Mo Edjlali | With Experience Spanning NASA, Fortune 500 Companies, and Two Decades In Technology, Mo Edjlali Shares How to Gain Traction In This World of Perpetual Distraction + Yuval Noah Harari’s Views On Dataism?

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 1)
Attention, much like your daily allowance of money, is a limited resource. And in any particular moment, you can only have that much of it.

(Speaker 3)
We live in an age of constant distractions. Nine to five is out, 24 -7 is in. With my smartphone in hand, I bring my work with me everywhere. But our devices make us less attentive. Having spent 10 years doing research in neurobiology, I wondered what technology does to our brains. I set out to understand the science of distractions and learn how to be more focused and boost our productivity.

(Speaker 3)
By some measures, we’re bombarded by more than 63 notifications a day. We receive over 90 emails and write about 40 of them. On average, we switch tasks every three minutes. When we face distractions, two areas of the brain, The parietal cortex and the frontal cortex are in a sort of tug -of -war with each other. Some research suggests that the parietal cortex responds to distractions. The frontal cortex, which is involved in cognitively demanding tasks, helps us maintain focus, so we get distracted if the activity of the parietal cortex gets through to the frontal cortex.

(Speaker 3)
If the frontal cortex can keep the parietal in check, you stay focused. The brain is deciding what’s important and what’s not, and that takes effort.

(Speaker 1)
Even when you’re cleaning your mailbox and you’re not actually doing hard cognitive work, you kind of actually are, because there’s all these essentially micro decisions. Looking at this email, do I need this? And so each of those decisions requires a little bit more of cognitive effort, but when you add 2 ,000 of those, you end up with no power to make any other important decisions after that.

(Speaker 6)
You feel depleted.

(Speaker 3)
Tell me a little bit about the study that you did focused on email.

(Speaker 1)
What we found was that checking email more frequently throughout the day was associated with feeling more stressed and overwhelmed.

(Speaker 3)
In the study, One group of people were asked to check their email whenever they wanted throughout the day, while the other group had to do it in batches.

(Speaker 1)
We found that people who batched their emails three to five times a day felt less stressed and less overwhelmed.

(Speaker 3)
Why are these tasks that seem really menial? Why are they so stressful and anxiety -inducing?

(Speaker 1)
You’re basically doing something that other people need. Let’s imagine that attention is this calm lake or, you know, the reflecting pool. And then each notification is a little drop in that lake. We can think of the reflectiveness as you know, the ability to actually focus on what’s going on around us. But when we have all these drops all the time, now you get a reflecting pool disturbed and frazzled.

(Speaker 3)
If email is like rain, notifications seem like a storm to our productivity and our ability to focus. The higher the cognitive load, the more susceptible we are to new distractions. Notifications on our phones draw our attention away from the task at hand, so completing it may ultimately require more effort.

(Speaker 6)
Every time you get distracted by a notification, you have to switch your attention and switch it back. The switching in and of itself actually requires cognitive effort.

(Speaker 1)
And so you end up more depleted at the end of the day.

(Speaker 3)
So what can we do as cell phone users to mitigate that?

(Speaker 1)
Some things that I do is I do have scheduled do not disturb times, which you can set on your phone when, you know, basically no notifications come in. In general, I do keep my phone on silent. I actually I am, like most people, a little addicted to my email and a little addicted to social media and messages.

(Speaker 6)
So I do actually open those apps frequently enough that I don’t need to be reminded that I need to open it every minute.

(Speaker 3)
So to tame new technologies, we may first need to reconsider how and when we rely on them.

(Speaker 6)
We did a study, not in an organization, but on campus, where we asked students to find a building, either with their phones or without the help of their phones. And yes, the students who relied on their phones got to the building faster, but these same students actually felt less connected to their community. And so it’s not a question of, you know, should we just do away with these devices. But what is the price of this convenient device?

(Speaker 1)
These social bonds that hold society together, I think, are getting more and more chipped away from us.

(Speaker 3)
Our devices and apps aren’t the only way to crush it at the office. Casual conversations at work could make us feel more connected, happier, and productive. That’s what science is telling us.

(Speaker 5)
Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi -million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time on their hands. U . S.

(Speaker 5)
Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zuckner.

(Speaker 2)
Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. We’re interviewing the founder and CEO of Mindful Leader. He’s the author of the forthcoming book, OpenMBSR, reimagining the future of mindfulness. Will you agree with him? Will you not agree with him? Well, as a former NASA and Fortune 500 engineer, Mo brings a rare systems thinking lens to mindfulness.

(Speaker 2)
After seeing the practice change his life, he watched it as it was repackaged and changed and stripped out of context and used to prop up this burnout culture. What am I talking about? What’s he talking about? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. Mo, welcome to the Threat of Time show. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 1)
I’m great, Clay.

(Speaker 11)
Thank you for having me.

(Speaker 2)
So tell me real quick here, because there’s a lot that went into that intro, and I want to make sure we can unpack it. You’re a former NASA and Fortune 500 engineer. So what does that mean? What did you do?

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, to back up, I graduated engineering from Virginia Tech during a very good time to be a computer engineer during the .NET NET bubble. And you might remember those times. It was kind of wild times. And I worked for a small company, initially for Accenture, actually, the big consulting company.

(Speaker 1)
Accenture quit after two years to double my salary working for a small company that got bought by a bigger company. And during that time, I worked with all sorts of Fortune 500 clients across the U .

(Speaker 7)
S.

(Speaker 1)
, and they would sort of drop me in. And the work that I would do at that time was really focused on customer relationship management software. And so they would bring me in to Usually in pretty tough, rough situations, I felt like a marine. They’d drop me in when, like, you know, the blank was hitting the fan. And I’d have to sort of work through highly technical problems. And to give you a sense of just, like, one example, one of the projects we worked with was with Home Shopping Network before the internet sort of and Amazon took over.

(Speaker 1)
Older folks will remember when people used to order stuff on TV. And so Home Shopping Network had this massive, data system of hundreds of millions of customers with hundreds of millions of order information. And I was on a four -person team trying to move that data from an old system to an updated system with zero downtime and zero glitches. And so those are the kind of projects that I’d be tossed at. Eventually, I went on and started my own company, grew from zero to 30 people in less than three years, was bootstrapped. I was able to really excite Microsoft, and Microsoft funded a lot of what we did.

(Speaker 1)
Our whole thing was ecosystem recruiting, so using a lot of this same kind of systems thinking and engineering background, I realized that a lot of companies will spend tens of thousands of dollars to go after, you know, kind of headhunting one individual. what would happen if we created pools of talent and pools of companies? So, we would invest in creating a pool of top -level engineers and developers, create a pool of top -level companies that we’re looking to hire and bring these two together. And we focused on the Microsoft ecosystem, became the largest training and talent kind of curator around their CRM and dynamics accounting ERP solutions. Then I went on to, after a business slip, went on to work at NASA helping to consolidate their data center. At the time the software and the systems would run on a local line server farm, and we were moving everything to the cloud.

(Speaker 1)
And so I led that project. And then the last big project I led was introducing DevOps to DHS, in particular USCIS. And we stepped in after the government had spent over a billion dollars with IBM failing to produce really functional software. And this was during Obama’s time. So it was some time ago when there was a lot of push for immigration reform. there would always be a lot of heat on me and my team.

(Speaker 1)
And so we came in after they kind of flushed out all the IBM folks and what was happening there, brought in like a Silicon Valley dynamic sort of fast -paced way of developing software. And my team was responsible for essentially what was the software factory.

(Speaker 2)
Now, when you worked at NASA, what were you doing there on a daily basis? I know the work you were doing on a big level, but what did your day look like on a daily basis working at NASA?

(Speaker 1)
Well, it would vary. And I worked with a contracting company. So just to be quite clear. And our organization would support different groups within NASA. So one project I was supporting the Department of Education. and I was responsible for helping to do a software audit of the primary platform that was used to evaluate grants and other places that NASA would budget money and to be able to evaluate and systematically do that.

(Speaker 1)
And so often it would mean I feel like I’m good at both communicating in people and technology, and so often I would be kind of like the tech translator. So I’d meet with the business folks, high stake folks, Leland Leland Melville was the person at the Department of Education at the time, former astronaut, former NFL guy, amazing, amazing person. And so he was the one who would have the vision, and then I would work with the development team, the business analysts, and they actually had a development contractor that they brought in to make sure that the deadlines, what was being asked for, the core functionality, all those things were there. and almost act as this in -between, being able to speak to the business stakeholders and then dig into the technical details.

(Speaker 2)
Now, when you were at NASA, did you ever try the space ice cream, and do you believe that we actually went to the moon? Those are two questions we have to ask, then we’ll move on. Did you ever try the space ice cream, and then do you believe we actually went to the moon?

(Speaker 1)
Yes, I did try the space ice cream. I 100 % believe we went to the moon. And Leland told us the most crazy story about what it’s like to take a number two in space. But that might be for another time.

(Speaker 10)
Wow. Okay.

(Speaker 2)
So now we got to the deep stuff there. Okay. So now, uh, you know, today you’re, you’re shifting gears, you’re working on new stuff, uh, your new, new projects. And my understanding is you’re trying to, uh, bring this new approach to mindfulness in the workplace. Now, I think a lot of our listeners might say, what are you talking about? So what are you talking about?

(Speaker 2)
Why are you, trying to bring enhanced mindfulness to the workplace?

(Speaker 1)
What does that even mean? Sure. So to back up a bit, I started Mindful Leader about 15 years ago when I was working at NASA and doing other things part -time and eventually was able to focus on it full -time. At that time, for me personally, having been in pretty high stress, pretty demanding, positions and environments, I didn’t always manage my stress well. And I feel like I would almost default into a kind of aggressive brute force, almost mafia -like kind of persona to push things through. I felt like I had to be the meanest and the baddest to kind of get things done.

(Speaker 1)
when I had started that company, it ended up collapsing, really caused me to reflect. And I didn’t have a very healthy way of dealing with stress, didn’t really have a good model for what I would say was, you know, kind of conscious, effective leadership. And in that, I started searching and I discovered mindfulness. And for me, I’m approaching this from an agnostic perspective, where really based on, you know, If you’ve seen the X -Files, and I know for a lot of folks that might remember that show, I’m kind of approaching things from the Sully perspective, kind of the skeptic. And so I’m the kind of person that will always find something that I don’t agree with and I could push back on. And when I discovered mindfulness, I found here was a practice, and I’d heard people talk about emotional intelligence and, you know, it was like, oh, whatever, like that’s soft nonsense.

(Speaker 1)
And then after I went through the process I went through, sort of trying this real aggressive, almost mean kind of style of leadership, I thought, you know what, there’s something to this emotional intelligence. And I read Dan Goldman’s book, Emotional Intelligence, but still I was like, well, how do you get there? Like, how do I go from there? being this way to that way? And through mindfulness, I found that here were practices that I could do that didn’t require me to subscribe to a belief that might not be something that I agree with. But here are practices that I could do that would change, and through my experience, would change the way I show up, to kind of put it broadly.

(Speaker 1)
And to give you even a more specific example, I signed up for a 10 -day silent meditation retreat. And I tend to be a go -getter, doer, achiever, a driver. And for 10 days, 10 hours a day, we would sit. And we would focus on our breath. We’d focus on a different type of meditation called the body scan. but 10 hours a day.

(Speaker 1)
And what I found through that experience was that I was able to really tune in to the way my mind was operating, observe things within my body I’d never observed before. And ultimately, I was able to perceive reality differently. And this is without, you know, psychedelics or any other kind of stuff that folks might do. But I was able to perceive reality. And what do I mean by that? One morning, after meditation, instead of walking outside, And I noticed the extraordinary beauty of the dew.

(Speaker 1)
kind of glistening on the grass, just as the sun was rising. And it just had this real beautiful effect, something that I would take for granted, something quite ordinary, something I’d never noticed before. But in that particular state of mind, I noticed that. And the way that I would notice things within myself, within my mind. And so this idea of, if I could change the way I perceive reality, I could change the way I experience reality. That’s the big mind -blowing, whoa, holy moly, there’s something cool here.

(Speaker 1)
And then I think like a lot of people, when we discover something, I made this list in my mind of all the sort of people in my life working otherwise, that I was like, man, they could use some of this. And when I got back, I started searching, thinking, you know, can this work in my life? And how can I bring this, like, into different areas? And I discovered there were companies that were actually teaching mindfulness. And there was all this work being done around mindful leadership. And this was, you know, 15 plus, I’m sorry, about 10, 15 years ago, companies like Google, companies like General Mills, I found that there are people within even sports psychology, like within the Bulls and the Lakers that were using mindfulness to help the players.

(Speaker 1)
And so suddenly in my mind, it clicked like, wow, like, not only can I show up in a way that just felt more more who I wanted to be, but I could do it and still be effective and still excel and still kind of be able to handle those environments where you’d have, you know, just a mix of people with different dynamics. And that if this was something that I could do, then others should know about it and avoid, you know, kind of the jerk style, bully style of leadership that I thought was the way to do things. I hired a business coach to backtrack a little bit. When I was running my company, he told me my employees were like horses. One set could take me from point A to B, and I could put them down and get a fresh set from point B to C. And so I knew there was a lot of bad leadership and business advice out there.

(Speaker 2)
And was there a way to kind of bring this idea of mindfulness that I found to be just extraordinary into the leadership in the business world? Now, one thing I’ll share with us, because our listeners to our show know this, I happen to be a Christian and that’s my worldview. And so you and I probably have, you know, worldviews, but one of the things that interested me about what you’re working on is you talk about how to gain attention in a perpetually distracted world. So as an example, as you’re talking on today’s interview, you’re talking, I’m taking notes because I want to know what you’re talking about. And I want to be able to go back to what you said or question the thing or, you know, note take or that.

(Speaker 2)
So I’m it’s like an engaged form of listening that I’m choosing to behave in. But it is possible to be perpetually distracted. And so, you know, Nielsen has reported that the average American is now spending over eleven point three hours per day consuming media. We’re not even talking about scrolling through X or Instagram or whatever. And so I wanted to get your wisdom on this idea as well. How can somebody, whether they’re agnostic, whether they’re Christian, whether they’re atheist, whether they’re insert their belief system, how can people reclaim attention?

(Speaker 2)
in a world of perpetual distraction? Because I just see people all the time, you know, not even paying attention to their own family, their own friends, their own car while they’re driving it. I’d love to get your thoughts.

(Speaker 1)
How do we reclaim focus in this world of perpetual distraction? That is an excellent question. And when you when you shared all those things, I remember hearing stories of people leaving their babies in their cars, right? And just like the idea of this was like, maybe four years ago, where people were so distracted, that now a lot of cars would build in these alarms to remind you that you left your baby in your car. That’s how insane, insane it’s gotten. And we are, and my background is technology.

(Speaker 1)
And so, you know, part of me absolutely loves the extraordinary power and flexibility and freedom and the equity that technology has produced. It’s extraordinary. It’s absolutely extraordinary. what technology has done. At the same time, it has also created a real temptation where it’s so easy to pull out our phones, to get on our computers with the extraordinary power that we have and just kind of get lost in it. At the same time, you have these multi -trillion dollar companies who are paying engineer, top -level engineers, extraordinary salaries with this specific stated intent to capture your attention and keep it.

(Speaker 1)
So it’s almost like we’re walking into a toxic environment where whenever you go on YouTube, whenever you go on social media, like their whole aim is to keep you there. And they’ve learned how our minds work and they know we like to be provoked or blissed out. And so they bombard us with all these different hooks that are extraordinarily difficult to sidestep. I mean, it’s really hard. And so I’ve seen some really great work out there around just tech addiction and sort of unplugging and creating space from technology. And certainly our minds become what we do, right?

(Speaker 1)
And so in the past, people would read more. And even the form of reading is a cognitive exercise where you have to focus, where you have to actively engage. And now more and more, we’re simply receiving, where we’re just being bombarded in ways that our minds are becoming more easily tuned to that kind of form of entertainment. And so we just have almost, we’re losing that skill of focus because we’re being bombarded so much. And that’s how things are set. And now we’ve got the TikToks and the shorts.

(Speaker 1)
and all these things that have even kind of shortened that duration of attention required. And this has had an extraordinary mental health effect, and in particular on our children. Like, I’ve got two young children, and I am adamant no games, no laptops, no gaming systems. I try to keep them free of that, because I understand the impact that this has on me, it’s having on our society, and how dangerous it could be. And so on one hand, there’s a limitation, right? If you know something could be dangerous, if you know that you’re stepping into kind of an environment, you know, I imagine like stepping into a casino or something, where it’s like meant to like, stimulate you to buy push your behavior in ways that the house benefits from, you know, and when I say house, in this case, the technology companies might benefit from, but aren’t necessarily good for you as an individual.

(Speaker 1)
At the same time, when you block off in your day time, to step away from the technology, step away from the distraction, and just focus. And that could be meditation, which is really what we focus on.

(Speaker 2)
It could also be going for a walk, but going for a walk without the phone or keeping the phone off, it could be a contemplative practice. Now, quick interruption here for you. Quick interruption, quick interjection or question. I would refer to, for our listeners who watch our show, they’ll hear me talk about praying. So I’m a Christian, so that’s my worldview. I am going to pray.

(Speaker 2)
I think you are referring to what I would be calling praying to God. You’re referring to what you do as meditation. Can you maybe explain what you mean by that, or maybe your background? Because again, I approach it from a Christian worldview, and I want people to understand your worldview. And again, people say, well, why would you have someone on your show if you don’t share the same worldview? I have a question.

(Speaker 2)
a curious individual, and I like to have people on this broadcast that bring a variety of experience. And when you’re talking about a book that’s going to help us gain traction in the world of perpetual distraction, I’m curious as to the best practices that you’ve used or you are using.

(Speaker 1)
Walk us through kind of your religious background and then maybe what you mean by meditation. Excellent question, Clay, and I really appreciate having me on your show. I have written extensively actually around how mindfulness should not be political, should not be any sort of, should not have any kind of religious kind of preference at all. And I’m happy to talk about that a little bit more. In our community in particular, we do have an extraordinary diversity in religious beliefs and political beliefs. And so we’re a bit unique in that, where I feel a lot of times, you know, you might walk into like a yoga space or a mindfulness space, and it might feel, you know, very, very very foreign, because of those beliefs underneath it.

(Speaker 1)
My background, I was born in Iran, came to the U . S. as a young child, before the revolution happened in Iran. Mo is short for Muhammad. I grew up Muslim, and found there was a lot that I cherished about the religion, and there was a lot of things that I didn’t agree with. And in my journey, as far as spiritual communities go, communities I found myself most drawn to, Unitarian Universalists, which, you know, you might be familiar with, have sort of a very broad definition of what they explore.

(Speaker 1)
The Quakers, I always found the Quakers very interesting. And so I’ve had, and I’ve settled on almost like a Jungian approach to religion where, and I have religious family and have religious friends across all sorts of different beliefs. And when I said contemplative practice, I’m not trying to equate meditation to prayer. I wouldn’t do that. I think they’re different things.

(Speaker 1)
But at the same time, a contemplative practice is one in which we step away from, I would say, the material and the noise of the world, and we are able to reconnect with what we find most important. Right? And that could be different. How people get there could be different depending on their different beliefs.

(Speaker 9)
But it’s sort of that ability to say, hey, wait a minute, like, what is this all for?

(Speaker 1)
right? Like beyond the material, like what is this all for? And so in different ways, sometimes people will use meditation as a contemplative practice, sometimes they’ll use it as a therapeutic practice, sometimes they’ll use it as like a mental fitness practice, right? And so for everyone, we welcome that. So it’s not The way that we advocate for meditation is not that you need to just say it out loud, not that you need to become Buddhist, right? And so often there’s this real strong Buddhist connection to meditation and mindfulness.

(Speaker 1)
And it’s true there’s some roots in it. There are also different traditions, like the Sufis, from the Islamic side. There’s also Christian and Catholic traditions that I’ve explored, centering meditations, and I’ve actually spoken a few times at Georgetown University to one of their business programs that is led by a Christian who has invested in developing a meditation center, and I believe it’s the Thomas Friedman Center. And so you have Catholics also advocating for, and different groups that have advocated for, the benefits that one might find through this idea of meditation, where we’re really trying to

(Speaker 2)
tune into our minds and kind of get beyond the noise that could be so easily overwhelming and distracting. I got to ask you this. Have you ever, two questions here, have you ever thought about Converting to Christianity, question number one. And then question number two, what made you inspired to write your book? And I ask you this because I want to kind of conclude that thought about religion, and then I want to get into your book.

(Speaker 8)
So have you ever looked into Christianity?

(Speaker 1)
I hung out. So the Unitarian Universalist Church is kind of a quasi -Christian. I don’t know if they’re considered blasphemous by different groups. It’s always like, I don’t know. So I had a ton of Christian friends and lovely people. And for me, I’m looking at things a little bit differently.

(Speaker 1)
And for me personally, And I think for a lot of folks out there, there is just extraordinary beauty and kindness and wisdom. The areas that I kind of draw the line for with my personal beliefs is that I don’t believe in dogma and I don’t believe in people having super abilities. And so that’s just my personal belief. And so anytime beliefs kind of drift into those areas, I respectfully find it difficult to for me to have the kind of conversations I’d like to have. At the same time, I think that there’s extraordinary beauty in having something beyond ourselves, having community, all the wonderful things that religion provides. And there are many folks out there that maybe feel orphaned, where, like me, they might, you know, resonate with different beliefs, some different parts, but don’t necessarily have a home.

(Speaker 1)
And one thing, can we play for a minute? Can I challenge that? Because here’s a thought that I have. right? And respectfully, I asked myself, you know, how long did it take Jesus to have, let’s say, 50 million fans, right? Just kind of for fun.

(Speaker 1)
We’re just playing. And let’s say 500 years, right? I’m just making up a number. We could say, we’ll say 200 years, just to get it closer.

(Speaker 7)
And then I look at Oprah.

(Speaker 1)
Right? How long did it take Oprah to have 50 million fans? How long did it take Deepak Chopra to have 50 million fans? Now, I’m going to play with Deepak for a minute here. Deepak Chopra, about six years ago, launched, ahead of his time, an AI app where, in your pocket, you could have an immortal, all -knowing Deepak Chopra. Dude already has 50 million followers, fans, and now he has immortalized himself in a way that through AI, and folks like Yuval Hariri and others have spoken to this in much greater depth than I can, but that this AI knows you better than you know yourself, quite possibly, knows your children, knows your grandparents.

(Speaker 1)
And so my belief is that we have these moments in history where belief systems are challenged, new belief systems arise, And sometimes those new belief systems may sort of build off what was in the past, and sometimes they could kind of promote humanity in a positive direction, and sometimes they could take us in a different direction. And I believe firmly we are in a new age. And if you look at the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Age, whenever you have these new ages, often you have new currencies, you have new economies, you have new technologies, you have new religions emerge. And I believe we’re in the age of AI. And I’m really concerned that might be the emergence of a new sort of religious belief system that could kind of veer in a direction that I don’t think any of us would like.

(Speaker 1)
And so for those of us who perhaps don’t have that don’t have a home, that may maybe feel a little bit orphaned, the humanist sort of approach is what has been most popular as sort of an ethical kind of framework, but it’s lacking, like it’s not enough, it’s not enough.

(Speaker 2)
And so part of me wonders, you know, whether there might be a return to religions like Christianity and Islam and Judaism, and I think we’re actually seeing some of that happen, or the emergence of something new, or some weird combination going forward. And by the way, folks, for anybody who doesn’t know, Yuval Noah Harari is openly discussing a new religion being developed, which he calls Dataism. Dataism you’ve all know her. I’ll play a clip after this interview today as we will can see you’ve all know a Harari in his own words You’ve all know a Harari talking about dataism now before we let you go today Cuz I want to make sure we have an opportunity to discuss or to share where we can people can learn more about your book Your book. I’m gonna pull it up on the screen here. Give me just one second.

(Speaker 2)
I’m pulling it up here Here we go feeling the flow working it pulling it up. This is the book here open MBS are reimagining the future of mindfulness In the final 90 seconds that we have you, who would want to check out your book? Why would anybody want to check out your book?

(Speaker 1)
Tell us about your book, Open MBSR, Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness. Thanks, Clay. And so really, the book is meant for folks who are in the mindfulness profession or curious about the mindfulness field. And what we’re attempting to do is to create a shift in what’s been happening to disentangle mindfulness from Buddhism. And often it’s presented in a way that it’s not, but when you kind of dig in. And there was a wonderful, actually, Christian woman, Professor

(Speaker 1)
Candy Brown, who was part of, and I forget the association, but it was a Christian nonprofit that was suing groups that were introducing mindfulness in school, saying, hey, wait a minute, like, there is some elements of Buddhism, and this is not fair, and there’s a problem here. And it was through her work that actually opened my eyes up to some of this. And so we want to really be honest and say, hey, if we’re teaching Buddhism, let’s tell people that’s what it is, or let’s derive from Buddhism, take what makes sense, leave the rest of it behind, and allow for a truly inclusive religiously, politically field and community to adapt this to really serve our needs. The second major point in the book is this idea of dialectic thinking. Often we could think one -dimensionally. Dialectic is told in two opposites.

(Speaker 1)
And the third is shifting from what sometimes happens to be elitist kind of superiority thinking and oligarchical control to a communal community based way forward.

(Speaker 2)
And so essentially, we’re trying to decouple from Buddhism, really make mindfulness something that people could think in a dialectic way, and bring it to the community so the community itself could shepherd this, grow it, and evolve it. And just so we’re clear, folks, I did not have Mo on today’s show just because he has good hair. But Mo, you have great hair. And I appreciate you joining us. I appreciate you putting up with a tough line of questioning. And again, thank you so much for your time.

(Speaker 2)
And we’ll put a link on the show notes so anybody who wants to check out your book can do so. And Mo, thank you to you and your great hair.

(Speaker 1)
I really do appreciate you. Thank you, Clay. This has been a lot of fun.

(Speaker 2)
And I appreciate your willingness to kind of reach out and explore things with someone who might have different beliefs. You take care, brother.

(Speaker 7)
Have a great day.

(Speaker 2)
You too.

(Speaker 4)
Bye bye. new military and financial strategies, new kinds of weapons and currencies, and even entirely new ideologies and religions. And the same people who just told me that they cannot trust their human competitors now assure me that they can trust the super intelligent AIs they are developing. AI isn’t a tool in our hands. AI is an agent. To be an AI, it is not enough for a machine to act automatically.

(Speaker 4)
It must also have the capacity to learn and change by itself, to make decisions by itself, and to invent new ideas by itself. We might see another round of techno -religions in the 21st century, when religions will promise again, not just prosperity and health, but even eternal life here on Earth with the help of technology and not after you die with the help of some God. You don’t have any answer in the Bible what to do when humans are no longer useful to the economy. You need completely new ideologies, completely new religions, and they are likely to emerge from Silicon Valley or from Bangalore and not from the Middle East. and they are likely to give people visions based on technology. Everything that the old religions promised, happiness and justice and even eternal life, but here on earth with the help of technology and not after death with the help of some supernatural beings.

Transcribed with Cockatoo