Alycia: I had a professor my senior year of college that told us that there are three classes of people. There's the first class of people, and that's the majority of people who have no idea what's happening in the world. And then there's the second class of people, and those are the people who are aware of what's happening in the world. They follow the news, they follow politics, they try to stay up on current events. And then the third class of people, that's the small, small minority of people, those are the people who are actually making things happen. in the world. And I consider myself somewhere in class two, right? I try to stay up on what's happening in business and politics and like how the world is moving. And I'm endeavoring to be in class three. And if you are like me, I think that you probably have noticed that there seems to be a noticeable influx of the volume of information that we as humans are consuming on a daily basis. And that is through social media, that's through the news, your traditional media, your non-traditional media, all of these things are Coming at us all at one time. And I think that we are at the point where we need to consciously and intentionally create space for us to slow down a little bit and think about the things that are happening in today's day and age. Now, what I want you to do, because I'm a water sign, is picture the ocean. And at the surface of the ocean, that is where the waves are. It's salty up there. You've got it's sandy, right? Things are kind of breaking and there's bubbles. It's it's very busy, right? At the at the surface of the ocean. But if you go down just a little bit, and this was actually when I was a kid, my I used to spend a ton of time in the deep end because going underwater is one of my favorite things to do. Because when you go underwater, it gets quiet. The pressure increases the further down you go. But when you're underwater, you don't get all of the noise from the top. You don't even necessarily feel the waves that are going up above you. You feel the movement of what's happening under the water. And I find that that is a really good analogy for what I want this podcast to be, like a space that we can kind of go a little deeper and be a little quieter and try to look at things from a different perspective. what I really want to do here is create a space where we can just slow down and think about business and wealth and power and influence and how all of these things are moving together. Because I believe that a lot of the things we're experiencing now in 2026 started, you know, 50 years ago. It's not as if this stuff happens overnight. It seems like it does because they're constant news feeds, constant headlines. But really, the core of these issues or events or any of the technological trends that we're seeing, all of this started in the past. And so I want to be able to draw that forward so we understand on a longer timeline what's really happening here and look at what really matters and what probably doesn't. Because so much of our attention is taken up by things that are not meaningful. Now we are in the full-blown attention economy. And anything that the big tech companies, big advertising companies can do to draw your attention away from things that are meaningful and to things that are just passing fads, they're gonna try to do that. And so I think we are living in a space where at least I find that I need a dedicated. Space, call it an hour a week, to just slow down and and think through some issues. And that truly is what I want this podcast to be. And I just wanna leave off with a parting note of gratitude because your time and attention is the most valuable thing that you have as a human. And I appreciate you spending some of that with me every week if you decide to subscribe, which you should. And with that, let's take a deep breath because we are going to go underwater. I'm Alycia and this is Fathom.