Perspective Shift:
- The game isn’t about getting more; it’s about becoming better. Attainment culture has you chasing quantities — more status, more likes, more achievements, more recognition. But “more” is just a determiner, entirely quantitative. Attunement culture operates in a different dimension entirely: quality. The question shifts from “What can I get?” to “Who am I becoming?” This isn’t self-improvement, but more like self-alignment.
- Dignity is the ground; respect is what grows from it. We’ve confused these two concepts to our detriment. Respect must be earned through character and action. Dignity simply is — every human being has equal claim to worth not because of what they do or believe, but because they are. This dissolves the false choice between dominator hierarchies and victim narratives, as dignity creates common ground from which we can build toward higher ground.
- Authenticity isn’t something you achieve; it’s something that evolves. You were authentically yourself at every previous stage — and your self has continued to grow. This is the felt risk of growth: stepping outside boundaries that once felt like safety.
- Your reactive tendencies are breadcrumbs leading to your developmental anchors. When you get triggered—when you automatically comply, control, or criticize—you’re not responding to what’s in front of you. You’re responding from an old wound, an unsophisticated early-life lesson, a developmental stage you never fully transcended. These anchors are like taut lines holding your ship back, limiting your growth and your ability to function cleanly in the present.
- The present moment is under siege, and distraction is winning. Billions of dollars and the world’s smartest engineers have been aimed at one goal: keeping you more interested in your phone than the entire world around you. Every app is a super-normal stimulus, a slot machine designed to hijack your evolutionary wiring. Without sovereignty over your attention, there is no wisdom, no depth, no character cultivation. Meditation isn’t mystical—it’s dog training for your attention. Sit. Stay. Come back. This is the foundational practice from which everything else emerges.
What’s the difference between changing yourself and changing the world? Only one of them actually works.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Keith Martin-Smith and David Arrell diagnose the core pathology of contemporary life: we’re living in an attainment culture that measures worth through accumulation—more status, more recognition, more stuff—while starving the qualities that actually make life worth living. The result? Epidemic levels of anxiety, polarization, narcissism, and a quiet desperation that no amount of productivity hacks or self-optimization can touch.
The alternative isn’t another framework to add to your collection. It’s a fundamental reorientation toward attunement culture—a shift from quantity to quality, from getting to becoming, from conquest to meaning.
David lays out the architecture of this shift across three temporal dimensions:
HEALTH (The Past): Most of us are operating from developmental anchors—unconscious wounds and reactive patterns that keep us stuck at earlier stages of maturity. When you criticize, control, or comply automatically, you’re not responding to what’s in front of you; you’re responding from an old script. The work is to turn toward these patterns with curiosity, reclaim the energy locked there, and stop letting the past hijack your present.
DEPTH (The Present): Your attention is under siege. Billions of dollars have been spent engineering super-normal stimuli to keep you distracted, metabolically aroused, and scrolling. But presence—the capacity to remain grounded when life gets turbulent—is the foundation of wisdom. Character and virtue aren’t abstractions; they’re your ability to tolerate weather without capsizing. The fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) emerge spontaneously when you create the conditions, like apples from a healthy tree.
GROWTH (The Future): Beyond your current capacities are your leading edges—the places where you’re stretching into new territory. Growth means tolerating the unknown, throwing aspirational grappling hooks into territory you can’t yet see clearly, and expanding your container of authenticity. It’s not about becoming someone else; it’s about becoming more fully who you already are.
Throughout the conversation, Keith and David return to a revolutionary foundation: dignity culture. Unlike respect (which must be earned), dignity simply is—every human being has equal claim to worth by virtue of being human. This creates common ground from which we can build toward higher ground. It dissolves the false choice between dominator hierarchies and victim narratives, between attainment Olympics and oppression Olympics.
The examples are visceral: Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t change America by attacking his enemies—he changed it by cultivating such depth of character that he could march from Selma without taking opposition personally. Lama Tsering Everest changed a room simply by walking into it. The power of alignment—when your intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cultural dimensions move in the same direction—is magnetic.
The conversation offers practical wisdom for the current moment of cultural chaos: shift from grievance to gratitude, from entertainment to enrichment, from tribe of the chosen to tribe of the chosen ones you intentionally create. Track your attention. Practice humor. Grant dignity to yourself and others. Get your butterflies in formation.
This isn’t self-help. It’s a blueprint for becoming the kind of person who can actually create change—not by trying to fix everyone else, but by doing the work that makes your very presence a form of influence.
Attunement Culture: A Live Training Opportunity with Keith and David
You’ve just spent an hour absorbing these ideas. Now what?
Ideas don’t transform lives — lived practice does. You can understand everything David and Keith discussed intellectually and still show up tomorrow exactly as you did today: distracted, reactive, caught in the same patterns, serving the same attainment culture that’s been grinding you down.
This is where Attunement Culture comes in.
This isn’t another course to consume and shelve. It’s an eight-week immersive journey with Keith Martin-Smith and David Arrell that takes everything you just heard and translates it into embodied practice. Not theory—practice. Not content—container.
What makes this different?
You’ll join a small group of serious practitioners—not dabblers—who are done chasing what doesn’t fulfill them and ready to meet themselves with honesty and curiosity. This is the Shambhala Thursday night group that Keith and David described, but live, structured, and guided across eight weeks with two seasoned teachers who’ve done the work themselves.
Each week builds systematically:
HEALTH: You’ll learn to identify your reactive tendencies and developmental anchors using trauma-aware tools, Internal Family Systems frameworks, and somatic practices. You’ll stop letting old wounds hijack your present relationships—with partners, colleagues, children, yourself.
DEPTH: You’ll cultivate the muscle of presence through breathwork, integrity check-ins, and meditation for real life (not retreat life). You’ll practice recognizing when you’re performing versus when you’re grounded. The fruits of the spirit aren’t gifts—they’re what emerges naturally when you create the right soil.
GROWTH: You’ll work with adult developmental maps to understand where you are, where your anchors are holding you back, and where to throw your aspirational grappling hooks. You’ll orient your goals from coherence rather than ego, asking: What kind of human am I becoming? What legacy am I creating in the people around me?
What you receive:
- Eight 75-minute live sessions with real-time teaching, Q&A, and practice
- Two guides who show up every week—no pre-recorded content, no hiding behind videos
- A framework that integrates trauma-aware tools, developmental maps, and embodied practice
- A private, off-social-media community designed for real dialogue
- Session recordings for flexible access
- Experiential practices every week: reflective prompts, breathwork, developmental exercises, relational tools
This course is for you if:
- You sense that growth now means depth, not speed.
- You’re ready to integrate wisdom, not just collect insights.
- You want the kind of alignment that Keith witnessed in his Zen teacher — where your very presence changes the room.
This course is NOT for you if you want a quick fix, a passive download, or prefer identity over evolution.
The investment is $550 USD. No tiers. No upsells. One commitment, all in.
Here’s what Keith said in this conversation that captures why this matters:
“I have so much of those things [the fruits of the spirit]—I’m filthy rich with them and there’s so much gratitude. Part of that is because I’ve set out to have these things because they matter and the quality of your lived experience day to day can be so beautiful, but it’s not gonna happen to you and it’s not gonna be given to you. You have to claim it.”
You have to claim it.
This course gives you the soil, the light, the structure, and the community to let those qualities take root.
You’ve done the reading. You’ve listened to the podcasts. You’ve performed presence.
Now it’s time to live it.
Click here to learn more and enroll.
Key Questions
Here are some questions you can contemplate while listening to this discussion. We suggest you take some time to use these as journaling prompts.
- Am I playing the attainment game or the attunement game? When I measure my worth, what metrics am I using? Likes, status, salary, achievements—or love, peace, patience, depth of presence? Where in my life am I chasing “more” when what I actually need is “better”?
- What are my reactive tendencies trying to tell me? When I’m triggered, do I automatically comply, control, or criticize? Do I move toward (fawn), against (fight), or away (freeze)? These patterns are breadcrumbs leading to my developmental anchors. What old wound or unsophisticated early-life lesson is still running my present?
- Where is my attention actually going? If I tracked my attention for a full day, how much time would I find in the proactive zone, the reactive zone, or the distraction/waste zone? Am I sovereign over my attention, or has it been colonized by super-normal stimuli? What would it feel like to reclaim even 10% of my scattered focus?
- How much weather can my ship withstand before I capsize? Can I tolerate hearing ideas I disagree with? Can I sit with discomfort without immediately reaching for my phone? When my cheeseburger comes with ketchup and I asked for none, what happens inside me? My capacity for presence under pressure—that’s depth. Where do I have it, and where do I lose it?
- What fruits of the spirit are naturally emerging from my life right now? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — which of these qualities are ripening in me? Which are absent? I can’t force these fruits, but I can create better soil. What conditions am I currently creating?
- Where are my developmental anchors holding me back? What old identities, relationships, or belief systems do I keep returning to even when they no longer serve? These anchors create tension every time I try to grow. What energy is locked up there, and what would it take to reclaim it?
- What are my aspirational grappling hooks reaching toward? Beyond my current capacities, what’s calling to me? What practice, relationship, community, or commitment am I consciously reaching for, even though the outcome is uncertain? Where am I willing to tolerate the unknown in service of growth?
About Integral Edge
Welcome to a world on the edge.
AI is rewriting the rules. Politics are more polarized than ever, with the far right and left in an endless clash. The metacrisis looms, late-stage capitalism is unraveling, DEI is evolving, and strongmen are rising once more.
But that’s just the beginning.
This podcast takes an integral look at the forces shaping our reality—from cutting-edge neuroscience and biohacking to cryptocurrency, global economics, and the ancient wisdom of awakening, mindfulness, and embodiment.
Keith Martin-Smith brings a deep, multi-perspective lens to the chaos, cutting through the noise to find what actually matters.
This isn’t just another commentary on the world. It’s a guide to seeing—and living—beyond the divide.
New episodes of Integral Edge every second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 10 AM PT. See our events calendar to join the live discussion!
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About Keith Martin-Smith
Keith Martin-Smith is an award-winning author, writing coach, and Zen priest. He is passionate about human connection, creativity, and evolution. His books include "The Mysterious Divination of Tea Leaves", "A Heart Blown Open", and "The Heart of Zen". His most recent book is his first novel, "Only Everything", a novel that explores the promise and the pain of following an artist's path.
About David Arrell
David Arrell is an Executive Coach & Consultant with a background in Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development & Training. He is passionate about both personal and professional growth and supporting those making meaningful and positive change in the world. www.catalystforchange.xyz david@catalystforchange.xyz