Now That You See It

Pancho Gomez & Kim Paull
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Management

Kim Paull and Pancho Gomez are two curious, opinionated friends who love nothing more than to change their own minds. Now That You See It is a podcast about the moments when a belief shifts — and what's possible once it does. Each episode, they dig into the ideas, biases, and assumptions that quietly run our lives — the ones so familiar we've stopped questioning them. Sometimes a guest joins. Sometimes it's just the two of them, thinking out loud together toward something neither of them expected. They cover the hidden operating system behind everyday stuff: why we judge others faster than ourselves, how our personalities might be inherited survival strategies, what actually makes change stick, why friendships get harder when we're grown. Conversations go long because that's when the big aha moments hit. If you've ever caught yourself wondering if anyone else saw that glitch in the matrix, you're in the right place.

  1. 5d ago

    How to Cope With Capitalism - Shortisode pt. 1 of 2

    Capitalism gives you a number of convenient ways to measure whether your life is going well: salary, title, house, savings, status. If one isn't careful, it can become easy to confuse the metrics of success with the definition of success itself, losing sight of the bigger picture. In this shortisode, Kim and I talk about how to cope with capitalism without letting it swallow the rest of your life. Kim brings three ways to create a little more agency: redefine what “rich” means before the goalposts move again, treat your time and attention as currencies, and talk openly about things we’re often taught to keep private, including salaries, debt, career paths, and the rules governing the economy. When information stays hidden, shame and unequal power have more room to operate. My contribution comes from Patricia Linville’s self-complexity theory and the idea that a more multifaceted identity may be a more resilient one. If one enormous label titled “my job” carries the lion's share of your sense of self, losing that job can become an identity crisis instead of a difficult employment problem. Work can matter a lot without being responsible for answering the entire question, “Who am I?” None of this makes layoffs, money problems, work stress, or the systems shaping our lives disappear. It’s about finding the agency you do have inside those systems, deciding what enough means for you, and building an identity that’s difficult resillient in the face of career and financial setbacks. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources Patricia Linville’s self-complexity theory: research on how having multiple distinct self-aspects can buffer the impact of setbacks in any one area of life.Identity as a “cloud of balloons”: the metaphor Pancho uses for thinking about identity as a collection of roles and self-aspects rather than one dominant label (https://www.becausewhy.net/journal/identity-is-just-a-cloud-of-balloons).

  2. Sep 5

    How Not to Cope With Capitalism - Shortisode pt. 1 of 2

    Capitalism is the water most of us are swimming in. Whether you love it, hate it, or have a complicated relationship with it, you still have to figure out how to live inside it. In part one of this two-part shortisode, we talk about some of the ways we think people cope with capitalism that don't actually help. Pancho starts with terror management theory and the temptation to use wealth as protection against something money can't solve: uncertainty. Kim brings an ABC framework for some other traps: absolutism, blaming yourself for problems that may be partly systemic, and the way consumerism quietly changes what we think we need. This isn't an argument that capitalism is good or bad, or that money doesn't matter. It's a conversation about noticing when the strategies we've developed to cope with capitalism start making our lives smaller instead of safer. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources Terror Management Theory: the psychological theory Pancho uses to explore how awareness of mortality can shape our pursuit of wealth, status, and security.

  3. Aug 14

    The 200 Year Old Fight With Your Partner Over Dishes with Judy Hu

    Sometimes the fight over the dishes isn't really about the dishes. Judy Hu, licensed mental health counselor turned boundary coach and author of The Boundary Revolution, returns to explore how family history, culture, trauma, and the experiences of previous generations can show up in our relationships. Her work with couples starts with a simple question: when your reaction feels wildly disproportionate to what's happening, what else might you be reacting to? We talk about how Judy uses ancestry, somatic work, and family patterns to help couples understand why seemingly small conflicts can lead to seemingly disproportionate responses. She shares examples of partners whose reactions to each other make more sense when viewed in the context of their ancestry. We also get practical about how you can start investigating your own family patterns, why Judy asks couples to look beyond who's right and who's wrong, and how to right-size your response to seemingly small disagreements. Because sometimes your partner forgot to rinse the plate, but the fight you're having is about something that happened 200 years ago. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources The Boundary Revolution by Judy Hu Judy's book explores boundaries, relationships, cycle-breaking, and the broader cultural and historical systems that shape how we relate to one another.EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Judy discusses EMDR alongside somatic approaches as part of how she thinks about processing emotional responses rather than continually reenacting them in present relationships.Relational Life Therapy / Terry Real Judy references couples therapist Terry Real's work while discussing the shift from trying to win a conflict toward creating a relationship in which both people can stay connected.Family systems and intergenerational patterns A broader body of family therapy examines how roles, relationship patterns, beliefs, and unresolved conflicts can persist across generations, providing another lens for the family-tree work Judy describes.

  4. Aug 6

    The Best Advice We Ever Got (and the Worst)

    Advice is a tricky thing. Most of us think it's a good thing, and that when we give it, we are helping. But sometimes the advice has nothing to do with the person receiving it, and it's all about the person giving it, making it far less useful. Sometimes it helps, and sometimes it hinders. Or worse, it hurts. In this shortisode, we each share the best and worst advice we've ever received. In real time, we find evidence that some advice isn't objectively good or bad. Whether it helps often depends on who's hearing it, when they hear it, and what problem they're actually trying to solve. Sometimes the right advice gives you permission to stop forcing things. Sometimes it challenges you to move toward fear instead of away from it. And sometimes the most dangerous advice sounds wise because it leaves out the nuance. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz Kim discusses the agreement "Don't take anything personally" as one of the most influential pieces of advice she's received, while Pancho explores where that advice can become harmful if it encourages people to tolerate disrespect or abandon healthy boundaries. The Yerkes-Dodson Law Kim's story about burnout and "wrestling the gorilla" echoes the well-established relationship between stress and performance: some pressure improves performance, but beyond a certain point, increasing effort leads to diminishing returns, exhaustion, and poorer outcomes. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) by Steven C. Hayes Kim's "do it scared" philosophy closely parallels one of ACT's central ideas: courage isn't the absence of fear but choosing actions aligned with your values even while fear is present.Self-Determination Theory by Edward Deci & Richard Ryan The discussion about defining success for yourself rather than endlessly chasing external achievement connects with Self-Determination Theory, which argues that lasting motivation and wellbeing come from autonomy, competence, and connection rather than external rewards or validation.

  5. Jul 30

    How to Make Big Decisions Without Chasing Happiness with Stephanie Peirolo

    Some of the most powerful beliefs we hold aren't ones we consciously chose. They're the stories we inherited from our families, culture, workplaces, and communities about who we're supposed to be, what success looks like, and what we're allowed to want. This week, executive coach and author Stephanie Peirolo joins us to explore how those hidden narratives shape the biggest decisions of our lives. We discuss discernment, intuition, values, service, leadership, and why making meaningful decisions isn't the same thing as chasing happiness. Along the way, Stephanie shares lessons from her book The Saint and the Drunk, explains how ancient spiritual practices can help anyone make wiser decisions regardless of their beliefs, and offers practical ways to recognize the stories that no longer serve us. If you've ever wondered whether the life you're building is truly yours, this conversation is for you. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources The Saint and the Drunk by Stephanie Peirolo Stephanie's book introduces a practical approach to discernment and decision-making, blending Ignatian spirituality with modern coaching and accessible reflection exercises.Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert Pancho references Gilbert's research on affective forecasting, which explores why humans are surprisingly poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future.The Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius of Loyola The centuries-old foundation of Ignatian discernment, emphasizing imagination, reflection, and paying attention to one's inner experience when making important life decisions.The Live Your Values Deck by Andrea Nicolescu and Lisa Gollwitzer A practical card deck Stephanie recommends for clarifying personal values and using them as a guide when making difficult decisions.

  6. Jul 23

    10 Ways to get Out of a Rut (Fast)

    Feeling stuck can start to feel like a permanent state. You stop saying, “I’m having trouble moving forward,” and maybe even start identifying with it - “I’m stuck.” In this shortisode, Kim and Pancho each bring five ways to get out of a rut. They explore how changing your environment can interrupt familiar patterns, why an easy warm-up task may work better than forcing yourself to start with the hardest thing, and how the story you tell yourself about being stuck can deepen the rut. They also look at the role of action, emotion, and resistance. Sometimes motivation follows action rather than preceding it. Sometimes the next step is obvious, but you do not want the emotional experience that comes with taking it. And sometimes getting unstuck begins by noticing all the options your brain has already dismissed. The episode includes practical experiments drawn from Byron Katie, Mark Manson, Joe Hudson, and Martha Beck, along with simpler approaches like asking someone you trust what you are missing, putting constraints around a messy project, and cleaning up one draining habit at a time. You may not need to overhaul your life. You may only need enough movement, perspective, or capacity to stop reinforcing the version of the story where nothing can change. Once you see that stuckness could be a mindset issue just as much as a logistical one, you can’t unsee it. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources Byron Katie - The Work A simple four-question inquiry process for examining the stories you tell yourself and exploring alternative perspectives.Joe Hudson - Art of Accomplishment The distinction between intellectual stuckness and avoiding an uncomfortable emotional experience.Mark Manson - Action Creates Motivation The idea that motivation often follows action, rather than the other way around.Martha Beck - "Shackles Off" Looking for small actions that feel like taking the handcuffs off, then gradually building more of them into your life.

  7. Jul 9

    Should You Play To Win - Or Play Not To Lose? with Christina Reynolds

    Christina Reynolds is a coach, a former scientist. At one point, she left a long-term relationship, quit her corporate job, and hiked across the country, all in the span of just a few months. The thing she can't unsee is that there's no such thing as the right decision. Not really. A choice only becomes right or wrong after you've made it and watched how it plays out, and even then, the meaning keeps shifting depending on what happens next. And really, the choice itself only matters and takes on meaning when you assign meaning to it. Her reframe is simple to say and hard to live: instead of trying to make the right decision, make the decision right. Take responsibility for whatever you choose and commit to getting the most out of it, rather than agonizing at the fork or beating yourself up in hindsight. Christina, Kim, and Pancho go into depth about what keeps people from deciding. They cover the differences between wanting to get it right, which tends to be about decisions that only affect you, and not wanting to get it wrong, which shows up when other people are involved. They discuss Joe Hudson's framing that we intellectualize and ruminate to avoid even more uncomfortable experiences. They explore why it's so difficult to be running from something if you don't know what you're running toward, and they explore that it's likely useless and false to say, "I should have known better." Pancho brings the maximizer versus satisficer distinction, the pre-mortem as a defense against hindsight bias, and a yoga teacher's framing of what it means to do the wrong thing when you betray yourself. Kim brings the March of Folly and the small, genuinely difficult question of where self-compassion ends and accountability begins. The reframe that stopped us dead was when Christina suggested that maybe the most useful approach is to act as if you're always doing the right thing, and the freedom it unlocks. Concepts Explored and Sources Referenced The Parable of the Chinese Farmer: the "maybe, maybe not" story at the heart of the episode about how the meaning of any event depends on what comes nextNow That You See It, Decisions That Make Themselves: the recently re-released episode on the big choices that don't actually feel like choices, referenced directly hereThe Inside-Out Revolution by Michael Neill: on the idea that your experience is generated internally rather than by circumstances "out there," referenced by ChristinaMaximizers vs. satisficers: the decision-making framework Pancho raises, where "good enough" tends to produce more life satisfaction than "it could always be better," even when maximizers get objectively better outcomes

  8. Jun 30

    5 Reasons People Stay Stuck

    This is our second Shortisode, a short-podcast format discussion. As Kim calls it, it's Punch O'Clock! This one is about why people don't change even when they genuinely want to. Kim brings five reasons plus a bonus, and Pancho adds three more. They cover the obvious stuff and the sneaky stuff: Not having felt the full pain of the status quoNot being able to picture the benefit of a change you haven't lived yetOverweighting the cost of uncertaintyAvoiding the emotional experience of even considering the leapChasing a change that was never actually yours to begin with.Pancho adds the anchor problem, the one thing in your life you won't give up that quietly undermines everything else, and the reality that you're a product of your environment, so if your partner or your people aren't moving with you, you're rowing upstream. Kim brings in executive dysfunction, and why, for some people, the barrier isn't avoidance at all; it's that the mechanics of starting are genuinely overwhelming. Once you see that good change is still hard because it involves loss without the expected benefit yet in hand, you can't unsee it. Referenced & Recommended Ideas / Resources Joe Hudson: the idea that avoiding emotional experiences, particularly around uncertainty, is a major driver of suffering and of staying stuckStumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert: on why we're bad at predicting what will make us happy, and why talking to someone who's already lived the change beats imagining it aloneNow That You See It, How To Navigate Change You Didn't Choose episode: the deeper conversation on navigating change you didn't choose that this list builds on

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Kim Paull and Pancho Gomez are two curious, opinionated friends who love nothing more than to change their own minds. Now That You See It is a podcast about the moments when a belief shifts — and what's possible once it does. Each episode, they dig into the ideas, biases, and assumptions that quietly run our lives — the ones so familiar we've stopped questioning them. Sometimes a guest joins. Sometimes it's just the two of them, thinking out loud together toward something neither of them expected. They cover the hidden operating system behind everyday stuff: why we judge others faster than ourselves, how our personalities might be inherited survival strategies, what actually makes change stick, why friendships get harder when we're grown. Conversations go long because that's when the big aha moments hit. If you've ever caught yourself wondering if anyone else saw that glitch in the matrix, you're in the right place.

Information

  • Creator
    Pancho Gomez & Kim Paull
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Pancho Gomez & Kim Paull
  • Show Website
    Now That You See It