greatest gift you could give to yourself and to your family, especially if you have kids. Oh yeah. Yeah. Big time. A lot of my in, like, I just thought a lot about my future child who's now alive. Maeve: But back then, I thought a lot about, you know, the parent I want to be and how to break some of those, you know, patterns that I bought from my parents. And they were just doing the best they could. And yeah, I'll just do the best I can do, but I want to do better than the round before, you know, progress. Steve: Not perfection. Maeve: Exactly. Steve: Yeah. Maeve: Tell everyone where they can find you. And the process. Steve: Yeah. So, I'm steve@hoffman.org. If they have questions or want to learn more and Performance institute.org, come check us out. And we've got incredible enrollment counselors can talk to you answer questions. We do welcome calls once a week for people. That's an anonymous. You get on a call, you don't say your name. Ask them any questions. We don't sell the process. Steve: We have a supply problem, not a demand problem. Maeve: Literally. Steve: Yeah. And so it's a really beautiful thing. But it really speaks to the hunger for change a hunger for peace in people. Yeah. Is is there more to this beautiful world? Maeve: There is. Steve: There is. And it's all inside. It is. Yeah. Maeve: Thank you for sharing that. Steve: No. Maeve: Love you. Steve: Total pleasure. Love you so much. Maeve: Thanks for doing this. Steve: Anytime. Maeve: Thanks. Right on. We'll have you back. Love you so much. This is amazing. It's my first episode back since having a baby. Steve: I'm honored to be here. And I just love being in orbit with you, my friend. Maeve: Sam. Sam? Steve: Sam. Absolutely. Maeve: Thanks. Steve: Cool. Maeve: And if you liked this episode, please share it. Don't forget to, like, subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos like this one. Bye guys!