Latest / Attention Copilot with Pranab / Anne Laure Le Cunff: The Fallacy of “Follow Your Passion” and the Power of Tiny Experiments

Transcript

Anne Laure Le Cunff: The Fallacy of “Follow Your Passion” and the Power of Tiny Experiments · Attention Copilot with Pranab

0:00
Pranab: hey, I'm with Anne Laure , author of Ness Labs, and we're here to talk
0:03
about our upcoming book and just hang out.
0:06
Um, Hey Anne.
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Laure, welcome.
0:08
Thank you so much for having me.
0:09
This is very cozy.
0:10
Yeah, it was very cozy.
0:11
. Um, so right before we were starting, we were talking about
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our definitions of success.
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Curious if you just want to continue that conversation, um, and wondering
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what does, you know, success mean to you?
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Yeah.
0:21
The, what we were talking about, it was the different metrics
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of success that people have.
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And I know quite a few people around me who think that having a lot of employees,
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for example, is a marker of success.
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, I've realized I. Thinking about it and actually asking myself what it is I want.
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What kind of life do I wanna live, how, what do I want my days to look like
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that I want to keep my team very small.
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I like the idea of having a very small team and we're very close and
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we all know what's happening and we can make decisions very quickly.
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And I often think about James Clear because I discovered
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that he only has one employee.
1:00
Mm-hmm.
1:01
Uh, her name's Lindsay and uh, when I hired my team, I was thinking
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about how can I find my Lindsay, I want my Lindsay, and that's it.
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Not a big team.
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So that's just one example.
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But I think a lot of us could really benefit from being a little bit more
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intentional in terms of figuring out what does success look like to me
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and how can I make sure I'm not copy pasting what success means for others.
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Makes sense.
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How has that changed for you over the years?
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Like, do you think three years ago you would've said
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the same thing about success?
1:33
Yeah, probably not because I started my career in tech and Silicon
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Valley at Google, and, uh, there was a very specific script in
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terms of what success looked like.
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You would start your job in a big tech company, save enough money,
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build a network, raise money, start a startup, and, uh, change the world.
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Anything less than that was not considered successful.
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And so if you told me that there was a definition of success, that was keeping
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your team very small, having a lot of freedom over how you organize your
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days, being able to just take days off whenever you want to, being able to
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change direction in the business and say, actually, let's stop working on that
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thing that we don't wanna work on anymore.
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Let's work on on that other thing.
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Instead, I would've said, oh, cool, but that, that doesn't
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really sound like success to me.
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Right?
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And so it.
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Took me a few years and a few failures and a few detours to figure out
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for myself that no, actually there are as many different definitions
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of success as there are people.
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Yeah.
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Uh, one thing that brings to mind, um, in your book, you mentioned
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a few different default scripts.
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I remember one, I doing things for what other people think.
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Uh, and, uh, I, there's a lot of other default scripts, right?
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Like, raise a, raise money for a big company.
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There's, I mean, entrepreneurship itself can be a script like, you
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know, consulting or things like that.
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Um, if you were to look like five years from now and, uh, look back, given I think
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the rise of the creator economy and, um, with all the transition from Covid and
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everything, in my mind, I imagine there's like more as, as many, as much as people
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are kind of creating their own scripts, I imagine there's like a new level of
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default script kind of coming up like with Gen Z people or things like that.
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Curious like, since you're so deep in this world.
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Do you see any new scripts coming online that like maybe five years from
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now people are gonna think about and have to work through or something?
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Yeah, the one I think is the most insidious and a lot of people are
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following right now is the, uh, follow your passion script, which is glorified
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by our society, and which makes a lot of people feel miserable because
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they haven't found their passion yet.
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And so they feel like something's wrong.
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And uh, I think.
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There are lots of factors that come into play.
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One of them is obviously social media.
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So we have access to this giant leaderboard where we can compare ourselves
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to each other and where a lot of people are projecting and sharing those passion
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led lives where they say, I wake up in the morning and this is what working on.
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This is my mission.
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And we feel like that's what we need in order to be happy.
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Um, and then another one is probably also the, the rise of just
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spirituality in general, which I do think is a really good thing.
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But sometimes we can be misled to think that we need to figure out, we need our
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lives to be meaningful, and were unable to let go of finding that meaning.
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Anne-Laure: Yeah.
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Pranab: And so yeah, that's, that's one of the scripts where I think
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a lot of people will realize in a few years that it is not necessary.
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It's not necessary.
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And in fact, when.
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You ask people who have found their passion, how they found it, if they're
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being honest, A lot will tell you.
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I stumbled upon it.
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I was doing this thing, and then I found this thing and I followed this path
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and I had no idea where I was going.
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And then I woke up one morning and I realized that I was super excited to
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wake up and to work on that thing.
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And I'm now very passionate about this.
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And the second thing is that most people who are quite content and who feel
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connected to their passion, they also accept the fact that it might, it doesn't
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have to be for the rest of their lives.
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Maybe one day they'll wake up and that's not really the thing
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they wanna work on anymore.
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And that's okay.
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They can trust that something else will emerge at some point.
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Yeah, a lot of that resonates, uh, quite deeply.
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As I mentioned to you, this past year has been an experiment for
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me in doing more meaningful work.
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Um, I went part-time with my kind of tech job and ended up
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working at a meditation startup.
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And a legal psychedelic startup, uh, is the first hire for both, which
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is super fun and super awesome.
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And I think I, my hypothesis in the, the tiny experiment I ran going into that
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was, can I, um, live a work life that I'm gonna care about in 10 years working with
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people that I care about in 10 years?
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So, uh, and then, you know, and ideally be energized by that day to day.
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By all accounts, I was successful.
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And I, uh, just a few weeks ago, uh, announced leaving the job and I'm
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starting a new one in a few weeks.
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Um, almost going back into tech, uh, as a way to, uh, because I kind of realized
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some of the things, you know, you can do meaningful, purposeful work, but for
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me at least, it's like, that's great, but it also has to fit in with like, the
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context of your life and just you have to see the reality of it and everything.
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Um, so I now I'm learning another experiment to see what
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that's like going forward.
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But, uh, yeah.
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Yeah, I think, I think that's a thing that I see a lot of people chasing.
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They're like, if only I just had a job that was at the.
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Cornerstone of every single interest I have, then it's gonna be perfect
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and I'll never have any problems.
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Uh, and I find that, yeah, I agree.
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It's like, I think that's actually a really worthwhile experiment to run,
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but it also has to kind of fit into the context of life and, and see what emerges.
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Yeah.
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I I think what's really interesting in your approach is that to me, the
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main problem with trying to find your passion is that you're already focused
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on this outcome and you attach a lot of other things to this outcome.
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So you feel like, once I find this passion, I'll be happy, I'll be whole,
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I'll have everything figured out.
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Right?
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Whereas if you did the way you just described where you said, well, as
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long as I meet interesting people that I might want to stay in touch
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with for the rest of my life, as long as I learn something, right?
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You're focused on the journey and.
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Whatever happens, even if you end up wanting to leave that job after a while,
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even if the product you work on doesn't end up launching, even if actually this
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is really not the industry you wanna work in, you wanna do something else, right?
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You will have learned something new about yourself, about the world, about
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the kind of work that you want do.
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And so that's success.
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That's success.
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Not getting to a specific destination, but having had the
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space to explore a hypothesis, a research question, and having learned
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something new that is success.
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Yeah, I totally agree.
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It's interesting 'cause it's in, in, I think me in high school or something
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would've looked at it and been like, oh, that's so obvious everyone.
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It's about the journey, not the destination.
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It's like, it's a thing that you're kind of, once you start reading
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self-help, you're inundated with that, but it really is just true.
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Yeah.
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And I think it's a thing where, uh, every generation and every person has to kind
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of discover it for themselves in a way, um, from different angles, from different
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approaches at like more subtle levels.
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Um, something that someone told me, uh, that I think really hits and kind of
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reminds me of this, whenever I, whenever you, whenever someone starts thinking, oh,
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once I get this, then I will win forever.
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Like, sometimes there's a subtle, like, I will win forever if I get this job, or
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I will win forever if, if that, and it's just that, that's like a very, uh, it's a
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good if I, if I sense that that motivation in me, I'm like, oh, there's something
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that's probably not helpful here.
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Um, and the opposite of that is, is the process.
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You know, it's like, you know, the forever, the permanence, it's just like,
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oh, the process of going through it.
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The process of going, um, of just living it is, is, is more
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important and more interesting.
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Yeah, there's, um, I think there's a sense of, of lack that this comes from
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when we, when we feel like we'll only be happy once we get to a specific place.
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And that specific place is not now.
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Anne-Laure: Hmm.
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Yeah.
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Pranab: It usually means that something's missing.
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But that we feel a little bit stuck and we don't really know how to address it.
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We don't really know how to accept it.
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And so we just figured that if we create this intricate plan or if we have this
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vision for the future, it might not solve for the way we feel right now.
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Mm-hmm.
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But at least it gives us the comforting feeling that it
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will be better in the future.
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Anne-Laure: Yeah.
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Pranab: And so to me, not letting go of that idea of that this arrival
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fall, that once you get there, everything will be all right.
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Is also a, a way to embrace the uncertainty of the present moment,
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except the fact that you actually have no idea where you're going,
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except the fact that change and growth can be very uncomfortable.
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And that's okay.
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That's actually part of it.
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That's part of, of what being alive is.
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And, and that's fine.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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But obviously that's, um, more easily said than done.
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For sure.
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For sure.
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It's like, it's like someone, you know.
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Going to the gym and doing all this stuff, and then really then seeing the outcome
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of like, oh, I can run this fast or lift this much weight when it's like can't.
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It's just part of the pro, it's part of the process in some ways.
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Um, part of that I'm curious, so you've, you've often talked about how uh, if you
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look at yourself 20 years ago or 15 years ago, like you and your teenage years
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was going through, we're going through a lot of hardship and a lot of difficulty.
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How do you think that younger version of you would, um, maybe respond to
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that kind of insight you have now?
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She would probably be very cynical about it, and that's the thing,
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and that's also why I have a lot of empathy for people who are stuck and
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a place that feels like it's dark.
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It doesn't have a lot of hope, because it's very difficult when you're in that
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place to be able to just imagine what.
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Another reality might look like and the response that we might have
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to that is very often cynicism.
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Anne-Laure: Mm.
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Pranab: Making fun of people who are earnest, who are genuinely trying
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to explore and to learn and to grow.
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And, uh, treating that notion of wanting to be alive and wanting
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to explore as almost ridiculous.
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I think that's the reaction that 13 or 14 years old me would've had at the time.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I can relate to that.
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I can relate to that.
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And I think through the process of writing in public and, and
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like learning in public, you almost have to shed that cynicism.
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I don't think I know anyone who's, who can stay cynical while, like, expressing
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themselves in writing and sharing because, uh, yeah, A lot of times the cynicism
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I, I find of them myself is a protection against like, feeling judgment or like,
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I, I would rather, I'd rather criticize myself unless someone else criticize me.
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Um, and yeah, it's a way to be to, to kind of play small and just not.
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Be out in the world, um, in a way.
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So, oh yeah.
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That's such a, yeah, that's a great insight actually.
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You're, you're basically saying, okay, it's fine.
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Like, I'm not going to take myself seriously.
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Yeah.
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I'm not going to take my work seriously.
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Uh, and so it's okay if other people don't take it seriously either.
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Whereas when you stop being cynical, just read this sense of, of hope,
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uh, and trust in other people that they will actually earnestly engage
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with your work and your ideas.
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And that doesn't mean they'll be, they'll actually agree with you, but there will
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be this honest sense of discussion and connection and really trying to understand
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what you're trying to express here.
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Yeah.
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Uh, I'm curious, how have you, uh, dealt with the haters over the years?
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If there, if there have been.
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I actually haven't really had many, to be honest.
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Nice.
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I've been very, very lucky.
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Um, I think I can think of two.
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I. Um, emails I got that were a bit hurtful, but I've been writing online for
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so long that, uh, this is really little.
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I've been very, very fortunate.
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Um, I think maybe this is because of the kind of things that I write about.
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It tends to attract the kind of people who would not necessarily
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have this kind of behavior.
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Um, also because a lot of the people who engage with my work have grown
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up on the internet like I did.
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And I think we have this deep understanding that behind the
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screen there is a human being and we try to be cognizant of that.
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Yeah.
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Um, so yeah, and even the couple of times where people have been a little
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bit hurtful, I generally think that they were probably struggling themselves.
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Um, and so they were maybe projecting things, uh, on me.
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So, um, yeah, so I haven't really had to deal with it, which is very lucky.
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That's awesome.
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Yeah.
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That's awesome.
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What about you, by the way?
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Is it something that you've had to experience?
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No, never.
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Yeah, just curious.
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I feel like it's a thing that I hear about, uh, and occasionally there'll be
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some kind of, maybe like a rude comment or someone doesn't seem understanding, but
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I find that, um, you know, so, so we kind of got acquainted through Twitter, and I
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feel like our little corner of Twitter, uh, x is very friendly in earnest, and I
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find that that culture tends to just lead to more friendly, earnest conversation.
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That's pretty, um, insular is not the right word, but just I guess protective.
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Mm-hmm.
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Or it just doesn't really lead to like problems that you
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see, I guess, uh, typically.
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So yeah, I, thankfully I've also been pretty good, but I, I tend to find
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that I have a lot of, um, uh, in my own publishing work, there's kind of this,
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it's not even, uh, in my mind there's a few tier of like potential criticism.
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There's like family, there's close friends, and then like acquaintances.
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Like what will, like what, what will my 10-year-old, the piano teacher I
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had when I was 10, what was his dad?
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Ooh, I'm friends with on Facebook, think of me if I write this thing.
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It's like a random, some random thing there.
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Uh, and uh, yeah, that's, that's and it, but it's, it is really just a projection.
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It's really just this like fear of something.
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Uh, yeah.
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It's that little voice in your head.
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Yeah.
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And uh, we actually talked about that.
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Well, we were grabbing coffee before.
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Yeah.
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We started recording.
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And how that's also a realization that you, you have, when you start kind of like
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growing up and being more in the world is that nobody cares, nobody's watching you.
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Everybody is so focused on their own journey, whatever they're going
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through that the, they don't care.
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And also I realized almost nobody's going to read your
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work as closely as you, you do.
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So even if there's a paragraph where you go into something that
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might not be exactly what you want to express or where someone might
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think, um, that it's a bit weird.
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A lot of people are actually going to skim it and, uh, not even.
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See that part?
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Yeah.
16:03
Yeah.
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And, and, and what I do have out, it's like anyone who's really engaged
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with it at any level, no matter what they think, that's such a gift.
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You know?
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Like they've actually kind of go in, went in, and, um, yeah.
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How's that?
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How's that been for you, kind of, um, as you've grown Ness Labs and as you've grown
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the newsletter, uh, subscriber base and YouTube and the book, um, how have you,
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how, how has, how has your life changed by having like an audience or by having
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people that, like what's on your mind?
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Yeah.
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My, I think my biggest realization over the, the years has been that
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I, I'm terrible at predicting what people will find interesting.
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Mm-hmm.
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So I will sometimes spend hours and hours researching a topic, reading all
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of the research papers and trying to write the definitive article about this.
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And it's crickets.
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Nobody replaces to newsletter.
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Nobody seems to care.
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And sometimes I'm in a rush.
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I'm literally waiting in front of the gate about to take a plane somewhere
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and it was that kind of week.
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And I just sit down and in 20 minutes I just write a very short newsletter.
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Few bullet points.
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Here are some interesting questions that I thought about this week,
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about this topic, and I get so many replies, people who say, that's me.
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That's, you know, I really resonate.
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I really can.
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I connect with what you said and thank you for sharing this.
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So, to answer your question about how having an audience has changed
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things, actually it's become, it's made me more comfortable just saying,
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okay, I'm just going to show up.
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The kind of only pact that I I have made with myself and my audience is that
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every week I will send a newsletter and sometimes it will be very well researched,
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sometimes it will be quite short, but it will be something that I find interesting.
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That's it.
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And then maybe you'll find it interesting, maybe not, but clearly
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after, I think I sent more than 215 newsletters, at this point, I am the
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worst judge possible in terms of whether you're going to like this or not.
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So I'm just going to write it and I'm going to send it.
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That's awesome.
18:18
I find that, uh, even with tweets, it's a similar thing.
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Like, who knows Right?
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But like any kind of content or any kind of thing that's put out there.
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Yeah.
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Anne-Laure: Yeah.
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Pranab: What's the, uh, when you use the word pact, is that the same type
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of pact that you have in your book?
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Yes.
18:31
Uh, I, so what I describe as a pact is a commitment to curiosity.
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And it's saying, I will perform this action for this duration.
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And you remove any other factor.
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You don't have to think about anything else.
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You just need to show up and do it.
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And that's a way of collecting data.
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About, again, about yourself, about the world, about the work,
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and, uh, you can then revise your pact later on if you want to.
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You can decide to keep going.
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You can decide to tweak it, you can decide to abandon it.
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And so, yeah, my longest pact, which has taken it, has had several iterations,
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but my very first pact was I will write 100 articles in a hundred weekdays.
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And that was the beginning of Ness Labs.
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That's how I started Ness Labs.
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And, uh, I've iterated on this, and now I, I still have one, um, where it's
19:24
every week until the end of the year.
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And at the end of each year, I revisit it and I see if I wanna keep going or not.
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I've done different pacts with YouTube where I said I'm going
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to do one weekly YouTube video also until the end of the year.
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I stopped that.
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Didn't like it.
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I did a pact with meditation.
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My current pact is to walk for 20 minutes for every day for the next 20 days.
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I'm on day three.
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It was very cold today.
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Didn't like that.
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But yeahm glad I made the pact because I wouldn't have done it.
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And so, so that's a pact.
19:57
That's awesome.
19:58
Yeah.
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I, I, I like that a lot because it solves, uh, a lot of things in my mind where when
20:03
building new habits, sometimes like a thing that'll stop me from even starting
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the habit is always gonna be forever.
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Um, or I go the other way where it's like, oh, I just have to start a little bit.
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And then even that, it's a little bit, but never goes more than a little bit.
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So it's like a, you, you know, thinking about the right size chunk of an
20:19
experiment and you commit to that and just what can you kind of, it's almost
20:23
a balance of coercion and non coercion.
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It's like, for this time period, I actually can choose to do this much
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and I will get myself to do it.
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And at the end think about it, reevaluate.
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See, is this something I wanna continue or how do I wanna change it?
20:35
Yeah.
20:36
It's uh, it's exactly like it was inspired by the scientific method and
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it's really this idea that you decide in advance the num on the number of trials.
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You collect that data, you withhold judgment.
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Until you're done collecting the data, but obviously you need
20:51
to finish collecting the data.
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Anne-Laure: Yeah.
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Pranab: And yeah, and at the end you analyze the data and you decide what
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you want to do, you make decisions based on all of that data that you collected.
21:00
And so as you said, it's uh, there is a form of, of, um, of structure
21:07
of a little bit of self coercion of saying that's what I want to do.
21:10
But you decide what experiment you wanna run, but then you're not committing to
21:15
it for the rest of your life either.
21:16
Right.
21:17
Yeah.
21:17
And it's interesting 'cause I think like self coercion can seem bad, but I almost
21:21
think of it as self coercion structure.
21:23
It's the same thing, just depending on kind of maybe the attitude it's coming
21:26
from, uh, or the amount of, um, consent or agreement that there is with it is
21:32
similar with non coercion and like chaos.
21:34
Like you can be totally non-coercive or fluid or, but that's like, that
21:38
also can just mean you don't do any, you don't do things in a way that you
21:41
build long-term trust with yourself on.
21:43
Um, and I think I've been really into myself has just been.
21:46
Just having everything be an act towards building self-trust.
21:50
And I feel like the pact method is a way to do that in a very
21:53
strategic, structured way.
21:54
Yeah.
21:55
It's uh, with what I like too is that you're, it it prevents you from
22:01
having any assumptions about any kind of things you could try in your life.
22:05
There are lots of things we don't start because we feel like it's not for me and
22:10
lots of habits we don't explore because we feel like, ah, I don't, I don't
22:13
think that's something I would like.
22:15
Um, and equally there are things we just think that we enjoy,
22:21
but we don't do because we don't really have the time right now.
22:24
Yeah.
22:24
Right.
22:24
And we just feel like, oh yeah, I'm sure I, I'll pick it up one day.
22:27
I'll start this thing one day.
22:28
I'm sure I'll love it.
22:30
And we just assume the reason why we're not doing it is
22:32
because we don't have time.
22:33
Once you replace those big, vague commitments with something that
22:38
is self-contained like this.
22:40
There's first, no excuse not to get started because you say, I'm
22:43
just going to do this for the next two weeks or for the next month.
22:46
Um, and second, you can actually test your assumptions.
22:49
Yeah.
22:50
Yeah.
22:50
And I feel like a lot of what makes this different than like
22:54
10, 20 years ago, like a similar version of this 10, 20 years ago.
22:57
I think how things are different now is that I we're just in an, I
23:01
think maybe before it was an age of, like, it's hard to know what the
23:06
right thing to do is, and you have to put yourself to do the right thing.
23:08
Now it's almost just like, um, we have a problem of overabundance.
23:11
There's just so many things, so many possibilities and
23:15
so many things we could do.
23:16
So it's just like an overload of like, oh, should I learn this language or
23:19
this language or this code thing, or write a thing or do, and you know,
23:22
and you kind of do everything at once.
23:24
You're just not doing anything at all.
23:25
So it just, it, it's giving you the structure to at least like carve
23:28
out, alright, cool, let me just do this minimum, um, uh, minimum,
23:32
but enough amount of things.
23:34
So then afterwards I can assess.
23:36
Um, 'cause I, I find myself in a thing where I, I sometimes do 15
23:39
things at once and it's just like none of them are actually structured
23:42
out enough in a way that I can actually evaluate and decide on.
23:45
Yeah.
23:46
That's, uh, why I always say that I wrote this book for people who are both
23:50
highly curious and highly ambitious.
23:52
Anne-Laure: Yeah.
23:52
Pranab: Which comes with a lot of benefits in today's world, but
23:56
which also can create analysis.
23:58
Parais, there's other choice, as you said, you're curious about everything
24:03
and you want to do all of these things, uh, in the best way possible,
24:07
and you end up doing none of them.
24:08
Yeah.
24:09
Yeah.
24:10
I feel like, uh, I'm forgetting the act a little bit, but you have, um, these
24:13
two by two of like, uh, high agency, low agency, and high curiosity, low curiosity.
24:18
Do you remember what the, it was like high curiosity, low agency.
24:21
It's ambition.
24:22
And so yeah, it's a two by two.
24:24
Yes.
24:24
With, uh, high curiosity.
24:26
It is basically based on curiosity and ambition.
24:28
And so I explained that if you have low curiosity and low ambition,
24:32
that's cynicism, which we talked about already a little bit.
24:36
If you have high curiosity, you want to explore, you want to learn,
24:40
but low ambition, that's escapism.
24:43
Mm. Uh, and so that means that you might want to just read a lot of
24:46
novels and travel a lot, uh, maybe, um, you know, shopping a lot, buying
24:51
a lot of different things and trying new things, restaurants, et cetera.
24:55
Uh, which is nice, right?
24:56
But if there's no ambition to go with it, you might not want to push yourself
25:01
to work hard towards something that matters to you and challenges you.
25:05
If you have high ambition, uh.
25:08
Low accuracy, that's perfectionism.
25:10
So you are going to push yourself to work really hard, to really,
25:14
you know, eyes on the prize.
25:15
You, you want to really succeed, but because of that, you feel like curiosity
25:20
might be a waste of time and energy.
25:22
It's a distraction.
25:23
And so everything you read, everything you watch, all of the information
25:27
you consume is stuff that you feel like is productive and useful and
25:33
contributing to your ambitions.
25:35
And then the last one is the one that I encourage people to explore in the book.
25:39
And it's the experimentalist mindset and it's high curiosity, high ambition.
25:46
You actually want to explore big things.
25:49
You want to challenge yourself, but also you wanna have this space
25:53
for exploration and curiosity.
25:55
And you're completely okay with the fact that you might
25:58
not know where you're going.
25:59
And you trust that by keeping on iterating and experimenting, you will get to
26:05
a place where you work on something that is really exciting, even if you
26:10
don't know what it looks like yet.
26:12
Yeah.
26:12
I resonate so hard with that.
26:14
I think, um, I, I was, maybe, I've always been high curiosity.
26:19
I think before I was maybe lower ambition, maybe there's even a third access of
26:23
lower agency of like high, high curiosity, high ambition, but just not really
26:27
able to get the things I want done.
26:29
Mm-hmm.
26:29
Um, figuring out how, and as I've worked through a lot of
26:32
emotional stuckness, it's like.
26:33
I've kind of naturally gotten a bit more into this experimental mindset.
26:37
Um, but it's interesting because I think the high, the high ambition,
26:41
low curiosity, that's almost like a recipe for how to win in like a ladder
26:45
world where like you have a ladder and you're just trying to go up the
26:48
ladder and you're just like, just zoned in on exactly what you want.
26:52
Um, but I feel like the world is increasingly, and that actually was, I
26:56
think, success for, for many, many years because it was just true that if you
27:00
just honed in on a couple of good paths, you would just, you know, be successful.
27:04
I feel like with, you know, ai, a GI and the horizon, all that stuff, it's
27:08
just like the world is benefiting curious people more and more and more.
27:12
Uh, I'm, I feel I have a bias towards just like helping people become
27:15
more curious and, uh, equipping them with like the tools to just use
27:19
that curiosity the best they can.
27:21
Um, yeah, curious if you have any thoughts on that.
27:23
Yeah.
27:24
And uh, even if you think about the way we educate children.
27:29
Uh, I think, and we're seeing a lot more schools are getting open
27:33
and, or even parents who decide to unschool or homeschool their kids.
27:37
I think this is, there's a shift and a realization that if we want to
27:41
equip the next generation with the right tools in order to succeed with
27:45
this new definition of success, that is not that linear definition, that
27:49
is not a definition that is based on having a clear vision and a clear plan.
27:54
We also need to teach them those skills of how to be curious, how to learn, how
28:00
to learn, how to ask questions, how to formulate a hypothesis, how to collect
28:04
data, how to make decisions based on testing your assumptions rather than on
28:10
copy pasting, whatever blueprint another person has recommended that you follow.
28:17
So I think.
28:19
It's very important that we educate the next generation in this
28:21
sense and really equipping them.
28:23
But I also feel like as adults ourselves, there's still a lot of time
28:27
for us to adapt and earn, learn some of those patterns so we can relearn
28:31
new, new ways of navigating the world.
28:34
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
28:35
Um, between curiosity and ambition, I'm curious how much do you see those as
28:40
fixed versus, uh, what's more malleable or how, how are either of those malleable?
28:45
I don't see any of them as fixed, really.
28:47
And even, uh, across those four mindsets, cynicism, escapism, perfectionism, and
28:53
experimentalism, I see them as responses that we have in the face of uncertainty,
29:01
and they can shift within the same person, depending on our context, depending on our
29:06
constraints, depending on what we're we're facing and experiencing at the moment.
29:10
So if you're, I don't know, maybe if you're like, you know,
29:15
strained financially, for example.
29:17
I, it's going to be a little bit harder to want to experiment.
29:21
You need to have a sense of safety.
29:24
If you are just coming out from trying something new and different and it felt
29:30
spectacularly, it's also going to be a bit harder to not be cynical and to
29:34
say, cool, okay, what did we learn?
29:37
Let's try again.
29:38
Let's try something new.
29:39
Right?
29:40
And so the same person can shift through these, but I think it's
29:43
a little bit like a muscle.
29:44
And you can practice to put yourself back into this more experimental approach
29:51
to, to navigating decisions and the world, your career, your relationships.
29:55
You can just a little bit like meditation when it's all about
29:59
like bringing your attention back and re recentering yourself.
30:02
I think it's the same with your mindset where you can practice this.
30:07
Um, and another element is obviously just the people you have around you
30:12
and the role models that you have, or even the group of friends and
30:15
colleagues that you have around you.
30:17
Yeah, it is a lot easier to experiment, to take those risks, to even question
30:24
the, the assumptions that you have at an individual and group level when
30:28
that's considered okay to do Right.
30:29
In your environment.
30:31
Yeah.
30:31
And I think that's probably easier now than ever.
30:33
Mm-hmm.
30:33
Uh, especially with books, podcasts.
30:35
I remember, I think 2017 was the mode.
30:38
I was like, the, what you're describing was kind of when I was in that mode of,
30:42
um, um, I was, I was like interning at a random rural area of the, of the country,
30:49
uh, and away from all my friends and just listening to like Tim Ferris, uh,
30:52
and all these entrepreneurship podcasts and psychology podcasts and design
30:56
your life and all this kinda stuff.
30:57
And I think that's, that was the first big shift I took in my, uh,
31:02
self-concept and shifting things.
31:05
Um, curious, what were some of the biggest shifts for you?
31:08
Um, I know we mentioned, we talked about psychedelics a little bit
31:10
earlier, but what were other kind of like points in your life that caused
31:14
a shift in your mindset that almost.
31:16
Allowed for that freedom, like the first few insights of being able to
31:18
kind of move in this new direction?
31:21
Hmm.
31:22
Yeah.
31:22
There were a couple, um, the first one happened when I
31:25
was still working at Google.
31:26
I, I briefly talk about it in the book, in the introduction, but it was when,
31:31
uh, doctors found a blood clot in my arm.
31:35
And when they asked me, okay, they said, let's schedule the
31:38
surgery as quickly as possible.
31:40
And I was like, let me check my calendar.
31:43
Mm-hmm.
31:43
Because I wanted to schedule the surgery at a time where it would not
31:46
create any conflict with any of the product launches we were working on.
31:50
Yeah.
31:50
And I caught myself doing this.
31:54
And I felt like, okay, something's wrong.
31:56
My priorities are out of whack here for me to do this.
32:00
That was the first mini realization that maybe I was a little bit too
32:04
focused on success and my career progression, that I was more
32:09
worried about that than my health.
32:12
That was one.
32:13
The second one was when my startup failed.
32:15
So I left Google.
32:16
I worked on a startup and that didn't work out.
32:19
And for the first time in my life I was completely lost.
32:22
I didn't have a plan, I didn't know what I was supposed to do next.
32:25
Obviously one of the scripts is to just start another startup, right?
32:29
Um, but it was the first time I really questioned what I wanted to do next,
32:34
and I kind of went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out, okay,
32:37
but what it is I actually want to do.
32:39
So that was another step for me.
32:42
And I feel like right now I am in one of those phases again because I finished
32:47
my PhD, um, my book is coming out.
32:51
And, and I'm again in a phase where I'm actually not quite sure what's next.
32:56
And it's actually really beautiful to see how I'm responding to this
33:01
situation now, where year, a few years ago there was still a little, um,
33:07
sense of panic, a little bit like of I need to figure out as quickly as
33:12
possible what I am going to do next.
33:14
Whereas now I'm almost ing being in that liminal space where anything is possible.
33:22
Anne-Laure: Yeah,
33:23
Pranab: I could do literally anything.
33:24
Yeah.
33:25
And this is actually great.
33:27
This is great.
33:28
This is amazing.
33:29
So it's, uh, yeah, it, it does come in in waves and there are seasons of doing,
33:39
and I was in a season of doing just now where PhD writing the book, a lot
33:44
of, uh, getting things done and uh, I'm going to go back to a season of just.
33:50
Exploring and, uh, and there's a lot less fear now around it.
33:55
Yeah, that's really cool.
33:57
What, uh, what do you think might be in store for you in the next season?
34:03
I have so many ideas and I do want to experiment.
34:07
Um.
34:08
There is the academic research aspect where I'm not quite sure what I wanna do.
34:13
One option would just be to follow a more linear approach here,
34:17
which would be to do a plus doc.
34:19
That's one option.
34:21
I'm not a hundred percent sure that's what I want to do.
34:23
Another one I'm exploring is potentially opening my own independent lab.
34:28
Which would be really the nonlinear approach to it, which
34:32
could be really interesting too.
34:34
Um, from a learning and personal growth perspective, I've become really interested
34:39
in plant medicine, not just psychedelics, but I signed up to a herbalism course
34:45
that I'm going to do over the next 12 month that has nothing to do with my
34:49
current work, and that's going to be in person in the countryside in England.
34:54
So that's really exciting too, and I have no idea.
34:56
What I'm going to do with this is just to learn and then writing.
34:59
I already know I'm probably going to write more books because I
35:02
absolutely loved the process, even the parts that were really difficult.
35:06
I loved having this container that I could use to explore a bunch of questions
35:12
that I thought were interesting.
35:14
So there's probably going to be another book at some point, but I, I wanna have
35:18
breathing space and, and not just start the next book project straight away.
35:23
So I'm going to intentionally.
35:25
Try to not think about what my next book might be.
35:29
Yeah.
35:29
For a little while.
35:30
Yeah, that makes total sense.
35:32
That's really good.
35:33
Those all seem like awesome times.
35:36
Yeah.
35:36
Yeah.
35:36
I feel very lucky.
35:38
And uh, and I do think that this life I have right now is the product of actually
35:44
not trying to engineer it too much.
35:46
Yeah.
35:46
And, uh, of making sure I have this space to just try things without
35:51
really having a clear plan in terms of what's going to happen.
35:55
Yeah.
35:56
I think the age of the five-year plan is basically dead.
35:58
Yeah.
35:59
And it's more of like, it's more like what, uh, I'm not really sure what the
36:03
right word is it, it's not plan, but it's almost like approach, what is your
36:05
five year approach or what is your five year mindset or stance or something.
36:09
Yeah.
36:10
Yeah.
36:10
And uh, we're also very fortunate now that, 'cause that's, um, kind of an
36:18
argument that I counter argument that I hear quite often where people say, oh,
36:23
you can only do this because you're.
36:25
You're financially comfortable and so you can do all of these things.
36:29
And, uh, in my case, which I'm not doing anymore, I'm very fortunate now
36:33
that, um, all of my income is coming from my writing, which is great.
36:38
But there was a long period of time where I was freelancing while I
36:42
was exploring all of these things.
36:44
And we can do that now.
36:47
You can find work online and you can make money and you can also
36:53
move to places where you can work remotely and where the cost of living
36:57
is going to be a little bit less.
36:58
And, and again, I'm not saying that everybody can do this and there are so
37:02
many different factors and you might be the caregiver for someone, which means
37:06
that you cannot move or you, you know.
37:08
So yes.
37:10
But to say that you need to wait until you're financially comfortable to
37:15
start experimenting with some areas of your life or work is simply not true.
37:20
Yeah.
37:21
Uh, in my own case, a year and a half ago when I. Went part-time with
37:25
my job to try to work in meditation and, and the world, the world I was
37:30
more interested and cared about.
37:31
Um, I had, that was like the hardest time of my life personally as well.
37:35
I had like a super high burn rate 'cause I was kind of taking
37:37
care of some family stuff.
37:38
Mm-hmm.
37:39
Uh, and it was like, it was like, there were many times
37:42
where I thought, am I insane?
37:44
Because I was literally like letting go of a fixed known
37:48
salary going into freelancing.
37:51
And I had like the highest possible burn rate I've like ever had and
37:54
probably ever will for a while.
37:55
Um, and I think the way I managed it, and I not even manage it, but just
37:59
like flowed through it and kept myself sane, was I think working through
38:03
a lot of the emotions around it.
38:04
'cause there's like fear, uncertainty.
38:06
What if I go into my retirement account?
38:08
What if I go into, what if I had to ask for help?
38:10
Like, what if I have to ask, go call for GoFundMe or ask my, you know,
38:13
family for assistance or something.
38:15
And, and some of those are probably more or less realistic, but just
38:17
like all these fears come up and just, you just gotta just go work
38:21
through them in different ways.
38:22
Um, and then I also kind of sized it appropriately.
38:25
Like, well, worst case by like this day, if it doesn't work out, I'm
38:29
just gonna really search for a job.
38:30
And if that doesn't work out, I'm just gonna do, like, I, I, I like
38:33
having this idea of having like my, um, best possible backup plan.
38:36
I'm like, worst case, I can always be a tutor for like 40 bucks an hour.
38:40
And like, I know my minimum is basically that because I like, you
38:43
know, working with people and stuff.
38:44
So anyways, I think that was a way that I worked with it, but, um, that's
38:47
actually super helpful to try and decouple the emotion, the fear and the source
38:55
of the fear, and very often realizing that the fear makes sense, right?
39:00
It does make sense because you, from an evolutionary perspective,
39:04
your brain is just trying to, you, wants you to survive, right?
39:08
So.
39:09
You're going to, those emotions are designed for you to, to
39:12
pick the safest path possible.
39:15
And so obviously all of the alarm bells are going to go off when
39:18
you're doing this crazy thing.
39:19
Yeah.
39:20
Um, but that's also what makes us human, right.
39:24
This ability to say, yes, okay, I know this is scary, but this
39:28
is still what I want to explore.
39:29
Yeah.
39:30
So being able to decouple this, realizing also that a lot of the things
39:33
that you're scared about, even if they were to happen, would be fine.
39:37
I have this example in the book of one of my friends who actually at some point
39:42
found himself in a situation where he was really struggling with money and
39:46
he did reach out to a bunch of us and ask everyone for a little bit of money
39:50
that he, and he said, you know, I'll give it back whenever things are better.
39:55
And you know, we talked about it afterwards and it
39:57
was super scary to do this.
39:59
But the reality is that from the other side, as friends, for us it was the
40:03
easiest thing to do in the world.
40:05
And we were.
40:06
All honored that he would feel comfortable enough to ask us and that we could
40:12
give him that money in that moment where it was a bit difficult for him.
40:16
Yeah.
40:16
And so I think going through this exercise of actually really going through the
40:22
scenario of what would happen and saying, okay, let's, let's say I get to that
40:26
place where I have to ask for the money.
40:27
What would my friends think?
40:29
None of your friends are going to think that you're a loser.
40:32
They're just going to be so happy that they can help.
40:34
Right?
40:35
Yeah.
40:35
So yeah, sometimes we're paralyzed with fear because we don't take the
40:40
time to actually connect with it and examine it and really go through what
40:43
it means and where it comes from.
40:44
And it's such a useful thing to do, to just do that, go through those
40:48
steps and from the source to the, the end of it and following that thread.
40:53
Yeah.
40:53
And I think it's, uh, it's one of those things like even with, um, meditation
40:58
or meditation progress or things like that, following the fear all the way.
41:02
Um, and I get a lot of, I got a lot of this from Art of
41:04
Accomplishment, Joe Huts work too.
41:06
But like following the emotion all the way to the source or all the
41:09
way to the end, it's like it can be pretty crazy, uh, and really intense.
41:14
And the way I almost conceptualize a lot of meditative progress or
41:20
meditative path is being able to digest more and more intensity and
41:24
being able to be with the intensity.
41:25
'cause oftentimes these like scripts or these, the stories are there to, as a
41:29
way to kind of like, just push it away.
41:31
You know, the ladder have a thing to focus on, don't have
41:33
to worry about anything else.
41:35
And, uh, yeah, curious how you view intensity or if it's, if it's
41:38
a similar kind of thing for you.
41:40
I try to, yeah, be intentional with it as well.
41:44
You know, we talked about seasons a little bit and I think that's the, the same here.
41:49
I know that sometimes in my life, a lot of intensity is good.
41:53
I know that other times I'd rather feel more grounded, which
41:58
is more helpful in that moment.
42:00
But is, as you said, is really about.
42:04
Not seeing intensity as something that's bad necessarily.
42:08
Uh, if it's there, it's better to engage with it, to be fully in it,
42:13
to really feel it and process it.
42:15
Yeah, so you can move past whatever barrier blockage you're feeling
42:19
in that moment, and you can apply this to anything, really,
42:25
any emotion that you're feeling.
42:28
It's always better to just engage with it and engaging with it can
42:33
take a lot of different forms, right?
42:35
Sometimes it can be really like living it in your body.
42:38
That's why a lot of people, they like body movement, dancing or whatever.
42:42
Sometimes it's just sitting with it and or watching it, you know,
42:47
past meditation, et cetera.
42:49
Yeah.
42:49
Sometimes it's writing, sometimes it's having a conversation with a friend.
42:52
Sometimes it could be painting, writing poetry, um, standup comedy,
42:57
like whatever form or shape it takes.
42:59
But engaging with the emotion is usually healthier.
43:03
Than trying to ignore it or trying to push it down and repress it and
43:11
replace it with something else.
43:12
It's kinda interesting.
43:12
It just this morning I saw, uh, a increasingly popular tweet that was
43:18
about a paper on, uh, maybe repressing memories is good for mental health.
43:23
So basically the opposite of what you said.
43:24
Yeah, but I mean, I I, it's funny 'cause I think the definitions of
43:27
mental health can be different there, where in the short run I think there
43:31
is a real thing of like basically just dissociating or pushing it down as
43:36
much as possible can make it so you are not in the throes of the intensity.
43:42
But I, I, I feel like in the long run that just kind of just makes things a
43:46
lot worse 'cause it leaks, it's kind of not good and almost like the definition
43:50
of mental health is, you know, 'cause a lot of times it's like healing work or
43:52
this opening up will actually be intense, uh, or will kind of bring up difficulty.
43:59
But is, uh, so in some ways it maybe makes mental health a little
44:02
bit worse before it gets better.
44:03
Mm-hmm.
44:04
But I find that it probably is a way to, like, that's otherwise you're
44:08
kind of just, uh, adding bandaids to kind of a leaky ship or something.
44:12
Yeah.
44:12
I haven't read the paper, but the first thing that came to mind to me is that
44:17
unfortunately in today's society, we have removed a lot of the containers
44:20
where it's safe to express and relive like whatever traumatic, difficult,
44:26
challenging memory that we have.
44:28
And so maybe that's why it feels safer to repress the memory because
44:33
you don't have a safe place where you can, I. Express it and engage with it.
44:38
A lot of the rituals that we used to have to go through those moments and go
44:42
through those transitions and whether it's grief, whether it's even getting
44:48
married, having a child right, which are fairly traumatic actually are
44:52
things that now you're expected to just go through and do your on your own.
44:56
And, um, so yeah, I'll read the paper, but to me I'm very curious
45:00
to see whether it is really in general repressing the memory.
45:05
That's good.
45:06
Or if it is in today's context when, where you don't have access
45:11
to a safe space hundred Yeah.
45:12
To express it.
45:14
Yeah.
45:14
It is maybe better to just repress it until you find that space where you
45:18
can do so safely to express it safely.
45:21
Totally.
45:21
That makes a lot of sense.
45:23
Um, what, uh, neuroscience topics are kind of at the edge of what you're
45:27
exploring or what things are you kind of curious about or kind of getting
45:30
excited about as you review papers?
45:32
I'm, uh, so in my, my job research, um, I'm at the A DHD research
45:38
lab at King's College London.
45:40
So I study A DHD, and currently I'm fascinated with the relationship
45:45
between curiosity and A DHD from an evolutionary perspective.
45:48
Anne-Laure: Yeah.
45:49
Pranab: And I, I recently published a paper about what I called Hyper curiosity
45:53
theory, which is explaining that a lot of the behaviors that we see in people who
45:59
have been diagnosed with A DHD and they are associated with A DHD traits might
46:03
have had, um, an evolutionary advantage in previous context, premodern world.
46:09
And, uh, in particular being curious about a lot of things.
46:12
Uh, those exploratory behaviors might have allowed us at a group level.
46:17
To have like almost this like, kind of like um, um, r and d group of
46:23
people who would go and poke around and try new things and explore more.
46:28
And, uh, it wouldn't have been useful if everybody in the group was like that.
46:32
You just need a little group that does the r and d. But in today's world
46:36
where there's high stimulation, a lot of opportunities to be distracted,
46:42
algorithms that are designed to grab and maintain your curiosity,
46:47
this can actually be, this R and d mind can be detrimental, difficult,
46:54
uh, create challenges for people.
46:56
Uh, and those are what we call A DHD traits now.
46:59
Mm-hmm.
46:59
For some of them, obviously there are a lot of other traits that are
47:02
associated with attention deficit and, uh, impulsivity, et cetera, but I'm
47:07
looking specifically at curiosity.
47:08
Mm-hmm.
47:09
And there's very little research on it at the moment.
47:11
So that's.
47:12
The area that I'm, it's kind of meta, but I'm very curious about at the moment.
47:16
Yeah, that's exciting.
47:17
That's really cool.
47:17
I mean, a lot of that I resonate with where I don't think I've ever
47:20
been diagnosed with a DH adhd, but sometimes I'm just like, is it me?
47:23
Is it just that I'm curious?
47:24
Is the world making me more, you know, sporadic or erratic?
47:28
Uh, and yeah, I, I'm curious what you think about that, of this idea that
47:31
the world can make people more a DHD, you know, not, not in a clinical sense,
47:35
maybe, maybe in a clinical sense too, but, you know, with the internet,
47:38
with social media, with short form video, infinite scroll, it does seem
47:42
like things are getting more airy.
47:44
Like things are more, you know, hard, hard to stay grounded
47:47
or hard to focus on one thing.
47:48
Yeah.
47:48
I mean, you may, I have noticed that I talk about A DHD traits,
47:52
and that's the way I, I see it.
47:54
And, uh, there's, it's obviously a subjective debate in the A DHD research
47:58
community, but personally, I think that right now talking about a DHD trait
48:02
is the most scientifically correct way of talking about this, because.
48:06
I'm not a hundred percent convinced that there is such a condition, like a
48:11
monolithic, monolithic, sorry, my French.
48:15
Yeah, yeah.
48:15
Monolithic condition, um, that we could label A DHD, and, uh, the simple fact
48:21
that we had to create subtypes, that we have different ways of diagnosing it.
48:26
And let me say, you're this type and you're not this type.
48:29
It's, uh, you know, it makes more sense for me that there are a collection
48:33
of traits that are associated with what we call A DHD today.
48:36
And that can be exacerbated based on what environment you're in.
48:40
And I do agree, I think that today's environment is exacerbating those traits.
48:45
Um, and then the, the, you know, million dollar question, but which
48:50
I also think might be the case, is that there's probably a bit of
48:53
epigene going on in there as well.
48:55
As I said, from an evolutionary perspective, I think those traits
48:59
might have been very useful.
49:01
In an environment that was information scarce and resource scarce, where you did
49:05
want to have those exploratory behaviors, you almost wanted to be more distracted.
49:10
Right.
49:11
Because you wanted people where if you hear something moving in the
49:15
bushes, they would go, what's going on?
49:17
And tell everybody, Hey look, look, look, something's going happening here.
49:21
You wanted that in today's environment, not so useful.
49:26
So it's 'cause it's everywhere.
49:28
Exactly.
49:29
It's the opposite of information and uh, uh, resource scarce.
49:33
Exactly.
49:34
Yeah.
49:34
Yes.
49:35
Um, and I do have a diagram in the paper that I wrote actually that
49:38
is around that the, the amount of resources and information that
49:41
you have in the environment and how that relates to A DHD traits.
49:45
So I obviously wanna caveat this with, this is just a hypothesis
49:51
and I'm still doing the research.
49:52
Yeah.
49:53
Um, but.
49:55
I'm in the camp of researchers that think that those are a collection of
50:00
traits that can be exacerbated depending on which environment you're in versus
50:05
a, the dichotomy that we have sometimes the categorical and medical approach
50:10
to it that just says whether you have a DHG or you don't have a DH adhd.
50:14
Mm-hmm.
50:14
I think it's more complicated than that.
50:15
Right.
50:16
It does seem like for a lot of things there's a DHD and other types of,
50:23
um, things in DSM five or other types of, of, of, uh, diagnoses.
50:28
It, the spectrum view makes more sense, but I could also see how there also can
50:33
be a dilution, um, of people being like, oh, you know, it can, it can kind of
50:37
take away from people with more serious cases, but I think the traits framework
50:41
makes, makes it so it's, it is, it's more linear and you can still, uh,
50:45
make distinctions for people with more.
50:47
Intensity or severity.
50:49
Yeah.
50:49
I think the way my, uh, former PhD supervisor saw it
50:53
is actually kind of helpful.
50:55
What, for her, she felt like, and we don't necessarily agree on everything,
50:59
but she felt like you should get a diagnosis of A DHD for practical reasons,
51:04
if this is actually interfering with your daily life, your work and your studies.
51:08
And so if you might need access to support or medication, then we can use that label.
51:14
That doesn't necessarily mean that this is an actual thing at an ontological
51:18
level when it comes to you have a DG, but for practical reasons of saying
51:23
you need access to medication, you need support, then we'll use that label.
51:29
Yeah.
51:29
It just makes things easier.
51:30
Yeah.
51:30
And that solves for the problem of dilution because you could say, okay, you
51:35
have all of those a D straight, you have the spectrum and past a certain threshold.
51:40
That's when I. You get access to medication and that's based really on
51:45
just the quality of your experience and how it affects you on a day-to-day basis.
51:50
Yeah.
51:50
Which requires quite a bit.
51:51
It is very contextual because I, I could imagine, depending on the environment
51:55
you're in, it may affect one differently, uh, depending on like what you perceive
52:01
as like success or not success or just requires some self-awareness to be
52:06
understanding of like where, where it's, I guess, and this is why there is a little
52:10
bit of research showing that you tend to find, um, more, I can't remember exactly
52:16
what can, was it like a correlation?
52:18
I can't remember the design.
52:19
Mm-hmm.
52:20
But basically there was some sort of association between A
52:22
DHD traits and entrepreneurship.
52:24
Anne-Laure: Mm. Yeah.
52:25
Pranab: And again, I think it was just correlational.
52:30
'cause it was a pretty small study, but the, the, what I, I think is that.
52:37
People who have a DHD might maybe tend to seek the kind of careers where
52:43
they have a little bit more freedom in terms of how they design their
52:46
work, how in terms of their schedule, in terms of managing their tasks.
52:52
And so because of that, you see people, more entrepreneurs who have
52:56
those A DHD traits, and in those cases, a lot of them might not even
53:00
need medication anymore because they have designed their environment in
53:04
a way where it's actually completely okay for them to have these traits.
53:08
Yeah.
53:09
I'm curious, what does, uh, mindful productivity look like with A
53:13
DHD traits or just in general?
53:15
Mm-hmm.
53:15
So I find that a thing that I've been really into the last couple
53:17
years is just seeing the role of emotions within our productivity,
53:20
especially with knowledge work.
53:22
Like I think that's something that is just so underplayed and under, uh, appreciated.
53:27
Um, and I know you write about that in your book, so curious
53:30
your, your view on that.
53:32
Yeah, a lot of people think that mindfulness and productivity are
53:34
two completely opposite concepts and that they can't work together.
53:38
But if you go back to the definition of mindfulness, which is really about
53:43
paying attention in a non-judgmental way, and you apply this to productivity,
53:48
you get mindful productivity.
53:49
It's really about paying attention to your internal states, paying attention to
53:54
your emotions, paying attention to your context, your environment, the different
53:59
sources of pressure, the different commitments, and making decisions in
54:03
terms of your work and how you direct your attention in a very intentional way.
54:07
That is, that's what man productivity is, and so it, whether you're
54:12
neurodivergent or neurotypical, those kind of principles are the same.
54:18
And, um.
54:20
There's the, so paying attention part that can take a lot of
54:23
different shapes depending on what is more comfortable for you.
54:27
Personally, I'm a big fan of journaling.
54:29
Anne-Laure: Yeah.
54:30
Pranab: So I journal every morning, but other people might just want to do
54:34
a weekly review, that's fine as well.
54:36
But just making sure that you have space throughout the week to
54:39
check in with yourself and, uh, and say, okay, what's working?
54:43
What's not working?
54:44
What do I wanna tweak or change or approach differently next week?
54:48
So that's really this kind of paying attention, looking at the
54:53
signals and adjusting accordingly.
54:56
And, uh, the second part of this mindful productivity aspect is also being
55:02
intentional in terms of your outputs and asking yourself, is that really what I
55:07
should be working on in the first place?
55:09
Does that actually make sense?
55:10
I might the right person to do it, maybe someone else should do this.
55:13
Maybe I can delegate it.
55:14
The beautiful thing today is that.
55:16
It used to be that when you said, maybe I can dedicate it, it would
55:19
have to be to another human being, but now you can dedicate it to an ai.
55:23
Huge.
55:23
Yes.
55:24
That really changes everything, right?
55:26
Yeah.
55:26
And you can still be productive, but in a more mindful way where it doesn't
55:30
necessarily mean that you have to work really hard the entire day, as long as the
55:34
right things get done at the right time.
55:36
Exactly.
55:37
Then that's good.
55:38
And I think you wrote a couple, a few years ago, I think you wrote
55:40
an interstitial journaling article.
55:42
Yeah.
55:42
Yeah.
55:42
So that was super useful to me a year ago, um, where basically to get out of
55:46
this really intense phase of burnout.
55:49
Um, well, the main way I got out of it, I was on a meditation retreat
55:52
and I just cried for four days.
55:53
Uh, and that really helped.
55:54
But, uh, after that, I think the way to really integrate that
55:57
experience and to move, um, through the burnout into more energy, I
56:02
basically just journaled every day.
56:03
And I inters and I interstitial journaled every day as I was doing
56:06
my tasks in a way that was kind of inspired by IFS internal family systems.
56:10
Um, but I did that every day for about a month and it really helped.
56:13
And even now, um.
56:15
The thing that I see that's really helpful is basically
56:19
just increasing metacognition.
56:21
And I think the thing for me that is a blocker for that, or the times
56:25
where it's hard where I just stop doing weekly reviews and stop doing
56:28
all this other stuff that's helpful.
56:30
It's just stress it, I'll just feel too overly stressed or overwhelmed or
56:35
nervous system, a little dysregulated and I just want to push it away and
56:38
just kind of, you know, numb out.
56:40
Um, but when I can kind of move through that and keep at least a
56:44
little bit of metacognition, then I think the coolest thing now is AI can
56:48
just like 10 x your metacognition.
56:50
So if you just have enough that you can use AI to leverage, it can just like
56:53
multiply and just keep things moving.
56:56
Yes.
56:56
No, absolutely.
56:57
I, uh, I literally used that this morning.
57:00
Uh, I was sitting at my desk and I was supposed to work on something
57:04
before coming and meeting you and, uh, I was just procrastinating so much
57:08
and scrolling on my phone instead.
57:11
And I pulled my journal out and I wrote literally five lines and just being Okay.
57:15
Procrastinating, what's going on?
57:17
Yeah.
57:17
Oh, I'm stressed because I don't really know how to approach these things.
57:20
Yeah.
57:21
And, uh, not quite sure I'm qualified for, I don't know why they want me to do this.
57:25
And just writing about it and then I managed to start working
57:29
on it before coming here instead of just staying like this.
57:33
So, as you said, just having a metacognitive practice that can help you
57:37
move through this is incredibly helpful.
57:40
And just in general, accepting those feelings of the stuckness, this
57:46
is actually a signal also mm-hmm.
57:47
That you can work with.
57:48
Mm-hmm.
57:49
Yeah, it's like, uh, I was recently doing gratitude on emotions I
57:53
wouldn't normally feel gratitude on.
57:54
And, uh, I think what came up for me is I feel gratitude for
57:57
the stuckness for showing me.
58:00
There's something I want to address.
58:01
You know what I mean?
58:02
Yes.
58:02
And it's just like such a weird reframe that I'm like, I can
58:05
be thankful for the resistance.
58:07
I can be thankful for the stuckness.
58:09
It's just, I, it's, it's been a cool part of the practice for me.
58:13
Yeah.
58:13
Um, it's very applicable too.
58:14
It's like super practical.
58:15
Anne-Laure: Mm-hmm.
58:16
Pranab: Where now it's just like, oh, every time I'm on my phone and scrolling
58:20
for more than like a couple minutes.
58:21
And I don't want to be, that's actually just a mini cope or a mini numbing
58:25
to like push out an emotion and that I've never thought of that before.
58:29
You know, like realizing that all of these are just responses for emotional emo
58:34
emotional overwhelm, or it doesn't have to always be overwhelming, but some kind of.
58:38
Internal avoidance or something.
58:39
Yeah.
58:40
And the more you pay attention to them, the more you can create
58:42
those mini, like if then Yeah.
58:44
Processes.
58:46
Uh, yeah.
58:46
For me it's scrolling and it's, uh, eating sugar.
58:49
Mm-hmm.
58:49
Uh, so yeah, so those are my, my two main copes.
58:53
And I can be, if I'm reaching for chocolate, for whatever, and if
58:58
I'm scrolling, then I will grab my journal and I will write a
59:01
few lines and see what happens.
59:03
And so the, the more you notice, the more you can use this muscle same and you build
59:08
it and it becomes a lot easier and you stay stuck for a lot less longer also.
59:13
Yeah.
59:13
When you do that.
59:14
Yeah.
59:14
I think I've had this schema internally where it was like I would walk
59:17
past a cookie shop, uh, and just be like, oh, I should get a cookie.
59:20
Uh, and it was interesting, like, where's that coming from?
59:22
And it's, it's, this has been a thing that I've been working on for
59:24
years and it's actually, I mean, it's really improved quite a bit.
59:27
Um, there are a lot of different angles and it's such a, such a banal
59:31
kind of like, not a big deal answer, but I think it actually represents
59:33
how all this stuff kind of works.
59:36
Where maybe when I was a kid, I like used baked goods as a way to
59:39
kind of cope and, and self-soothe.
59:41
And it was also just fun.
59:42
Um, and then over time that that response kind of happens.
59:46
So then, you know, space between stimulus and response, just noticing
59:49
really helps, um, gratitude towards the feeling can really help.
59:54
Um, creating different cues.
59:56
There's all the atomic habit stuff of like cues and, and all that.
59:59
And then there's kind of really going into it, and sometimes even
1:00:01
in like a therapy session, I like went through all the memories of
1:00:04
when baked goods were there for me throughout the years and just cried.
1:00:08
It was just like, oh, cool.
1:00:10
And at the end I just felt less, uh, hooked into the, the
1:00:13
grips of that conditioning.
1:00:15
Yeah.
1:00:15
Which is really interesting.
1:00:16
So, yeah.
1:00:16
And I think this applies to like work stuff and just a bunch of
1:00:19
things that kind of connects back to what we were talking about earlier.
1:00:23
Also, the fact that you had access to a safe space to
1:00:26
actually go through the memories.
1:00:27
Yeah.
1:00:27
And untangle them.
1:00:29
Understand them.
1:00:30
Accept them, process them.
1:00:32
And then move past them.
1:00:34
Anne-Laure: Yeah.
1:00:35
Pranab: Which I think is also very important.
1:00:37
That's also why I love having a meta cognitive practice.
1:00:40
Again, in my case, it's journaling, but a lot of people have
1:00:43
different ways of doing this.
1:00:44
Uh, know people who have, for example, just a weekly check-in with a friend.
1:00:47
Mm-hmm.
1:00:47
Because they're not really into writing.
1:00:49
And so there are lots of ways of doing this.
1:00:51
But what's great when you do that is that you can also start
1:00:54
noticing repeating patterns.
1:00:56
So it's fine if you notice, okay, I'm reaching out for a big good
1:01:01
or a scrolling, then I write about it, I process it and fine.
1:01:05
Right.
1:01:06
But if you notice that it's been four or 5, 6, 7 times that you're doing this, then
1:01:10
it might be worth asking yourself, okay, do I need, um, a, like a better, safer.
1:01:17
Uh, dedicated container for me to process whatever is going on there.
1:01:21
Right.
1:01:21
And in your case it was therapy, but for a lot of other people sharing circles, like
1:01:25
there are lots of different modalities that psychedelics that you can work with
1:01:29
and, um, and just noticing the pattern and deciding, because now that you've noticed,
1:01:36
deciding to actually figure out what's going on and untangle what's going on.
1:01:40
Yeah.
1:01:40
I think the, the unit or the fundamental mechanism is just
1:01:43
noticing more observations.
1:01:45
The more noticings you notice a few of the same things over
1:01:47
time and you get the insight.
1:01:49
Mm-hmm.
1:01:49
You know, the insight, you can do something about it.
1:01:50
Yeah.
1:01:51
Um, yeah.
1:01:52
That's really cool.
1:01:53
Nice.
1:01:54
I think we're almost at time, uh, totally could talk for a couple
1:01:56
more hours, but this is super fun.
1:01:59
Thank you so much for having me.
1:02:00
This was amazing.
1:02:01
Could you tell us more about your book?
1:02:02
Yeah.
1:02:03
The book is called Tiny Experiments and it's about how to live a more experimental
1:02:07
life and it contains a lot of the ideas that we just talked about today.
1:02:10
So you can order it now.
1:02:12
It's available on Amazon and really anywhere books are sold.
1:02:15
Awesome.
1:02:16
Thank you.
1:02:17
Thank you.
1:02:17
Oh, and where can people find you online?
1:02:19
Yeah.
1:02:19
Yeah.
1:02:21
I write a weekly newsletter@Nesslabs.com.
1:02:24
I send it every Thursday.
1:02:25
So just go there, enter your email address and you'll hear from me.
1:02:28
Awesome.
1:02:28
Thank you.
1:02:29
Thank you.