Cultivating Self-Awareness

We often say I am angry. It's the short form, right? I am angry, I'm frustrated, I am hopeless, I am hopeful. Use the words feeling right. It is as paramount to us growing through this as is this notion of like, I love the simple words, right? But how powerful these words can be. So Carol Dweck's work, instead of saying, you know, I can't do it, just add the beautiful word yet at the end, I can't do it yet. Growth versus fixed mindset. This is the same thing. Just change it and notice the difference. I would encourage every listener to do that when you the moment you say I am, change that. When it comes to emotions, say I feel and see the space that it opens up for you and more importantly, what it actually enables you to do from that.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey Happiness Squad listeners, it's Anil and Ashish. We're both excited to be with all of you today and I'm honored to be with him as we began to explore his book Hardwired for Happiness, practice by practice, chapter by chapter. You know, I connected with Ashish during the COVID lockdowns and our passion for helping individuals unlock their own potential and find true meaning in their happiness, health, love, life immediately became clear to both of us. You know, I'm on this journey with you and Ashish and we're excited to explore how each of these nine practices that he so beautifully and simply lays out can actually change your life for the better. What I found, and continue to find incredibly unique, is how Ashish takes what he has learned by reading over 500 books and going through his own research and practices and how he distills it down and shares it and includes several exercises that can change our lives in just a few minutes a day to help us lead a more purposeful life. Today we start with practice number one, cultivating self awareness, the heart of his practices. You know, have you ever felt I am angry rather than you feel angry or I am sad rather than feeling sad. And ever wondered the difference between the two? Have you ever thought of what's the difference between making an assertion versus an assessment? Throughout this conversation, Asha shares personal experiences and several practices that actually address these and more. But it's at the very end of the chat where he shares one meditation practice that I personally believe will increase your own self awareness. So join us as we talk through how we are all hardwired for happiness.

Enjoy.

Hey, thank you Ashish for having me and us together today. How are you feeling, man?

Dude, I am feeling great. I'm feeling great. You know, we are one week away from starting to record this masterclass around Hardwired for Happiness. The book launch was amazing a couple of weeks back. So yeah, I'm just really jazzed and excited about what's coming.

Awesome. I think we were talking before we started about how there are various things going on in our lives. Your life, my life. And I have to say to you, the practices that you shared with me, I'm applying and I'm noticing it make a difference. And it's a different thing when you hear some people say it, but when you hear them and see them practice it, I feel it's a complete next level. You know, we today are going to start talking about Hardwired for Happiness. We're going to go chapter by chapter, practice by practice and really dive in and really hear from you, your thoughts, what really inspired you and what your research, your beliefs, your insights have led you to hear and how we can help our listeners again, practice by practice. Really understand kind of what you'd love for them to take from it. So when they pick up the book, they get a different dimension.

Absolutely. It'll be my pleasure, Emil.

Awesome. Well, you know, let's start with the first practice, self awareness. I think what I'd like to do before we even dive into that is maybe tell the tell our listeners what does happiness mean to you?

Yeah, look, you know, happiness is, you know, happiness is, you know, if you look at the technical definition now there's a lot of people who define it very, very differently because the technical definition is subjective. Well, being so subjective means it is what you define happiness to be. But there is uniformal alignment that, you know, it does include, well, being.

Okay.

I actually expand this and I see, you know, from all my research and from my own lived experience, Neil, and coaching experience with others, you know, I would say, you know, happiness is. Happiness ensues. If you've got like, you know, a set of things going on in your life, right? One is if you are actually living a life that has meaning and significance and it's in the service of something bigger than you, right? So you feel your life matters, you have meaning in life. Second is you actually are physically, mentally, spiritually doing well. If you don't have an ache in your leg or if there's something you're dealing with that does take away from our happiness. So you're not going to be in a joyful, satisfied state. So second is that you're actually feeling well physically, mentally, spiritually. You know, the third, and I should have actually started with this third one, first is, you know, you have a set of rich and high quality relationships. Number doesn't matter, but you have, you know, rich, you have a rich social, if you will, quote unquote fabric that is supporting you. You're not alone. And then fourth is anil that you actually are, you know, you have kind of mastered the ability to kind of be the creator of your own experiences and more positive experiences in your life then and be able to kind of navigate and surf some of the unpleasant things that come our way, unpleasant emotions through obstacles we face, hardships that come our way. So I think if there is, if we are actually doing those, you know, individuals who do, those you know, are happier. And I think that's the way I define happiness. So those four things, social well being, meaning and what I would call emotional mastery. So don't give, truly master your own worlds. Don't let the external world control what you experience.

I love that. And I think it goes to the word, like you said just now as well, creator and how you create. What I'd like to maybe start with then is self awareness. Ashish is the practice that you feel is number one. And I'd love to know why is it the first practice?

Yeah, look, self awareness, as you saw in my book, it's clearly at the heart of the nine practices. And you know, self awareness is. Self awareness is really important because, you know, Anais then said it best, right? You see the world as you are, not as the world is. We don't experience. We never, you know, we think we're seeing the truth. We think we are seeing what's happening and that's reality. But that's far from the truth, right? We see a version of reality. You know, we live in a world of multiverses. We truly see a version of reality which is shaped by three distinct things. You know, and this is what I Learned from, you know, the world of ontological coaching. It's what I learned from the world of spirituality. The three things that combine to make our own experience of what we call the truth, which, by the way, will be very different than your version of the truth, because those are different, for you are. One is language. So beliefs. We are a judgment making machine. We're constantly assessing and we are bucketing things into good, bad, right, wrong, expected, unexpected. I mean, there's all of this judgment going on, constantly scanning. Where does that come from? It comes from a certain way of our beliefs, the way we see the world, which all comes from our own lived experiences, the cultures we grew up in, what we saw, our parents do, our teachers do, others who are successful do, others who are unsuccessful do. So all of that make up the lenses, and those are the beliefs that form in our minds and we see it. So language has a big, big role in it. You know, I give you a very simple example of language. You and I can both see a table, okay? And the table might be five by four. And I say, that's a big table. And if you've grown up in a small house, you know, let's say in Africa, in a village, you'll say, oh my God, that's a really big table. The table's the same. But our assessments are different, right? You might win $100,000 and you go like, oh my God, jackpot. And somebody else who's a billionaire might get 100,000. They go like, yeah, whatever, right? So again, there is value. We place our beliefs, drive it. The other two are this notion of moods and body, right? So I experience the world. I experience the level of annoyance of how I might feel with somebody, depending on whether I've slept well, I've nourished well, or I'm hangry, or, you know, and I'm tired, exhausted, right? Our body, like what we are feeling in our body and what we might even hold in our body, by the way, there is lots of work that when we do go through trauma, it is not just nourishment, but sometimes trauma can get stuck in our body and fundamentally shape us right into certain ways. And then the third one is moods. What mood are you finding yourself in today? You know, and just like we have moods, moods can have us. So you might actually wake up in a mood of anxiety and all of a sudden you see the world differently. Or you might wake up in a mood of depression and sadness. And, you know, things don't. Things appear harder, right? When something's happening Something doesn't weigh the mind. Your judgment making is, well, it's because of me. So all of these three things frame the observer that we are. And so when we see the world from that place, only what's possible is, you know, that unique observer. So unless we are able to fundamentally shift and by the way, rather than trying to please the world, try to please ourselves, really tune inwards, nothing else becomes possible. When we tune inwards, we can actually follow our calling. We can do work that fills, that provides meaning in our life, rather than live up to an external standard. When we are aware, we can find out where our mind is. Is it in the past or in the future? If we are not even aware, we don't know, like half the time it's in the future, half the time in the past. So it's the heart of mindfulness. When we are aware, we can count all the things that are working for us. If we are not aware, our brains just take that for granted and look for all the problems in the world. So that's why, Anil, I say awareness and self awareness is the heart of every practice. Because the whole idea is we live based on our own inner compass, not based on trying to get approval, trying to kind of earn external merits. That's why self awareness is at the heart and is one of the most important foundational practices.

I love how you say that. And you know, on page 29 you actually say, and I quote, self awareness unlocks almost all the other practices in your journey by rewiring your brain from seeking fear to seeking happiness. And I think you know something you and I know and maybe you want to share with the listeners. Did you originally have a different title for the book?

Yes, I actually did. And you know, it is actually a very, very funny happenstance that this happened. So the book Hardwired for happiness did not start out as a search for happiness. And I was very grateful for that because it would have actually made me very unhappy. I actually didn't fall into the whole world of happiness research till like 2021. So which was already, right, you know, four months after the first manuscript of the book had already been wr. And the original title of the book was actually called from fear to freedom, A journey from within to live your best life. My journey had started about figuring out what keeps us stuck in a place of fear, which then evolved into why do we see the place from a place of fear in the first place? Right. Which then got into, well, we see the world from a place of fear, but is there Something in our sense making mechanism that's actually broken, because did everybody see the world from a place of fear? Or this is like a new phenomena. Do kids see the world from a place of fear or is it an adult thing? So that's what got me into neurosciences and kind of psychology and adult development theory. But I was seeking a path away, a path that transcended our fear. Focused brains, which, by the way, are not how we are born, which is kind of how we get shaped. But we can talk about that more later. But that's what I was seeking. And I was very grateful. Anil, why I wasn't seeking happiness because once I discovered the happiness research, I found one of the biggest myths that Sonia Lyubomirsky talks about is those who pursue happiness are actually unhappier. So I'm glad I wasn't pursuing happiness. I was pursuing something else altogether, which is this movement away from fear. And then once I had the manuscript written, I had sent it out, everybody had read it. I started working with an editor. She read my book, and she said, you know, Ashish, can I suggest something? When I read this book, the message that is very clear to me, I get the From Fear to Freedom. But when I look at what you are talking about and what you're implicitly writing about in each of the chapters, what is clear for me is you are saying we are hardwired for fear and we can be hardwired for happiness. That's what you're writing about. So would you consider changing the title of the book to Hardwired for Happiness? And man, I tell you, when I first heard that word, I was like, you are changing the firstborn, right? I have never written a book. This is like. I mean, I've spent, like, I don't know, you know, I was working seven days a week on this stuff, and, like, it's been like 15 months. And you come around, you read my book in two weeks, and now you want to change the title of the book? Like, no. Hello. And then I sat and I slept over it over the weekend. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so true. And only then, funnily enough, that was like, March, right? That's when I actually discovered this huge trove of happiness research. And I got a chance to talk with or connect with people like Sean Archer and Tal Bin Shahar and Emma Seppele. I mean, they've done amazing, amazing work. And it's amazing that they came to the same. These practices, as I talk about, are in every wisdom Tradition, they have come to the in some shape or version of the same. Like everybody has a different framework, but I think we all agree on the kind of core underlying principles and the interventions that can help us be happier. Right. So, yeah, but that's a little bit of a story around Hardwired for happiness and how it is, you know, happiness actually ensues. You can't really pursue it. And I'm glad I didn't pursue mine.

We're going to come back to that because I'm really curious. This is something that I want to talk about next, which is. So I actually read the book the Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. It's a beautiful book and I highly recommend it.

Oh, it's beautiful book. Yes, absolutely.

And you know, something that you reference as well is around feelings. You know, we talked back earlier about moods and emotions. And you know, I remember, you know, in 2015, I was having a really crap day. That's it. There he is.

Yes.

I remember having a really crappy day and I call up my sister and I said, you know, I remember where I was when I had this conversation. You know, I'm angry, I'm frustrated. I'm really, I'm, you know, and I. And she's like, well, hang on a second. You feel angry, you feel anxious. And this is something that you talk about, like when you experience or when you practice self awareness, you, you, you know, that space gives you higher agency. Could you explain a little further Ashes? Because I think this is something listeners might find fascinating between I am angry versus I feel angry.

Yeah, absolutely. So look, I mean, this concept around de identification with our beliefs, moods and what we feel in our body is at the heart of every practice, in every kind of, if you will, discipline, not practice, right? So spirituality talks about, you are more than your body, you're more than your mind. You're the consciousness actually that observes. Right. I mean, this has been there for 2,000 plus years. And now when I talk about this, I'll be like, oh, yeah, Deepak Chopra talked about it. I'm like, yeah, Deepak Chopra didn't talk about it. It. Deepak Chopra talks about something that's been there for 2,000 years. Okay? And it's in, it's in the Upanishads, it's in the Yoga sutras, it's in like Buddhism text. He's talking about the same thing that is we've talked about, by the way. Psychology is the same concept. The words the psychologists use is once you make what you are subject to an object, you can actually start to really examine it and through that, find the answer. Once you make what you're subject to, anger is something that we've become subject to. It, in fact, takes over us once we are able to make that an object. Hey, why am I angry? Why am I feeling anger right now? Right? What about it? What's my role in it? What is kind of the ground belief that's kind of making this. Cause what is this feeling like? Is this actually even anger, or is this just frustration mixed with, like, real tiredness and I don't want to deal with it. That's coming up as anger. You can start to kind of really, you know, sit with it and start to kind of break it apart, deconstruct it. And so I think that's the point, right, of this work. And by the way, only through that, only when we can see something at a distance. And that's what that word choice does. When I say I am angry, that's who I am. It's our false, you know, it's our false vision identity that we're just taking on. If I'm angry, I need to do certain things. I need to shout, I need to scream. I need to hit you, if I can hit you, because that is angry. But if I am feeling anger, I can say I'm feeling anger. I can also feel actually compassion at the same time. Why not? It's a feeling, right? You know, if somebody who's lost their mother and their son comes and they just hug them with all their heart, wouldn't they feel sadness and love at the same time? I can hold multiple things. I can, right? It's hard. I am just becomes kind of this very hardened identity I feel creates space. And in that space is the opportunity to make a choice to not just do the patterns that come with that mood, that come with that emotion to choose your path. And that's why I think this notion is really, really important. And I often fall into that myself, right? To any listeners who are like, you know, we often say, I am angry. It's the short form, right? I am angry. I'm frustrated. I am hopeless. I am hopeful. Use the words feeling right. It is as paramount to us growing through this as is this notion of, like, I love the simple words, right? But how powerful these words can be. So Carol Dweck's work, instead of saying, you know, I can't do it, just add the beautiful word yet at the end. I can't do it yet. Growth versus fixed mindset. This is the Same thing, just change it and notice the difference. I would encourage every listener to do that. When you, the moment you say I am, change that. When it comes to emotions, say I feel and see the space that it opens up for you and more importantly, what it actually enables you to do from that I love.

I mean, do you know, it's something that I hold true, which is when the emotion passes or feelings, they come and go. Like you said, you can have multiple at the same time or you can have one, one and then the other. But when the emotion passes, the wisdom remains. And I feel exactly as you said as soon as that, that, that sense. A friend of mine once told me the story of how he explains to his 2 year old and his 5 year old about feelings and frustration. The daughter's like, I, you know, dad, I'm frustrated, I'm angry. You know, he's like, look, it's like, you know, they're knocking at the door of your mind. You know, it's a feeling and you open the door and then you can choose, do you want to let that feeling in? You know, who's with that feeling? Is happiness with that feeling? Is love with that feeling? You know, let them in. Or you can say, no, I'm, I'm not. So like you said, creating that space, I think is beautiful, Ashish, to make sure you can see it, observe it, and maybe therefore not immediately react to it like we typically do.

I love, by the way, what you just said, right. I love what you, what you had just said. Emotions come and go. Emotions come and go. Everything in life is impermanent. Things are constantly changing. We think not, but they are. The wisdom remains. Now, depending on how you process the emotion, wisdom can remain. Or what can remain is trauma, or what can remain is a stuck feeling. Right. So I think it is really, really important. It is. The problem is when we don't let the emotion pass, every emotion, good and bad, can pass through us, leaving behind an insight. Yes.

And that can affect it. Like if you, if you feel angry in the morning, that's an emotion. But then like, you know, throughout the whole day you feel moody, you feel frustrated, you feel angry, you just, you feel like you feel like something's weighing down on you. It's not how you want to feel.

Yeah, but it can, it fundamentally can affect us. Right. So I think that's important. So the difference between is it wisdom that remains that allows you to grow, or is it trauma that in some way kind of further reduces you down? It's this difference between I am. And I feel because when I feel I can just hold it because I know with feelings, when I especially hold it with the fact that it's going to be like a wave, it's up, but it's going to go down again. I can be more equanimous to it. I can handle it with equanimity.

Are you enjoying the show so far? Let me ask you a few questions before going back. Have you ever wondered why so many of us struggle with stress, anxiety and burnout and feel stuck in life? Heck, maybe you're going through this right now. Well, the reason for this lies in the evolutionary biology of our brains, which are hardwired for fear. It's part of the reason why our team named this podcast Happiness Squad. It serves as a reminder that happiness is what really matters and that we are in this together. And that is why we are so excited to share with you a resource to help you on your journey. One of our hosts, Ashish Guattari, launched a book, Hardwired for Happiness and it is a 1Amazon bestseller. When you get access to this book, you will discover nine secular practices that can change your life and are backed by scientific evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Learn how you can integrate Hardwired for Happiness practices in every part of your life to unlock your best self regardless of how busy you are. Shift from knowing to doing to being with a range of journaling, meditation and group coaching exercises and so much more. Go to www.happinesssquad.combook to get access. Right now we also have bonuses on the page that you don't want to miss. Once again, www.happinessquad.com book and now back to the show.

We might have folks out there listening to you go. I don't know if I really agree with that. And you know what's beautiful is in your book you do balance the art with the science. And I think maybe can you share what do you believe are some of the science based benefits of self awareness when you research? When you looked into this, what stood out to you that you feel our listeners can really benefit from in understanding that this is not just a fufu feeling, this is actually something that's back backed up by facts, by research.

So anil, great question, right? So the research strongly backs up why self awareness is not only key to happiness, but frankly through happiness is also key to success. So one of the persons who studied this quite extensively was Daniel Goleman who kind of coined the word emotional intelligence and he describes self awareness as kind of that foundational skill that also unlocks four very different things that in the end make us happier and frankly make us more successful. One is self regulation, our ability to regulate our own emotions. Again, this thing that we've been talking about, you know, motivation, our own motivation, right? When you tune inwards, when you're more self, aware, you feel a much higher level of motivation because you know what you're doing this for. Intrinsically, much higher empathy, our ability to connect with others. If you don't even know yourself, how are you going to know the other person, right? And where they're coming from. And if you're not going to know the other person, how are you going to feel into the other person? There's so many amongst us who are roaming around with just their heads, no bodies, they're numbed. Their bodies, they don't actually know. I ask in many other coaching, I'm like, what are you feeling? They're like, I feel nothing. I said that is not a feeling, nothing. Feeling nothing means it's a feeling of numbness. Okay, so there is something present. It's numb. So let's talk about how we open that up. By the way, those who are more self, aware, they also have much higher social skills. What does that do? Well, if you have higher social skills, you're more likable, right? If you're more likable, you get more opportunities. And by the way, if you're more likable, we are social beings, we again go back to that first print of what we talked about, about what is the definition of happiness. We enjoy that. So those are all of the kind of benefits, right, that you get from self awareness. I'll tell you, when you talk about self awareness, if you'll notice in my book, I talk about these three levels of self awareness at the heart of it. And this can be the hardest to get to. But it's starting to become self aware of actually the consciousness. You as a conscious being making sense of everything that's coming in from the sensory organs, right? What we see, what we hear, who's the person who's seeing, who's the person who is hearing, who's the person who's smelling, who's the person who's. Who is actually experiencing this feeling. So there is that. The second is the simple model that anybody, regardless of whether people believe in that concept of consciousness and no, we're not or not, can actually relate to which was this notion we talked about of language, moods and body, right? Anybody can kind of look at that and say, yep, those are the way I shape the world. And then the third level of awareness is how the world is making sense of us now even there, right? The research was very, very clear. So you know, research done at Harvard clearly highlighted that only about 10 to 15% of the people are actually truly self aware. Especially if you think about awareness as both how I see my values and thoughts and the second is how others actually view them on the same dimension, only 10 to 15% are self. Aware. In fact, you know what else? This is the problem. The higher up you are, the less self aware you are, right? We think our internal view, we are overconfident in our ability of self knowledge and underconfident. You know, like literally we over, we are like, oh my God, I'm so good xyz. You talk to people who work for you, they're like, oh my God. He like literally doesn't know, right? If I listeners, I'm sure if you have bosses at work, you've never experienced it, right? Which is this notion of like people and you know, unfortunately we don't feel safe enough to share that feedback. And as you go up, there's less and less people who are willing to give you feedback from top down, right? Because there's not that many people above you. And so that's where it goes from. But I think, look, those who are able to truly master their awareness and there are very specific tools like the leadership circle profile that people can use. There are tools out there about increasing our own self awareness of our strengths like the Gallup strength finder or via character strengths. The more time listeners can use to start to become aware of themselves along all of these practices of who we say we are, how we make sense of the world and how others are making sense of us, I think the benefits they will reap are tremendous.

Dino Ashish I completely hear you. And I can list off just in 24 hours within emails or conversations with leadership where I almost go, are you listening to yourself? Are you hearing yourself? Because I'd love to tell you what I've heard and play it back to you. But you do call this out. You do say a lack of self awareness can be a significant handicap in leadership. And I think I'd just love to say, hey listeners, pause, take a moment here and think if you're a leader, what's your level of self awareness like? And if you're not a leader, if you're working for a series of leaders, what feedback could you give? Or do you think, you know, a leader could benefit from by knowing that their lack of self awareness is actually not only handicapping them, but potentially handicapping you.

Yeah. And an invitation to really integrate these 360 feedbacks into our workplace. You know, I'll tell you, Anil, my most formative, I was very grateful. Like, this is a core part of my life at McKinsey, when I was at McKinsey. And I'll tell you the first, you know, I still remember it. I was a young associate partner. So I just, you know, so it's like associates, then you have engagement managers, then you have associate partners who are kind of leading multiple teams. Okay. And I always thought, you know, I've always, you know me, you've experienced me. I've always felt love. I want to help people. That had always been true about me. But I had just a lot of stuff going on and I had tons of stuff. And so I always thought of myself as everybody loves me. I always try and help. I always make time for people. Whether it is 6am in the morning or 1am in the night, I will be there for you. And that was a story, right, of like, I am always there. I'm always available, whatever you need. Everybody loves me. I tell you, the ground fell below my feet when I got my first feedback.

Okay. It's powerful. I mean, it's gotta be. Did it surprise you?

There were 36. There were 36 people on that report because I was working with so many different teams, so many different places, and everybody felt they wanted to kind of share their feedback with me. One third of the people loved me. The best leader. Oh, my God, we love Ashish. He's unbelievable. Then there was the middle one third who were like, yeah, he's good. You know, some, you know, stuff. And I mean, there were very specific things undernight. One third of the people, 12 of them, hated me. They thought I was the worst human being on earth. To somebody who has one of his core fears, we all have fears as human beings. My whole one of the core fears is not being loved, not belonging. You can imagine I was crestfallen. First I was angry, like, you know, what the hell? Like, I give my whole life, I don't spend time with my wife and my young son so I can be there for you. And you say I'm the worst person ever. You are the worst person ever, right? And so, like, you go through that, right? But then, you know, once that passed, I was like, wow. And so, you know, I worked with a coach, I hired a coach. This was way, way early. Before I'd fall into any of this work. So I didn't know any of this. All of this work was like, you know, 10 years later that I started and I fell into this research and all the work that I started doing. But even that moment, right as I talked to the coach, they realized she made evident to me how some of my behaviors, literally, I mean, you talk about different realities completely can translate into different truths. She said, listen, Ashish, number one insight, you only get this once. You actually ask for feedback. You know who are the one thirds who love you because it's all anonymous. So you don't really know, right? You don't really know. So then I found out the one third who love you are people who are really like you, really strong, really smart. You give them tons of leeway, you let them run because you want to treat everybody like, you know, you're like great. You know, the middle one third, they, you know, truly, you know, are, you know, you, they look at you as like, you know, sometimes you, if they've done well, you're like happy and you'll tell them great jobs when they haven't. You're like, literally you're just looking at the work, you're not looking at the effort. And by the way, just to let you know, I think you're doing them a big service because you're getting on a call at midnight. You're making them get on a call at midnight because that's the only time that's available for you. Okay? So think about that. And for me, I was like, yeah, but we're all doing this to serve clients and you wanted my help and so you're asking for my help. So I'm going to give you help and I want when I'm available, right? Again, like these are the things that as leaders sometimes we do. I was like, I was like, oh my God. He said, by the way, Ashish, you're so busy. Everybody knows you are really, really caring. They see it. But how often do you actually ask people how they're doing? You jump into problem solving calls and the first things you do is you tell them, here's three things you need to change. You don't even take a moment to acknowledge the work that is already done. There is 90% think about all of these practices. They were not visible to me. I hadn't fallen into them. I was living the first life that so many leaders do. My eyes would only see the problems. I would always be running from one thing to the other. I was completely not aware of how I was coming across, I was exhausted. So I didn't even have the space oftentimes to sense into many of these things. That conversation and that feedback changed me. I realized that I had to actually fundamentally one, create space to truly start to connect. And literally, you know, 12 months later, all my scores are shifted to the right and I was actually working less and I was sharing a lot more, by the way. That's the other thing I started doing. Everybody nobody knows, right, like when you're, when you're in a leadership role and you're across multiple, you know, for any leaders out there, right, who are covering multiple sites, who are covering multiple functions that function, or the site only sees you when you show up. So if you're on seven other sites and one site every week, they don't know you're on the plane seven days. Tell them, first of all, don't get on a plane seven days. It's a story again.

You're telling yourself, no need for a road warrior.

Yeah, right. But when you're there, tell them like, you know, I think just the fact that people knew created empathy for them for me. And as I regulated, I mean that's, you know, anil is the power of like the self awareness and creating self awareness by truly asking people, hey, how I am, how am I coming across? Am I being helpful? What can I do to kind of, you know, make you even more effective? Let's ask that question and let's ask that from a beginner mindset so we can grow from it.

I just, I mean, to hear that transformation and like you said, in 12 months, it started with that awareness for you to seek out and actually get clarity and to give yourself the space to take it on and then give yourself the time and space to actually bring it to practice. I mean, it is crazy. You know, one of the things you actually suggested I do recently was, hey, Neil, when you enter a meeting, just ask the group, just, hey, can we all just take a minute here and just. We've been racing around, we all probably racing physically into this room or dropping off a zoom and joining in. You're physically here, but you're not mentally here. Maybe just take a minute to mentally kind of come into this space. I think it's a beautiful way of just asking, hey, how's everyone doing? Like, what's the temperature check? How you feeling? I mean, it. I think it'll surprise people. I tried it Ashish, and people were a bit like thrown off, like, whoa, what are you, what are you trying to do? But they appreciated it. So sometimes it's maybe going against your own grain just to kind of see how you can make other people feel and almost let them have a moment of being self aware. Even if it's in a professional setting, it doesn't have to be only in your personal life.

I love that, you know, and I think oftentimes people like one of the most powerful ways we can build psychological safety and open and invite people to lower, you know, their Johari windows at their call. Right. Really show ourselves the full iceberg. Not just what we want to show. The perfect armor, you know, armored selves of ours that we want to show out there. Shed your own first. So that's what you're doing. Anil, it's beautiful, right? You basically say, hey, this is what I'm feeling. How are you feeling? Creating that space and choosing to be vulnerable yourself is one of the most powerful thing those who are listening can do. Be vulnerable. Be open up. We are all. Look, no matter how perfect people's lives appear to be from the outside, every 100% of them, every one of them is facing and fighting a struggle. Whether it's personal, it might be family related, might be something with their kid, with their wife, with their parent, with their self, might be something external. Every one of us has a struggle that we are going through right now. So you are not alone. So if you share, that doesn't mean you're broken, that you're imperfect. Nobody will love you. No, that will connect you even more to everybody else around because they see you as human. They see you as usual. And that, my friend, is being the biggest, biggest gift to me and how I have led teams. I don't pretend to be perfect. I never pretend to be perfect. Even with this work, right? People are like, oh, so you must be happy forever. I'm like, no, I'm not happy forever. Even just before this call, you can hold things that are not going well and things that are going well at the same time as I was sharing with you. And I'll just share even now as we are kind of towards the end of this look. Life is amazing, right? We're about to go record a masterclass. I'm excited about that. The book launch was amazing, right? Amazing opportunity to connect. But at the same time, as a family, we're dealing with a lot of things right now. Lizzie's mom is, as you know, not well. And I think we might be two to five days away before she passes. And I think that's present for her. That's Present for me, it's a very difficult time. My mom is herself going through some health challenges and we're going to hear some news about what is going on with her in the next two, three, four days. So that's present for me. I think obviously there's been a lot of effort around getting this masterclass, so there's all of that work coming together. Are we going to be there? So there is a lot going on, but that's okay. We can face both of those things because every one of us has situations that are going on in our lives. Just sharing those makes you more accessible because everybody else. I'm not on a pedestal. I'm not, you know, I have learned these practices to be happier no matter what's happening because I choose from my self awareness. This topic that we're talking about, what do I want to give attention to right now?

Do you know, I think what I, and I just, I think, you know, I have to take, I have to pause for him and thank you for sharing that, Ash, because that's not easy. And I, and I have to say it's. I feel the difference between folks who just talk about these types of practices. That's one thing. But there are folks that talk about it, but actually practice it and actually live it. And there's something I once spoke to my coach about when it comes to self awareness and I said, can self awareness be paralytic? So just as we start coming to an end, Ashish, just. Is it possible for self awareness, like what you just expressed about what's going on in your background, your family being aware of that, can that paralyze you? Can that also prevent you from, from maybe giving yourself the space to tackle what you're going through?

I don't think it paralyzes you, right? It, it, it becomes, you know, it's. The difference is, is self awareness making you egocentric? So is it making you completely, you know, like rather the whole point is to not identify, but super identify. Right? And I think so. As long as you hold that distinction, I think it can move you forward. Right. I always, you know, there's this beautiful quote, you know, my friend of my favorite poets, Anil, is Khalil Gibran and he has a beautiful, beautiful poem where he talks about the truth. And let me see if I can read this to you. It's so beautiful. And he says, say not I have found the truth, but rather I have found a truth. Say not that I have found the path of the soul. Say rather I have met the soul walking upon my path, for the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not in a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals. And I think that's really, really important. Right? Self awareness is not about holding onto a story. It's not about a straight line that I'm going to walk on my way towards Kana Buddhahood. It is about recognizing that we always hold a truth, just hold it lightly, and that we're going to fold in numerous, numerous ways. It's not going to be a linear path.

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I think, you know, we. So Ashish and I are recording several podcasts with his colleagues, with his friends. And, you know, we do ask at the very end, you know, what are some of the key lessons that, you know, top three that he'd love for them to share with listeners. And Ashish, what I mean do here is, you know, in this book, in your practice for self awareness, you talk about meditation, partner dialogue, breathing, something you also suggest that I do six times a day. Well, obviously breathe throughout the day, but six proper deep breaths and journal six mindful breaths.

There we go.

Is there anything in closing that you would like as a practice or as an exercise for a couple minutes a day that people maybe give a try after listening to you today?

Yeah, look, I mean, this is a practice that is in my book. It is based on, you know, what I learned from one of my teachers. He's mystic, called Sadhguru, by the way, it's available for free on his website. They can look, it's called Isha Kriya I S H A K R I Y A Isha Kriya. And if they Google it and Sadhguru S a D H G U R U they'll find it on his website. It's a very powerful practice. It's 12 to 18 minutes long. But, you know, look, I would say I'm also a big fan of BJ Fogg and his tiny habits. Start with two to three minutes and you can go from there. And it's a beautiful meditation practice where we can just sit down. You know, you sit down, you hold your head a little bit tilted so you can focus the attention, right? You'll feel the attention coming in the middle of your eyebrows. Some people assume that's kind of the third eye. And you just breathe in and breathe out. And with each breath, you just, in your mind repeat the mantra, I am not my body, I am not even my mind. And just notice as you go through that with each in breath and out breath. What opens up? What opens up for you? What opens up? Pay attention to who is it that's actually seeing the body, who's seeing the mind, who's seeing the thoughts but is not the thought, who's feeling. You know, you might feel warmth, you might feel tightness, you are experiencing your body, but you can see I can experience. Anything that I experience cannot be me. Just that simple. Start with a minute to two minutes, but then go into a 12 to 18 minutes over time and I think you will start to actually create a separation between thoughts, moods and body. And that my dear friend, is the key. That is the key that unlocks our own prison of our own psychological sufferings that we create. We hold that key and if we can separate ourselves from our thoughts, mind, our body and our moods, we are free.

Love it. I think you know in closing from my side, I just love how you say what you just did. By mastering self awareness, it will allow you, me, our listeners, to truly focus on clearly what matters to them and live a more purposeful life, which is your mission here. And I think I'd just like to say thank you for sharing this with us with me. And I'm really excited to hear how our listeners let us know one way or another how this helps them guide their own inner journey and find a life, you know, a more purposeful life. So asish from my side, thank you. Unless you have any closing thoughts, I.

Just want to say thank you now. It is, it is my pleasure Anil. It's always so lovely my dear friend to see you, talk with you. Thank you for. Thank you for just leading us through this conversation for our listeners. They can learn a lot about this from the book Hardwired for Happiness. You know, engage with it. I've written this book specifically as a way to make these practices accessible to everybody. So the focus is very much on practice and there are tons of different ways in which you can increase our self awareness. So I'm looking forward to hearing how this talk resonates. What else they learned from the book and how else can I be of service to them? Even more.

Awesome. Take care everyone.

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