Paul and Utkarsh Narang discuss how your inner critic signals misalignment with your values. They argue that purpose drives action where knowledge alone fails, and offer an A/B decision framework to help you choose what actually matters to you instead of what others expect.
Chapters
The part of you that's yelling at you in the mirror, that person, why did you do that? That person knows you better than you know you in terms of your deepest held value. Not because of any other reason than some part of you has identified deeply held values and you just did something out of alignment with them. Does that make sense? Paul made sure his backdrop looked a certain way.
Why?
Well, because optics matter in a world where what you see is genuinely speaking, what we dedicate the vast majority of our cognitive resources to, right? There's a reason you have 3 nerves dedicated to your eyes. It's a, it's a power. It's a powerful perceptive experience. And the reality, if you strip away the complexity of that, Like say no to, that means that it's like helpless or fraught. No, no, no. It means that some aspect of whatever it is we are as human beings recognized that there was some sort of cosmic collective value in advancing our species as a whole. And in this undefinable, constantly moving Idealistic, yet nevertheless worthy of pursuit. Vision that we can see clearly in our minds of a cohesive species working toward common cause in the pursuit of both human flourishing and answering our biggest unknowns.
Right?
Going out into the universe. Why is sci-fi so popular? Why is fantasy so pop? All the things because our imagination. When it comes to meaning, we, the closer we get to finding our sense of purpose, the more we are able to direct the world to our will. It gives you greater agency. It takes effort at first, but goal-directed effort over time produces really crazy results. And it becomes, you know what I mean? But you have to make sure it's aligned with that inner you, the part of you that's yelling at you in the mirror, that person. Why did you do that? That person knows you better than you know you in terms of your deepest held values. And sometimes it's trying to get your attention. Hey, that's not you. You feel shame, not because of any other reason than some part of you has identified deeply held values and you just did something out of alignment with them. Does that make sense?
It all does. It all does. Because why—
I tried to go as— I was very— you were impressive because I was trying to make it impossible for you to disrupt. And you were definitely going to wait till I asked you a question. Hey, you can fight me, sir. I know. Hey, hey, don't let me get away with that.
You will not. You will not. See, I understand everything that you're saying because I have seen and we've worked together and we've operated at the meta level. But the challenge is, Paul, the world still does not operate at that meta level. So what you said just now, goal-directed effort in that long-term pursuit. We all understand that, but no one's going to do shit about this. We all know investing and compounding. We all know eating right things. We all know sleep is important. We all know everything. We all know this shit. No one does anything about it because—
Not no one. Not no one.
Okay. A very high percentage in that, in that curve, a very high percentage are right in the middle who are just slogging through life. And so what I'm trying for us to do today, Paul, is that if people invest the next 40— they've listened to both of us for 30 minutes, they're feeling like, where the hell are these guys going?
That's what I'm hoping.
They're seeing us diverge into beautiful things. If we were to right now tell them that if you stick around for the next half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever that time might be, what do you want them to walk away with? One thing, Paul.
There is a stark difference In what a single human being can achieve when we operate with a clarified sense of purpose. At the same time, Hitler had purpose. If you want to clarify your sense of purpose, the first step is ignore everybody else. You already are enough. You've always been enough. You, you don't need to become all consumed with your legacy.
What the hell is happening here? I go on Instagram. I cannot ignore everybody else. So how do you, how How do you tell me to ignore everyone else, Paul?
I want you to walk away with a clear A/B as it relates to giving your life direction in a values-aligned way.
Love that. Love that. So that single statement is gonna be our purpose for the next whatever time we speak to each other.
But I am going to make you wait because if you care about what the evidence shows us when it comes to our deepest learning, What it shows you is that what matters most is always something that's going to require patience. Instant gratification is not rewarding. That's why we can say all the buzzworthy things. We know the end state, right? Just, just pay attention to what you like doing and move toward that. Just, just, just ask yourself what you care about. And it's going to be all the things that you identify as the things you most care about. Well, that's what you should be directing your life toward. Well, that you care about a great many things in the attention economy. There's so many things worthy of caring about, so many different complexities across every dimension of that. So that's not helpful. What's helpful is to pay attention to the fact that you actually don't need to do any research. You don't need academia's help to quickly recognize that there is a stark difference in what a single human being can achieve when we operate with a clarified sense of purpose. It doesn't matter when it happens, but somebody operating with clarified purpose, anything that comes their way, all of a sudden, just an obstacle to get around or beyond or punch through. Right? Your fight is non-negotiable. Your motivation is self-replenishing, right? And you naturally complement whatever is most essential to manifest your sense of purpose. You naturally start to do all the peripheral things that help you even further nurture that deepest sense of meaning, whether we're talking about Michael Jordan or any other— insert any Excellent person, anybody who got excellent, not, not I can dabble in a bunch of things and I'm kind of good, but I decided to dedicate a significant portion of my energy, time, and attention. I decided that all of the self-discipline, all of the adversity, all of the costs associated with that pursuit was worthy of the effort. And I followed through. That's what you earn from a clarified sense of purpose.
Thank you for watching this clip. If this was of value, then you would love this full podcast episode with the guest that you just saw. I'm just putting this link somewhere left or right of me that you should just click on and watch the full episode. We talk about deep ideas, insights about life, leadership, you as an individual, and you as a professional in this Beautiful, yet so chaotic world of ours.
