0:00 Integrating ambition and spiritual practice
4:22 The limits of “succeed first, wake up later”
8:05 How top executive coaches made spiritual ideas usable
13:45 The outside-in paradigm behind achievement
19:04 Resistance is data, not proof of misalignment
22:24 How stress hides better options
25:24 Better thinking inside the box versus expanding the box
28:20 Awareness as a practical source of capacity
31:50 Holding truth lightly in disagreement
35:31 Hiring people who already value development
40:24 Self-leadership makes flatter organizations possible
41:52 AI raises the value of small, mature teams
46:53 Pausing work can be the higher-leverage move
48:54 Who Conscious Accomplishment is designed to help
52:46 The inverse journey: from spirituality back to action

Transcript

Pranab Sachithanandan (00:01)

Hey, Scott.

Scott Britton (00:03)

Pranab, what’s up, man? Likewise, brother.

Pranab Sachithanandan (00:04)

Good to see you, too. I appreciate you coming on. And I think this will be a fun conversation since we’ve been thinking about a lot of similar ideas around work, accomplishment, spiritual practice, integrating the two and just what that looks like sort of in the years forward.

Scott Britton (00:21)

Yeah, I mean, it’s something that I’ve basically been obsessed with for almost eight years now. And it’s a deeply meaningful topic to me.

Pranab Sachithanandan (00:31)

Nice. So for people who don’t know you, how would you introduce yourself?

Scott Britton (00:36)

Is this where I’m like, do I say I’m an awareness that’s blah, blah, or, you know, yeah, no, I think my background has been entrepreneurship and probably about almost eight years ago, my consciousness journey really kind of flipped on and became central to my life. And I think I was faced with this really interesting at the time what seemed like a dilemma, which was, okay, so I went all in on startups and success and building the perfect life. And I saw where that got me. And now it seems like this kind of inner work consciousness thing is actually a more fundamental path to well-being and fulfillment.

And so what does going all in on that look like? And I thought that you know, like so many of us do, like, okay, do I leave my company that I was running? Do I, you know, meditate eight hours a day? Do I take up the robes? Like all of these kind of like over-rotations were questions that I was asking myself. And I was fortunate enough to meet a teacher who was like, no, actually like the complexities of your current experience are the perfect arena for your consciousness evolution.

And so I’d say, you know, for the past probably six, seven years, I have been, you know, doing all the things, running companies, selling companies, married, with a kid, but also deeply immersed in my consciousness and really kind of using all of those experiences in service of that. And so that’s what this upcoming book that we’ll probably get into some of the topics is about. Because there seems to be this, I know I’m not alone in the experience I described of like, there’s this compartmentalized view of, okay, we have our practices, right? And then we have real life, right?

And we just go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And it’s kind of missing the point, in my opinion. And so what I found having gone on that kind of oscillation and these different like, pendulum swings is that there’s an integrated way to do it all at once. And that for me has created the richest experience, which is why I’m passionate about sharing it.

Pranab Sachithanandan (03:13)

That’s awesome. As you say that I just feel lit up because that’s sort of exactly what I’m thinking about these days a lot too, with the Attention Copilot sort of going into that concept of the pendulum swing, which we’ll talk about in a minute and thinking about how that doesn’t have to be so intense. I think for me, eight years ago, I was still in college and the thing that I saw in a similar way was all these people sort of on that same journey: they got really successful and exited their companies or just did really well.

And then we’re like, I wish I didn’t work so hard and they meditated and now I’m really happy. But I’m like, well, you’re happy and you’re rich. I’m still a kid. How do I, what do I do? You know, what does that mean for me? And sort of navigating that struggle of like, wait, so does that mean you have to do this path? What would it look like to do both at the same time? That’s sort of been a question I’ve had for years, and it’s been cool as I’ve sort of unfolded my own journey of working through stuff and learning from people like you and from other people around our spheres.

And yeah, I think there’s a lot we could talk about.

Scott Britton (04:22)

Yeah, I think there’s this idea. I mean, this is the idea that I had. I was like, okay, enlightenment, I’ve heard of that. I will pursue that when I’m rich. Like I will, I need to like take care of my worldly, like everything that I want. And then like, on the back end of life, like I’ll try to go for that maybe. And that’s actually what’s funny is like that is actually in certain cultures, like how it’s done, right?

There’s like, I don’t know if it’s a particular tradition, but I know in like certain Indian cultures, it’s like the last 20 years of someone’s life, they like leave their families and they like just like focus on their enlightenment. And so like that was my game plan, right? And you know, I do believe in a notion of karma and kind of a destiny of a soul and an intention of the experience. And for whatever reason, like that wasn’t the plan for me. Like I was kind of dragged kicking and screaming onto this path. And I’m now so grateful that I have been.

Pranab Sachithanandan (05:23)

Yeah, there’s sort of an interesting question. Where do our wants come from? And that’s a whole other thing. I have no idea. Who knows? And there’s sort of this thing, but it does seem true that especially these days, more and more people are coming to this sort of thing much earlier in life, where traditionally, I think, yeah, in the yoga traditions and some of the yoga traditions, it’s sort of this like, you know, education and then build your career, have a family and then spiritual path.

And we sort of don’t really have the affordance for that now where it’s sort of everything all at once due to the complexity of the world and all the craziness and all that. But yeah, I’ve been really enjoying, I think there are a few things that I’d love for the audience to pick up on: your podcast where you just talk to people about these things. I’ve just met so many interesting people through that. You started a business recently, which we can bookmark this for later. And your book, Conscious Accomplishment.

So yeah, really appreciate the work you’re doing and the explorations you’re diving into in this space. Yeah.

Scott Britton (06:20)

Thanks, man. You know, just to share something, like I had a vision. I would just share that when I got on this path, I remember, you know, I was probably 30 and I had been meditating for six years up to that point, but it had been a very like, okay, 20-minute checklist item, you know, get on with my day. And I remember when I really got serious about this, I was like, you know, I remember thinking, what would it be like? First off, no one looks like me. I’m like a 30-year-old ex-college-football-player bro. Everyone is just like old Indian dudes and gray-haired white guys talking about this stuff.

What would it be like to actually connect this to business? And the irony of that, and I kind of had this concept, right? And the irony is, like, I literally am doing that with my new business, which is like funny. The new business is called Conscious Talent. It’s a recruiting company that kind of pairs companies and individuals who are on a conscious path. But yeah, man, I think this is the future, and it’s also so needed right now. It’s so needed. Like there are so many people for whom this compartmentalized way of living just does not seem to be working as evidenced by, you know, just the mental health crisis.

And there’s lots of other reasons for that, right? But I just think like whatever we have been doing has like not been working. And I think this type of approach is very fitting for a certain segment of the population.

Pranab Sachithanandan (08:05)

Yeah, I think there are, in my mind, there are two or three sort of trends that have made this seem really obvious to me or much more obvious. One is not really a trend, but I think the rise of Silicon Valley coaches, like within the Bay Area scene, there’s all these coaches on performance and execution. And I think the best coaches like Joe Hudson with Art of Accomplishment, Jim Dethmer, Conscious Leadership Group, there are definitely a couple others that are slipping my mind right now.

But a lot of them in my mind sort of come from this place of sort of getting in touch with your inner self, your true self, self-realization, self-unfolding as applied to emotions, relationships and work. And it’s very clear that it works at least from the social proof of high-functioning executives paying for this and having this be a sustainable industry.

And it’s been really cool to sort of have a little taste of all that stuff, at least the little that I have, where it all does sort of seem like it’s coming from the same foundation of almost how I would describe as like the stuff that Tibetan Buddhism talks about plus like parts work and IFS and things like that. And it’s cool to see like that just sort of is happening. So it’s clear that, well, if it works for the best, why wouldn’t it work for everyone else?

Scott Britton (09:19)

Yeah, I think it’s like we’re at an interesting intersection in time right now where these guys are basically all coding ancient spiritual concepts in business language and making that accessible. But at the same time, there’s this like lack of overt admission that like we’re doing spiritual stuff. And, you know, I think there’s benefits to that. But I also think part of me wishes like, hey, can we just acknowledge that you’re talking about like an eternal self? Can we just acknowledge that you’re talking about God? Can we just acknowledge like all of these things?

And I completely respect those guys and their desire to make it accessible by coding it. Like, you know, I think there’s been performance coaches and now there’s more and more developmental coaches who basically, you know, acknowledge there’s a continuum of human experience. We go on an evolution, we develop and we can evolve what our experience is like and that’s the essence of the consciousness journey. And a lot of coaches are starting to focus more on the developmental stuff.

Pranab Sachithanandan (10:36)

100%. Yeah. And to the point of just actually making what’s actually happening explicit, a couple of things that helped with that. I think, honestly, COVID and lockdowns sort of dropped the veil of sort of separation between work and personal life in a lot of ways. Like everyone was at home, people were on the internet a lot more, people talked about their experience. And it’s sort of, I think that did two things. One, dropped the distinction between work and personal quite a bit more. So a lot of it kind of bled over. And you could kind of see that it was always the case.

Like it was always that fact that you show up to work and work influences your personal life, but that just made it really obvious. And everyone was talking about it, TikTok, more people on the internet, more people on Twitter, and just you realize how common and universal of an experience that is. So I think now in this post-lockdown era of the last few years, people, I think, just have a lot of appetite to just, let’s just say what it is. Let’s just talk about it. Let’s just see what’s actually happening. Yeah.

Scott Britton (11:27)

Dude, 100%, man, 100%. And that was part of the reason why I was like, with my book, the subtitle is How to Use Personal Achievement for Spiritual Growth, because part of me wanted to just be like, hey, can we just fucking own this? You know, can we just like stop dancing around the like elephant in the room and just like call some of this stuff what it is. It’s like it is, you know, it is what the ancients talked about. It is what the masters talked about and I personally, coming from a lineage that’s very, I would say, metaphysical, right?

Like, I just tend to gravitate towards people that are like, no, yeah, you can understand natural laws of the universe. Like, we may even be living in an energetic field. Like, you know, I just actually want to just kind of get to the straightforward fundamentals, like you know, what is it that we’re actually talking about? And so for me, the overtness is actually something I’m attracted to.

Pranab Sachithanandan (12:29)

Yeah, yeah, super cool. Nice. Yeah, I think there’ll be an interesting... I’m not sure what the word is, but there’ll be an interesting sort of thing to look at over the next few years because it’s very clear that more and more people are into this and then some choose to be more overt, some choose to be less overt, but it’s sort of like no matter what, it’s just growing, which is really interesting and super cool.

Scott Britton (12:52)

I’m interested to see what happens with a lot of these like creators who are going to go on this path inevitably or are already on it and they’ve kind of like shied away from it or haven’t embraced it. And then like, is everyone going to have like, okay, I’m actually going to start talking about this stuff now because this is what really matters. Tim Ferriss kind of went through that a little bit. He’s an example. But I just suspect like, all these people with audiences are going to go on this journey and then have to have a confronting situation of like, how do I talk about this stuff?

Is this actually where my heart is and where I start talking about it? You know, what will that do for the population? I think it will be very positive.

Pranab Sachithanandan (13:45)

For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I can attribute a lot of my own growth to watching people on the internet from a younger age go through and talk about this stuff. Yeah. And that sort of gets into a topic that I want to dive deeper into on the pendulum. How would you describe the pendulum swing, and how do you think that could be better over time?

Scott Britton (14:09)

Yeah, so I think a fundamental concept with the pendulum swing is a perspective that I call the outside-in paradigm, which is essentially a set of beliefs that the problems and solutions to your life exist outside of yourself. And so when you hold this concept, basically, you’re in achievement mode. You’re in trying to shape the world mode where, okay, I’m gonna have the excellent job, I’m going to have the partner, I’m going to have the money, like I’m going to have all these things and doing those things is going to make me feel better. And it’s going to create meaning and fulfillment.

And at some point in that quest, you just realize the hollowness and that ultimately, like all those things do is create a very temporary state of feeling good and then you just kind of feel the same. Like it doesn’t fundamentally change your experience in a more permanent way. And so when you have that recognition, and you start to touch some of this inner work consciousness stuff, you just realize that there’s a more direct way to work on your experience and how you feel.

And for many very like ambitious people, and people that were very fixated on that external orientation, there’s a tendency to kind of go all in on the other direction. And so that’s the pendulum swinging from the external fixation to the internal fixation. And you just, I mean, I went through my own experience of this and you see it where it’s like, people are obsessed with healing.

You know, they’re constantly doing all the work and all they want to talk about is the work and like, you know, all that stuff that they used to do in terms of like hustling and achieving and accomplishment, that’s like less spiritual and that’s bad. And you know, there’s a polarized view between like the new way of being and the old way of being. And I think this is almost like something that people have to go through until they have instruction on how to not have it be so polarized and so radical. And so that’s the pendulum swing.

And ultimately where I netted out and what a lot of my journey was, how do I hold both? Right? How do I do both at the same time and move that pendulum back to center? So there’s a harmonious relationship between the external stuff and the internal stuff. Like, I believe like we incarnated into human form, not just to do spiritual work, but to experience and enjoy form and to make it better, to contribute. Right? That is a big part of this experience. And at the same time, like, I know that I came into form for the evolution of consciousness. So it’s not one or the other, it’s both.

And there is a way to do both at the same time.

Pranab Sachithanandan (17:15)

That’s awesome. Yeah, I was just talking to a founder friend a couple days ago on this sort of thing of the arc of, you know, you kind of are doing work and you do work in a place that maybe leads to a lot of achievement. If you’re sort of more, there’s sort of this distinction on people who like run towards work and run away from work, the more perfectionism versus avoidance side. That’s a whole other thing. But you know, you’re sort of doing work in a way that will lead to burnout, but maybe you achieve a lot in the way that it feels like that’s the only way it can be.

And then people often swing the other way and go full on healing work, full on recovery, figuring themselves out. And then they sort of return to work, but then how to sort of be in the middle, like how to actually integrate those two modes, both in sort of what you do and how you do it. And like a lot of people think, does that mean I have to go into coaching or supporting other people? Or they think, maybe that means I have to, maybe I can only go back to the old way of doing things. But then the echoes of those old scripts come back in.

And it’s sort of interesting how what I’m also seeing—and I’m curious what you think, too—is that it’s more about how you do something and sort of, yeah, and just like the feeling and working through the old patterns and sort of the way of being more than exactly what someone does. But naturally, if you kind of bring a new way of being to your work, you’ll also do work that’s more interesting to you and for other people. And I sort of like this idea of freedom from. At first, you’re sort of getting freedom from your old patterns, old ways of being, you know, societal scripts.

And then by the end or through the end, you’re sort of building a freedom to like a freedom to go back into the world, to engage with form, to do really cool things. Maybe even to do stuff, to do really hard work, right? It’s not about not doing hard work. It’s about doing hard work in a way that you want to. Yeah.

Scott Britton (19:04)

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think it’s like what? Yeah, it’s like you have the awareness now of the old, essentially why you were doing what you were doing before. Like, for example, there was recognition for me of, all that ambition, all that hustling behind all that was a huge pile of low self-esteem and the concept that I was worthless. That’s what drove that. And so you’re kind of set up at first with the situation of like, okay, so is hustling bad? Am I just reinforcing that part of myself that doesn’t believe that I’m enough?

And that makes you, it kind of almost makes it difficult to do what you used to do. And I certainly experienced that, but the key tool and concept here is that as you reenter these familiar scenarios, the work is noticing the resistance. Right? It is essentially a direct through line to whatever is left in your subconscious that is preventing you from exercising total freedom. And I’ll give you a perfect example. Like, you know, I remember when I was selling my company, like I was selling my company, I told some people about it.

And then all of a sudden, like I was just around all these people that just like wanted to—all they wanted to do is talk about business every time I saw them and I was on the spiritual path. And I was like, man, like, all these guys want to do is talk about business. I used to be like that, but I’m not like that anymore. Like this is out of alignment, blah, blah, blah. And there would be immense resistance in these conversations. And so, like, paradoxically, I actually had very little freedom to enjoy talking about business, which is something I once enjoyed.

And eventually, like the main practice is like using your reactions and having meta-awareness to see how you’re relating to the situation. And when I went into that, you know, I realized that, yeah, I didn’t want to talk about business because I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed that we hadn’t sold the company yet, even though I had told a bunch of friends that I thought a deal was going to go through. And so my consciousness had devised a very brilliant strategy of making me think that I didn’t want to talk about business anymore because that was out of alignment.

And so as someone goes kind of that kind of getting back to center point, it’s not to run away from the old, it’s actually to face it head on and then to face every single thing that comes up along the way so that you can experience true freedom. So that you can be a deeply spiritual person and be like, yeah, let’s talk about making a shitload of money or let’s actually talk about the nature of life. And it doesn’t really matter because no matter what, I am all good. And that is real freedom.

And so this concept that I’m so passionate about is like, yes, like your old ways, business, achievement, accomplishment, like this is a crucible for you to achieve that freedom. You just have to start to relate to it the right way and start to notice how you’re reacting to everything.

Pranab Sachithanandan (22:24)

Totally, totally. That’s awesome. Yeah. A few of the things that jump out to me around meta-awareness, choice, decision-making, seeing kind of what you can do. I’m going to do a screen share. Can you see that? Yeah.

Scott Britton (22:37)

Yep. Yeah. I love this image.

Pranab Sachithanandan (22:40)

Yes. I got this from your book and it’s awesome because it sort of just gets exactly at this. Like we often think there’s just, you know, it’s a guy and there’s a cone and you know, total choice spectrum is this whole thing, but we only kind of see this perceived optimal choice, which is a much, much narrower band. There are all these unconscious options that we don’t see because of these assumptions and limiting beliefs and all these things that we think sort of block us from doing things. And it’s been really cool to see sort of in real time.

So this can happen on like a small scale in the course of seconds or in the course of hours, days, months, or years. Over the years, things like, I could never do that thing in life. I could never be that kind of person or do those things. And on the small scale, which is a lot of what I see in my work with Attention Copilot, someone will sort of be thinking about a task for work and sort of looking at it in a super narrow way. And I’ll just sort of do a breather with them.

We sort of expand out and just naturally within five, 10 seconds, the right answer comes in, simply from being in a little bit more spaciousness and connecting to a more holistic self. Intuition just sort of works immediately. Like, why was I missing that? And, you know, and it’s because there’s all these sort of constructs and this and that sort of almost creates an invisible force field, right? And you just—

Scott Britton (24:00)

100%. You’re living in a box.

Pranab Sachithanandan (24:03)

Exactly. It’s just a little box of perception that we don’t even see the options available. And I think it’s funny because even like modern, even like psychology sort of gets at this, like with black-and-white thinking. Even like cognitive behavioral therapy sort of gets at it, but they don’t really talk about the root of what it actually is and like, how does it actually work? And it’s these really sort of, you know, these schemas or beliefs or something. There’s different ways to talk about it too, but yeah, it’s super cool to hear you talk about that.

Scott Britton (24:30)

Yeah, I mean, it’s why I’m obsessed with the consciousness stuff, because it’s like the traditional approach to this is the and this is the flip side of I think a big question that is not really well documented is like, what is the how of how working on your consciousness actually creates more capacity to create whatever it is that you want in the world? That’s a very big question and it’s not well documented in a lot of the spiritual texts because many of them actually just say, no, no. The only thing that matters is enlightenment.

And the way that I relate to it is like, you know, the expansion of the intellect, which is how many people focus on improving capacity through reading books and podcasts and, you know, getting mentors and accruing experiences. That’s like becoming a better navigator of your box. It’s like if you have like a go-kart that you can drive around this little box and it’s like you’re going faster in your little box, right? And the consciousness work is like expanding the box outwards, right? It’s creating a new box.

And that’s like a metaphor that I love is like you can become a better chess player or you can zoom out and see all the games available in the game room and decide what you want to play and learn how they work. And that to me is just like a much more interesting way of creating results than the former way. But again, back to the polarized thinking, which tends to creep in with these, it’s actually not one or the other, it’s both. But there is always going to be a fundamental constraint when you don’t work on the awareness.

Pranab Sachithanandan (26:13)

100%. And I think the cool thing about all of what you said is it works great as a metaphor and it’s almost literal. Like let’s say you’re really stressed, right? And you’re super stressed and you can feel the pressure of stress in your head. And then it sort of feels like the walls are sort of caved in, in almost a literal way. Like there’s pressure on the sides of your face. You’re sort of zoomed in on a laptop and you’re like, ah, what do I do? There’s all the cortisol pumping in. Your working memory is like filled with this one topic.

When someone has that same situation, but has practice with you know, expanding awareness practices or any inner contemplative tradition, you can sort of just sit, rest, and almost do the thing of relaxing the boundaries of your perception or almost expand outwards or dissolve the boundaries. There’s all these different ways to talk about it, but it literally feels like the room you’re in gets bigger. So Even if there’s an elephant—it’s like the elephant is in a tiny little New York style apartment versus like a giant, you know, King Ranch thing in Texas. I don’t know. You know what I mean?

It’s like the space is much bigger. It’s like it can be the same elephant, but there’s just a lot more space. And with that space, you’re sort of just, yeah, it’s not a big deal, you know? And it’s quite literally almost just increasing capacity for stress, increasing capacity for distress, intensity, and that just clearly helps people, you know? And I, yeah.

Scott Britton (27:33)

But it’s much more than, because I think a trap for a lot of people is, oh, well, how does consciousness help me be a better performer? And they’re like, well, if I’m less stressed and I’m less easily agitated, then I’ll do better at my job. And that’s just like a very shallow fractional view of the how. And yeah, so I wanna make sure to call that out because it is that, but it’s also so much more.

Pranab Sachithanandan (28:03)

Yep, I sort of like that as almost a way in to be like, yeah, everyone knows this part works. So kind of curious how, so like that does happen and it’s like less stress, better performance, you know, MBSR, all that stuff, right? And it is much deeper than that. And how would you say it goes even deeper than that?

Scott Britton (28:20)

Well, I think, you know, it comes down to what is awareness really. And for me, the definition of that is the capacity to see truth. And so I think that we live in a base reality or a fundamental reality of which at any given time we can see a portion of. And so back to some of the examples that we discussed, like, you know, with my ambition, it was like, I’m ambitious because it feels good to grow, right? And that was my perspective, but in reality, in a bigger reality, there was actually a subconscious set of beliefs and patterns around low self-esteem that was creating that experience.

And you can do this with everything, right? It’s like, I think about like most materialists who are like, we live in a world of form and that’s all there is, right? And then there’s like all this science coming out that shows that actually there’s like, a world of vibration and energy that is unseen. That’s just how it is. And so as you go on this journey, you start to increase your capacity to see a greater portion of truth, of true reality. And as that happens, you begin to align your life and actions to that understanding. And I believe that there are fundamental properties and laws of reality.

There’s like just the way things work. And you start to tune into not only how are you relating to all of that, but also what those laws are and begin to align your life to them. And in my experience and the experience of many others and even great texts like, you know, the Tao Te Ching, things go better when you do that, right? Because you’re aligning to the actual natural order. And so that, for me, is the crux of it is like aligning to the true way of things.

And a huge part of that is seeing all the ways that you show up and why you do, because I think what we’re here to do, like my belief is that we are here to go on this journey. We’re here to grow and expand ultimately discover ourselves and life needs to kind of show us that path. Like we’re constantly receiving a reflection of that in service of that journey and in service of the whole. So it actually becomes really like I almost think of it as a higher organizing principle of your life is your consciousness journey.

And you can play that game directly, you know, and what I’ve noticed is like, life has these things that it wants to teach you about yourself and communicate to you. Once you understand receive the message and in many ways, in many instances do healing, you don’t have to keep seeing that thing. And like, if you don’t do that, if you don’t work on the awareness to become aware of that, then you just keep having—it’s like playing something on repeat, right? You have to keep going through that experience.

And so like, that phenomenon I think is like very important and becomes very important in creating results in your life as you go deeper on the journey.

Pranab Sachithanandan (31:50)

For sure, for sure. Yeah, that’s awesome. As an example of this, I sort of initially wanted to now move into thinking about organizations and how this applies in groups and cultures. But I think the thing that’s coming up for me now is sort of on that topic, I think I might have a little bit of pushback or disagreement, which feels uncomfortable, too.

Scott Britton (32:13)

I’d love to hear it.

Pranab Sachithanandan (32:15)

Yeah. Sometimes when two people sort of both feel like they’re coming from truth or sort of aligning with like absolute truth, there kind of can be this he said, she said thing, or it’s like, oh, if they’re in disagreement, how does one sort of discern which opinion to go with? And I think sometimes if you have two people who are both like on this path and on this journey, but then in disagreement, it can become a question of who’s right. How do you know who’s right and wrong? And you can sort of devolve into more tribal dynamics or sort of like ego games. Curious if you’ve seen that.

And in my mind, I think that almost pushes to go more for like the rationalist or brainy thing, even from this place.

Scott Britton (33:04)

You’re always only seeing a portion of truth. And one of the understandings that comes up as you do that is that there’s the recognition that you are an expression of what you’ve been exposed to. And so when I evaluate people’s beliefs and concepts, my truth is that those people are just sharing what they’ve been exposed to. And that leaves room for all people and all beliefs. And so, you know, it’s kind of like why spiritual teachers say, the more you know, the less you know. And so I think the idea that there is like fundamental truths also needs to accommodate relative truths that are highly subjective.

But I think that if you just take the opposite approach and be like, well, everybody’s just having their own relative experience, it wouldn’t accommodate for these kind of governing principles that seem to be at work, right? And you seem to become more aware of as your awareness expands that also mirror a lot of the ancient teachings.

Pranab Sachithanandan (34:18)

There are absolute truths and there sort of always has to be this relative humility to being like, and I don’t know them all the way and recognition that it’s not just this purely relative thing. It’s like, there are probably people who are more in line with that and more in touch with it than others. And there’s a way to sort of work with that. Yeah, good stuff.

Scott Britton (34:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s like, you know, I think it’s like if you have this big truth map, right? Like, what’s interesting is like, and, in the example I like, a spotlight, right? Where it’s like, your spotlight is, you know, a certain radius, right? And you can meet somebody that has a similar size spotlight as you, but it could just be pointed at a different portion of the map.

And so, you know, I think like the people that I respect are on this path, like they have a point of view that’s grounded in their direct experience, but they hold it very lightly, especially in relationship to others, because there’s a recognition that you’re only ever seeing a fraction of the whole thing.

Pranab Sachithanandan (35:25)

Yep. Nice. That makes sense. Sweet. That feels great. Thanks for indulging me.

Scott Britton (35:30)

Yeah, dude.

Pranab Sachithanandan (35:31)

I’m curious: how do you see this applied to organizations and companies through your new company, Conscious Talent? You talk to a lot of people. You talk to a lot of founders, a lot of businesses that think about this stuff all the time. I’m curious what you see happening there organizationally, developmentally.

Scott Britton (35:46)

Yeah, well, I think, first off, this is still a very nascent thing. Just want to acknowledge that. I think what I see is, there’s a lot of founders who are going on this journey. And they’re seeing their own transformation and the benefit in a more fundamental way, like not just like, I’m feeling less stressed. Like, they’re like, okay, wow, there’s like a lot more going on here than I thought. And how do I actually start to imbue this as a part of our culture and with my people in a way that isn’t kind of like, ‘subscribe to my beliefs and religion’, right? But like, how do I make this accessible?

And the reason that we started Conscious Talent, well, there’s a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it’s really hard to enroll people in this stuff and kind of get them to see the world this way if they’re not already there. And I think the traditional approach has been, okay, a founder goes through Art of Accomplishment or CLG, has a great experience. They bring in a trainer to do a session once a month for three months. And then they hope that there’s a big transformation. And I’m not saying that’s not useful. It is.

But it usually doesn’t result in kind of like fundamental unlocks for new ways of doing things. And I think what I’ve observed and seen is that when you can try to find people who are already keyed into this and are already on this path, it just opens the aperture of what’s possible. It just allows you to do things that otherwise would contain a lot of friction because people think, ‘Did I sign up for this?’ Like, I’m glad you’re having this transformation, but I just wanted to work at this company before you did this.

So yeah, I think there’s a growing appetite in the market of founders who are like, Hey, like who else out there is into this? That’s also really good at their job. And that’s what we help with at Conscious Talent. And I also see there’s a growing appetite for concepts like a deliberately developmental organization. And the idea there is that the business is, again, it’s like this like, include and expand concept, or it’s like, if you take a look at a circle, and you’re like, okay, the business is about making profit and creating win-wins for stakeholders. And then that grows.

And it’s like, okay, the business is about creating win-wins for stakeholders and win-wins for the world. And then that grows and says, okay, the business is about all of those things. And it’s about the evolution of our people. And specifically their evolution of their consciousness, even though they might not use those words. And so I’m seeing a lot of people excited about building into that.

And I think like, that’s very much uncharted territory, like there’s a handful of companies that have done that well, but you’re starting to see, you know, signs of it with like companies doing things like hiring an embedded coach, where there’s a coach now for everybody at the company, or like, everybody gets coaching, right? Or you know, doing retreats as a company and incorporating more than just like strict performance stuff into the work environment.

And so that’s, that’s like what I’m very excited about to see what unfolds is like, what happens when like, not only are you personally relating to work as a crucible for your evolution, but what happens when you’re like in a container where everyone else is, too? How does that change how you interact? How does it change the way you go about doing things? And I think it’s still early days for that. You know, we’re kind of, many of us are collectively trying to like figure out what that playbook looks like.

Pranab Sachithanandan (39:51)

Totally. Yeah, this just lit me up in a bunch of different ways. I think the idea of developmental organizations and just sort of how the cultures of organizations have changed over time is really interesting. Sort of, if you look 200 years ago, many organizations were like mafias where, you know, there’s like a head boss and everyone’s sort of doing stuff for the boss. And maybe later you sort of get, and there’s different versions of that that are healthier and worse, then you sort of get military mode and military is sort of, you know, top down command control, various levels.

Anyways, I’m sort of just riffing in my head but I think I need—

Scott Britton (40:24)

Have you read Reinventing Organizations?

Pranab Sachithanandan (40:26)

A little bit. I skimmed it a bit and I think that’s sort of where I’m getting this from. Yeah.

Scott Britton (40:28)

Yeah. Yeah, there’s a concept of a teal organization. And basically, you know, a teal organization is much more like distributed where it’s less hierarchical. And what’s required for the teal organization concept to work is hiring people who have a lot of self-leadership and ownership and autonomy and can hold this complexity and you know, also structures that allow people to do things more autonomously. And again, like I think there’s some companies out there that are doing it okay, but it’s like very nascent and not the standard. And I think a lot of people are struggling to figure it out.

And again, what I’ve seen is that the failure mode comes back to the people. If you have a bunch of Scotts and Pranabs and a bunch of other people that are totally bought in and been at this for a while, that’s different than a few of those and then a few people that are completely out of tune with all of this. Yeah, I foresee a world where like as AI enables people to do more with less, and you have these like crack five to 10 person teams, right? Now add the layer of the consciousness stuff onto that. Things get really interesting.

Pranab Sachithanandan (42:08)

Yeah, how familiar are you with Softmax, Emmett Shear’s latest company?

Scott Britton (42:12)

I am familiar with it.

Pranab Sachithanandan (42:13)

Nice. That’s awesome. Yeah. So I’ve just been following along on Twitter. But a really interesting thing about it is sort of the way he tweets about it organizationally and developmentally of sort of creating a meta-rational organization that also has sort of this through line of maybe not explicitly around consciousness, but you know, what they’re doing is sort of on AI research with agents becoming more agentic and having higher consciousness in a way. So he’s sort of applying those principles to the organization itself. And it’s really interesting to sort of see from the sidelines at least.

So I’ll be curious on how that goes over the next couple of years.

Scott Britton (42:46)

Yeah, I’m glad you got that on my radar. I haven’t been following him, you know, equally curious.

Pranab Sachithanandan (42:51)

Yeah, nice. Cool. Well, what’s sort of exciting for you now in the next few weeks and months with your book and with work? What are some things that are making you feel excited?

Scott Britton (43:00)

Yeah, I mean, I’m very excited for the book to come out. You know, I think there’s a lot of people out there that are kind of living in this duality of like, okay, do I go hard on spirituality or do I go hard on, you know, the accomplishment stuff and getting all the things I want. And this whole like concept of integration is just like the through line across all the stuff that I’m doing. And yeah, I’m just excited to help hopefully some people that are experiencing that thing that I experienced—that confusion and those questions around how do I actually do this?

You know, Conscious Talent, I think is really starting to pick up steam. We’re having a lot more founders come to us and say, hey, like, you know, let’s talk and how do we do this? And I think an area for me that is a growth edge is really becoming a student of the developmental organization stuff. You know, like you, I read Reinventing Organizations. It was a quick read. I couldn’t actually apply much when I read it. Like I wasn’t running a company when I read it. And now I am, right?

And so the conversations that I’m having are like, okay, what does it look like to have, you know, everyone at the company have access to an IFS coach once a month? What does it look like when we use something like Warmspace to start meetings, which is like a tool that allows you to like drop in and reflect. It’s kind of built in. It’s like a Zoom that has like these like different journeys that kind of integrate this stuff into the flow of conversations. And we even do things at Conscious Talent that are like, you know, co-creative intention setting with the universe, like creating a group field.

You know, that’s kind of like, yeah, I don’t know any other company that does that. And so we’re experimenting a lot with what this weave looks like, and I’m excited to keep learning through my own direct experience and also keep learning from other people out there that are playing in a similar way.

Pranab Sachithanandan (45:13)

That’s awesome. That’s super cool. Yeah. And I think we’ll have a lot more conversations in the future because all of what I’m doing with Attention Copilot and my co-founder, Sam, I think you met recently, we’re sort of figuring out, what does this look like if you sort of take, you know, the root cause of productivity is inner conflict.

That’s the sort of like mainstream sort of direct way of the simple way of talking about it, but really sort of the bigger thing is that productivity is just service and activity and just action that really has no separation with the rest of your life and the rest of how you want to show up in the world. So what does it look like to like truly have sovereignty over your attention, understanding the principles of awareness and bringing that to the way you do things? There’s a lot more I can go into that, but really sort of what does that look like if more products and services were oriented around that?

And that will lead to, you know, in a mainstream way of saying it, better results, but also just feeling better about how you do things, feeling more agency. And I think that even 10 years ago, knowledge work—obviously different from factory work—still involved a certain amount of stuff you have to get done in a traditional work environment. And now I think it’s super clear that what matters more is leverage and creativity, especially with AI and the more leverage and creativity there is, like this stuff helps with leverage and creativity again, far beyond that too.

But it’s just so clear to me that this is sort of the future of how development works. And I think supporting people with that will be really interesting.

Scott Britton (46:53)

That’s awesome, man. I think one thing that’s gonna have to be handled, I know we haven’t done an Attention Copilot session yet, but I want to, is that there’s definitely this very real experience in which someone is doing work and using that to work on their awareness, and they have to just get comfortable with the trade-off of stopping what they’re doing and pausing their productivity in service of understanding what’s happening in their inner world. Right. And like, you know, that’s gonna be really hard for a lot of people. Right.

Because the inertia is just like, Yeah, but I’m in the middle of my flow, like, but I got to get this shit done. Right. And it seems like for me, what had to happen enough times was to just see the outer world change as my inner world changed in order to get really solid in my belief that the inner stuff is more high-leverage. And until you hold that belief, there’s always going to be this like trade-off game that makes doing both at the same time a little bit muddy.

And, you know, yeah, so I think like, collectively, as a society, we’re going to have to kind of shift our beliefs around like, why are things actually getting done? Like, what is a more fundamental force behind that?

Pranab Sachithanandan (48:18)

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think the word that’s coming up for me is unlearning. Sometimes it just takes more time to unlearn. Like if you’re in your 50s and you sort of had a whole career, 30 years of working in this way, it’ll take quite a bit of time, most likely to sort of decondition and relax into this new way of being. Whereas if you’re in your early 20s, you can sort of spend a couple of weeks or something and then sort of integrate much more quickly.

Curious actually, if you have thoughts on sort of how your book would be applied to people at different stages of their path or different levels in their career. Or even just like if someone’s doing this in their 20s versus their 50s, how this might change.

Scott Britton (48:54)

Well, I definitely think it’s less about like the age and more about where someone’s at in their consciousness journey. And I think there’s a lot in the book, right? That could help people across a wide spectrum, but really the intended audience is for someone who’s at that critical juncture where they start to recognize, wait a second: the achievement game might not be it. And this whole inner work thing may be it. But how the hell do I do that? And do I have to give things up?

And as you go on that journey, right, so there’s like that inflection point, right, and there’s the big teaching, which is like, your reactions to life are in essence, like the path. And you can do that anywhere. But then there’s like all these little things that will come up as you go on that journey, right? It’s like a mountain, there’s the spiral metaphor, right? And there’s like these little waypoints, right? It’s like, how do I relate to desires? Like, how do I relate to ambition? You know, how do I know whether I’m making progress or not?

Like, there’s all of these new components that must be added as you walk that path. And so I think it’s a useful read for people that are about to start the journey considering it, but also are actively walking it. And, you know, for me, it’s like, I just wanted to create the thing that answered all the questions that I had. And so that’s what I did. And I’m sure there’s some other people out there that have them. And I think like, one thing I would share is like, I’m not as sure. There seems to be these like, patterns of people that are like, super ambitious, and they come to this, right?

And like, it’s great for those people. But I’m less sure about people who went hard on spirituality from the get-go. And now they’re like, Okay, how do I do shit in the world? Like, that’s kind of the inverse of that. And I actually don’t know the answer to that question, because that wasn’t my particular journey.

Pranab Sachithanandan (51:18)

Yeah,

Scott Britton (51:18)

I was very much a reformed ambition person.

Pranab Sachithanandan (51:21)

For sure. And it’s sort of funny because that’s in some ways sort of my journey, not to the deep end or something, but that’s sort of been a thing I’ve thought about for a while where I think since high school, I sort of was on this thing due to the way I grew up of just like rejecting sort of traditional ways of success. I did pretty well. So it’s not like I really totally rejected it. Like I did well in high school, college, you know, career stuff. But there’s probably people even more on that spectrum than me.

And it’s sort of funny, I’m sort of playing with these ideas I think that’ll unfold over the next years and decades for me around just actually building the muscles of having a spiritual practice and a much more unfettered, defabricated mind. Actually, I think it makes people far more powerful at the ambition thing and the cognitive thing.

Scott Britton (52:11)

100%.

Pranab Sachithanandan (52:12)

Like I think there’s actually... In some ways it’s really just cultural of why someone chooses to not really then apply their mind once they’ve done a lot of this stuff. But I actually think you can learn much better, think much harder, and almost like push more, not for the sake of more, but for the sake of wanting to. There’s just a lot more caveats. Like it has to feel aligned, it has to feel with intention and all that, but that’s some stuff I’m exploring and sort of a... Yeah, helping spiritual people achieve is sort of an interesting, interesting angle too.

Scott Britton (52:46)

Yeah, I think you’re nailing it. I think there’s been a lot of shitty ideas—or just concepts—like, ‘Maya, it’s all illusion.’ It’s a waste of time, right? That like, have been embedded in people’s consciousness in the same way that like, things outside you will make you happy. And they’re just restrictions that are artificial. You know, that’s all they are.

And I think, in the same way that ambitious people have to like unlearn all that stuff, I think a lot of people who’ve been like devoted to teachings that were highly relevant hundreds of thousands of years ago will have to also unlearn some of those things if they choose to walk a dual path. And they don’t have to, right? If you’re cool just like hanging out at the ashram, like sweet, do that. But if you want to be kind of like a highly productive change agent who’s also deep on the path, like you’re gonna have to kind of break out of some of those things that you’ve learned.

Pranab Sachithanandan (53:50)

Totally, yeah. Well, Scott, this is awesome. This has been a pleasure and such a joy. The first of—

Scott Britton (53:56)

Yeah, dude, this was really fun.

Pranab Sachithanandan (53:58)

Yeah, for sure, the first of many conversations in the coming years. So this has been really fun.

Scott Britton (54:03)

Dude, I loved dropping in with you, man. And I love this topic. And you’re a deeply thoughtful guy and a great host. And I welcome the opportunity to chat more on this whenever you want.

Pranab Sachithanandan (54:15)

100%. Thanks so much.

This podcast serves as an introduction to his teaching and how to engage with his hundreds of guided, nondual meditations on youtube.

Resources:
Michael's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelTaft108
Deconstructing Yourself: https://deconstructingyourself.com
Michael's Courses: https://deconstructingyourself.org
- Hacking the Stack starts January 26, 2026

Timestamps:
0:45 Why students come to Michael after other resources (apps like Waking Up, retreats like Goenka and Jhourney, and books like The Mind Illuminated)
2:40 Where Michael fits in the meditation ecosystem
5:34 Respecting traditions while being meta-systematic
7:51 Where can practice actually go? The real goals
9:23 A student with severe chronic pain (morphine pump story)
14:38 Emotional pain uses the same brain circuitry
15:02 The Stack model, and understanding "progress" in meditation
16:47 Level 1: Conceptual (thinking about experience)
17:06 Level 2: Phenomenological (qualia, direct sensation)
21:36 Level 3: Flux (everything is changing)
24:45 Level 4: Openness and emptiness
28:14 Vast Sky Mind and applying the stack to all sense gates
30:00 Why Michael uses mantra, chanting, and visualization
31:45 The arc of Michael's guided meditations on YouTube
33:02 How to engage with Michael's work
35:00 The power of sangha and community

01:30 – Anne-Laure’s shift from Silicon Valley’s default success script
03:30 – Critique of the “follow your passion” fallacy
06:00 – Pranab’s personal experiment in meaningful work
11:20 – Cynicism as emotional self-protection
16:30 – Audience unpredictability and the paradox of online writing
18:30 – Pact method and intentional habit formation
24:00 – Four mindsets model: Cynicism, Escapism, Perfectionism, Experimentalism
45:30 – ADHD, hyper-curiosity, and evolutionary perspectives
53:10 – Mindful productivity and managing emotions in knowledge work
56:00 – Emotional coping strategies, interstitial journaling, and metacognition

We talk about:
- "content and process" in meditation and therapy, and how to tell when you're imbalanced on either side (hazy vs crazy)
- compassion, warmth, and parts work re: The Mind Illuminated
- where distinctions break down at the deep end of practice (eg. 8th jhana, Awakening vs. Liberation referencing @shamilch's work)

00:41 - Content vs Process: The core distinction between therapy and meditation
03:15 - Common traps: Going too hard in either direction
06:23 - Parts work failure modes: When IFS becomes reactive and narcissistic
09:03 - The role of warmth, compassion, and meta in practice
12:15 - Self-hatred as the "common cold" of globalized mental health
15:17 - View and intention: How dharma can become self-abuse
18:17 - The Mind Illuminated: Control vs acceptance based on individual needs
20:27 - Michael Taft's advice: "Cultivate more dullness"
23:54 - Do-nothing practice: From literal non-action to ego recognition
25:44 - When content and process blend together in advanced states
28:50 - The uncertainty principle: You can't observe both simultaneously
31:33 - Content exists at a "medium lens of analysis"
34:26 - Journey meditation and jhana "junkies"
37:03 - The unfabricated/deathless in Theravada tradition
41:40 - Awakening vs Liberation: Shamil Chandaria's model
45:26 - Going big vs going small: Different paths to awakening
48:12 - Tucker's experience: Big path leading to small path work
51:35 - Skillful refabrication: Buddhism vs New Age worldviews
53:48 - Raw data vs conceptual overlay: The breath example
55:47 - Staying grounded while gaining interpretive flexibility

00:00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Course on Tummo
00:04:56 Fruitional View and Dzogchen Practice
00:09:15 Self-Improvement vs. Self-Acceptance
00:10:12 Role of Emotions in Teaching
00:10:24 Emotional Healing in Practice
00:13:10 Understanding Tummo Practice
00:14:00 Explanation of Tummo Practice
00:15:11 Trapping Air in Central Channel
00:21:22 Healing Trauma with Tummo
00:24:52 Influences and Trainings
00:29:23 Secrecy in Lineages
00:34:24 Value of Tibetan Lineages
00:34:39 Monastic Safety and Structure
00:41:28 Reflections on Trungpa’s Legacy
00:45:39 Bruce Tift as a Teacher
00:51:58 Unconditional Kindness vs. Relative Behavior
00:56:12 Tolerance for Well-being
00:59:21 Untangling Self-sabotage Patterns
01:06:16 Upcoming Course Details

No Pranablem Podcast Ep1: Christine

I’ve thought about recording a podcast for a while! Conversations are where I’m most generative, and I’ve been a podcast fiend for years. I’m still stuck on what I want it to be and where I want to go with it, and it’s been fun to simply start, explore, and figure it out as I go. Here’s episode 1 with my friend Christine. We met on Twitter; we talk about that community, her relationship to journaling, our thoughts on Internal Family Systems (IFS), & similar ways of introspection.

Podcast is on Spotify but need to make some adjustments to get it on Apple Podcasts & RSS

I’m guiding a meditation on Saturday 6/3 8pm ET

My friend Tasshin leads guided loving kindness meditations in a series called Saturday Night Metta. He’s kindly offered me to substitute for him tomorrow, and you’re invited to join! In Buddhism, the Brahmaviharas are 4 boundless qualities that are virtuous (& just darn pleasant) to cultivate. Meditating on them can be fun, delightful, and joyous! Metta/Maitri, or loving kindness, (bottom left) is the most commonly talked about, but they each have their flavors. Tomorrow’s meditation will be on “Mudita for Another’s Metta”. We’ll go from 8-8:45pm ET. After some introductory terms and expectation setting, we’ll meditate for about 25 minutes and check in/Q&A for the rest. All are welcome — beginner friendly and should still be interesting for experienced meditators!

Add event to your Google Calendar

Thanks for reading!

-Pranab

0:00 Climbing & community
6:20 How did Christine get into Twitter?
11:30 Experiential difference between CBT & IFS (cognitive behavioral therapy & internal family systems)
16:00 Impro, act before you think
18:10 IFS & Journalling, relationship to journalling
25:00 Documentation & 2nd Brain stuff
28:00 Life Timeline, atheist to agnostic
31:45 What are your values?
34:30 On imaginal thinking & somatic vs. visual IFS
41:00 Recurring IFS characters, parts constellations (“garlic cloves”)
46:20 Journaling, IFS, & Existential Kink. Understanding shadow work & existential kink
54:50 Being held by your Self, Self Love
57:00 IFS as a helpful ontology & framework
58:20 Should parts always exist or occupy a new role?
1:00:30 Oneness with division, enjoying the journey. Feeling like an orchestra.
1:06:20 IFS multiplicity of mind vs. Dissociative Identity Disorder

Further links:
Christine's twitter: twitter.com/christineist
Christine's mega Google doc: bit.ly/3IpZDtl
- Includes links to her "Intro to Twitter/TPOT" guide, IFS threads, "Life Timeline" doc, and more
She's also building a cozy, project-focused alternative to twitter called 3'rd space. Check it out: 3rdspace.app

-----
Check out my Twitter (most active): twitter.com/nopranablem
Read the newsletter (in progress): pranab.substack.com

In every occasional email, you’ll get my thoughts and a few links around topics loosely in the categories of wellness, thinking, and personal development. My goal is to make things simple, insightful, and practical. If you like Wait But Why, Mark Manson, or Deep Dish, you’ll probably enjoy this!

Sounds cool? SMASSHH that subscribe button below!

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Why are you writing?

There are 3 main reasons why I’m doing this:

1. Consumption -> Creation

Listening to a 2 hour podcast or going down a youtube intellectual rabbit hole is my idea of a good time. While that’s great and all, I realized that an even better way to learn was to create in addition to consume.

By writing, I hope to synthesize learnings together from a broad range of topics (e.g. meditation, lifestyle design, buddhism, mental models, business, etc) with the general goal of making it digestible, understandable, and actionable!

2. Learning in Public

There are some cool benefits in being a bit more public about what you’re learning about. For me, it revolves around a few key points:

1. The best teachers are often recent students. By taking a “snapshot” of my insights in that moment, it’ll be easier to access that beginners mind.

2. As we get older we both silo and forget about old concepts. Publicizing helps in “building a second brain” of ideas.

3. I’m tryna make some friends!

3. Helping Others Live Better

I think that our lives get better the more our actions and beliefs are more aligned with reality. The deeper we understand ourselves and the world, the more we can do the “right” thing in each moment, leading to a life that’s more wise, calm, compassionate, and successful.

I’ll do my best to make my writing simple, helpful, and actionable. And of course, you’ll get the same dumb jokes and bad puns you might get if you’ve spent more than a millisecond with me.

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