Female Disruptors: Tami Simon of Sounds True On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
“Let’s see the karma in 10 years” — This is a saying that was oft-repeated by a meditation teacher I studied with for many years. I take this to mean that the important thing is to take the best next step, and then do this again and again, and if you keep taking such steps, it might be remarkable where you end up 10 years from now.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tami Simon, CEO of Sounds True
Tami Simon is the Founder and CEO of Sounds True, one of the world’s largest multimedia companies dedicated to wellbeing and spiritual awakening. For more than ten years, she has hosted the popular podcast “Insights at the Edge” in which she interviews leading wisdom teachers. Committed to business being a force for good, Tami is the founder of the Inner MBA, a 9-month immersion program for developing the inner awareness skills that support outer success, and also the Sounds True Foundation, a non-profit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
In 1982, at the end of my sophomore year at Swarthmore College, I decided to take a year “inward” and traveled to Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal to study meditation. That was an extremely transformative time for me. In the practice of meditation, I found a way to accept my own energy and feel at home in my body, even in the midst of chaotic thoughts and disturbing feelings. For the first time in my life, I felt “at home” with myself. While traveling, I dedicated myself to introducing as many people as possible to meditation and other practices and approaches that enable us to be with ourselves in an unconditionally accepting way. This was the initial inspiration for Sounds True, a company that is dedicated to wellbeing and disseminating spiritual wisdom
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
The status quo depends on us accepting a limited set of options for our lives. When we tap into an inner sense of aliveness and flow, something we all possess, we discover a type of unlimited creative power. We know that we possess agency and that we can make choices beyond the status quo — choices that come from our heart’s intelligence, choices that are congruent with our values. We become disruptors of everything and anything that is not in integrity with what we know is possible. We become unstoppable change agents. The inner work that we do to access and come fully into this creative power is the work of Sounds True.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started editing programs for Sounds True, I would often stay up all night editing on a reel-to-reel machine. I actually “cut tape” with a razor blade and then use splicing tape to put the audio reel together. Often I would have spaghetti strings of tape hanging in various places (unlabeled), and then I would splice select pieces back together on the reel-to-reel, using my memory of what string went where. Of course, there were some errors, but the real mistake was that I would do this editing while eating bags of Merlin’s popcorn, a locally made specialty popcorn covered in oil and nutritional yeast (our first Sounds True office was right above a natural grocery store where this popcorn was readily available). My greasy fingers would get all over the tape (and my jeans), and you could hear slightly muffled sounds in some of the edits (the sound of grease).
You can probably guess the lesson I learned…clean hands.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
An important early mentor was Jirka Rysavy, a Czechoslovakian entrepreneur who in the mid-1980s was the CEO of a large office supply company called Corporate Express. I lived near his office and he had a curious sign on one of his doors, a Yin-Yang symbol with a dollar sign through the center, and the words “Transecon” which stood for transformational economy above the symbol. He also had very large (more than a foot tall) crystals in his window. Who was this curious person, I thought?
At the time, I was hosting an interview show for our local community radio station where I volunteered and interviewed spiritual teachers (this was back in 1985, more than 25 years before I launched the podcast “Insights at the Edge”). I asked Jirka if I could interview him, and he agreed.
In one of our “prep sessions”, I shared with him that I had inherited a small amount of money upon my father’s death (an inheritance of approximately $50,000). And Jirka said something to me I will never forget. He said “Wherever you put your money, that is where you are putting your energy. Why don’t you put it into yourself?”
What a Disruptor Question to ask a young person!
And when I walked out of his office that day, I knew I wanted to use the funds I received to start a company that would disseminate spiritual wisdom.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
There are essential truths (or we could say “first principles”) that are worthy of being preserved, and then there are structural forms that are filled with inequity, discriminatory, and designed to benefit the few and not the many — structures that need to be radically dismantled and re-made.
One example that is close to the work we do of disseminating spiritual wisdom at Sounds True is in the area of religion. Essential spiritual truths live at the heart of spiritual traditions, but religious forms that, for example, discriminate against women having leadership roles, obviously need to be disrupted. We need to find new ways of creating spiritual communities that preserve the essence of our faith while simultaneously re-making the forms.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“Invest your money in yourself”
This was advice I received from Jirka Ryssavy when I was just 21 years old wondering where to invest the money I inherited upon my father’s death. His advice gave me permission to follow my own inner quest to send spiritual “lifelines” to people in the form of wisdom teachings.
“Let’s see the karma in 10 years”
This is a saying that was oft-repeated by a meditation teacher I studied with for many years. I take this to mean that the important thing is to take the best next step, and then do this again and again, and if you keep taking such steps, it might be remarkable where you end up 10 years from now.
“A person is not one thing”
This perspective is something that I learned from spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. It has helped me to look at people differently, to see that each person is a multitude and to make space for people’s wisdom nature, even if they also present a less evolved aspect of themselves under stress or in certain situations.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We are beta testing a new digital wellbeing platform that is driven by community and membership. We want to give people access to daily teachings, premium programming, and community so that people can find regular support and inspiration on the spiritual journey. More on this soon!
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Women Disruptors face different risks and consequences when speaking up to and actively dismantling patriarchal power dynamics.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I recorded a 7-hour interview series with A.H. Almaas on “Endless Enlightenment”. A.H. Almaas helped me understand how there is no one final destination or permanent state called “enlightenment” but instead different aspects to spiritual awakening that can keep revealing themselves as we grow and deepen on the spiritual journey.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
There are two movements that have my complete dedication and commitment because these are the two spheres of catalyzing change that are my areas of interest and expertise. The first is the movement to “wake up the world” (the mission of spiritually awakening, to help people know how interconnected we are, that we are each part of one living being, and that each of us is an expression of divinity. The second is the movement for business to be a force of creative good in the world. Businesses can devote themselves to solving real social problems and can structure themselves to promote genuine human flourishing.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Neurosis is always a substitute for experiential intensity” — Bruce Tift
This quote is a further refinement of a quote from Carl Jung, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”. As someone who historically has expressed various kinds of neurotic tendencies (worry, anxiety, and spinning in certain mental loops), this teaching turns me back to feeling pure experiential intensity, in the moment, at the level of sensation. When I am able to stay with experiential intensity in an embodied way, keeping my attention on intense physical sensations instead of indulging all kinds of mental spin, this leads to insight (instead of neurosis) and the experience of being open, being present. It is a teaching about turning towards our difficult experiences with a welcoming embrace.
How can our readers follow you online?
Please join me on Soundstrue.com.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
