Latest / Attention Copilot with Pranab / Scott Britton: Conscious Accomplishment and Using Work to Deepen Your Growth

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Scott Britton: Conscious Accomplishment and Using Work to Deepen Your Growth · Attention Copilot with Pranab

0:01
Hey, Scott.
0:03
Pranab, what's up, man? Likewise, brother.
0:04
Good to see you, too. I appreciate you coming on.
0:06
And I think this will be a fun conversation since we've been thinking about a
0:11
lot of similar ideas around work, accomplishment, spiritual practice,
0:14
integrating the two and just what that looks like sort of
0:18
Hmm.
0:19
in the years forward.
0:21
Yeah, I mean,
0:22
it's something that I've basically been obsessed with for almost eight years
0:27
now. And it's a deeply meaningful topic to me.
0:31
Nice. So for people who don't know you, how would you introduce yourself?
0:36
Is this where I'm like, do I say I'm an awareness that's blah, blah, or, you
0:44
know, yeah, no, I think my background has been entrepreneurship
0:50
and probably about almost eight years ago, my consciousness journey really
0:55
kind of flipped on and became central to my life.
1:00
And I think I was faced with this really interesting
1:06
at the time what seemed like a dilemma, which was, okay, so I went all in on
1:12
startups and success and building the perfect life.
1:16
And I saw where that got me.
1:19
And now it seems like this kind of inner work consciousness thing is actually
1:24
a more fundamental path to well-being and fulfillment.
1:28
And so what does going all in on that look like? And I thought that
1:34
you know, like so many of us do, like, okay, do I leave my company that I was
1:40
running? Do I, you know, meditate eight hours a day? Do I take up the robes?
1:46
Like all of these kind of like over-rotations were questions that I was asking
1:51
myself.
1:52
And I was fortunate enough to meet a teacher who was like, no, actually like
1:57
the complexities of your current experience are the perfect arena for your
2:01
consciousness evolution.
2:03
And so I'd say, you know, for the past probably six, seven years, I have been,
2:11
you know, doing all the things, running companies, selling companies, married,
2:17
with a kid, but also deeply immersed in my consciousness and really kind of
2:25
using all of those experiences in service of that. And so
2:31
And that's what this upcoming book that we'll probably get into some of the
2:35
topics is about.
2:36
Because there seems to be this, I know I'm not alone in the experience I
2:40
described of like, there's this compartmentalized view of, okay, we have our
2:44
practices, right? And then we have real life, right?
2:47
And we just go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
2:51
And it's kind of missing the point, in my opinion.
2:54
And so what I found having gone on that kind of oscillation and these
2:59
different like,
3:00
pendulum swings is that there's an integrated way to do it all at once.
3:05
And that for me has created the richest experience, which is why I'm
3:11
passionate about sharing it.
3:13
That's awesome.
3:14
As you say that I just feel lit up because that's sort of exactly what I'm
3:19
thinking about these days a lot too, with the Attention Copilot sort of going
3:24
into that concept of the pendulum swing, which we'll talk about in a minute
3:29
and thinking about how that doesn't have to be so intense.
3:33
I think for me, eight years ago, I was still in college and the thing that I
3:39
saw in a similar way was all these people.
3:43
sort of on that same journey: they got really successful and exited their
3:46
companies or just did really well.
3:47
And then we're like, I wish I didn't work so hard and they meditated and now
3:51
I'm really happy. But I'm like, well, you're happy and you're rich.
3:54
I'm still a kid. How do I, what do I do? You know, what does that
3:58
Yeah.
3:59
mean for me?
4:00
And sort of navigating that struggle of like, wait, so does that mean you have
4:03
to do this path? What would it look like to do both at the same time?
4:07
That's sort of been a question I've had for years, and it's been cool as I've
4:11
sort of unfolded my own journey.
4:13
of working through stuff and learning from people like you and from other
4:17
people around our spheres.
4:18
And yeah, I think there's a lot we could talk about.
4:22
Yeah, I think there's this idea. I mean, this is the idea that I had.
4:26
I was like, okay, enlightenment, I've heard of that.
4:29
I will pursue that when I'm rich.
4:31
Like I will, I need to like take care of my worldly, like everything that I
4:36
want.
4:36
And then like, on the back end of life, like I'll try to go for that maybe.
4:41
And that's actually what's funny is like that is actually in certain cultures,
4:45
like how it's done, right? There's like,
4:48
I don't know if it's a particular tradition, but I know in like certain Indian
4:52
cultures, it's like the last 20 years of someone's life, they like leave their
4:57
families and they like just like focus on their enlightenment.
5:00
And so like that was my game plan, right?
5:03
And you know, I do believe in a notion of karma and kind of a destiny of a
5:08
soul and an intention of the experience.
5:11
And for whatever reason, like that wasn't the plan for me.
5:14
Like I was kind of dragged.
5:17
kicking and screaming onto this path.
5:19
And I'm now so grateful that I have been.
5:23
Yeah, there's sort of an interesting question. Where do our wants come from?
5:26
And that's a whole other thing. I have no idea. Who knows?
5:29
And there's sort of this thing, but it does seem true that especially these
5:33
days, more and more people are coming to this sort of thing much earlier in
5:37
life, where traditionally, I think, yeah, in the yoga traditions and some of
5:41
the yoga traditions, it's sort of this like, you know, education and then
5:44
build your career, have a family and then spiritual path.
5:47
And we sort of don't really have the affordance for that now where it's sort
5:51
of everything all at once.
5:53
due to the complexity of the world and all the craziness and all that.
5:56
But yeah, I've been really enjoying, I think there are a few things that I'd
6:01
love for the audience to pick up on: your podcast where you just talk to
6:05
people about these things.
6:06
I've just met so many interesting people through that.
6:09
You started a business recently, which we can bookmark this for later.
6:12
And your book, Conscious Accomplishment.
6:14
So yeah, really appreciate the work you're doing and the explorations you're
6:18
diving into in this space. Yeah.
6:20
Thanks, man. You know,
6:22
just to share something, like I had a vision.
6:25
I would just share that when I got on this path, I remember, you know, I was
6:30
probably 30 and I had been meditating for six years up to that point, but it
6:36
had been a very like, okay, 20 minute checklist item, you know, get on with my
6:41
day.
6:42
And I remember when I really got serious about this, I was like, you know, I'm
6:47
gonna connect like,
6:49
What would it be like? First off, no one looks like me.
6:54
I'm like a 30-year-old ex-college-football-player bro.
6:57
Everyone is just like old Indian dudes and gray-haired white guys talking
7:03
about this stuff. What would it be like to actually connect this to business?
7:10
And the irony of that, and I kind of had this concept, right?
7:16
And the irony is, like,
7:19
I literally am doing that with my new business, which is like funny.
7:24
It's a, the new business is called Conscious Talent.
7:27
It's a recruiting company that kind of pairs companies and individuals who are
7:32
on a conscious path.
7:34
But yeah, man, I think this is the future, and it's also so needed right now.
7:40
It's so needed. Like there's so many people that are
7:45
Like this compartmentalized way of living just does not seem to be working for
7:49
people as evidenced by, you know, just the mental health crisis.
7:52
And there's lots of other reasons for that, right?
7:55
But I just think like whatever we have been doing has like not been working.
7:59
And I think this type of approach is very fitting for a certain segment of the
8:04
population.
8:05
Yeah, I think there are, in my mind, there are two or three sort of trends
8:10
that have made this seem really obvious to me or much more obvious.
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One is not really a trend, but I think the rise of Silicon Valley coaches,
8:19
like within the Bay Area scene, there's all these coaches on performance and
8:23
execution.
8:24
And I think the best coaches like Joe Hudson with Art of Accomplishment, Jim
8:29
Dethmer, Conscious Leadership Group, there are definitely a couple others that
8:32
are slipping my mind right now.
8:35
But a lot of them in my mind sort of come from this place of sort of getting
8:38
in touch with your inner self, your true self,
8:40
Yep.
8:41
self-realization, self-unfolding as applied to emotions, relationships and
8:43
work. And it's very clear that it works at least from the social proof of
8:48
high-functioning executives paying for this and having this be a sustainable
8:51
industry.
8:52
And it's been really cool to sort of have a little taste of all that stuff, at
8:57
least the little that I have, where it all does sort of seem like it's coming
9:02
from the same foundation of almost
9:05
how I would describe as like the stuff that Tibetan Buddhism talks about plus
9:08
like parts work and IFS and things like that.
9:10
And it's cool to see like that just sort of is happening.
9:14
So it's clear that, well, if it works for the best, why wouldn't it work for
9:18
everyone else?
9:19
Yeah,
9:21
I think it's like we're at an interesting intersection in time right now where
9:26
these guys are basically all coding ancient spiritual concepts in business
9:31
language and making that accessible.
9:33
But at the same time, there's this like lack of overt admission that like
9:39
we're doing spiritual stuff. And,
9:42
Mmm, yeah.
9:45
you know, I think there's benefits to that. But I also think
9:49
part of me wishes like, hey, can we just acknowledge that you're talking about
9:54
like an eternal self? Can we just acknowledge that you're talking about God?
9:59
Can we just acknowledge like all of these things?
10:03
And I respect those guys and their kind of desire to make it accessible by
10:09
coding it, completely agree.
10:11
Like, you know, I think there's been performance coaches and now there's more
10:17
and more developmental coaches.
10:19
who basically, you know, acknowledge there's a continuum of human experience.
10:22
We go on an evolution, we develop and we can evolve what our experience is
10:27
like and that's the essence of the consciousness journey.
10:31
And a lot of coaches are starting to focus more on the developmental stuff.
10:36
100%. Yeah.
10:36
And to the point of just actually making what's actually happening explicit, a
10:40
couple of things that helped with that.
10:41
I think, honestly, COVID and lockdowns sort of dropped the veil of sort of
10:45
separation between work and personal life in a lot of ways.
10:48
Like everyone was at home, people were on the internet a lot more, people
10:51
talked about their experience. And it's sort of, I think that did two things.
10:54
One, dropped the distinction between work and personal quite a bit more.
10:57
So a lot
10:59
Yep
10:59
of it kind of bled over. And you-
11:01
And you could kind of see that it was always the case.
11:03
Like it was always that fact that you show up to work and work influences your
11:07
personal life, but that just made it really obvious.
11:09
And everyone was talking about it, TikTok, more people on the internet, more
11:12
people on Twitter, and just you realize how common and universal of an
11:15
experience that is.
11:16
So I think now in these sort of post-lockdown, the last few years era, people
11:20
just, I think, have a lot of appetite to just, let's just say what it is.
11:24
Let's just talk about it. Let's just see what's actually happening. Yeah.
11:27
Dude, 100%, man, 100%.
11:29
And that was part of the reason why I was like, with my book, the subtitle is
11:34
How to Use Personal Achievement for Spiritual Growth, because part of me
11:37
wanted to just be like, hey, can we just fucking own this?
11:41
You know, can we just like stop dancing around the like elephant in the room
11:45
and just like call some of this stuff what it is.
11:49
It's like it is, you know, it is what the ancients talked about.
11:53
It is what the masters talked about and
11:56
I personally, coming from a lineage that's very, I would say, metaphysical,
12:00
right?
12:01
Like, I just tend to gravitate towards people that are like, no, yeah, you can
12:07
understand natural laws of the universe.
12:10
Like, we are living in [unclear] and maybe even an energetic field.
12:15
Like, you know, I just actually want to just kind of get to the
12:21
straightforward fundamentals, like
12:23
you know, what is it that we're actually talking about?
12:25
And so for me, the overtness is actually something I'm attracted to.
12:29
Yeah, yeah, super cool. Nice. Yeah, I think there'll be an interesting...
12:37
I'm not sure what the word is, but there'll be an interesting sort of thing to
12:40
look at over the next few years because it's very clear that more and more
12:43
people are into this and then some choose to be more overt, some choose to be
12:47
less overt, but it's sort of like no matter what, it's just growing, which is
12:50
really interesting and super cool.
12:52
I'm interested to see what happens with a lot of these like creators who are
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going to go on this path inevitably or are already on it and they've kind of
13:04
like shied away from it or haven't embraced it.
13:07
And then like, is everyone going to have like, okay, I'm actually going to
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start talking about this stuff now because this is what really matters.
13:17
Tim Ferriss kind of went through that a little bit.
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He's an example.
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But I just suspect like, all these people with audiences are going to go on
13:28
this journey and then have to have a confronting situation of like, how do I
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talk about this stuff?
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Is this actually where my heart is and where I start talking about it?
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You know, what will that do for the population?
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I think it will be very positive.
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For sure, for sure.
13:46
Yeah, I mean, I can attribute a lot of my own growth to watching people on the
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internet from a younger age go through and talk about this stuff. Yeah.
13:56
And that sort of gets into a topic that I want to dive deeper into on the
14:01
pendulum.
14:02
How would you describe the pendulum swing, and how do you think that could be
14:07
better over time?
14:09
Yeah,
14:09
so I think a fundamental concept with the pendulum swing is a perspective that
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I call the outside-in paradigm, which is essentially a set of beliefs that the
14:22
problems and solutions to your life exist outside of yourself.
14:26
And so when you hold this concept, basically, you're in achievement mode.
14:31
You're in trying to shape the world mode where, okay, I'm gonna have the
14:38
excellent job, I'm going to have the partner, I'm going to have the money,
14:42
like I'm going to have all these things and doing those things is going to
14:47
make me feel better. And it's going to create meaning and fulfillment.
14:51
And at some point in that quest, you just realize the hollowness and that
14:56
ultimately, like all those things do is create a very temporary state of
15:00
feeling good and then you just kind of feel the same.
15:04
Like it doesn't fundamentally change.
15:06
your experience in a more permanent way.
15:08
And so when you have that recognition, and you start to touch some of this
15:14
inner work consciousness stuff, you just realize that there's a more direct
15:19
way to work on your experience and how you feel.
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And for many very like ambitious people, and people that were very fixated on
15:29
that external orientation, there's a tendency to kind of go all in on the
15:34
other direction.
15:36
And so that's the pendulum swinging from the external fixation to the internal
15:40
fixation.
15:40
And you just, I mean, I went through my own experience of this and you see it
15:46
where it's like, people are obsessed with healing.
15:48
You know, they're constantly doing all the work and all they want to talk
15:53
about is the work and like, you know, all that stuff that they used to do in
15:58
terms of like hustling and achieving and accomplishment, that's like less
16:01
spiritual and that's bad. And you know, it's, it's, there's a polarized view.
16:06
between like the new way of being and the old way of being.
16:11
And I think this is almost like something that people have to go through until
16:18
they have instruction on how to not have it be so polarized and so radical.
16:24
And so that's the pendulum swing.
16:27
And ultimately where I netted out and what a lot of my journey was, how do I
16:34
hold both?
16:36
Right?
16:36
How do I do both at the same time and move that pendulum back to center?
16:42
So there's a harmonious relationship between the external stuff and the
16:47
internal stuff.
16:48
Like, I believe like we incarnated into human form, not just to do spiritual
16:53
work, but to experience and enjoy form and to make it better, to contribute.
16:59
Right? That is a big part of this experience. And at the same time, like,
17:05
I know that I came into form for the evolution of consciousness.
17:08
So it's not one or the other, it's both.
17:11
And there is a way to do both at the same time.
17:15
That's awesome.
17:15
Yeah, I was just talking to a founder friend a couple days ago on this sort of
17:19
thing of the arc of, you know, you kind of are doing work and you do work in a
17:23
place that maybe leads to a lot of achievement.
17:26
If you're sort of more, there's sort of this distinction on people who like
17:29
run towards work and run away from work, the more perfectionism versus
17:32
avoidance side. That's a whole other thing.
17:34
But you know, you're sort of doing work in a way that will lead to burnout,
17:37
but maybe you achieve a lot in the way that it feels like that's the only way
17:41
it can be. And then
17:43
People often swing the other way and go full on healing work, full on
17:47
recovery, figuring themselves out.
17:48
And then they sort of return to work, but then how to sort of be in the
17:53
middle, like how to actually integrate those two modes, both in sort of what
17:57
you do and how you do it.
17:59
And like a lot of people think, does that mean I have to go into coaching or
18:04
supporting other people?
18:05
Or they think, maybe that means I have to, maybe I can only go back to the old
18:10
way of doing things.
18:12
but then the echoes of those old scripts come back in.
18:15
And it's sort of interesting how what I'm also seeing—and I'm curious what you
18:19
think, too—is that it's more about how you do something and
18:23
Yes.
18:24
sort of, yeah, and just like the feeling and working through the old patterns
18:27
and sort of the way of being more than exactly what someone does.
18:31
But naturally, if you kind of bring a new way of being to your work, you'll
18:35
also do work that's more interesting to you and for other people.
18:38
And I sort of like this idea of freedom from.
18:41
At first, you're sort of getting freedom from your old patterns, old ways of
18:44
being, you know, societal scripts.
18:46
And then by the end or through the end, you're sort of building a freedom to
18:50
like a freedom to go back into the world, to engage
18:54
Yep.
18:54
with form, to do really cool things.
18:56
Maybe even to do stuff, to do really hard work, right? It's not about
19:00
Yeah.
19:00
not doing hard work. It's about doing hard work in a way that you want to.
19:03
Yeah.
19:04
Yeah,
19:04
I love that. I mean, I think it's like what?
19:08
Yeah, it's like you have the awareness now of the old, essentially why you
19:14
were doing what you were doing before.
19:17
Like, for example, there was recognition for me of, all that ambition, all
19:22
that hustling behind all that was a huge pile of low self-esteem and the
19:27
concept that I was worthless. That's what drove that.
19:31
And so you're kind of set up
19:34
at first with the situation of like, okay, so is hustling bad?
19:39
Am I just reinforcing that part of myself that doesn't believe that I'm
19:44
enough?
19:45
And that makes you, it kind of almost makes it difficult to do what you used
19:51
to do.
19:53
And I certainly experienced that, but the key tool and concept here is that as
19:59
you reenter these familiar scenarios, the work is noticing the resistance.
20:04
Right? It is essentially a direct through line to whatever is left in your
20:09
subconscious that is preventing you from exercising total freedom.
20:13
And I'll give you a perfect example.
20:16
Like, you know, I remember when I was selling my company, like I was selling
20:22
my company, I told some people about it.
20:25
And then all of a sudden, like I was just around all these people that just
20:32
like
20:33
wanted to—all they wanted to do is talk about business every time I saw them
20:37
and I was on the spiritual path.
20:40
And I was like, man, like, all these guys want to do is talk about business.
20:45
I used to be like that, but I'm not like that anymore.
20:49
Like this is out of alignment, blah, blah, blah.
20:52
And there would be immense resistance in these conversations.
20:55
And so, like, paradoxically, I actually had very little freedom to enjoy
20:59
talking about business.
21:01
which is something I once enjoyed.
21:03
And eventually, like the main practice is like using your reactions and having
21:07
meta-awareness to see how you're relating to the situation.
21:10
And when I went into that, you know, I realized that, yeah, I didn't want to
21:16
talk about business because I felt ashamed.
21:18
I felt ashamed that we hadn't sold the company yet, even though I had told a
21:23
bunch of friends that I thought a deal was going to go through.
21:28
And so my consciousness had devised a very brilliant strategy of
21:32
making me think that I didn't want to talk about business anymore because that
21:35
was out of alignment.
21:36
And so as someone goes kind of that kind of getting back to center point, it's
21:40
not to run away from the old, it's actually to face it head on and then to
21:45
face every single thing that comes up along the way so that you can experience
21:49
true freedom.
21:49
So that you can be a deeply spiritual person and be like, yeah, let's talk
21:53
about making a shitload of money or let's actually talk about the nature of
21:57
life. And it doesn't really matter because no matter what, I am all good.
22:01
And that is real freedom.
22:03
And so this concept that I'm so passionate about is like, yes, like your old
22:09
ways, business, achievement, accomplishment, like this is a crucible for you
22:13
to achieve that freedom.
22:15
You just have to start to relate to it the right way and start to notice how
22:22
you're reacting to everything.
22:24
Totally, totally. That's awesome. Yeah.
22:25
A few of the things that jump out to me around meta-awareness, choice,
22:30
decision-making, seeing kind of what you can do.
22:33
I'm going to do a screen share. Can you see that? Yeah.
22:37
Yep. Yeah. I love this image.
22:40
Yes. I got this from your book and it's awesome because it sort of just gets
22:43
exactly at this.
22:45
Like we often think there's just, you know, it's a guy and there's a cone and
22:49
you know,
22:50
total choice spectrum is this whole thing, but we only kind of see this
22:54
perceived optimal choice, which is a much, much narrower band.
22:57
There are all these unconscious options that we don't see because of these
23:00
assumptions and limiting beliefs and all these things that we think sort of
23:04
block us from doing things.
23:06
And it's been really cool to see sort of in real time.
23:10
So this can happen on like a small scale in the course of seconds or in the
23:14
course of like hours, days or months and years of.
23:18
You know, over the years, things like, I could never do that thing in life.
23:21
I could never be that kind of person or do those things.
23:25
And on the small scale, which is a lot of what I see in my work with Attention
23:29
Copilot, someone will sort of be thinking about a task for work and sort of
23:33
looking at it in a super narrow way.
23:36
And I'll just sort of do a breather with them.
23:39
We sort of expand out and just naturally within five, 10 seconds, the right
23:42
answer comes in.
23:44
Simply from being in a little bit more spaciousness and connecting to a more
23:47
holistic self. Intuition just sort of works immediately.
23:50
Like, why was I missing that?
23:52
And, you know, and it's because there's all these sort of constructs and this
23:56
and that sort of almost creates an invisible force field, right? And you just—
24:00
100%. You're living in a box.
24:03
Exactly.
24:03
It's just a little box of perception that we don't even see the options
24:07
available.
24:07
And I think it's funny because even like modern, even like psychology sort of
24:11
gets at this, like with black-and-white thinking
24:13
Even like cognitive behavioral therapy sort of gets at it, but they don't
24:16
really talk about the root of what it actually is and like,
24:19
Mm-hmm.
24:20
how does it actually work?
24:21
And it's these really sort of, you know, these schemas or beliefs or
24:24
something.
24:25
There's different ways to talk about it too, but yeah, it's super cool to hear
24:28
you talk about that.
24:30
Yeah, I mean, it's why I'm obsessed with the consciousness stuff, because it's
24:34
like the traditional approach to this is the and this is the flip side of I
24:39
think a big question that is not really well documented is like, what is the
24:44
how of how working on your consciousness actually creates more capacity to
24:48
create whatever it is that you want in the world?
24:51
Like that just there's, it's a very
24:54
big question and it's not well documented in a lot of the spiritual texts
24:59
because many of them actually just say, no, no.
25:02
The only thing that matters is enlightenment.
25:05
And the way that I relate to it is like, you know, the expansion of the
25:11
intellect, which is how many people focus on improving capacity through
25:15
reading books and podcasts and, you know, getting mentors and accruing
25:20
experiences. That's like becoming a better navigator of your box.
25:24
It's like if you have like a go-kart that you can drive around this little box
25:28
and it's like you're going faster in your little box, right?
25:32
And the consciousness work is like expanding the box outwards, right?
25:35
It's creating a new box.
25:37
And that's like a metaphor that I love is like you can become a better chess
25:42
player or you can zoom out and see all the games available in the game room
25:47
and decide what you want to play and learn how they work.
25:50
And that to me is just like a much more
25:54
interesting way of creating results than the former way.
25:57
But again, back to the polarized thinking, which tends to creep in with these,
26:02
it's actually not one or the other, it's both.
26:06
But there is always going to be a fundamental constraint when you don't work
26:11
on the awareness.
26:13
100%.
26:13
And I think the cool thing about all of what you said is it works great as a
26:17
metaphor and it's almost literal.
26:19
Like let's say you're really stressed, right?
26:21
And you're super stressed and you can feel the pressure of stress in your
26:24
head.
26:25
And then it sort of feels like the walls are sort of caved in, in almost a
26:29
literal way. Like there's pressure on the sides of your face.
26:32
You're sort of zoomed in on a laptop and you're like, ah, what do I do?
26:36
There's all the cortisol pumping in.
26:37
Your working memory is like filled with this one topic.
26:40
When someone has that same situation, but has practice with
26:43
you know, expanding awareness practices or any inner contemplative tradition,
26:45
you can sort of just sit, rest, and almost do the thing of relaxing the
26:50
boundaries of your perception or almost expand outwards or dissolve the
26:53
boundaries.
26:53
There's all these different ways to talk about it, but it literally feels like
26:57
the room you're in gets bigger. So
27:00
That's right.
27:01
Even if there's an elephant—it's like the elephant is in a tiny little New
27:05
York style apartment versus like a giant, you know,
27:08
King Ranch thing in Texas. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's like the
27:10
Yeah, yeah.
27:11
space is much bigger.
27:12
It's like it can be the same elephant, but there's just a lot more space.
27:17
And with that space, you're sort of just, yeah, it's not a big deal, you know?
27:23
And it's quite literally almost just increasing capacity for stress,
27:27
increasing capacity for distress, intensity, and that just clearly helps
27:30
people, you know? And I, yeah.
27:33
But it's
27:34
much more than, because I think a trap for a lot of people is, oh, well, how
27:40
does consciousness help me be a better performer?
27:43
And they're like, well, if I'm less stressed and I'm less easily agitated,
27:47
then I'll do better at my job.
27:50
And that's just like a very shallow fractional view of the how.
27:55
And yeah, so I wanna make sure to call that out because it is that, but it's
28:01
also so much more.
28:03
Yep, I sort of like that as almost a way in to be like, yeah, everyone knows
28:07
this part works.
28:08
So kind of curious how, so like that does happen and it's like less stress,
28:12
better performance, you know, MBSR, all that stuff, right?
28:14
And it is much deeper than that.
28:17
And how would you say it goes even deeper than that?
28:20
Well, I think, you know, it comes down to what is awareness really.
28:24
And for me, the definition of that is the capacity to see truth.
28:28
And so I think that we live in a base reality or a fundamental reality of
28:34
which at any given time we can see a portion of.
28:37
And so back to some of the examples that we discussed, like, you know, with my
28:43
ambition, it was like, I'm ambitious because it feels good to grow, right? And
28:48
And that was my perspective, but in reality, in a bigger reality, there was
28:52
actually a subconscious set of beliefs and patterns around low self-esteem
28:56
that was creating that experience. And you can do this with everything, right?
29:01
It's like, I think about like most materialists who are like, we live in a
29:06
world of form and that's all there is, right?
29:09
And then there's like all this science coming out that shows that actually
29:13
there's like,
29:15
a world of vibration and energy that is unseen. That's just how it is.
29:21
And so as you go on this journey, you start to increase your capacity to see a
29:28
greater portion of truth, of true reality.
29:32
And as that happens, you begin to align your life and actions to that
29:38
understanding.
29:39
And I believe that there are fundamental properties and laws of reality.
29:45
There's like just the way things work.
29:47
And you start to tune into not only how are you relating to all of that, but
29:54
also what those laws are and begin to align your life to them.
29:59
And in my experience and the experience of many others and even great texts
30:04
like, you know, the Tao Te Ching, things go better when you do that, right?
30:10
Because you're aligning to the actual natural order.
30:14
And so that, for me, is the crux of it is like aligning to the true way of
30:20
things.
30:21
And a huge part of that is seeing all the ways that you show up and why you
30:28
do, because I think what we're here to do, like my belief is that we are here
30:35
to go on this journey.
30:37
We're here to grow and expand ultimately discover ourselves and life needs to
30:42
kind of
30:44
show us that path.
30:46
Like we're constantly receiving a reflection of that in service of that
30:51
journey and in service of the whole.
30:55
So it actually becomes really like I almost think of it as a higher organizing
31:02
principle of your life is your consciousness journey.
31:06
And you can play that game directly, you know, and what I've noticed is like,
31:13
life has these things that it wants to teach you about yourself and
31:17
communicate to you.
31:18
Once you understand receive the message and in many ways, in many instances do
31:23
healing, you don't have to keep seeing that thing.
31:26
And like, if you don't do that, if you don't work on the awareness to become
31:31
aware of that, then you just keep having—it's like playing something on
31:35
repeat, right? You have to keep going through that experience.
31:39
And so like, that phenomenon
31:41
I think is like very important and becomes very important in creating results
31:46
in your life as you go deeper on the journey.
31:50
For sure, for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. It's kind of interesting.
31:53
Sort of, as an example of this, I sort of initially wanted to now move into
31:58
thinking about organizations and how this applies in groups and cultures.
32:02
But I think the thing that's coming up for me now is sort of on that topic, I
32:07
think I might have a little bit of pushback or disagreement, which feels
32:11
uncomfortable, too.
32:13
I'd love to hear it.
32:15
Yeah.
32:16
sometimes when two people sort of both feel like they're coming from truth or
32:20
sort of aligning with like absolute truth, there kind of can be this he said,
32:25
she said thing, or it's like, oh, if they're in disagreement, how does one
32:30
sort of discern which opinion to go with?
32:33
And I think sometimes if you have two people who are both like on this path
32:39
and on this journey, but then in disagreement,
32:42
it can become a question of who's right.
32:45
How do you know who's right and wrong?
32:48
And you can sort of devolve into more tribal dynamics or sort of like ego
32:53
games. Curious if you've seen that.
32:55
And in my mind, I think that almost pushes to go more for like the rationalist
33:01
or brainy thing, even from this place.
33:04
You're always only seeing a portion of truth.
33:07
And one of the understandings that comes up as you do that is that there's the
33:14
recognition that you are an expression of what you've been exposed to.
33:19
And so when I evaluate people's beliefs and concepts, my truth is that those
33:25
people are just sharing what they've been exposed to.
33:30
And that leaves room for all people and all beliefs.
33:34
And so, you know, it's kind of like why spiritual teachers say, the more you
33:41
know, the less you know.
33:44
And so I think the idea that there is like fundamental truths also needs to
33:51
accommodate relative truths that are highly subjective.
33:55
But I think that if you just take the opposite
34:00
approach and be like, well, everybody's just having their own relative
34:03
experience, it wouldn't accommodate for these kind of governing principles
34:07
that seem to be at work, right?
34:10
And you seem to become more aware of as your awareness expands that also
34:15
mirror a lot of the ancient teachings.
34:18
There are absolute truths and there sort of always has to be this relative
34:21
humility to being like, and I don't know them all the way and recognition that
34:26
it's not just this purely relative thing.
34:28
It's like, there are probably people who are more in line with that and more
34:32
in touch with it than others. And there's a way to sort of work with that.
34:36
Yeah, good stuff.
34:38
Yeah,
34:39
yeah, yeah.
34:40
And it's like, you know, I think it's like if you have this big truth map,
34:46
right?
34:46
Like, what's interesting is like, and, in the example I like, a spotlight,
34:51
right? Where it's like, your spotlight is, you know, a certain radius, right?
34:56
And you can meet somebody that has a similar size spotlight as you, but it
35:02
could just be pointed at a different portion of the map. And so,
35:07
You know, I think like the people that I respect are on this path, like they
35:12
have a point of view that's grounded in their direct experience, but they hold
35:17
it very lightly, especially in relationship to others, because there's a
35:20
recognition that you're only ever seeing a fraction of the whole thing.
35:25
Yep. Nice. That makes sense. Sweet. That feels great. Thanks for indulging me.
35:30
Yeah, dude.
35:31
I'm curious: how do you see this applied to organizations and companies with
35:34
your now new company Conscious Talent? You talk to a lot of people.
35:38
You talk to a lot of founders, a lot of businesses that think about this stuff
35:42
all the time.
35:43
I'm curious what you see happening there organizationally, developmentally.
35:46
Yeah, well, I think, first off, this is still a very nascent thing.
35:50
Just want to acknowledge that.
35:53
I think what I see is, there's a lot of founders who are going on this
35:59
journey. And they're seeing their own transformation and the benefit in a more
36:04
fundamental way, like not just like, I'm feeling less stressed.
36:08
Like, they're like, okay, wow, there's like a lot more going on here than I
36:13
thought. And
36:15
how do I actually start to imbue this as a part of our culture and with my
36:21
people in a way that isn't kind of like, ‘subscribe to my beliefs and
36:26
religion’, right? But like, how do I make this accessible?
36:30
And the reason that we started Conscious Talent, well, there's a lot of
36:35
reasons, but one of them is that it's really hard to enroll people in this
36:40
stuff and kind of get them to see
36:44
just like get them to see the world this way if they're not already there.
36:49
And I think the traditional approach has been, okay, founder goes on, founder
36:53
does Art of Accomplishment or CLG, has a great experience.
36:57
They bring in a trainer to do a session once a month for three months.
37:02
And then they hope that there's a big transformation.
37:05
And I'm not saying that's not useful. It is.
37:09
but it usually doesn't result in kind of like fundamental unlocks for new ways
37:14
of doing things.
37:15
And I think what I've observed and seen is that when you can try to find
37:21
people who are already keyed into this and are already on this path, it just
37:27
opens the aperture of what's possible.
37:29
It just allows you to do things that otherwise would contain a lot of friction
37:35
because people haven't enrolled in like,
37:38
Did I sign up for this?
37:40
Like, I'm glad you're having this transformation, but I just wanted to work at
37:44
this company before you did this.
37:47
So yeah, I think there's a growing appetite in the market of founders who are
37:51
like, Hey, like who else out there is into this?
37:55
That's also really good at their job.
37:57
And that's what we help with at Conscious Talent.
38:00
And I also see there's a growing appetite for concepts like a deliberately
38:05
developmental organization. And the idea there is that
38:08
the business is, again, it's like this like, include and expand concept, or
38:11
it's like, if you take a look at a circle, and you're like, okay, the business
38:16
is about making profit and creating win-wins for stakeholders.
38:19
And then that grows.
38:20
And it's like, okay, the business is about creating win-wins for stakeholders
38:24
and win-wins for the world.
38:26
And then that grows and says, okay, the business is about all of those things.
38:30
And it's about the evolution of our people.
38:32
And specifically their evolution of their consciousness, even though they
38:35
might not use those words. And
38:38
And so I'm seeing a lot of people excited about building into that.
38:43
And I think like, that's very much uncharted territory, like there's a handful
38:48
of companies that have done that well, but you're starting to see, you know,
38:53
signs of it with like companies doing things like hiring an embedded coach,
38:58
where there's a coach now for everybody at the company, or like, everybody
39:04
gets coaching, right? Or
39:06
you know, doing retreats as a company and incorporating more than just like
39:11
strict performance stuff into the work environment.
39:14
And so that's, that's like what I'm very excited about to see what unfolds is
39:21
like, what happens when like, not only are you personally relating to work as
39:27
a crucible for your evolution, but what happens when you're like in a
39:33
container where everyone else is to
39:36
How does that change how you interact?
39:38
How does it change the way you go about doing things?
39:41
And I think it's still early days for that.
39:44
Know, we're kind of, many of us are collectively trying to like figure out
39:49
what that playbook looks like.
39:51
Totally. Yeah, this just lit me up in a bunch of different ways.
39:54
I think the idea of developmental organizations and just sort of how the
39:58
cultures of organizations have changed over time is really interesting.
40:01
Sort of, if you look 200 years ago, many organizations were like mafias where,
40:05
you know, there's like a head boss and everyone's sort of doing stuff for the
40:09
boss.
40:10
And maybe later you sort of get, and there's different versions of that that
40:14
are healthier and worse, then you sort of get military mode and military is
40:18
sort of, you know, top down command control, various levels.
40:21
Anyways, I'm sort of just riffing in my head but I think I need—
40:24
Have you read Reinventing Organizations?
40:26
A little bit.
40:26
I skimmed it a bit and I think that's sort of where I'm getting this from.
40:27
Yeah.
40:28
Yeah. Yeah,
40:29
there's a concept of a teal organization.
40:33
And basically, you know, a teal organization is much more like distributed
40:41
where it's less hierarchical.
40:44
And what's required for the teal organization concept to work is hiring people
40:52
who have a lot of
40:56
self-leadership and ownership and autonomy and can hold this complexity and
41:01
you know, also structures that allow people to do things more autonomously.
41:06
And again, like I think there's some companies out there that are doing it
41:13
okay, but it's like very nascent and not the standard.
41:17
And I think a lot of people are struggling to figure it out. And again, we're
41:25
what I've seen is that the failure mode comes back to the people.
41:30
If you have a bunch of Scotts and Pranabs and a bunch of other people that are
41:38
totally bought in and been at this for a while, that's different than a few of
41:45
those and then a few people that are completely out of tune with all of this.
41:52
Yeah, I foresee a world where like as AI enables people to do more with less,
41:57
and you have these like crack five to 10 person teams, right?
42:02
Now add the layer of the consciousness stuff onto that.
42:06
Things get really interesting.
42:08
Yeah, how familiar are you with Softmax, Emmett Shear's latest company?
42:12
I am familiar with it.
42:13
Nice. That's awesome. Yeah. So I've just been following along on Twitter.
42:16
But a really interesting thing about it is sort of the way he tweets about it
42:21
organizationally and developmentally of sort of creating a meta-rational
42:24
organization that also has sort of this through line of maybe not explicitly
42:29
around consciousness, but you know, what they're doing is sort of on AI
42:33
research with agents becoming more agentic and having higher consciousness in
42:36
a way.
42:38
So he's sort of applying those principles to the organization itself.
42:40
And it's really interesting to sort of see from the sidelines at least.
42:43
So I'll be curious on how that goes over the next couple of years.
42:46
Yeah, I'm glad you got that on my radar.
42:48
I haven't been following him, you know, equally curious.
42:51
Yeah, nice. Cool.
42:52
Well, what's sort of exciting for you now in the next few weeks and months
42:55
with your book and with work?
42:57
What are some things that are making you feel excited?
43:00
Yeah,
43:01
I mean, I'm very excited for the book to come out.
43:04
You know, I think there's a lot of people out there that are kind of living in
43:10
this duality of like, okay, do I go hard on spirituality or do I go hard on,
43:15
you know, the accomplishment stuff and getting all the things I want.
43:19
And this whole like concept of integration is just like the through line
43:24
across all the stuff that I'm doing. And yeah, I'm just excited to help
43:29
hopefully some people that are experiencing that thing that I experienced—that
43:33
confusion and those questions around how do I actually do this?
43:37
You know, Conscious Talent, I think is really starting to pick up steam.
43:42
We're having a lot more founders come to us and say, hey, like, you know,
43:48
let's talk and how do we do this?
43:51
And I think an area for me that is a growth edge is really becoming a student
43:58
of
43:59
of the developmental organization stuff.
44:00
You know, like you, I read Reinventing Organizations. It was a quick read.
44:05
I couldn't actually apply much when I read it.
44:08
Like I wasn't running a company when I read it. And now I am, right?
44:12
And so the conversations that I'm having are like, okay, what does it look
44:17
like to have, you know, everyone at the company have access to an IFS coach
44:22
once a month? What does it look like?
44:25
when we use something like Warmspace to start meetings, which is like a tool
44:30
that allows you to like drop in and reflect. It's kind of built in.
44:35
It's like a Zoom that has like these like different journeys that kind of
44:41
integrate this stuff into the flow of conversations.
44:44
And we even do things at Conscious Talent that are like, you know, co-creative
44:50
intention setting with the universe, like creating a group field. You know,
44:55
that's kind of like, yeah, I don't know any other company that does that.
44:59
And so we're experimenting a lot with what this weave looks like, and I'm
45:04
excited to keep learning through my own direct experience and also keep
45:08
learning from other people out there that are playing in a similar way.
45:13
That's awesome. That's super cool. Yeah.
45:15
And I think we'll have a lot more conversations in the future because all of
45:19
what I'm doing with Attention Copilot and my co-founder, Sam, I think you met
45:24
recently, we're sort of figuring out, what does this look like if you sort of
45:29
take, you know, the root cause of productivity is inner conflict.
45:32
That's the sort of like mainstream sort of direct way of the simple way of
45:37
talking about it, but really sort of the bigger thing is
45:41
Productivity is just service and activity and just action that really has no
45:44
separation with the rest of your life and the rest of how you want to show up
45:49
in the world.
45:50
So what does it look like to like truly have sovereignty over your attention,
45:54
understanding the principles of awareness and bringing that to the way you do
45:57
things?
45:58
There's a lot more I can go into that, but really sort of what does that look
46:03
like if more products and services were oriented around that?
46:06
And that will lead to, you know, in a mainstream way of saying it.
46:10
better results, but also just feeling better about how you do things, feeling
46:13
Right.
46:14
more agency. And that I think maybe before, let's say 10 years ago.
46:22
even knowledge work was obviously knowledge work is different from factory
46:25
work, but there's a certain amount of stuff you have to get done in a
46:29
traditional work environment.
46:30
And now I think it's super clear that what matters more is leverage and
46:34
creativity, especially
46:35
Yeah.
46:35
with AI and the more leverage and creativity there is, like this stuff helps
46:40
with leverage and creativity again, far beyond that too.
46:43
But it's just so clear to me that this is sort of the future of how
46:47
development works.
46:49
And I think supporting people with that will be really interesting.
46:53
That's awesome, man.
46:54
I think one thing that's gonna have to be handled, I know we haven't done an
47:01
Attention Copilot session yet, but I want to, is that there's definitely this
47:06
very real experience in which someone is doing work and using that to work on
47:12
their awareness, and they have to just get comfortable with the trade-off of
47:18
stopping what they're doing and pausing their productivity,
47:22
in service of understanding what's happening in their inner world. Right.
47:25
And like, you know, that's gonna be really hard for a lot of people. Right.
47:31
Because the inertia is just like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of my flow,
47:36
like, but I got to get this shit done. Right.
47:39
And it seems like for me, what had to happen enough times was to just see the
47:45
outer world change as my inner world changed in order to get really
47:50
solid in my belief that the inner stuff is more high-leverage.
47:54
And until you hold that belief, there's always going to be this like trade-off
47:59
game that makes doing both at the same time a little bit muddy.
48:03
And, you know, yeah, so I think like, collectively, as a society, we're going
48:08
to have to kind of shift our beliefs around like, why are things actually
48:13
getting done? Like, what is a more fundamental force behind that?
48:18
Yeah, yeah, totally.
48:19
And I think the word that's coming up for me is unlearning.
48:22
Sometimes it just takes more time to unlearn.
48:24
Like if you're in your 50s and you sort of had a whole career, 30 years of
48:28
working in this way, it'll take quite a bit of time, most likely to sort of
48:32
decondition and relax into this new way of being.
48:34
Whereas if you're in your early 20s, you can sort of spend a couple of weeks
48:38
or something and then sort of integrate much more quickly.
48:41
Curious actually, if you have thoughts on sort of how your book would be
48:45
applied to people at different stages of their path or different.
48:48
levels in their career.
48:49
Or even just like if someone's doing this in their 20s versus their 50s, how
48:52
this might change.
48:54
Well, I definitely think it's less about like the age and more about where
49:00
someone's at in their consciousness journey.
49:03
And I think there's a lot in the book, right?
49:08
That could help people across a wide spectrum, but really the intended
49:14
audience is for someone who's at that critical juncture where they start to
49:20
recognize, wait a second.
49:23
the achievement game might not be it.
49:25
And this whole inner work thing may be it. But how the hell do I do that?
49:31
And do I have to give things up?
49:33
And as you go on that journey, right, so there's like that inflection point,
49:38
right, and there's the big teaching, which is like, your reactions to life are
49:43
in essence, like the path. And you can do that anywhere.
49:46
But then there's like all these little things that will come up as you go on
49:51
that journey.
49:53
right? It's like a mountain, there's the spiral metaphor, right?
49:57
And there's like these little waypoints, right?
49:59
It's like, how do I relate to desires? Like, how do I relate to ambition?
50:05
You know, how do I know whether I'm making progress or not?
50:10
Like, there's all of these new components that must be added as you walk that
50:16
path. And so I think it's
50:19
a useful read for people that are about to start the journey considering it,
50:24
but also are actively walking it.
50:26
And, you know, for me, it's like, I just wanted to create the thing that
50:32
answered all the questions that I had. And so that's what I did.
50:37
And I'm sure there's some other people out there that have them.
50:41
And I think like, one thing I would share is like, I'm not as sure.
50:47
There seems to be these like,
50:50
patterns of people that are like, super ambitious, and they come to this,
50:54
right? And like, it's great for those people.
50:58
But I'm less sure about people who went hard on spirituality from the get-go.
51:03
And now they're like, Okay, how do I do shit in the world?
51:08
Like, that's kind of the inverse of that.
51:11
And I actually don't know the answer to that question, because that wasn't my
51:16
particular journey.
51:18
Yeah,
51:18
I was very much a reformed ambition person.
51:21
For sure.
51:21
And it's sort of funny because that's in some ways sort of my journey, not to
51:26
the deep end or something, but that's sort of been a thing I've thought about
51:29
for a while where I think since high school, I sort of was on this thing due
51:34
to the way I grew up of just like rejecting sort of traditional ways of
51:38
success. I did pretty well. So it's not like I really totally rejected it.
51:41
Like I did well in high school, college, you know, career stuff.
51:45
but there's probably people even more on that spectrum than me.
51:49
And it's sort of funny, I'm sort of playing with these ideas I think that'll
51:54
unfold over the next years and decades for me around just actually building
51:59
the muscles of having a spiritual practice and a much more unfettered,
52:03
defabricated mind.
52:04
Actually, I think it makes people far more powerful at the ambition thing and
52:09
the cognitive thing.
52:11
100%.
52:12
Like I think there's actually...
52:15
in some ways it's really just cultural of why someone chooses to not really
52:19
then apply their mind once they've done a lot of this stuff.
52:23
But I actually think you can learn much better, think much harder, and almost
52:27
like push more, not for the sake of more, but for the sake of wanting to.
52:32
There's just a lot more caveats.
52:34
Like it has to feel aligned, it has to feel with intention and all that, but
52:39
that's some stuff I'm exploring and sort of a...
52:42
Yeah, helping spiritual people achieve is sort of an interesting, interesting
52:45
angle too.
52:46
Yeah, I think you're nailing it.
52:48
I think there's been a lot of shitty ideas—or just concepts—like, ‘Maya, it's
52:54
all illusion.’ It's a waste of time, right?
52:58
That like, have been embedded in people's consciousness in the same way that
53:03
like, things outside you will make you happy.
53:07
And they're just restrictions that are artificial.
53:10
You know, that's all they are. And I think
53:15
In the same way that ambitious people have to like unlearn all that stuff, I
53:19
think a lot of people who've been like devoted to teachings that were highly
53:24
relevant hundreds of thousands of years ago will have to also unlearn some of
53:28
those things if they choose to walk a dual path.
53:32
And they don't have to, right?
53:34
If you're cool just like hanging out at the ashram, like sweet, do that.
53:38
But if you want to be kind of like a highly productive change agent who's also
53:44
deep on the path, like you're gonna have to kind of break out of some of those
53:48
things that you've learned.
53:50
Totally, yeah. Well, Scott, this is awesome.
53:52
This has been a pleasure and such a joy. The first of,
53:56
Yeah, dude, this was really fun.
53:58
Yeah, for sure, the first of many conversations in the coming years.
54:01
So this has been really fun.
54:03
Dude,
54:04
I loved dropping in with you, man. And I love this topic.
54:07
And you're a deeply thoughtful guy and a great host.
54:10
And I welcome the opportunity to chat more on this whenever you want.
54:15
100%. Thanks so much.