Joel Monk: [00:00:23] Hey, Pranab, so good to be with you. I'm really excited for our conversation today. For a number of reasons, which I may be able to explain in a moment, but how are you feeling?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:00:35] I'm well. Good to see you again, Joel. I'm feeling good this morning.
Joel Monk: [00:00:39] Yeah, we had our session yesterday. You've created Attention Copilot and we're gonna get into that. So we did a session yesterday, which I loved and I think it's powerful work. I love that you're exploring how you can work with a client in the moment as they're working, working with their state and with any parts that might show up. [00:01:07] So so that's why I'm really excited to talk with you.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:01:10] So yeah, you in a session was wonderful and I'm delighted at how deep and how good it was for for being a 45 minute session It just it was really fun for me and we can talk about that and sort of ways what a session looks like and The theoretical underpinnings and all that stuff for the course of this next hours of great.
Joel Monk: [00:01:29] Yeah, because let's refer back to it and I think that will kind of bring you a life for the listener as well so Let me just read out your bio and I'll ask you if there's anything you want to add to it, but you're the founder of Attention Copilot, which is this Productivity Service founded last year, July '25, and your work really sits at the intersection of growth, technology, And you've got a background in non-dual meditation. [00:02:00] I think your one of your teachers is Michael Taft. You have worked with internal family systems and somatic awareness. And maybe you can tell us what Attention Copilot is for people listening. What is it?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:02:17] Yeah, so Attention Copilot has now become a few things. One, it's a modality that I created last year that I've been tinkering with for a couple of years that sort of formally launched as a service a year ago. It has now also become the name of the business where we do the Attention Copilot modality. So it's both sort of the business and the actual method itself. From the method point of view, what it is, It's about bringing in the best of developmental work and developmental coaching, sort of the underpinnings, I think a lot of modern. one-on-one work around parts work, and that involved a depth model that used the science of memory reconsolidation. [00:03:03] There's a lot of wonderful, amazing coaching happening now that's at the intersection of both coaching and therapy.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And I think I wanted to bring a lot of that into a real-time mode. Like, what does it mean to do that live when the trigger is actually happening? When there's actual sort of, there's more stakes and you're not just sort of working with material from the past or past patterns, which you know, amazing and important. What does it look like to do it live and work is sort of the first way we're doing that. There's a really, there's a lot of practical application to that. There's a lot of benefit to people's lives. So, the mode is really, okay, how do we kind of get into a sense of depth, almost do an unfolding session for the first 20 or 30 minutes, we then bring that depth that someone cultivates from that part of the session into eyes open laptop work. So, we see what it's like to be with a certain amount of depth and presence while in front of your laptop.
Pranab Sachithanandan: we do a sort of prioritization exercise and start bringing in conceptual activity and see how depth and conceptual activity kind of can be together. [00:04:04] And then we actually go and do a thing together. And this might sort of naively look like coworking or just body doubling, but it's actually a little bit more in depth than that. We sort of have people do their work while talking out loud and help sort of see the internal underpinnings of what's going on in your mind, what's going on in your body as you're doing work that typically tends to be triggering for you and sort of in real-time catch little moments that you freeze or dissociate, we're kind of get really stuck enmeshed in and white knuckle and that's sort of the method and as a business we do this either in these either 90 minute sessions or three hour sessions. it's now me in a couple of coaches. I work with founders and creatives and software engineers and just, you know, working in mom recently, like I say at home mom recently, like lots of different people, I think can get benefit from this mode. And I hope that from this conversation that people who are coaches see how they can incorporate elements of this into their own practice and just sort of and people in general can expand their view of
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:05:06] what it means to show up like life as practice, meditation, emotions, inner work, how it sort of meshes with real things in the world. Yeah, that's kind of the gist.
Joel Monk: [00:05:19] What I found very powerful was actually everything you were just describing, but the opportunity to connect to that sense of depth, that sense of presence, as a foundation to then start working. And then having you there, you know, that I could kind of guiding me through, you're then working on my laptop on a project. And being able to share with you when there was a kind of subtle contraction coming in a part showing up in real time and have you help me work with that and connect back to that that presence is a really powerful practice.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:05:55] Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And that was, to me, that's some of the most fun. [00:06:00] I have, so when we get to work with practitioners, fellow coaches, fellow meditators, people who have a lot of contemplative chops. They've been able to access states of expanded consciousness or expanded awareness. They have a real sort of experiential understanding of presence and awareness, perhaps, have been on meditation retreats. I often find that understanding often for whatever reason just gets sort of cut in front of a laptop or in front of doing things. I think in a lot of ways, it's like Zen householder practice while you're washing dishes, wash the dishes while you're sweeping the floor or strip the floor. But we don't necessarily have a modern analog for that when we're sort of on Google Sheets or like creating a Python script or writing a memo for our team.
Pranab Sachithanandan: high-brow or sort of conceptual activities don't seem to get the same treatment and I think for good reason it is harder there there are reasons the sense of self gets kind of gripped up and all emotions kind of get involved there and I think there's a way of practicing a sense of presence in depth even in those moments which is what we did yesterday and I can talk even more about of how to sort of practice that.
Joel Monk: [00:07:12] Yes, just before I do, I do want to ask you what led you to discover working in this way, but and then you'll get right into all the nuance of the practice itself and emotions and decisions, but the question I have and the reflection I have is about performance. So the outcome is that One can bring, if you're a spiritual practitioner, you're practicing whilst you're working, which is a benefit, but also the place from within which you are working is, you know, that deeper presence, which has a different capacity to it, a different quality of performance.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:07:48] Yes, yes, so it's really interesting how it actually can get somewhat complicated because of the depth involved. So just before this, we were talking about Steve March and Aletheia, the Four Depths model. I have a lot of training with Michael Taft. [00:08:01] He has this model called the stack model. Both sort of draw from Tibetan Mahamudra Buddhism. And I think there are other sorts of depth models that kind of point to similar territory. We also have a depth model in a way. And I won't go too into detail because it can be jargony,
Pranab Sachithanandan: essentially the idea is that the the deepest depth it's you know what we just talked about how do you bring your deepest contemplative self to work. All right, what does that look like? That can be a lot for people like that sort of lofty it's like in the middle of you know it's a Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m. that's not really what you're thinking about you just want to sort of maybe you have you have a deadline to send to your boss or you're sort of behind on a client call or, you know, there's all that stuff too. So that's sort of the deepest thing. Above that is the layer of emotional fluidity that I like to think about of how do you sort of work with the patterns at work in a way that can lead to that more presence. So, for example, maybe, for me, for example, just recently, I noticed I had a lot of challenges with sending invoices to clients.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:09:00] It's the thing I've worked on a lot, but I have some money stuff and there's some stuff around. am I worth it, and actually doing some journaling and actually noticing those patterns move and shift as body contractions. I was starting to do it, and I was starting to avoid, and then I could essentially do an Attention Copilot with myself and actually shift into emotional work, work with that pattern as it was happening, and then move back into work mode. And then there's sort of a couple layers above where it's really in some ways just sort of staying in continuity on something, staying on task. I think I shared that I don't have diagnosed ADHD, but I have ADHD-like traits at times. I think a lot of us do sort of in this world with a range of distraction. I think we can feel a more ADHD-like quality of mind.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So how do we sort of stay in continuity on a single object of attention, stay on focus, or stay on task? And even at the very simplest level, any, I like to view any sort of distraction or sort of pull away from our focus object, as a form of avoidance. [00:10:00] There's a little bit of avoidance, a little bit of uncomfortable emotion that we're sort of pushing away from. And this is very clear where I have an exercise I can share, but essentially when someone, let's say, for the next 30 minutes, I want to answer this email. And then magically, for 25 minutes, everything gets done, but that email, what happens there? You know, it's sort of this underneath the surface of all these emotions, there's competing parts, competing wants, and I think, um, Yeah, it's very there's a very practical reason to do this, which is how do you kind of stay on the things that matter to you.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And that's sort of where, you know, there's a spectrum here from sort of helping people of procrastination and stuckness all the way to like achieving high performance. I worked a lot of founders and CEOs that have had huge success. And I think they don't have necessarily the essentially a better view of deep work that comes from these contemplative traditions. There's a sense of being locked in, white knuckling, and you know, I get into that and I just think that there's a cleaner, a cleaner fuel way to be in focus and in attention on things that it's just a very practical and very performance oriented.
Joel Monk: [00:11:09] I've got like a bunch of notes from what we shared so far because I think that I think there's a growing amount of people who are questioning, you know, being in the hamster wheel, that white knuckling, and they're like, is that, is that what work should be, you know? So, yes, it kind of, you know, can it be more fulfilling? So, we'll get into that, but tell me, that question I had about where this came from. Yeah, what, what, how do you kind of come up with this idea and put these things together? Was that, you know, has that been a long journey? Did it come through a breakthrough?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:11:42] Yeah, so I think even to that white knuckling point, I think that you can kind of in broad swaths, categories, people tend to have white knuckling tendencies or sort of avoided tendencies. And we all have both. But white knuckling is sort of corresponds to a strong inner critic, perfectionism. But I should say actually perfectionism that manifests as going more into the work and more stressed in stress, you kind of go lean in. [00:12:06] And I think a lot of successful people tend to have that, especially represented in media and in business. And then I think there's sort of a silent majority of people that interest, they sort of check out. And they sort of like, oh, I'm going to go to bed. And I think I found myself in this camp for many years.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And that's sort of I think I've had this. That's sort of somewhat embarrassing, but I've owned more over time. That's just how my patterning and conditioning has been that when and stress I avoid, I procrastinate, I push away, I numb out, and I just don't want to deal with the thing. So that showed up, I was relatively high achieving as a kid. I had this script that I didn't really work hard for a lot of it. And you know, we can get into that whole thing of like what is essentially how that played out was I did well at work, but then especially when COVID and pandemic hit, I was remote, I didn't have as much structure, and I found myself just being in bed a lot, sort of having a meeting after three or four hours and being like, oh, so tired and just sort of resting for an hour or two, and then I think [00:13:10] and just noticing I wasn't doing as much, and I was performing okay, but kind of burning out from not doing as much, which is sort of a form of burnout that I think we can get into.
Pranab Sachithanandan: I think all burnout comes from lack of connection, but sometimes the lack of connection comes from white knuckling, sometimes the lack of connection comes from. almost disconnection and just pushing it away. But so I had this for years and I've been working through it and my years of meditation, therapy, some psychedelic work have all actually helped a lot in helping me show up to life more and show up to my works specifically. And I found that in 2023, so this gets to the actual story. I was in a period of chronic stress with some family stuff and, you know, I think with the pandemic and remote work, we now see how personal life and work life are not separate. There's clearly, you know, whatever you show up with that work, we'll show up at home and vice versa. [00:14:04] In a way that I think there was this barrier when you had office culture. So I just had a lot of family stress that I was working with.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And I just kept pushing away this one client work that was important, but not urgent. No one really asked for it, but it was sort of that thing in the back of my mind for weeks and months. And I tried all my techniques. I did body doubling. I even talked about it in a therapy session. And I ended up just not really getting it done because of other competing priorities or something. My mind just kept slipping off of it. So I ended up just asking a coach friend who did coherence therapy and IFS coaching work.
Pranab Sachithanandan: just sit with me and let's just try doing a session and then I would sort of open my laptop and share my screen and do the work and then every single time I would get trigger to be go back into coach mode. So I would kind of do this flip flopping between getting into a coaching mode and getting in touch with self-energy in a sense of presence, meeting these sort of trigger parts of me. Once it felt into some ease, I would go in and actually start. [00:15:01] It was like a Google, there's a Google Doc or something. I'll start writing the thing. And I would just feel like, oh, I really want to check Twitter. And I just don't want to be with this. And I would just kind of go back into Coach mode.
Pranab Sachithanandan: She would help me, I'd use my nervous system and I'd go back and forth back and forth. And what I found was I got this thing done in just 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, and it by the end of it felt really good, you know, I came in feeling terrible and I worked with all this intensity and by minute five, like all the intensity was really present, really rough. And by the end, it just felt good, easeful, and even joyful, a little bit. And I thought that was really just interesting and surprising to me, and especially how quickly that happened. So that was sort of the starting thing from there. I just thought sort of thinking a lot about emotions and work and just do the life stuff. I just did a lot of experiments on myself. I'm just trying free writing and doing all these things to just work through all this emotional cruft I had from the chronic stress and past patterns.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So that's sort of the baseline and then there's another part of the story where I was on about a year or later. [00:16:05] I was on a retreat with Michael Taft, and I think it's halfway through or something. I just noticed what it was like to just be on my phone, but consciously, while scrolling Twitter and noticing the every single moment my mind was sort of like grip and just get contracted in and then zoom back out. And similarly, I would start to sort of do that same kind of work. You know, similar work that I had on my laptop and notice in this sort of when my mind would go from this spacious retreat mode after doing three or four hours of sitting and get contracted and stuck and I would sort of have the meditation to notice that as it happened and then I did a bunch more experiments there. So those are the sort of the two two things like on the emotion side and stuckness and on the awareness side and from the meditation contemplative path. I think both really inform Attention Copilot and that's why it has the depth that it does.
Joel Monk: [00:16:55] beautiful. Yeah, so let's go into the practice a bit more than so we've already kind of unpacked it to a certain level, but so you're sitting there, you support somebody to [00:17:11] access this sense of presence. Is that something you do with all the clients or, you know, like one question I had was, what kind of language do you use? Do you feel that people are familiar? I think these days there's a lot of people who have, you know, the meditation is exploded and, you know, what used to feel woo as like I think in the last five, six years has just become Yeah, well, with that foundational move, like how do you often produce that to your clients?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:17:42] Yeah, so in a lot of ways, this has been what's been fun to innovate on in the last year is sort of the languaging, the communication, and sort of the, in a lot of ways, it's education as well, and making it accessible. So without the jargon, without sort of the terminology of non-dual parts work, this and that, which is amazing, and it's really fun when I can use that language of people. [00:18:03] What's a simple way that work with that way works for everyone, and I just like using And I think a lot of people, even if they're sort of woo-averse or, you know, maybe you've never encountered meditation. And I've worked with other people who've never encountered meditation or parts work and still get a lot from these sessions. And the way I approach it is great. We're going to have some eyes closed for a little bit, see what happens. And then we'll go eyes open and then do some laptop stuff.
Pranab Sachithanandan: which everyone I've worked with has been open to that. And the way I view it, I really do view it in sort of a gradualist frame. So, gradualist means just like, it's a continuous thing, right? It's not either this or that, there's a depth, there's a depth to it. So with you, for example, we were able to kind of go, You know, pretty quickly into spaciousness, openness, joy, subtle delight. And that's that's really fun, right? But for a lot of people, they're coming in just really stressed.
Pranab Sachithanandan: They've just had back-to-back meetings. [00:19:00] They're like, ah, I'm just frantic. Great. Let's just do a few rounds of box breathing and then notice. I asked them, so how do you feel? They're like, oh, I feel calmer. And I think the key thing that I do a bit differently is, I ask, so how do you know that you're calm? What sensations or how could you tell?
Pranab Sachithanandan: And they're like, oh, yeah, I guess, and this is actually kind of a hard question for a lot of people because they haven't really gotten into phenomenal sensory experience in that way. And they're like, yeah, I guess my shoulders aren't as hunched as they usually are. My eyes are a little bit lighter. great. So let's go into, so what's it like with your eyes, with your shoulders? And then immediately they're getting into, you know, sort of like a sensation level, like you can imagine like Gendlin focusing or just sort of really getting into what the experience of it is like. And just from doing that, they're getting more present. They're getting more aware, they're getting more in the now of experience.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And then typically from there, I'll say great. Great. So you're with your shoulders and I try to ease into relaxed and enjoyment. So it's not a typical body scan. [00:20:01] I'm like great. How good does it feel to be with that? And I think that's a bit more of a trauma-informed way as well versus trying to shoot for, you know, difficulty right away to sort of create a basis of grounding and well-being.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And then from there, ideally, and oftentimes they'll notice a sense of flow how the things are shifting and changing and moving. And this is where... This is... I'm essentially describing a Michael Taft's stack model. You could probably see the analog with the Four Depths model and Steve March's work. But then once you have that flow, there's really, you know, quite a bit more and I'm surprised at how many people are able to access all this and just sort of anywhere from a 10 to 40 minute eyes closed section with the right pointing and guidance. And I have some more things I could say about the way I do it and how how to make it very client-centric like I'm really using their words and their language and helping. understand what's going on for them versus doing a guided meditation.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So it's very sort of responsive in that way. Yeah, hopefully that answers your question. [00:21:01] Like people get into a depth and then when they have eyes open, they're like, oh wow, things are a little more vivid, more open, more present. And even when there's people who haven't really meditated all before and I'm sort of on my side like this even happened, did we do anything They're like, oh my gosh, I've never seen the world so vivid and interesting and I'm like, great. That sounds like that sounds good. Yeah.
Joel Monk: [00:21:20] Do you, that's what I really appreciate about your guidance just today was, you know, even though I meditate. There was just a really beautiful kind of mirroring and invitation for me into that state of presence where it was, um, it felt like you weren't telling me what to experience. You were just reflecting back so that I dropped deeper into the experience and it expanded. and became more stable, and so could you say what is a bit more about that process? How you do that? I love to weave in Michael Taft's stack model as well. [00:22:01] I know they're probably, that's a whole podcast in of itself, but just so that people are listening kind of just know what they are as a reference.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:22:10] Yeah. Yeah. So Michael Taft's stack model is just sort of a model for understanding the path of insight practice. But another way of thinking about it, it's just a model of understanding depths of presence. Like, what does it mean to be more present? That's the way I translate it. It may not be how he does. So the layer one is concept.
Pranab Sachithanandan: People are in your head all the time. You're sort of working with concepts of things and not the actual thing itself. And often that means you're really in your literally you're feeling a lot of head sensations. And then the layer two is sensation-level experience. Actually, feeling the sensations of a thing. typical breath instruction, often you're thinking about the breath a lot. Can you start feeling what it's like to be with your breath? Level three is flow, so can you know what it's like for air to be moving through your chest and through your nose and that sense of flow change?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:23:01] And level four is presence or awareness or sort of seeing how There's a greater openness in and around all that experience. So, again, this is the one minute version. There's a couple of hours of instruction here, and it's awesome. But that's the stack model. And this sort of dyadic meditation thing, I really like. And I think there's a few inspirations here. One, it's just a lot of the IFS work I've done on myself with my coaches and therapists.
Pranab Sachithanandan: They're just a sort of really soft gentle back and forth with that happens in a somatic mode like that. We're just in a parts work mode in general. In some ways, the people I work with, it's not really by the book IFS. It's sort of IFS that ends up incorporating some of these principles, you know, more imaginal or somatic way. So when I say IFS that's what I really mean, but that's a good pointer. But yeah, there's that main influence. And then, too, I was the first hire at this company called Jhourney. [00:24:03] So Jhourney with an H does jhana retreats.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So they teach people how to enter jhana states through heart practice, through loving kindness, and, and, different things like that. So one practice that they had which are similar is this is this thing called journeying where you have a one-on-one partner and it's dyadic meditation that's very similar and there they sort of that the frame for that is using the jhana instruction to enter into more states of pleasure and enjoyment and relaxation and eventually into some But I'm sort of like, great. You actually can do that with any sort of scaffolding underneath. So I'm using the stack model underneath that. And I find that that just tends to be really, really nice for these purposes.
Joel Monk: [00:24:47] Well, I think simple and about it too is that. for a lot of people, even in the coaching personal development world, there's a focus on trauma integration, working with parts. But there is not a lot of emphasis sometimes on marinating in states of presence, qualities of presence. [00:25:07] Because I have a coach and I've written about this with to our community. Sometimes I'll just sit with them for like, 40 minutes and silence, you know, as we're just like these states or presence are emerging and taking a route and so I really love that you start with that practice because I think even for more experienced practitioners, that's something that often isn't given enough, you know, enough kind of emphasis.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:25:36] Yeah, it's been really interesting, actually, because I noticed in myself, there are times where over time will be working with the client, and our sessions end up becoming just really quiet and just silent, most of the time. And there's sometimes a voice in me, am I doing anything? This isn't even worth the money being charged, I think. And there's sort of a humility required to be like, it is actually really powerful. And sometimes the subtle silence that space the container, that's what allows for such deep, deep, nourishing states of presence to come up. [00:26:05] And it's quite counter-intuitive, like sometimes you think, oh, to help someone you have to talk more, or push more, or say more things. And actually speaking less and just speaking as appropriate, which might be every five minutes or so, which is a really long time, might be the thing that's needed. And I think there's a thing of, oh, you want to check it in to make sure that person's aren't distracted or mind-longering or something.
Pranab Sachithanandan: But yeah, it's been really interesting unfolding for myself of seeing how to sort of support these experiences. And interestingly enough, that's actually, that's, we can bookmark this, but that quality is actually what makes It makes this sort of work part the copiloting aspect of these sessions really helpful. We may be sitting in some with someone in that presence for a couple of hours, especially for these longer sessions that we do. In a way that I think is quite counterintuitive to many coaches.
Joel Monk: [00:27:00] So I didn't know that, so you would sometimes do these sessions for what may be three hours and then you're even for an hour or longer in that contemplative practice. Yeah, and so say more about that and you said like it's kind of counterintuitive for a lot of coaches, could you expand on that as well?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:27:22] Yeah, yeah, so in the beginning as I was playing with this format, you know, it was doing our long sessions and I thought, I really like, so one thing I got from Jhourney is this idea of sort of bringing a scientific mindset and sort of a startup mindset in a way, specifically in the way of thinking about minimum effect of dose. So what is sort of the, what is the, what is the minimum treatment or sort of like what is the, what is the format that allows for a really good experience. I also used to work at a psychedelic startup or a company that delivered legal psilocybin experiences in Oregon and there it's interesting thing about dose and sort of retreat time should it be a four-day retreat or three-day retreat. [00:28:00] You know all that stuff as thing is very interesting to me so as I was kind of formatting these these sessions I was thinking okay, so we don't have our how much time should each section be? You know, there's all these different things. We do sort of the eyes closed thing and then we do the laptop thing and what does it like?
Pranab Sachithanandan: We do a lot more eyes, you know. That was a true sort of plane with all that and it kind of came to, you know, what if we try like a two hour or three hour session? Oh, that looked like, um, so as I was experimenting with this, I did this with a friend. We ended up doing a four, I think a two-four hour sessions, two weekends in a row. And it was really powerful. These were the first I did, and they were really cool. We're essentially, we did an hour and a half of unfolding, just really deep going into presence and triggers in different parts to come up. We need sort of fold them in into this open space.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And that was that itself was beautiful and lovely. And I personally really enjoyed having hour and a half sessions myself on sort of parts work and somatic stuff. But we do that. And then I would say great, now open your eyes. And then let's bring up this creative to-do list and think about the week ahead and stuff that you have to do. [00:29:04] And typically doing mode just feels so different from being mode. And these really long sessions allow the grip of doing mode to just relax quite a bit. go back and forth, being in doing for a really long time, or sort of see what it's like to have being in doing kind of be together the same time.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So we'll do these long sessions and then yeah for like the after the same hour, hour and a half, the next three hours will have To do this, and this is where I bring in just general productivity stuff, so, you know, what's the goal, what's success of like, and there's a whole threat on metacognition and how I think awareness, like just spacious awareness and presence in with the body can actually help with just thinking, thinking better, creative thoughts, metacognition, planning, strategy, which we typically all think of as, as work over there, right? That's that is nothing to do with my meditation or, you know, where practice that's that's corporate stuff. Anyways, we do all that together. And then we sort of take these, and then as sort of grippiness comes up, you know, these old patterns of work come up. [00:30:04] I would sort of point them out and be like, hey, I notice you're tensing in your shoulders. Like what's going on there? He's like, oh, yeah.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And then I have a technique to kind of help people with in 10 seconds sort of come back to this presence. Sort of like every few minutes. Not every few minutes. Like at least every 20 or 30 minutes. But one, especially when I notice tension, how in that moment of tension or when there's a decision arising, can you just relax and sort of come back to that presence anchor? And then over the course of a few hours, he's just like, wow, I didn't know I could get that much done in this many hours and do it in this way and feel really good about it. And I have more energy not less and it's just totally rewires someone's relationship to work. And we did that a couple times, and that's just really helped.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And it was nice to, yeah, so that's sort of the, that's sort of the just. And there's a more functional version, like wherever could some clients were just really busy. And we, it's just sort of three hours of focus. So it may not have as much contemplative depth, but there can be this depth all the way to like, hey, I just want three or four hours where I know for your fact, I'm going to be staying on task and doing in a connective way, not in a punitive or rigid sort of punishment way.
Joel Monk: [00:31:14] I mean, there's so much in what you're saying there. It's like we'd be fascinated to see over time how people can rewire that connection between being and doing so that, because that's one of the major conundrums that I wrestle with, you know, is like, especially working on a laptop a lot, it's like, Yeah, I've got these spiritual aspirations and yet working can feel counter. counter to those practices, particularly because of the laptops can be the very distracting making, you know, like there's someone you can open up the internet and then you're aware of notifications, etc. So I'm really interested to hear how this could, that that rewiring process and, you know, my imagination goes to like, I [00:32:08] how we could teach this to more people. And what it might be to work with groups that teams, so that in the morning, you enter these states and then people work together, and there's maybe you're there with the whole team.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:32:24] Yeah.
Joel Monk: [00:32:26] So I find that really inspiring, actually. I think one last thing I'll weave in, I'll just see if there's anything you want to say, but You know, I know amongst my friends, there's a deep passion to create from our genius, from that place that kind of, the mystery in a sense, you know. So, to kind of, and that for me is very, the kind of hamster stress, hamster doing mode, is counter to accessing that those states. [00:33:02] I could imagine that people when they access these states and then it's almost like the zen paintings where in a few moves, they've created a very beautiful, elegant artifact, which surprises them in the depth of what was created in the amount of time.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:33:27] Yeah, a hundred percent on that. I think like it's surprising to me how quickly people are able to make decisions that we're challenging for so long. Sort of like get creative ideas on things that they were stuck on for a while. Or even things that typically takes a couple of hours. They're like, oh, I got this done pretty quickly. And it felt pretty good doing it. And how just coming from a different place really helps. So just, I just did it.
Pranab Sachithanandan: I think that's 100%. I think more could be said and done there. and I think it's really beautiful. At the same time, I also, I really like, and in some ways, this is maybe preemptive or something, but I really like emphasizing the gradualist approach, where it's not either your stress or your deep open presence state. [00:34:15] There's such a whole middle range of things and just getting a little bit more present, a little bit more in depth in Because I think there can be this binary of [inaudible] Again, it comes from a good place, but I think just in any moment, can I be a little bit more at ease, a little bit more present, a little bit more there? And I don't do this all the time.
Pranab Sachithanandan: You know, I would like to. This is sort of, it's like just really treating life as practice, which is really hard. And I think this is just a way to sort of enter that a bit more. And just have more, [00:35:00] Just more flow and I think it may change the way one does things so maybe especially I think this is a lot easier to do if you're a business owner or sort of have a lot more agency over your schedule one time I think it's still really helpful if you're in an organizational environment where you're told what to do and you have requirements and obligations like it's still really really helpful of course But it's especially helpful when one is the agent of their own schedule can decide these things. Because then you can sort of do these structures and run experiments in a way that just is much more freeing and sort of enables a life that allows for these things more. It's like, oh, maybe the way I'm doing this is not as good, maybe there's a different way I can do this.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And I just need to kind of shout out, I'm not informed a lot by Joe Hudson's work in Art of Accomplishment. I get a lot from his stuff and their stuff and I think the way that they have a whole framework for working with work and things as informed me quite a bit in a lot of this.
Joel Monk: [00:35:53] Well, stands out from the way they work with work that this be found most inspiring.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:36:01] Yeah, I think it's a really practical and quite deep approach to work and our wants. So I like how I think Joe Hudson, Michael Taft, a lot of the teachers that come from these more, they're Michael Taft's terms, it's non-dual traditions, but essentially there's sort of the non-dual one where there's sort of this presence and awareness that's over there and you kind of want to push away life to go get that, which is great. You kind of need to do that for a while. You have to sort of, do a lot of practice to kind of access these steps that are typically not accessible during the typical day, but then on the whole two sort of this more tantric or, yeah, you know, sort of me, Hindu or Buddhist tantric view of, and then actually see how all that stuff is how life is. That presence is sort of underneath and in between all experience.
Pranab Sachithanandan: How can we see that everything is sort of never separate, never different from all of that? [00:37:03] And the more I sort of got into this over the last year exploring, I realized like, you know, like a lot of like the best coaches seem to come from this view. I think like Conscious Leadership Group and Jim Dethmer seems to have this and Steve March, And it's just interesting to me how like, oh, yeah, there are all sort of doing this thing and also incorporating parts work and emotions. So anyway, so that's the view that I think AoA, Joe Hudson comes from, and then the way it's operationalized is quite practical and useful. It seems to be a really good way of understanding competing wants.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So instead of seeing should as, you know, we have all these should in sort of coercive tendencies in our life, how can we see the want underneath that should? I don't know if that's more of a Michael Taft or an AoA thing, but I just like talking about that. And also seeing how, you know, instead of seeing, oh, we have resistance, and all these different, ah, there's just a lot of competing wants, you know, there's a want here, there's a want there, and that just drops a lot of the, the, the, the contracted energy around a lot of it. [00:38:07] And I like how, yeah, and one is enjoyment, like the emphasis of enjoyment. So how much can you enjoy with already there a little bit more versus trying to do things that would sort of theoretically give you more enjoyment, how can there be more enjoyment in this moment with whatever you're doing? So a lot of that informs this work. Yeah, so those are all different ways that I think it's a great.
Joel Monk: [00:38:31] I think this is part of, for me, I find it's really exciting because, you know, we had Charlie Awbery on the podcast recently, they're great.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:38:39] Yeah.
Joel Monk: [00:38:40] We talked about, yeah, we talked about, I've learned a lot from them around, you know, working with the energy of the moment and I think this is what you're speaking to. It's like rather than simplifying things into polarities and and then creating more tension because now I'm judging myself for not being as present as I could be, it's like working with that contraction and opening. [00:39:08] And that's what I experienced yesterday, that was for me what it was, it was like there was the sense of openness and presence and then there was the energy of the contraction that would arise as, you know, as I oriented to a certain practice and that for me is very exciting in the sense of What you say really is like the sense of self is arising in the context of work, you know, and so that's what you can work with, you know, it's very practical, but it's also very nuanced and refined and that enjoyment piece for me is core to it, you know, it's like, yeah, it's not being done to transcend the world and escape, but it's being done because one feels the call to be even more present and here and giving one's gifts and connected and in service and all of that
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:40:04] very much. In a lot of ways, it really is, I have a lot of ways, I say this. In really, in some ways, it really is all about connection. You know, it's like how much connection can we have with our work and there be more connection with ourselves and our work. Another thing I like, sometimes it's all about attention, you know, in some ways at a very simple level, it's can we keep continuity on a thing for a while. And then sometimes the way we the way we direct our attention, to we have a warm attention, an attention that's You know, recruited by a sense of critic and toughness and sort of self-negative self-talk. And how do we respond to those things?
Pranab Sachithanandan: So there's a lot of ways, I think it's really beautiful and ways we can ways of seeing and all this stuff that I like a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's really, this is just really fun for me. There's so many different angles in, there's a lot of practical angle, and there's the depth angle, the temple of the emotions. [00:41:00] So it's quite a fun project to work on as well.
Joel Monk: [00:41:07] I can get that. Let's bring in a few other topics like connected topics to what we're talking about and because I'd love to talk about the real-time aspect of it in a moment but something you mentioned to me was this misunderstanding between emotions and decisions and I wondered if you could just talk about that a little bit.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:41:29] Yeah, so oftentimes The core thing that distracts us or what makes work hard is often the story we have about a thing. And it's like, I got so much to do, and I'm so stressed now, all these things. And then maybe once you sort of break it down, well, there's actually just 15 things and four of those things are really stressful. And that's what's causing this whole nebulous story of things being really bad and challenging. So that's one. Once you go into those, let's say, four things that are really sort of sticky and challenging, what makes them hard? [00:42:02] Oftentimes, there are decisions that are sort of unspoken and illegible that we haven't actually articulated.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So, yeah, underneath this, I got to do this, let's say a memo to my team, or I got this, I just should decide if I'm hiring this person or not. Underneath that, there's just a lot of decisions. And what makes something a decision is often the weight of it. There's often a sense of it being a dilemma. And I can reference the people that have influenced Brian Whetten is an amazing coach, and Joe Hudson as well. But basically, this decision making or dilemma making often what makes that challenging is a sense of emotions that we avoid. But to be, let's say, let's say there's, we think that it's either, if I do this, then well, that I'm damn in this way, but for the other thing that I'm damn in this other way, and both of those feel terrible, you're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, but what makes it that way is in each of those situations, there are implicit emotions that we're just pushing away.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:43:02] if outcome A happened, ah, that'd be terrible. I couldn't possibly let that happen. If if outcome B happened, I couldn't let that happen. But underneath those, there's just emotions. Like, oh, if if outcome A happened, I'd feel really helpless. If if outcome B happened, then this would happen, and then I'll get really angry. I don't want to feel my anger. I don't want to feel my helplessness.
Pranab Sachithanandan: I don't want to feel sad. So, by sort of pre-digesting these, but one by recognizing that there are these emotions, and sometimes even simply naming that just releases a lot of the tension, sort of just cuts through a lot of the sort of built-up, you know, reactivity, then level two is great. We can kind of go in and feel a little bit of what that what those things bring up in our body and just a little bit of intimacy can make it less charged. Level three is we can actually go in and really unwind the patterns in each of those and go super in depth. And even potentially see how all the helpless sense that we're so afraid of actually can open up and into a sense of freedom. The anger that we're so afraid of can actually open up into a sense of clarity. [00:44:03] And, you know, so that's that that depth model again, just simply naming or kind of going in.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And, and yeah, so then the decision in some ways makes itself where it just feels really clear. Like, I have I've got people all out through working with it and then, you know, five minutes later, they look at the same text on their on their Google Doc again. They're like, oh, Obviously, I would do this. Or the answer doesn't, maybe it doesn't matter and it just sort of solves itself. So I think emotions, so much of emotions, so much of decisions are emotional. And I think that's just been a really key thing for me to see. Whenever something feels like a decision, rather than a simple choice, often there's an emotion involved and often that emotion I'm avoiding and there's some fear involved there.
Joel Monk: [00:44:43] In a way, it's like, I hear that tantric kind of perspective and I'm like liberating the energy inside of that nebulous, kind of like around it, around a decision. So is that what you're doing? Is it like, you're kind of, as you're doing the Attention Copilot session, those, there was that contraction around a decision and then it's just like, [00:45:06] you can then decide what level to work at it at, maybe just presence in it and it's enough or maybe then you need to drop deeper and feel the emotion in the body, or then maybe there's even an opening to work with the pattern.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:45:20] Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, and all those are possible. So, the constraints are, let's say we have 20 minutes of work time, and then let's say you're sort of working on this, Let's say when minute five the decision comes up and you're sort of stuck. So one factor is how deep that person has gone in their personal life. So someone who hasn't who's newer to this probably won't have as much depth into the tantric unfolding and liberating emotions thing, most likely. And they're just even stating the fact that there are emotions is sort of a big insight for them.
Pranab Sachithanandan: They're like, wow, oh my gosh, I didn't realize those are emotions there. For a lot of people, let's say with you or for other people who have this depth, it's obvious there are these emotions. [00:46:02] And then we can take that and sort of, choose to kind of go in and actually just do a more formal emotional work thing there and sometimes that can be really quick. Sometimes that ends up being the next 15 or so minutes. And what I do there is a branch. Hey, I see as a, as a, as a And then they decide, actually, I think I want to go more of this sensation in the emotions.
Pranab Sachithanandan: Great, let's go there and do that. And I do a lot of these branching points. And I think we had that in our session yesterday. I was like, hey, we have a branch here. We can do this, we can do that. And I just find that that is really helpful for me, because it's really fun doing a sort of multi-modality model like this. But then it gets really complicated and I don't want to be in my head as a person because I know I need to be present. So this is sort of honestly, it's a really, it's a simple way that just makes it really easy for me.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:47:03] And it seems to be very client-centric too, because then they get sort of, they get to have what they want. And there's some downside to this, they can talk about, like sometimes it can be too open-ended and too broad, but yeah, that's sort of how it shows up. It's really sort of meeting the moment where it's at.
Joel Monk: [00:47:19] So this is kind of like that interplay. Also that you've mentioned to me between metacognition, creativity and spacious awareness. So yeah, I guess like what I'm reflecting on here is, we're talking about how we can contract away from doing an activity we want to do. But I can imagine there's also a skill that develops, which is what you mentioned it before with the kind of, there's a continuity. an emotional fluidity and a presence or coming online and then they're in that creative flow and I could imagine that becomes like a competency that comes more embodied.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:47:56] Yeah, yeah exactly. I'm surprised at how practical and how useful it's been. [00:48:02] So I think there's this whole AI angle to this too that I think is interesting with agents and what does it mean to be more agentic and how that makes us sort of relate to the moment way of thinking about things. We'll put that aside. But yeah, just just for practically, I think when we're often stuck and stressed, it's hard to think. We're not really thinking about big picture. We're sort of really a meshed in the problem.
Pranab Sachithanandan: We're sort of stuck in black and white thinking, you know, it's just very reactive and you're just like, ah, I just don't want to, it just feels bad. You know, and you're not, you're kind of stupider as a result. You're just not using most of your brain. So, so what I find is that by, and in one way of thinking about this, I don't know how backed by science it is, but it feels like you're working memory. It's just stuck. There's sort of like all these, it goes almost like different. There's a way of thinking about it with parts. There's a way of thinking about it with emotions, but basically, you're working memory is just sort of backlog with stressors.
Pranab Sachithanandan: You're so stressed, you're not really present. So, the way to do that is the inverse. [00:49:00] How can we get more present, which is all the stuff we talk about so far, to then open up. The presence to open up the, to reduce the stress, which opens up the thinking mind. So we actually can be more rational and work clear headed once we do all this stuff. And I think that, you know, whatever depth of presence you have, whether it's all the way down to open space awareness or just being with sensations, that just seems to open up a level of thinking that makes you clear headed about the problem. So you can kind of, you know, you're less blended with the thing, you have more separation. You can see it as an object and you as a subject.
Pranab Sachithanandan: You can then talk about the thing. You can sort of see that it's not you, there's less stickyness and reification. And then then reasoning becomes easier, it's easier to think about your options. What options do you have? What's the success criteria here? What are some of the next steps? Like all these sort of frames of chunking and just sort of defining the work, scoping it. Those are hard to do when you're really stuck with something.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:50:00] But sort of simple when you're really clear-headed and something feels easy. So I just help people with these things. And very practically they just are able to be more, you know, I call that, you can call that metacognition, but just thinking about the way you're thinking, thinking about your approach, all that sort of stuff. And then yeah, and then it's sort of, you just kind of get to work mode and these are to kind of flow from there.
Joel Monk: [00:50:21] Well, you mentioned AI, and I'm thinking recently I was reading Nipun Mehta's work around wisdom and deep data, and I think this really what you're talking about fits with that, you know, that, you know, he's got some beautiful phrases, which I can't remember, but he's pointing to, you know, AI is the domain of information, whereas our embodiment. and consciousness is the domain of deep data and wisdom, which is knowing what is important to pay attention to. And I think of this whole conversation fits with that. I think that's one of the invitations, isn't it?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:50:59] Yeah, I love that. [00:51:01] I'm totally unfamiliar with this work, so thanks for mentioning that. I'll look into it. And I think that, yeah, I just think there's, you know, what a human's good at is salience. What's important? What matters? What do we care about? How do we, what do we want to do?
Pranab Sachithanandan: And AI can't decide those things. I think people want AI to decide those things. Like, give it a bunch of data and connect all your things and they'll tell you what to do with your life. And No, maybe. I just, I don't think it'll ever really get to the point of being trusted human there, but it's getting better and I'm relatively optimistic. But I think what really matters is, in some ways, the new bottleneck becomes connection with yourself. What do you want?
Pranab Sachithanandan: What is important? What's the, and in, and it's sort of a big picture, but also in your day. What is, what you want to do today? What is successful? What is successful like today? what do you want to do this week? How would you evaluate the last week, the last month? What would you change?
Pranab Sachithanandan: You know, all these very practical things, but require you to just meet the moment. And I think a really cool thing is that when you get really clear on what you want, it's really it's much easier to prompt AI. [00:52:04] So it's much easier to then tell it, hey, this is exactly what I want. And every practical skill of, you know, sort of being a better manager is just getting really clear on what you want in defining specs and outlining criteria and all that. And the cool thing is if you have a thing you want to do, you can just give that project to an AI. It'll sort of run for a few minutes and give it back to you. So it's a really easy, especially nowadays.
Pranab Sachithanandan: It's really, it's much easier to be effective by using these methods. And I've worked with people at some of the frontier labs, like Anthropic and OpenAI. I work a lot of software engineers on sort of There's this whole thing on people use different, like multiple AI agents at the same time, like parallel agent work. And there's a whole, there might be outside the scope of this thing, but like they like work and sort of have like five different AI threads and how do you work the retention and sort of context switching and all that. It's pretty interesting and fun to help people that.
Joel Monk: [00:53:01] I mean, that sounds to me like just like the high level. practice in that if you're not careful, you could be really pulled from one place to the next and lose that capacity to be present.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:53:18] And that's where the embodiment matters so much. Like the 10 second tip I would give to people is just feel your body while you're working with AI. to whatever extent you can do that. If you're a deep practitioner, you know what that means, if you're a sort of more beginning into this, then that just means, you know, watch your posture and physiology. But to whatever extent you can be with your body and be with yourself while working with these things, I just think the better. I think there's a lot of reasons to be careful. It's really easy to personify AI. You know,
Pranab Sachithanandan: as people think about things like AI consciousness and all that. Like, I don't have so long opinions. I just know that, you know, these oftentimes, I can help you get ungrounded and sort of get really in your head. So just really be with yourself as it work with these things and just be, can know what you want. [00:54:01] not a practical level. These things will just sort of drift and sort of add scope creep. And you know, I've seen dozens of countless stories at this point of people, yeah, I like worked all day and I felt really productive, but I didn't really do anything. I sort of made all this stuff, but didn't really matter.
Pranab Sachithanandan: I never looked at it later. We all know what that feels like so I think just working in a more intentional way just feels better And I really like thinking about things in terms of bricks like you stack the bricks of your hours I go in your days and it goes in your weeks and that could lead to a more meaningful and well-lived life So yeah
Joel Monk: [00:54:37] I don't know if you saw, I don't remember who it was we wrote about, you know, about midwits. You might know, and it was, you know, this whole kind of movement around kind of agentic wisdom came out, agency, and man, why are bringing up is because I noticed how easy it is for me to kind of, you know, for people listening midwits are like, this kind of term for like, there's, it's kind of a, [00:55:04] provocative frame of like there are smart people and people of lesser intelligence but they're actually more effective because they don't overthink things, you know. Yeah, just kind of get to come with you.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:55:16] Yeah, so I'm pretty active on Twitter and I see a lot of those memes. There's like dimwit, midwit, and then I don't know what the last one is, tell you. Yeah, yeah, it's fun to recognize where, without all the sort of shaming or pejorative stuff there, it's fun to recognize sort of like when we land where we land and sometimes we think that we're on the far end of the curve but actually where the dimwit and actually just plenty of times we're the midwit and it's very fractal and anyway, yeah, that's it's a fun meme, I like that.
Joel Monk: [00:55:44] And my recognition was like, AI is a real like journey into potential midwitory for me, you know, like I, I got so carried away with creating all these strategic documents, you know, and it's like I had like a 15 point plan and it's like ridiculous, like ridiculous and then all the elegance and all the clarity was lost and
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:56:06] So yeah, I, I, 100% like I think, especially so in December of 2025 is when things got really good, like all these models got good at coding and you could just do crazy stuff as a non-software engineer, which I'm not, a software engineer. And yeah, and it's like, you just see, you know, like there's so much bloat, you know, that you have all these like strategy documents and sometimes you want to build this software and that thing. And it's cool. It's great. And I think like, I think we can have a more embodied sense of, oh my gosh, I'm not reading any of that again. That's just, that's just taking up digital clutter and space in my head. And yeah, I mean, and that's fine. And you know, but it's sort of,
Pranab Sachithanandan: It helps me remember sort of like, what is the moment to bow and clarity of thought, clarity of focus, that emotional clarity, the sort of embodied clarity, that's just so, much, so important and becoming increasingly rare because all these things just take our attention, not to mention the whole attention crisis with phones and social media, a short-form video and all that stuff that we're in the most addictive time [00:57:14] life and human history with everything, right? So I think the sort of a timely aspect too of why this becomes both more important and harder to to to be with.
Joel Monk: [00:57:25] Exactly.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:57:25] Yeah.
Joel Monk: [00:57:26] Yeah. I mean, that might be the gift of these times is it really forces us into a deep reckoning with that we're already seeing it. I think, um, Like there's two topics I want to bring in. I'd love for you to because this is like a really creative act. You've created this modality and maybe these two subjects come together actually. You talked about coherence therapy and we haven't talked about memory reconsolidation in terms of um, you know, that that transformative agent, um, and I'd love to talk about real-time coaching and how you might invite coaches listening to, um, to think about that.
Joel Monk: [00:58:07] So maybe the first kind of way we bring us together is because memory reconsolidation is working in real-time with working with these kind of contrasting states. Could you share how you feel that's being activated
Pranab Sachithanandan: [00:58:23] I'm a big fan of the science of the theory of memory reconsolidation, and over the last several years, it's been really profound. The more I've understood about memory reconsolidation, the more it's been helpful for me to see why therapies have changed and transformation all work. And it's sort of a bridge in my mind, it's a bridge between psychedelics, therapy modalities, meditation, There's a whole, we can have a whole podcast on, I'm thinking about this, and there's other people I can point to that I admire and look up to that I think are smarter, and sort of at the more of the frontier of really understanding this stuff, even more deeply, but I just, I feel, so, so, uh, grateful to be sort of at this time where we have all this knowledge. [00:59:08] So anyways, all that, all that preamble aside, I think, so, memory reconsolidation is this, You know, we can have these patterns in your life that's sort of in form behavior and all this conditioning and how is it that by just talking to someone you can sort of not have those behaviors as much anymore, you know, or sort of have these patterns in your life. That's that's crazy. It's sort of a miracle.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And I think the general idea is so bring so the first idea is you you. And I'm going to get this a little bit wrong and sort of add my own interpretation to this, so just know that. But first, this sort of feel into a sense of safety and ground and warmth. And I think this actually is not in the original memory reconsolidation framework, but I'm sort of adding it in and it's quite helpful. So bringing a sense of presence of grounding some resource, some amount of resource or positive while being first in your experience. [01:00:02] From there, activate the target schema. causing some suffering, whether that's I tend to always, when I'm stressed, I go for a cigarette or a grab a cookie or whatever it is.
Pranab Sachithanandan: That sort of want that desire that part of you, that leans into some condition behavior. And then you guide a contradictory experience. So typically that's, you take that part and you meet it with love and compassion or if you're an exposure there, but you see how the thing you're afraid of doesn't actually happen. So you sort of guide this contradictory experience. And then third is, so that's when it And I think I'm getting this right from memory. I think the fourth is then when you actually go and do the thing. So memory reconsolidation about the schemas or the internal experience.
Pranab Sachithanandan: The fourth is when you go do the thing, you sort of make a different choice, different behavior. You sort of act in a different way. So I think a lot of, when you're working in a 101 container with someone, you can do one through three pretty well. [01:01:02] But it's quite challenging to do the fourth one of going on doing something. So, and that's where I think a lot of the stuff falters. What's like, I actually might have these insights about the way you want to work with, you know, new relationship with your, you're, you're, you're, you're sitting with another friend or a parent when you go have that conversation is really challenging and it's sort of you, the old pattern falls and you're sort of stuck in a shame loop or whatever it may be. So it's like, yeah, what if you could have a container for that doing thing as well? Where like imagine you had a pause button on life, or like you're in a hard conversation, and you could just press, oh, I can press pause.
Pranab Sachithanandan: Oh, in this after the second sentence, I noticed this thing come up and I got really hot in my head. What if you could just have a breather? press play, come back, so you're coming again and again, from sort of a more grounded view. And I just think that's like that'd be amazing. That's like super, that's what I think where this thing goes, you know? That's where a lot of this transformation work happens and I think there's a lot of these happening already. [01:02:02] So there's a lot of conversational containers where you practice having arguments with someone and you can press pause and there's a way to do, I think relational work and just live work with all this stuff is how it worked happen. So, practitioners have done this for decades of workshops and everything.
Pranab Sachithanandan: I think with laptop work it just hasn't really been done much yet, but it's actually in some ways some of the best ways to do this because you're sort of just working by yourself on your laptop. You know there's no other you have all the time in the world just pause and do some emotion stuff and get back into it. So yeah that's kind of the just and I've had people ask me like oh how do you think I could do this as like in meetings at work and sort of live and it just is harder when you don't have that pause button. But yeah, I can talk more about that, but that's sort of the real time aspect of Yeah, maybe you had an insight and you want to integrate it, so then go do that and see what happens. But inevitably, typically, it tends to not happen in one round. It's like, it's not like you do get one insider, one breakthrough and a thing and you're healed forever. To be able to kind of go back to the same material, the same schema a few times.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:03:03] And that's where Attention Copilot really helps. Let's say, yeah, so that's where I think you should kind of have to code through it again and again. And if you can accelerate that from weeks and months into like a few hours or minutes, that seems really helpful.
Joel Monk: [01:03:16] I think it's a really important aspect of coaching to practice the state in real time. And again, like you said, that can be missing a lot in coaching you have a nice conversation. You might even have a breakthrough, but to actually practice it. And I could see how what we did yesterday activating that reconcilidation process because you you you you connect to a kind of state presence, but then you start working and you notice the contraction, but then you allow that to be and you you can kind of without making the shift happen through awareness the shift starts to happen and you access a and that back to that kind of state of presence and then [01:04:16] And I'm in this, this, this, this different state. So it's working with that, that kind of process on a subtle level. So exactly.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:04:27] Yeah. Exactly. And I think that the way this, the arc of this how it goes is at first, maybe the memory reconsolidation, the thing you're reconditioning is a small pattern. Like, oh, the way that you emotionally relate to this one person and is one instance over an email. all the way to sort of your relationship to work as a whole and sort of doing things as a whole and coming from a sense of a doer or a person even, you know, so that's quite lofty, but I think the way this goes is once you sort of work through a lot of these patterns, which I think for a lot of people related to in their career, this happens naturally, you know, memory reconsolidation is not a thing that only happens in a coaching session with therapy, this is just how life works. [01:05:12] So, if you go do things and you kind of grow and you sort of, you do challenges that scare you and you know, you know, it's stuff, we just, as coaches, we just try to make this process a little bit faster and hopefully give some word support. You know, I think a lot of people especially who are, you know, more senior or just, you know, you have more wisdom.
Pranab Sachithanandan: A lot of the core stuff is not too much for problem, but often that's where you kind of do the only, the really only meditation and some of the spiritual pads get into this really subtle stuff around being a doer, being an agent or sort of that sense of self. Yeah, so I, and I think that once you sort of work through a lot of the core stuff, the subtle assumptions that are really in there can be worked with and, you know, we have just sort of like the wake up, grow up, clean up model. That's why it's helpful to kind of sometimes you want to work on this non-doing. [01:06:02] Actually, there's a part in sort of a scheme that I want to be worked with first. So there's sort of a natural partization that happens that I want this room, this work to be to have room for. And I think if there's anything I want to share with more coaches is to sort of, I think just having this depth model just seems to make so much sense to me. It just seems to work really well for people.
Pranab Sachithanandan: So I just think that more people could, whatever you're doing, could have this sort of frame or this way of looking at things, kind of way that I think is really useful.
Joel Monk: [01:06:27] Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah, powerful. Um, it's like a core. For me, like depth is the thing that you see is in a lot of, it's like a metamodel, really, and contained within a lot of coaching modalities of stuckness and freedom, or present some parts. It's like those contraction expansion, I think one of the important things is not to make the stuckness wrong or to contraction wrong, but there's a cycle of life that happens.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:07:03] Yes. That sense of wrongness, the sense of wrongness, the sense of this should not be there. It's inevitable, and even that is okay, but it's been a journey for me to see how much, how much okayness can I be, even with the not-okness? That seems to be such a core part of this whole thing.
Joel Monk: [01:07:23] One teacher I was working with recently was really pointing at the, can you value, can you make the same, like when you feel, when you feel vulnerable, confused, unskilled, because, you know, and what he was pointing to is the subtle ways that I privilege presence and being skilled, being clear, you know, over being not clear. And of course, on one level, it's like, if I'm feeling a lack of clarity, lack of decisiveness, I want to go, there's an impulse to move back to that, but on a really fundamental level, there's a there's an aggression in that or there's a, you know, there's a [01:08:12] Um, a lack of freedom in a sense, yes, oh, it's beautiful.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:08:18] Yeah, and it's fun for me, I think I've always been a kid that would like read the table of contents and like flipped the back of the book, sort of speak. And in some ways, I think that this is sort of doing that with spirituality. It's like, I think this is just where it is. This is where it goes. I don't know, not to say in some conclusive term, I'm sure there's always more and more. But to me, it just seems not like the answer, but it just feels so right as sort of like how things move and where it goes to, and there's a conceptual understanding, but then to actually embody and practice this is super hard and takes a lifetime or lifetimes or something, you know? So I just feel so, blessed and privileged to be around fellow practitioners that sort of can also speak this and feel into this and it's super cool, super super cool.
Joel Monk: [01:09:03] Yeah, amazing. Likewise, let's do what, this is actually a question I'm really excited to ask you as we come towards the end of our conversation, but could you say something about what you feel possibilities for real-time coaching? I mean, this whole conversation is about the I wonder, how you might invite coaches to think about that, too? Yeah.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:09:32] Yeah. So that's something I'm very excited by. I think there are a lot of interesting applications here. So even though we've talked so much about work and laptop stuff, I think is great. I'm still very, I'm very excited with. I do think there are a lot of applications outside of that with just the real-time nature in general. So I would point for a lot of coaches like, hey, sure work with someone. on a thing where you're bringing up stuff from the past, remember a time this week when this happened or hey, what was it like when that happened a while ago in memory or something?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:10:01] There might be for people that are resource enough, a way to bring that up in the moment life, whether that's opening their phone or sort of opening up text measures that's really charged, we're having them even just try recording a message that they would want to send. They're having the space and the ability to just step back from the coaching format as it typically is and just letting someone do something in that moment and then just helping see in the moment to moment break down of what just happened there. But when you what do that feel like and you know just that that that the ability to be more real time about it. It's just really interesting and I just could be, I just want to get people that idea, and I think a lot of people I've talked to, they've listened to me on podcast or chat about this, and, you know, that the best therapist or coaches, they realize, oh, when I'm on Zoom, you know, a client of mine has a lot of trouble cleaning their room. I can just have them clean the room on our call and have them talk it out, talk it out loud, say what's happening, say what's going on, and then we take a break from that and work in the motion stuff and go back into that, [01:11:04] I think my therapist said, oh, you're doing like an in vivo therapy. I think that's the proper term for it, but Yeah, so I just think there's a lot of stuff here.
Pranab Sachithanandan: Very creatively, so for example, early on in the journey, I worked with this one college kid who had a lot of social anxiety and his procrastination was a project he assigned himself of going to talk to people at the mall. So he, this person would go to the mall and spend hours walking around in a freeze response, not able to talk to anyone because they were so, afraid or so it just anxious and they would beat themselves up, it's like how it's been 30 minutes, how could I not do this? They're going the next day and the same thing happened. So you can imagine just how much suffering and how much pain the person's going through and I said, hey, when you're at the mall, try and then an hour in, just give me a call. Let's try doing a session while you're there. So what we did was, he tried, and I was like, hey, let's talk about, he had so much intense, challenging self-talk, so much self-attack. [01:12:07] And we just sort of went through a few nervous system exercises and helped to kind of bring it down from a level, say eight intensity to like a level four.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And then I said, once it's a level four, great, cool. He's a bit more clear headed, he can kind of think through more open-ended, great. What's the thing you want to try? Having a more experimental mindset. And he's like, great, yeah, I feel more confident. I feel okay, maybe I'll go talk to one person now. Like, go talk to them, give me a call back in 10 minutes. So we do that.
Pranab Sachithanandan: He gives me a call back 10 minutes later. And he's like, yeah, and his stress went back up to like a six. It wasn't an eight, but it was a bit higher. So we kind of just do that back and forth, like two or three rounds. And at the end, he's like, yeah, I talked to this person. It was awesome, and it went really well. It was a great conversation. Thank you so much.
Pranab Sachithanandan: Yeah, for sure, it was awesome, you know, so that was a really creative thing that I did, but I really enjoyed. And I just think so many more people could do that. Like, just this, you know, there's the sort of joke I've had with my friends, is like having someone in the earpiece, you know, as you're doing things. [01:13:01] I think, I think I'm actually very curious about where AI could go you're to, or even just, you know, having a real-time AI sort of help you guide through stuff, um, I think a lot of there's an analogy to sports. I think a lot of the best sports performers already do this. It's like in the moment you're like swinging a tennis racket or sort of doing a stroke swimming or something. I used to be a swimmer in high school, um,
Pranab Sachithanandan: I had a, you know, there's kind of that, it's not too formal a concept there, but with physical movements, you can really easily pinpoint and see, but similarly, I think you can do the same thing with emotions and mental movements too, it just requires a bit of a different skillset or different of you really, but it's I think it's very much doable and I'm excited to see the future where we have that sort of an offering because I think it'll just make us more effective as as coaches and as supporters of people.
Joel Monk: [01:13:48] Yeah, I was just thinking of earpieces as you were talking about that, you know, like I could imagine, like, you know, there's a neighbor of mine who put, like, put, puts their trash bins on the outside of their house and, you know, I've, like, been mean it, you know, it's just, I just want to say like, hey, you know, I don't really like it, you know, it's not I'm not, I can't make you not do it, but I just, you know, I'm not, I can't make you not do it, but I just, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I [01:14:07] You know, but I put it off because I'm afraid of confrontation. So I'm just thinking of putting in my AirPods and then having you in my ear. And I'm like, you know, about to go and then, yeah. And then there's big. And then I have the conversation. You can even listen into, you know.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:14:23] Yes. Yes, and I think there's so many cool ways technology can be used here with voice transcription and reviews, I just feel so excited about the ways that imagine being able to rehearse it yourself before, then go and do it, and then as you're doing it, someone's able to analyze, and then it's all done from a sense of kindness. I think that's a really key thing here. So I think you can get really optimized or mindset about this, or people in general can get optimized or mindset about this. which has sort of been the challenge in building software. At some point, I want Attention Copilot to build software as sort of help people with some of the stuff in that way. [01:15:00] But yeah, I did just thinking through sort of the infusing it with that sense of kindness that sort of, you know, warm coach vibe, I think is really important here. Because it's not just about doing it, it's about the way we do it, how we do it, how we show up, how we beat ourselves in this as well.
Pranab Sachithanandan: That's a key part of the training. Yeah, but it's cool, you know, who knows where it goes.
Joel Monk: [01:15:22] Just a last reflection, I'd love to ask where people could find out about your work in a moment, but it's interesting you bring that up, because I start to think, I think about this a lot these days, but, you know, how we might design our environment and our work life so that it actually is conducive to these states that you've been sharing. So not that we have to then, kind of swim against the stream so to speak to cultivate these states, but the environment itself can, and in sense that's what you are, isn't it? [01:16:00] Like if you're on a call with someone, you're a kind of positive catalyst in their environment. And I wonder, of course, with AI and wearables, that could be it, but I think it's on a fund, we have to go a level deeper, really, because if we're in that optimization mindset, the white and knuckling mindset, kind of hyper masculine, growth or cost mindset that lays behind a lot of stuff that we can kind of lead to the way we work. That needs to be addressed too, because that's a really big topic, but, you know, this bioregionalism that I've been reading about where you've got like work and
Joel Monk: nature and everything all put together. I could imagine those environments are conducive to flow states.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:16:49] And yeah and I think there's huge topic here and I think like in a lot of ways I think I personally I think a lot of this has been for a sort of feeling, for me, a week of historically conditioned patterns of weak yang energy of just sort of like father issues and grief stuff around work and things like that. [01:17:09] So I've sort of gone super deep on the yin path of compassion and openness, and in some ways I'm bringing the yin into the yang and sort of healing my Yang energy and sense of stewardship through this. There's a whole thing there I can get into. And I think that, yeah, there's a lot of that optimized But in some ways, I'm seeing is really important, but it's important to sort of channel correctly and sort of experimentation mindset. So going from optimization to experimentation, I think is like a huge unlock here. And then for people, I think historically like me, who've been chronically underdoing, I think just like getting to that practice and just trying something, just doing stuff, constantly experimenting, having it be more like play, just trying stuff is important.
Pranab Sachithanandan: Because I think this is really hard. I find that like having, you know, figuring out an environment and a situation and set up that works well for you. [01:18:01] There's really, I think sadly, there's not really a good answer. Unless you want to live at a Zen Temple where you want to live in a sort of, They're really, there aren't actually many supportive environments for this at all, I think. So it becomes really hard, and I think that's where I wish I had a clear answer of figuring out for myself, but I mean, you know, digital distraction apps, or how to sort of reduce digital distraction, how to sort of create rituals where I don't use my phone in the bathroom, for example, like all these sort of stuff I think adds up and helps, and it's really hard, so that's, yeah, That's what I can say about that as a challenge. Yeah.
Joel Monk: [01:18:38] Hmm. Hey, Pranab.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:18:40] Yeah.
Joel Monk: [01:18:40] Thank you. I just really enjoyed this conversation. And I love what you're doing with Attention Copilot. So, you've got a big fan here. And these are having experienced it as well. You know, I'm like really a fan. So, where can we fan it more about your work as well?
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:18:59] Yeah, so check out the Attention Copilot website at attncopilot.com. [01:19:05] Yeah, I'm also pretty active on Twitter, x.com, slash nopranablem, so it's "no Pranab lem", P-R-A-N-A-B, L-E-M. I'm starting on my Substack soon and got a podcast at the same name, but in the works coming, but yeah, those are ways to find me in a Attention Copilot online. We're not currently hiring for more coaches. We're sort of demand constrained. We have two coaches right now, and hopefully we'll have many more coming months and years. But if you're interested at all in any of this stuff, please reach out, please send an email, [email protected].
Pranab Sachithanandan: So attncopilot.com. I'd love to just chat or just sort of help you Yeah, I still know where this is going to go, you know, I do I do trainings, is this the thing to I don't really have a strong I'm sort of thinking I want to stay focused but also kind of and giving mode. So I don't know. I'm at a very, it's, it's only been one year. [01:20:01] I started this 365 days ago. So it's, it's a pretty new project and I think there's a lot that will come from it.
Pranab Sachithanandan: And yeah, I'm just, I welcome everyone's enthusiasm and creativity and curiosity.
Joel Monk: [01:20:15] So beautiful. Yeah. Thank you.
Pranab Sachithanandan: [01:20:18] Yeah. Thanks, Joel.
Joel Monk: [01:20:20] Here we are, we're at the end of the podcast. Just a heads up again, if you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coachesrising.com, put your name in the sign-up box there. You'll also find some of our other offerings are online trainings for coaches there. And just want to end by wishing you well, and I'll see you again next time.