Utkarsh Narang (00:01.361) A couple of years ago, I was asked to give a TEDx talk. And what I did at that moment was to create an inner circle where I told them that these are the two things that I want to speak about. Out of the 10 people, nine said, great idea, Utkarsh, go for it, go for it, go for it. And then there was a human being there who is here with me today who said, Utkarsh, I abstain from any conversation in this group. And he said that if you're going to present fear in a way that makes it unproductive, then I'm not going to be part of that conversation. And you're... meant for bigger things. And that changed the trajectory of that TEDx talk. And today at the IgnitedNeurons Podcast, we have Paul. Paul, how are you today? Paul Gimenez (00:40.499) I am doing very well. Good morning, sir. Good evening to me. Utkarsh Narang (00:45.083) whatever time zone we are in, then so. Paul Gimenez (00:48.856) See, on my end, it's perfectly reasonable that I'm have this conversation over wine. Utkarsh Narang (00:54.373) Beautiful. I'm going to try that next time. Next time when I record, I'm going to have that glass of wine. Today I have water. Paul Gimenez (01:00.352) I will judge you harshly for drinking wine this early in the morning, sir. See, for me, it's evening time. That's too early for wine. We're have to have you on this side of the world and or I have to come to you when we get to, we'll call it conversations worth fueling. Utkarsh Narang (01:16.011) Love that. Love that. Love that. The first question, Paul, that we open our conversations with here in the podcast is if that eight year old Paul, that little boy, wherever he was growing up, I've never had that conversation with you. But if that eight year old Paul were to come to you right now, what kind of a conversation will emerge? Paul Gimenez (01:36.192) It's funny because at first I thought you said 80 year old and then I heard it correctly as eight year old. And I obviously have pondered questions of this nature, but that made me think about both at the same time. And you know what, before I answer that, let me ask you a quick question. So when you think about... Utkarsh Narang (01:58.758) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (02:02.562) When you think about the intention for why you decided to start this podcast, what's the intention you have so that I can contextualize my answer adjacent to that aspiration? Utkarsh Narang (02:15.675) We've done a dozen episodes and that's the first time that my question has been responded to the question. love that. The intention here Paul is the stories that we carry are insightful, are powerful and are earth shattering in many ways for us as individuals, but for the collective as well. And so this podcast hopefully will become a medium where these stories will come out and someone who's listening to this will say, I relate to that. And then we'll do something that they might not have done if they would not have heard this conversation. Does that help? Paul Gimenez (02:56.93) paraphrase back. An aspiration you have for this is that not every time, not every part, but some aspect of these episodes of these conversations, some aspect of them for someone somewhere has a before and after a measure of growth. Utkarsh Narang (02:58.075) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (03:04.337) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (03:19.426) that someone earned as a consequence of a revelation that they had with you. I love that. So let me answer it this way. One, this won't start out relatable, but I promise it will make sense. So growing up, I grew up in a homeless shelter, not because I was homeless, but because my father ran one. So my father had immigrated here from Cuba during the Castro regime change. And what happened... Utkarsh Narang (03:23.739) Reveille. Paul Gimenez (03:49.194) sense is that, you know, 11 year old kid comes up with his siblings, immediately goes straight to New York City and at that time discovers that he loves baseball, gets really, really good at baseball and then ultimately gets himself drafted by the Detroit Tigers. The first place they put you is their farm system. So my dad gets sent to this kind of middle of nowhere town called Clinton, Iowa. That's where dad met mom and that's when you merge a Cuban with a Irish German American and find what I am, which is Cuban Irish German American, but mostly none of it because I look a little Cuban, but you wouldn't necessarily guess. I don't speak Spanish because I grew up in Iowa. And so it came with a lot of uncertainty with respect to where does this fit in. And so my eight year old self, When I really think about it, it really roots back to, well, independent of the fact that when it comes to demographically fitting in to the environment I was born into, my family, in large part due to the relationship that my father and mother had, was rooted in really deep values. See, once my dad met my mother, my father fell in love. However, he wasn't allowed to continue. dating my mom unless he went to church because my mother's father, my grandfather required it. And sorry, no deal unless you go to church. And my father goes to church for the first time. He had not been exposed to religion up until that point. And when that happens, baseball seems like a hobby. This community here, this service to something greater than myself in the service of our most in need. Utkarsh Narang (05:36.614) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (05:45.462) really trying to walk in Jesus's footsteps, right? Somebody who saw that message of people who are suffering deserve our help. And if we can bring a little fortune to those who find themselves lacking the basics that give you the opportunity to start to think about what would it be like to give my life direction, right? You can't get there until survival has been met. Utkarsh Narang (06:14.31) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (06:15.718) And we don't need to maintain the amount of suffering that we see all over the world. And since that time, my father has started orphanages and homeless shelters, delivered medical supplies all over the world. He largely does it through Christianity and through his faith in Jesus. And personally speaking, I love the values that he has manifest as a consequence of his beliefs. But I've always kind of seen it differently. Never quite could fit into any given... I love the teachings, I love the principled ways that your conviction in faith, it can produce these magical, magical aspects of humanity. But the unfortunate part is that it does come with a rigidity that makes it hard to move. So when I was eight, and I know this is a long answer, Utkarsh Narang (07:09.201) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (07:14.558) I was a little lost, but it kept me really uncertain. It kept me really open. It kept me constantly trying to test out different ways of being, different ways of interacting, testing out how to join this group, how to join that group, how to relate with this person no matter the age. And that makes it so that I would go back and I genuinely imagine that the question that that eight-year-old is asking has to do with, you're still searching, right? Utkarsh Narang (07:18.406) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (07:44.792) You're still looking, right? Don't think you know it all. Don't think you got it all figured out. You have so many questions. And that is probably the one non-negotiable value that I keep with me at all times. I'm very committed to the virtue of uncertainty, the fact that I can't truly predict the future. And I can only take what I've learned so far as how I navigate anything at all. So just that kind of... Utkarsh Narang (07:50.161) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (08:03.953) you Mm. Paul Gimenez (08:13.858) That kind of thing. Sorry, long-winded, but took you on a little journey. Utkarsh Narang (08:16.303) No, no, thank you, thank you. What a powerful conversation. There's so many things that are emerging for me from this. And I'm someone, I recommend this to the listeners that they should actually have a notepad where they scribble things that makes sense to them because they might not be Cuban, they might not be Irish, they might not be German, they might not be American, but they might be someone who is grappling with uncertainty, who is grappling with searching for whatever they're searching for. And so one thing that comes to me, Paul, through this sharing is, so you spoke about fitting in, you spoke about uncertainty, and you spoke about you're still searching. What are you searching for? Paul Gimenez (09:01.76) I don't know why it is the case. Again, because I recognize that if I ask enough whys across any domain of human inquiry, we can't prove it yet. We don't know yet. Right? There's mystery left across all our deepest questions, all the big unknowns. That realization makes it so that what I'm searching for, of course, is what we're all searching for. clarity with respect to my place in the universe. And at the same time, there's a part of me that knows that maybe that quest that that seeking true seeking, wanting to know the answer to the riddle that is my life in this brief time that I'm on this planet and wanting to imagine and find the evidence for what comes after because there is something permanent about how we perceive existence and something deeply troubling whenever we are faced with mortality, right? The fact that we can die and the fact that we inevitably do die. And so what's happening there from a physics perspective though is that whatever you are is changing from this state to another. At least from the vantage point of matter, we haven't figured out how to destroy anything. can't create it, can't destroy it, we can just change the state. And so where we don't yet have the proof, people are finding evidence and ultimately relying on faith, relying on, I have enough evidence for me at least to believe this fully. And there's beauty in that. And for many people, that level of self-clarity creates the type of human who really wants to narrow the gap between who they are today and who they were born to become, who they are at their fullest potential. And so you do see a lot of benefit of faith and deep conviction at the same time. If I have 100 % conviction in what I believe, well, I also automatically disbelieve any other interpretation. Paul Gimenez (11:27.328) and that can produce a lot of irreconcilable conflict. That make sense? Utkarsh Narang (11:32.465) It does. It does. I love this idea of yet the riddle. think I was having this conversation with my younger son. I think it was day before yesterday. We were driving back from school and so he's 11 and we were talking about something and I tell him, I don't know why we started speaking about death. It's a 10 minute car ride. We should not be speaking about death. Father and son, it seems, but we started speaking about death and I was telling him, he asked me, where do we go after we die? I'm like, I don't have an answer to that question, but wherever we go, we need to make this time that we have on this planet worth it. And I think that's where I stopped. And maybe there were more questions in his head that he did not respond with. because in Indian mythology, Paul, there's like there's and others as well. Right. There's life after death and the soul moves on and. And there are stories that you tell young children that, your grandfather is now a startup in the heaven. And then you look up to them and things like that. But how true are they? And my question that comes to my mind strongly right now, don't know why, Paul, is that why do we need these answers? Paul Gimenez (12:44.052) It's, in my view, a question that is perfectly aligned with why I see great virtue in uncertainty. What you pose there is a question worth answering, that we need more information to fully resolve. And I think when we catch a glimpse of meaning in the durable ways, it satiates our appetite for fulfillment, yet our everyday self independent of that meaning simply chases hedonistic pleasure or the avoidance of pain. So the quest for meaning comes with a certain level of self-discipline, a certain level of agency over giving your life direction, a certain level of resilience in the face of adversity in whatever form it may arise. And you and I both share a mentor, Hitendra Wadhwa, and Utkarsh Narang (13:16.785) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (13:41.858) I think we both agree, one of the most profound works, so lucky to have access to a person who thinks the way he thinks. So lucky to have direct access to this person who, since the age of 10, mathematical mind, just never ever allowed this deeper quest of self-discovery and leveraging the understanding of our nature for pro-social collective good, right? He wants to advance human flourishing like you, like me. That's why we were attracted to that place. But when you drill down into his deepest conviction, right? He has a very clarified belief in the Self-Realization Fellowship. And it's a very beautiful, beautiful tradition that has the... all of the traditions baked into it, all of the principles baked into it, the nuance looking across different prophets throughout history, integrating their message into something cohesive, something uniformly valuable. If you follow it, like uniformly valuable meaning, if you do all of the things that in principle it would lead you to conclude is a values anchored path, an alignment with this belief system, you will produce very very very good version of a human being most likely because there's a it doesn't come with very much judgment it doesn't come with very much need you to think like me in order for me to be good to you and at the same time it invites you to explore your deepest faults with a great appreciation for humility and things like that but at the end of the day his belief system is not my belief system that's that that what got him there, what got him on that quest, isn't my clarified version of meaning. I don't know what heaven or hell look like, whether they exist at all, whether it's much grander than we are even imagining. Like, I don't know, maybe we're in somebody's pocket, right? Men in black might be right. Utkarsh Narang (15:57.295) I agree with that. agree with that. There's a Buddhist teacher there was Thich Nhat Hanh and he used to say, right, am I the butterfly who I'm meditating on or is the butterfly meditating on me? And that's a conflict that we can always have. But, know, I love to play the devil's advocate here, Paul. And I have great love and respect for it. And you and I both know that. But for our listeners who are in their 30s, right. So the group that we see through the stats on YouTube is that they're in their 30s. up to 45 and they're trying to build a life. And this life on the outside does not care about you answering this bigger question, does not really care about fitting in. I see so many coachees and have a large demographic poll that's Indian in the Bay Area. And so they're going through all that is happening in the U.S. right now, which is making them question their life's choices. Why did we come to the US? What's happening here? What's happening there? And all that's going on. But to that common person who's trying to just build a life where, yes, avoidance of pain, yes, find that happiness. Why should these bigger questions matter? And how do they find the sweet spot maybe? Let's try and solve for that today, Paul. How do they find the sweet spot between what that higher meaning is versus what survival on a daily basis looks like? Paul Gimenez (17:24.908) I don't know why we have this gift. The way that my grandfather, so my mother's father was a professor of music appreciation at the local college in my hometown and is one of my deepest, most, like, there's a space in me for him always. It's a person who I feel like, independent of him having passed, I feel like I have permanent access. to his wisdom as a consequence of his grace. And he was so present and so generous. And I grew very attached to him at a very young age. And so I was around 11, maybe 12, and we were outside on his front porch, well, really a staircase. And he had, he used to be in the military. So it's like every single flag, Navy, Marines, et cetera, decorate the front of his home. and we're standing there and I'm asking him questions both about my own father and just to kind of about kind of certainty. How do we know anything? How are we sure? What are we sure about? And my grandfather just kind of simply says, look, every other thing on this planet, when they approach a river, right? When they see a river, they see a source of substance. They see... hydration, they see something to serve their survival. For whatever reason, human beings look at that exact same river and we can't help but ask why it flows this way instead of that. What's it made of? What else is inside there? What can we do with the energy it's automatically providing? Right? We are insatiably curious and that curiosity enables us to exercise agency over physical reality in ways that we can make it solve very concrete problems. and introduce brand new ways of perceiving reality. Right? Everything in the digital arena is an invention. It's an invention for a living biological creature to choose something that doesn't physically exist to be where you allocate a great deal of your time and attention. And so there's lots of curiosities there. If I answer that question really like succinctly. Paul Gimenez (19:48.45) My grandfather made that point so that I recognize that there is a gift that comes with consciousness, in particular with consciousness in and above land, because there is an argument to be made that maybe dolphins are as smart as we are, right? They have the same. They actually have a better frontal cortex to body ratio, and that's associated with higher order intelligence. And it could be the case that the constraints of water are simply more or add more pressure than the constraints of air So that physical advantage makes it so that we can do more in physical reality. But it doesn't guarantee that we can communicate in the immaterial reality with greater sophistication. It tells you that we can do things with the physical aspects of ourselves in ways that can manipulate more than they can. Until we actually understand the depth of their communication, the complexity in it, we can't even Guess because their brains are very impressive and they never turn off. They figure out a way to just like literally 24 hours in a day just sleep half your brain. Can you imagine what you would do with that kind of time? Big big big question. Let me come back to making it practical for your people. You said you want an A and B, right? OK, how do I clarify my personal sense of why? I could give you the pop psychology kind of Simon Sinek version of that answer, which is technically there's nothing not valid about the idea. But what you and I both know, having worked in trying to change adults all this time, is that knowing the idea is a very small piece of the puzzle when it comes to transformation, when it comes to change, both for yourself, within your personal life, and in the work that we Utkarsh Narang (21:18.565) Hmm. Hmm. Paul Gimenez (21:46.68) Genuinely, that's what we did. We dedicated our lives. We organized our whole lives around that pursuit. And all you learn when you start to engage in that pursuit is, my goodness, it is hard. And here's why. The social pressure that we have. been born into, but also seem to naturally create. It makes it so that we, we weight an awful lot of our sense of self as our sense of, our sense of value, our self worth, self efficacy, choose your term. But a lot of it comes from social perception. What we think is valued by the society we live in, what we think matters to other people, how they perceive us relative to how we want to be perceived. And we're trying to narrow that gap. We're trying to make what people think of us within our control at a certain level. That quest is always going to come at a very big trade off. It's always going to cost you narrowing the gap between who you are today and who you could be because that quest is a quest of deep self-reflection. deep inner honesty where you recognize that anxiety is the byproduct of Conflict within that you have yet to resolve Right. What's that the other side of anxiety? relief at having made a decision or gotten it done or created the right amount of pressure to Crystallize what the problem even was so at least you're going to be able to see the problem you're trying to face Right. But usually anxiety, anxiety manifests not because it's bad, but because it knows you better than you know yourself. Right. There's this version of you that you talk to in the mirror after you put your foot in your mouth. Right. I'm, you know, it's for me, it's the end of the day. I could contextualize this day. It's been a long day. Paul's a little tired. Sometimes he's fumbling over his words and I could lean into the insecurity that that produces and I could feed that and start to get Paul Gimenez (24:03.744) more more, now I'm really, this is not gonna be any good, of course, I think I'm ruining it, I'm so sorry, let's not, we can't publish this one, we just can't. I look like an idiot, please don't. Or I could recognize that those moments of imperfection, the only reason I care is because I want to create the perception that I'm worthy of being heard. And my obsession with it makes it so that if I miss a word, I have failed. Utkarsh Narang (24:32.241) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (24:33.397) It'll be the only thing I think about after this podcast. only, I'll be, man, you almost got that line right. You were this close and because that's there, it's not good anymore. That's how powerful our worry over social perception really is. There's this really fascinating gentleman who lives, he lives in Woodstock over here in New York and he was a Utkarsh Narang (24:45.509) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (25:01.974) lifelong musician who became a professional vocal coach. used to be a vocal coach for really big labels. He's worked with Grammy award-winning singers. His name's Cloud. And if you are curious... I'm only going to give you this. I'm going to say cloud. You figure out how to spell it. And I'm going to tell you that if you search cloud and then you search, find your authentic voice, that you'll be curious enough to learn the rest if you find value in being able to really differentiate you from whatever it is that you do. to present you, right? The presentation, right? Paul has dreads. Paul is dressed all fancy. Paul made sure his backdrop looked a certain way. Why? Well, because optics matter in a world where what you see is, genuinely speaking, what we dedicate the vast majority of our cognitive resources to, right? There's a reason you have three nerves dedicated to your eyes. Utkarsh Narang (25:56.646) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (26:17.022) It's a powerful perceptive experience. And the reality, if you strip away the complexity of that, like say no to, that means that it's like helpless or fraught. No, no, no. It means that some aspect of whatever it is we are as human beings recognized that there was some sort of cosmic collective value. Utkarsh Narang (26:19.707) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (26:44.178) in advancing our species as a whole and in this undefinable, constantly moving, idealistic, yet nevertheless worthy of pursuit, vision that we can see clearly in our minds of a cohesive species working toward common cause in the pursuit of both human flourishing and answering our biggest unknowns. Right? Going out into the universe. Why sci-fi so popular? Why is fantasy so popular? All the things. Because our imagination, when it comes to meaning, the closer we get to finding our sense of purpose, the more we are able to direct the world to our will. It gives you greater agency. It takes effort at first, but goal-directed effort over time produces really crazy results. And it becomes, you know what mean? But you have to make sure it's aligned with that inner you. The part of you that's yelling at you in the mirror, that person, why did you do that? That person knows you better than you know you in terms of your deepest held values. And sometimes it's trying to get your attention. Hey, that's not you. You feel shame, not because of any other reason than some part of you has identified deeply held values and you just did something out of alignment with them. Does that make sense? Utkarsh Narang (27:53.585) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (28:09.241) It all does. It all does because you know why it does all Paul Gimenez (28:10.766) I tried to go as... I was trying to... You were impressive because I was trying to make it impossible for you to disrupt and you were definitely gonna wait till I asked you a question. Hey, you can fight me sir. I know I... Hey, hey, don't let me get away with that. Utkarsh Narang (28:22.449) Absolutely. Utkarsh Narang (28:27.749) You will not, you will not, you will not. See, I understand everything that you're saying because I've seen and we've worked together and we've operated at the meta level. But the challenge is Paul, the world still does not operate at that meta level. So what you said just now, goal directed effort in that long term pursuit. We all understand that, but no one's going to do shit about this. Paul Gimenez (28:32.813) You Utkarsh Narang (28:54.437) We all know investing and compounding. We all know eating right things. We all know sleep is important. We all know everything. We all know this shit, but no one does anything about it because people are... Okay, a very high percentage in that, in that curve, a very high percentage are right in the middle who are just slogging through life. And so what I'm trying for us to do today, is that if people invest the next 40, they've listened to both of us for 30 minutes. Paul Gimenez (29:02.819) Mm-hmm. Not no one. Not no one. Utkarsh Narang (29:23.673) They're feeling like where the hell are these guys going? And they're, seeing us diverge into, into beautiful things. If we were to right now, tell them that if you stick around for the next half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever that time might be, what do want them to walk away with? One thing, Paul. Paul Gimenez (29:26.114) That's what I'm yeah. Paul Gimenez (29:30.606) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (29:43.33) want you to walk away with a clear A-B as it relates to giving your life direction in a values aligned way. Utkarsh Narang (29:52.569) Love that. Love that. So that single statement is going to be our purpose for the next whatever time we speak to each other. Paul Gimenez (30:00.632) But I am going to make you wait because if you care about what the evidence shows us when it comes to our deepest learning, what it shows you is that what matters most is always something that's going to require patience. Instant gratification is not rewarding. That's why we can say all the buzzworthy things. We know the end state, right? Utkarsh Narang (30:07.717) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (30:23.973) Mm. Mm. Paul Gimenez (30:26.956) Just pay attention to what you like doing and move toward that. Just ask yourself what you care about and it's going to be all the things that you identify as the things you most care about. Well, that's what you should be directing your life toward. Well, you care about a great many things in the attention economy. There are so many things worthy of caring about, so many different complexities across every dimension of that. So that's not helpful. Utkarsh Narang (30:44.037) Mm. Paul Gimenez (30:56.812) What's helpful is to pay attention to the fact that you actually don't need to do any research. You don't need academia's help to quickly recognize that there is a stark difference in what a single human being can achieve when we operate with a clarified sense of purpose. It doesn't matter when it happens, but somebody operating with clarified purpose. anything that comes their way, all of sudden just an obstacle to get around or beyond or punch through, right? Your fight is non-negotiable. Your motivation is self-replenishing, right? And you naturally complement whatever is most essential to manifest your sense of purpose. You naturally start to do all the peripheral things that help you even further nurture that deepest sense of meaning. Whether we're talking about Michael Jordan, or any other insert, any excellent person, anybody who got excellent, not, not I can dabble in a bunch of things and I'm kind of good, but I decided to dedicate a significant portion of my energy, time and attention. I decided that all of the self-discipline, all of the adversity, all of the costs associated with that pursuit was worthy of the effort and I followed through. That's what you earn. Utkarsh Narang (32:04.824) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (32:22.661) Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Paul Gimenez (32:26.808) from a clarified sense of purpose. At the same time, Hitler had purpose. And so, it's not necessarily gonna lead you to a values-driven life, but it's certainly gonna give you all of the things that give you that deepest sense of fulfillment. Fulfillment, unlike happiness, is something that you can actually fill up yourself, because it's a matter of your connection to yourself. It's, what do I think I'm here to do? Utkarsh Narang (32:44.315) Hmm. Hmm. Paul Gimenez (32:56.118) And am I honoring that knowledge through my behavior? Align those two things and a lot of the disconnect between most of us feel shame and embarrassment and anxiety and depression and loneliness, not because of anything other than we recognize the gap between who we purport to be, who we think we're supposed to be and who we actually are in regard to either what other people think or what we think about ourselves. And so we create all sorts of illusions around our lives. If you want to clarify your sense of purpose, the first step is ignore everybody else until you've actually spent some time really trying to acquaint who you are in relation to your own perspective. How do you think about you? Do you like being around you? Do you just make excuses for yourself? Right? Are you secretly? really, really pissed off at who you are and ultimately don't feel like admitting it to anybody else, that's going to create a lot of distortion in how you engage. Clarity comes from self-honesty, humility, curiosity, and patience with yourself. You already are enough. You've always been enough. You don't need to become all consumed with your legacy. We barely remember Alexander the Great. Give me as many facts as you can, audience. I promise you, you're surprised by how few come to mind. know, significant Cleopatra obviously died young, poison, right? Your brain scrambles, and that's one of the most prolific, what that person did, insane, will be passed forward through writing and the passage of history, but will increasingly... that impact that he had on our understanding of our nature, its relevance starts to diminish as we get further and further away from it because it's fuzzy as we go back. Things... Yes. Utkarsh Narang (35:05.667) I'm diving in. I'm diving in. It's fuzzy. It's fuzzy. I love where we're going. So A to B is where we want our audience to go. A is where they are right now. B is where they want to be, which is more purpose driven, which is more values driven, which is where you feel you're enough. Now, the first thing that you said there was that ignore everybody else. People are going to be stuck at that, Paul, because how do I ignore people? Because I... Paul Gimenez (35:17.198) Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. Utkarsh Narang (35:34.073) Okay, let's do a thought experiment. Me, coming to you in this conversation, I'm going to be that that normal distribution curve, right? Where I'm going to say, Paul, I go on LinkedIn. Fuck, everyone's publishing their books. Everyone's traveling the world. One of my friends who you also know, I'm going to interview him next week. He's just published a new book. What the hell is happening here? I go on Instagram. Paul Gimenez (35:44.792) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (35:58.093) Yes. Utkarsh Narang (36:02.437) bloody every one is on a vacation. They're having great food and they still have this six pack abs, right? And here I am doing 16 hours of intermittent fasting, eight hours of eating, taking care of my calories, but I cannot ignore everybody else. So how do you tell me to ignore everyone else, Paul? Paul Gimenez (36:20.512) Within every human is the capacity to direct consciousness, but it works in quirky ways. So in other words, you've probably heard about the whole don't think about a white elephant and then all you can do is think about a white elephant. Famous, almost overused metaphor, right? Well, to think about that a different way, what it reveals is that you can trick consciousness. You can trick attention. And you can direct attention both in coercive ways or in informative ways or in persuasive ways. And you decide where you direct your attention if, if you decide that you're going to put your inner conversation in the foreground. In other words, if you aren't having that inner dialogue. If you aren't investing time in self-clarity, right? Not self-awareness, not self-transcendence, just a clarity around the thing you are, what most, most draws your attention that you, in a very deep way, know. is to your benefit or to humanity's benefit. Because almost everything we humans ultimately define as meaning purpose, it's always going to relate to service to the greater whole in some meaningful way. Even Michael Jordan at the end of the day, at the end of the day, gets super good at a random sport called basketball. How much joy, how much excitement, enthusiasm, how much motivation, how many followers. How many people's lives changed as a consequence of you demonstrating, you modeling what clarified purpose can earn you. And why do we love him? Do we love him purely for his achievements? No, we love him for the journey, for how hard it was for him to achieve these accolades. He was injured, first year drafted. You know, there's all these famous stories of this remarkable player who doesn't have any of the traditional victim stories. Paul Gimenez (38:48.81) associated with his success, right? There was no affirmative action responsible for this person's extraordinary prowess. And at the same time, he lived at a time where it was worse than it is today for Black America. Right? So he imagined that they amounted all of it. Now, we can't expect every single person on the planet to achieve that greatness. Or can we? See, the thought is that what people typically think is like purpose is exhausting and purpose is exhausting only if you haven't clarified your why and the bigger sense of that the big capital W why because effort becomes joy with big big big big why yes not why question big why yes Yes in the face of adversity. Yes in the face of unprecedented setbacks. Yes in the face of a bunch of people telling me I can't, it's impossible, you don't have a PhD yet. Yes in the face of all of the resistance you inevitably encounter the moment you decide to give your life direction. Right? Now I am choosing to make life matter. Utkarsh Narang (40:03.931) Hmm. But again, I agree with everything. You and I think like that. Now, what you're saying hacking into that inner dialogue, creating that self clarity. It's like, what will help us achieve that, Paul? And what I'm thinking right now is if I choose to ask this question, I'll have to put action to that thought and then it'll come out. If I choose to lift this pen, I'll have to do that. And Paul cannot make me do that. Paul Gimenez (40:15.726) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (40:33.262) Yes. Yes. Utkarsh Narang (40:35.771) someone else, my mom and my dad cannot make me lift a pen or do something. Discipline, action, whatever, clarity, whatever in a dialogue, I have to get to that why. So what do you recommend? What's that first step for someone to just be pushed onto this journey? Paul Gimenez (40:55.81) Well, awareness that you're the only living thing that we know of capable of deep thinking. And the reason that Ukarsh is motivated to push me toward what makes this actionable is because we live in a culture that wants this to be immediately gratifying for you. And I'm resisting that pull because I know that incentive does not get you very much. So what I'll tell you is that deep thinking is something that we are taking for granted. that we've engineered everything for simplicity. it's that engineering design at global scale and in the attention economy. What it's producing is people who can no longer reach for the depth and who are succumbing to addiction across every category. And we're seeing unprecedented levels of all of the most debilitating aspects of self-destructive psychology. And that's not happening by accident. That's happening because we think that it's not valuable if it's taking time. If I'm taking you to a cerebral place, I'm taking your mind on a quest that doesn't give you all the answers. Well, that's the only way to get someone to sit through a long movie. Give them something to want. Not be sure if the protagonist will get it. Make it hard to achieve along the way. But as long as at the end of the day, our protagonist did find something of value, It was worth your time. We're story-driven creatures, but we want to skip straight to the end. Give people the results right away. This is what you do. Here's the thing. The simplistic, reductive stuff. Another way to think about intelligence and expertise. Expertise, in a way, is applying goal-directed effort over time in a specific direction, such that something hard for you at first becomes easy for you over time. It becomes simple to you. expertise. In the digital arena, in modern society, everything is designed around make it simple right away. Give you the answer. Don't even worry about showing the work. Only getting easier with AI. So that's why I'm not addressing it yet. I'm dancing around a quandary that the only way to actually uncover it for yourself is to dance around with your Utkarsh Narang (43:15.653) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (43:25.582) consciousness. Why do you read certain books? Why do you even care about reading different books, Ukarsh? What's the point of reading different books because that's a different human being who has collected different evidence and as long as they deliver it in a credible way, it might be information you can leverage to your benefit as it relates to the biggest questions you have for your personal life and directing agency over your place here within the rest of us trying to fight for the ability to say I'm successful in a way that matters both to me and is economically viable so that my family doesn't suffer. Right? So the first abstraction is what you see ain't what you get. The substance is hiding. It's hiding within. And if you don't spend time there, then ultimately you're just going to be pulled by the forces of the river, pulled by the social forces. What do you see right now in American culture? What would you say? Like, how are we looking over there? How do we look from afar? Are we we are we looking sane to you? Does everything seem OK? Utkarsh Narang (44:32.337) Every morning I wake up and I think what happened last night, because when I go to the gym and the media in Australia and across the world is really, their eyes are glued on America. And so what happened in the last press conference? What happened in the last debate? What happened in the last? It's a fascinating world, Paul, from this side. Paul Gimenez (44:57.25) So what's your opinion of it? What's your personal, your one, your hypothesis for why it is occurring and your hypothesis for how you at least start to approach something better? How would you answer? Utkarsh Narang (45:10.097) Hmm. I think why it's occurring is because that's how I think it boils down to how the world has started to think right now and America is no different, right? We are all trying to protect our needs, trying to think of everyone as the adversary, trying to... Utkarsh Narang (45:36.955) Trying to have two faces and not in a good way, not in a way that that supports the growth of human consciousness or humanity or the society. That's one ball. And then the second is, think. The whole tension in the world right now is, it boils down to how I see my world. I, if I'm seeking something and I'm the leader of the world or leader of the, of a country, whether that's Trump, whether that's Modi, whether that's Putin, whether that's Zelensky, whoever that might be, we're all too self-absorbed right now. To me, that's what's, what I'm seeing in the world. Part of me, like now I'm talking about myself. I want to block out all this news because I don't fully understand it. so for me to create a judgment of it based on what's shown to me on a television screen or by a reporter or on social media does not make any sense because I don't know the whole story. So that's where I'm, there's lack of information, Paul. That's where I am at personally. Paul Gimenez (46:43.224) Okay, so let me see if I can invite you to weigh in with a little bit of contextualizing the ask, let's say. So one, understand and empathize with that pull toward it is so mentally encumbering that I don't know if it's healthy for even one of us to fully invest our attention on it. It has reached a level of volatility and emotional strain that spending time there does come with an emotional cost that you can feel. And you start to question, it, is this good for me? Aren't I healthier if I stay away from this clearly broken way of relating to reality? It's clearly not healthy to engage that. That just looks like nonstop tribal conflict all day, every day. And our instinct is if it can't be solved and you don't have to be a part of it. build a better world independent of it. Right? Take agency over the fact that the world is large enough to have more than one reality baked within it. Choose one that appreciates and has more gratitude and is able to extract itself from the context it happened to be born into. In other words, I grew up with a certain way of believing things. Some of the constraints of that particular way of seeing the world felt very small. And over time in that tiny town of Clinton, Iowa, being intellectual was not very gratifying, right? Didn't earn me very many friends. And I genuinely did everything a person who doesn't feel like they have belonging does in order to cultivate it. I lied. I fabricated the value of my life. I projected more success. Paul Gimenez (48:44.148) even at a young age than I had and would make it seem like I worked harder than I did. I basically wanted validation for my existence. And unfortunately, the things that I was drawn to weren't really rewarded in the environment I was in. So I thought that that was it, though. I told myself this world is not a place for me because it doesn't value me. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco. that I realized that, there's a different way of being. There's a different culture and community and different level of appreciation for the people that do decide that they're going to go into the void and say, why? Why this way? Not that, right? And so when you try to break down the biggest challenge of our time, in my view, and If it's okay, actually share something with you. my view, one, we need people who can dance with it and compartmentalize it to a certain extent, right? Make it matter and be able to make it small. And we certainly need as many values anchored, nuanced people to engage as possible because the vast majority of our attention has migrated into the digital arena. So the battlefield for our collective consciousness is there, right? And the people who are the best at winning the attention economy have essentially, they've weaponized our animalistic tribal tendencies. It is really easy to trigger a human being. If I get you to think about Utkarsh Narang (50:18.865) Hmm Paul Gimenez (50:41.23) your social identity being at threat. Why? Why is that? Why can social identity provoke threat in our context? I'm asking. Utkarsh Narang (50:52.177) Because we're so attached to it. We're so attached to it. It seems that's the perception that we're living with. That's the reality is... Sorry, let me reframe that. Our perception is that our social identity is the reality that we're living in. This conversation Paul and you I started with where you build that awareness, where you take this slow. And I want to do a disclaimer that in no way I disagree with Paul. Paul Gimenez (51:21.538) Well, I hope you do. Utkarsh Narang (51:23.097) No, in terms of taking this slow, in terms of building something that's worth building, you have to go slow. Otherwise, it'll go into pieces like anything. so this conversation around clarity, this conversation around hacking that inner dialogue, this conversation around hard becomes easy when you put yourself onto it multiple days, weeks, months and years. and burn that midnight. I agree with all of that. that's what I feel like, Paul, that this social identity has become so important that it seems that that's the world that we're all living in. And it does not matter what my real identity is. Paul Gimenez (52:05.4) Social identity, defined in terms of reductive demographics, has been weaponized in a way that makes our behavior at a national and global level much easier to predict for anybody who recognizes that that's not a very good or useful way to encapsulate the essence of any given human being. I'm not mixed race, Irish, German, Cuban. American, rural, cisgender male. I am a great wealth of different living things working in harmony to keep a vehicle alive long enough to make a difference in whatever way this particular vehicle was invented, was created. It exists beyond my conscious understanding, but it seems to know what I am drawn to. when I, when I spend time going back and forth with it, it doesn't reward me in materialistic ways. It rewards me in biologically nurturing ways in peace of mind ways. It rewards me because it both acknowledges that there is value in the materialistic world and using it in ways that serve certain functions or makes lives better, et cetera. but there's another quest that is going to be a much greater predictor with respect to how you feel in your own life. And so, and so let me, if I may, if I may, I'm going to, it's possible that I can share my screen, right? Okay. Okay. So I'm not going to let your audience down with respect to giving them some clarity with respect to what I. Utkarsh Narang (53:50.001) Absolutely. There's a share button. Utkarsh Narang (53:56.08) Mm-hmm. Paul Gimenez (54:02.606) promised. However, in order to... One second, let me see. What's the easiest way? Don't you love technology? You know what? Here's hilarious. Oh, gosh. I switched computers. Remember right before because of the connection thing? So here's what I do. You're going to give me two seconds and... No, trust me. No, trust me. I'm making you wait for it. I'm making you wait for it. Only be... Unless, unless, unless. The only reason I won't is if you tell me I have such a hard stop at 1030 that... Utkarsh Narang (54:20.325) No, here's what I'm going to do. Paul Gimenez (54:32.224) I absolutely have to end it at exactly that time. Utkarsh Narang (54:34.564) have 20 minutes we can go over. Paul Gimenez (54:37.294) You have we have 20. OK, perfect. That's all I need. Then this is worth the wait. And while we're doing this. So if if we were if we were the Joe Rogan podcast, for example, this would be the brief bathroom break that we both talk about for a second. Instead, it's nice human error. You can like but you say what you want to say while I'm finding this. Exactly. Utkarsh Narang (54:48.962) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (54:59.249) We'll edit this out, but here's a question that I have for you. Is that video going to support us getting from A to B? And is that something that we can show in the final edit at the end, or does it need our conversation over it? Paul Gimenez (55:09.838) in all the right ways. Paul Gimenez (55:18.934) No, no, no. It's something that we can show in the final end exactly as it is. Yeah, trust me. I have thought this through. I just have to send it to myself from this computer real quickly. Utkarsh Narang (55:23.012) Okay. Utkarsh Narang (55:29.999) then do we have to show it right now in the recording? Paul Gimenez (55:33.89) There's part of it that what I want to show you require in order to evolve our conversation, we have to both watch it together. So it's worth the wait, trust me, because I worked really hard on it. And it gives us everything that we need to move forward. Trust me, like we're going to do some editing, but so far I'm purposely taking it mystical because at the end of the day, we can always insert practical. know what mean? It's easy. Like practical is the easy part. That's the end stuff. Utkarsh Narang (55:41.317) Okay. I'll wait. I'll wait, my friend. I trust you. Paul Gimenez (56:03.95) And it's like, what's way to keep you engaged without giving you exactly what you want? I know what you want. I know what everybody wants. want, I know, I know what you want. I'm not gonna give it to you right away. And it's amazing how hard, you know what I mean? But that's why, why is Drew Rubin successful? Why is Lex Friedman successful? Yes, there are points, but there's a lot of like, what are they even talking about? You have to get through to get to the meat. Utkarsh Narang (56:09.253) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. Good then. Utkarsh Narang (56:27.439) Yeah. Yeah. Paul Gimenez (56:29.452) And that's why they're successful. They're not successful because they give you all the easy stuff right in the beginning. Okay, here's final. Okay, got it. Perfect. Send this. You're gonna be so grateful that we did this when you see what I built here because it's going to answer the questions. while it's uploading right now and then it'll be good, but I'm gonna see if I get lucky and I just happened to email it to myself. So I'm look for it in this way as well. In the meantime, tell me. If you had to, like, this is still not thinking this is gonna make the final edit. If you had to kind of encapsulate your, like, what gets us out of this? What's your answer to that question? What gets you out of the moment we're in? Utkarsh Narang (57:18.213) what gets me out of the moment that we are at. Paul Gimenez (57:20.51) What rescues humanity from the trap we appear to be in? Utkarsh Narang (57:27.077) To me, it's hacking the inner dialogue, Paul. If all of us raise our consciousness and hack that inner dialogue, I think we'll leave the world a better place than what we found it at in. Paul Gimenez (57:30.392) So we're. Paul Gimenez (57:39.918) then I think you'll be happy that I made us wait. Okay. Utkarsh Narang (57:40.337) But we're not paying attention. We're not paying attention. Paul Gimenez (57:49.154) Sending. There it is, leaders lounge, rest room. Utkarsh Narang (57:57.809) So you can go back to saying, can I share my screen? So yeah, we'll pick it up from there. Paul Gimenez (58:02.35) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the gist. I'm actually going to real quickly. I actually have to pee really badly, but I want to make sure the video is up and running. That's what I don't know if you noticed, but was like, God damn it. Drinking stupid wine. I took a giant drink of water and it made it so I actually had to pee a long time ago. And then my throat was feeling dry, but I finished the water so early that I only had the wine. And so was genuinely having a very funny time. Utkarsh Narang (58:27.919) Hmm. Paul Gimenez (58:31.628) here, finally, geez, this is hard to find. Okay, finally found it. It was not, I think there's something with my wifi, but I'm glad it's not disrupting the video. But I can tell that something is slowing everything down in terms of like, why is the internet taking so long for the things people are sending? Okay, it's downloading right now. I'm gonna run to the restroom. I'll be right back. I'm gonna get quick water, because my throat's dry. Utkarsh Narang (58:56.687) Waiting for you. Yes. Paul Gimenez (58:58.752) And trust me, have this, I know exactly how long it's gonna take me to give us the right cliffhanger. Mm. Utkarsh Narang (59:01.391) I trust you. I trust you my friend. I trust you. Paul Gimenez (01:00:16.65) Okay, are you there? Okay, I have a real quick question. Utkarsh Narang (01:00:17.841) All set. And right here. Paul Gimenez (01:00:24.204) Are you, like I want you, like at the end of this, we're obviously gonna edit down, but I wanna know, like what's something really important that you want to get across from you? Before we start again. Utkarsh Narang (01:00:28.273) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (01:00:34.619) For me, it's the conversation. For me, it's what you want to get across. Yeah, not about... This is not about me. Paul Gimenez (01:00:36.876) Okay good, okay good because this is the main thing I want to get across in terms of helping people in real terms in the context that we're in, helping people actually get through, see through the moment we're in. Utkarsh Narang (01:00:52.625) Yeah, perfect. And then I have a last question that I have to ask you. So we'll have to start wrapping it in about 11 minutes from now. Paul Gimenez (01:01:00.118) Yeah, yeah, okay, got it. I'm going to go through this somewhat quickly. I'm already, let me exit, let me go back to, wait, that's right, we're online. I was like, where is it? Okay, so one second, okay. Utkarsh Narang (01:01:13.846) And we're back. Five, four, three, two, one, and we're back. Paul Gimenez (01:01:18.248) Okay, so I just go share screen, allow, window, to share audio, share tab instead. Share tab. Let me see here. Okay, I'll do it that way, that works. Share tab. Go right here. Paul Gimenez (01:01:46.351) Wait a second. There is a very specific limitation. So here's what we'll do. We're going to have to do it the way that you set it when it comes to the video because you are right in that there it won't let me share sound out of a tab. The file is too large to share as a tab. So that's a limitation. OK. So OK. So. Utkarsh Narang (01:01:52.731) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (01:01:59.141) Yeah. That's, that's it. So imagine we watched the video. What Paul Gimenez (01:02:06.774) No, no, no, I'm going to say I'm going to start exactly from where I started. So you do your three, you do your three, two, one, and I'll start from where I started and I'll tell you where the I'll just announce the video. I know what to do. Paul Gimenez (01:02:18.837) Okay, second. Okay, share, screen. Paul Gimenez (01:02:33.198) There it goes. Okay, now we're on. Okay, so very recently I have been giving this talk. And so the talk is distraction is to destruction as focus is to fill in the blank. The attention economy's impact on organizational health. And when I give this talk, the first thing I do is break down the premise, right? So what is the attention economy's impact on organizational health? When you look at this question, is there a relationship, right? So I asked the audience, fill in the blank. Do you see a relationship between distraction and destruction? Do you see something here? And if you did, what would you fill in the blank with? And when you poll this, and I've done it many times at this point, you always come back with something adjacent to this claim. We all kind of recognize that there is some value in distraction, right? Something horrible happens to you. a place to take your mind that allows you to distract from that pain because too much for any given human, it doesn't help us actually process it when it's too overwhelming. Actually kind of taking it in doses seems to be the better approach to dealing with our pain, especially the worst forms of pain. So we see that there's value in distraction, but we all kind of agree that it needs to be with intention. Right. It's not great if you're always distracted and it's not great if you're distractible. Right. You're really easy to distract. Then conversely, when you look at focus, we all agree that focus is important when it comes to getting anything done. And then simultaneously, it's vitally important that we focus on the right things. And so what that tells you is that in a way this all comes down to how well we can control our attention, right? So what holds our attention? And when you look at the context we live in, we're just like always, 24 hours in a day, except for we migrated the entire economy to a digital arena that vies for your attention as the primary source of ad revenue, as the primary source. Paul Gimenez (01:04:58.678) of whether or not you're valuable, right? Whether it's social media or any of the various ways that we engage in the digital thing. All of it is optimized for trying to get your attention. And if you don't bake in any ethics, any considerations whatsoever, if you don't bake any of that in to how it's designed, then what you're gonna find is it's really, really easy to design it in a way. that just gets what it wants. And so I've created a video that kind of helps illustrate the context we are in. It highlights the DEI movement because that's been something that's been causing a great deal of controversy. It didn't used to be controversial, but now it is. So here's a video. It kind of brings these stories together. And at the end, I actually help kind of like, this is a very big contributor to it. Excuse me. That make sense? And sorry, so basically, well, you know what I'm gonna do? Real quickly, I wanna test one thing with you real quick. Because in order to, here's the problem I'm having. If I can't get you to see this video, you can't be grounded in, like pause from video. I need you to see this. So can we test if you can hear this real quickly? Just because if you can, then I can. Utkarsh Narang (01:06:19.739) Yeah, go ahead. Paul Gimenez (01:06:23.862) skip everything I just did and go straight to the video instead of needing to, because if you see what I put together here, everything I've been saying this whole time comes together really cleanly. Can you still see my video right now? Utkarsh Narang (01:06:35.745) I can see your screen that says what holds your attention. That's it. Paul Gimenez (01:06:40.022) Okay, so something bizarre. Let me see. It's doing something weird where... Don't you love these little technology riffs? Okay, one second. Applications. Paul Gimenez (01:06:56.054) It's doing something weird where it's not letting me click it. I don't understand. Wait, okay, stop sharing. Okay, I got it, I got it. Okay, here. Let's see if this method works because it might solve the riddle, in which case I'll do one more iteration. Because if this works then every... I know, I know, I know. Trust me, this is the right way to end and click here. So can you... Utkarsh Narang (01:07:05.659) Can you use the arrow keys? Utkarsh Narang (01:07:24.881) Well, we have nine minutes. Paul Gimenez (01:07:32.054) Let me share it first and you tell me if you can hear it. If you can hear it then we're good and I know how to get us there. I'll work with you, I'm sorry. Of course there's one thing. Screen, window, share the tab. So it's this right here, share. Okay, go to full screen. Plus it. I'm going to send you the proper video, but this is like so you know what it was. Can you hear that? Okay, perfect. Is it too loud? Utkarsh Narang (01:08:06.192) No, it was okay. Paul Gimenez (01:08:07.542) Okay, so here's the video that I whipped up to kind of bring. I realized that people weren't hearing all sides of the conversation, so I've merged them together. Utkarsh Narang (01:08:13.541) We'll have to see the whole video. Paul Gimenez (01:08:16.844) I need you to see parts of it. Just trust me. I'm going to skip it around in the interest of your time. I know what to do. So I'm going to give you the main idea and then I'm going skip to the end. Paul Gimenez (01:09:30.304) OK, so basically a lot of conflict, right? So then flash forward back. Paul Gimenez (01:10:37.934) Okay, now I'm going to skip to the main event. So this is, so what you're going to look at is a congressional hearing with Tristan Harris. Here you go. Because this is the reason why. Paul Gimenez (01:12:55.306) Okay, so the idea there, so I'm going to pause there because I know that we are running out of time. So basically what it shows you in essence, let me let me stop sharing because I'm going to make it seem like I so let me stop so that we can I'm sorry about the technological issues, by the way. So basically what that is revealing, what that is demonstrating and sorry if it was too loud is that it matters greatly. The extent to which you can pull away from what is commanding. all of our attention. that thing you said earlier about how I feel like disengaging. It does matter greatly that we can pull ourselves away from something that has been engineered to outcompete our higher order consciousness and not in the service of your best self. Right. None of it designed with intention to draw out the fullest, most fulfilled, most values driven. The person that you truly aspire to be isn't found in the attention economy in terms of how it's engineered and where you're seeing the most dis-health are the places that have exposure to the attention economy. You look at any of the places that aren't currently completely digitally realized and they actually have better psychological health. And ultimately, when it comes to this big quest that seems like a big, big, big, how do I figure out what I meant to do? That big, big why? Well, the very, very first step is to recognize that the context that you were born into, each and every one of us, none of us are capable due to our biological constraints. None of us are above it. We are all susceptible to it. And in that context, step one is make sure that you can create space for you in relation to yourself, because that's where the journey must always begin. doesn't come, everything else is feedback to get closer to it, but clarifying it comes from that inner conversation as you navigate this world. But right now, instant gratification, what's giving you a dopamine hit, what's gonna... Paul Gimenez (01:15:16.618) most likely predict that you clicked on the thing or that you hovered over for slightly longer. Right? It's mostly engineered to bypass free will. Why does Netflix have automatic playing? Right? Three, two, one, because before you've actually decided you want to watch another episode, the next one has begun. It's removing our agency and not in the service of our health. Utkarsh Narang (01:15:41.733) Hmm. I'm thinking through everything that we have spoken about, Paul, and where we are ending right now. I think we need a part two, that's for sure. Paul Gimenez (01:15:49.814) That's always the hope. If it's worthy of part two, then you did something that is beginning to seed a conversation worthy of fueling. Nothing worthwhile ever happened in a day. Well, maybe an asteroid hit. Utkarsh Narang (01:15:53.168) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (01:16:05.649) Maybe that's what's going to stop this attention economy that we are all absorbed by because my, devil had advocated me still. I hate Netflix, not the company, but just as a product because it is competing against sleep. I tell my children that if you cannot put away your iPad, you'd never get healthy. You'll never have. Paul Gimenez (01:16:19.192) Yes. Utkarsh Narang (01:16:30.929) a brain that functions in the way a normal human being should function, you will always be addicted to more and more. They at times fall, start to rewatch certain things that they've watched two, three years ago. And I keep asking them, what is the joy that's coming to you in this moment? But that's a conversation another day. But I think where I'm kind of pausing this. Paul Gimenez (01:16:47.086) I would let this go on forever. haven't heard enough of you today. time I get you to speak for a little bit longer. This time I hogged a microphone. Utkarsh Narang (01:16:51.269) Yeah, that's okay. This was not about me. This is about us raising the collective consciousness of the people that watch this. And I think what I'm going to. Paul Gimenez (01:17:02.744) You're here. Utkarsh Narang (01:17:06.575) The end note that I want to put to our conversation is that I think what Paul and I are really deliberating and talking about, and Paul, I've spoken about this in various forums, including social media, because that's where people hopefully listen to things that matter as well, is that you have to create space for yourself. You have to have to have to learn to hack that inner dialogue. And there's no rocket science to it. It can be as simple as... sitting in your backyard with a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, sitting there in silence. It's like Paul, the comparison I'm doing right now is that when you put a spoon of sand in a glass of water and shake it and shake it and shake it and shake it and you're all paying attention to the sand, you'll have to let the water stand still for a few minutes for that sand to settle. And I think all of us in this moment need the sand to settle. Paul Gimenez (01:18:05.32) I would concur. and well put. Utkarsh Narang (01:18:10.897) Thank you. But if you're watching this on YouTube, then you have to feed the algorithm because conversations like these do not get to where they should. I don't know where this will go. I don't know who will watch. But if you watched and if this made sense to you, make a shift. Take that journey from A to B. Paul Gimenez (01:18:32.056) Let me add one thing just to encourage that behavior. In essence, unfortunately, if we want to change what it feels like to be alive today, the war will be one where we are spending all of our time and attention. And if you want less extreme perspectives to be how we think about our differences, Ones where we recognize that certain aspects of your understanding of reality might be so personalized that not one of us will ever fully agree or that your belief system, your groups that maybe even within them, you see your differences, right? You're more nuanced than the loudest voices that we are constantly being forced to endure. And the only way for these types of conversations to be how we collectively think is to reward nuance with your time and attention. Right now we are only rewarding our moral outrage. We are rewarding the most extreme versions of how to think about any given thing. And as a consequence, we're chasing trends. Social sentiment is just, now we care about this, now we care about that. Whatever feels emotionally extreme. And that's telling you that we're activating from an emotional place right now, not a higher order. We're human beings. We've long since learned how to channel our animal in the service of our ideals. Utkarsh Narang (01:19:59.003) This is Paul and Utkarsh signing off.