Fuel Up with Compassion

When you are looking for validation from others, you are fundamentally making it so much harder to be clear and to be able to do what you think you need to do because then you're not being authentic. And people smell that. People smell that. And so the journey on self worth starts from being self compassionate. It starts from developing this capability about accepting yourself or as you are, imperfect beings just like we are. I'm not perfect, I'm imperfect. But all I can do is show up and try and do my best and hold that intention and that's it. And if we hold that for ourselves and we hold that for others, I think we are able to achieve so much more together and individually.

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, it's Nil. I'm happy to be here with all of you today and honored to be with Ashish as we explore his book Hardwired for Happiness chapter by chapter. You know, I connected with Ashish during the COVID lockdowns and our passion for helping individuals unlock their own potential and flourishing and find true meaning in their happiness, health, love and life immediately became clear. I'm on this journey with you and Ashish to explore how each of these nine practices that form the sunflower that Ashish has laid out so simply and beautifully. What I find incredibly unique is how Ashish has taken what he has learned and is sharing several exercises that can change our lives in just a few minutes a day to help us lead a more purposeful life. Today we continue with practice number six, Fueling up with Compassion. It is incredibly important to acknowledge this, especially at the start of anyone's journey into self discovery. There are clear benefits to giving ourselves self permission to make mistakes and grow in the process. This practice begins with you. You stoke the flame of self love and compassion from the moment you wake up till the end of your day. It's only through self compassion are you able to offer kindness and generosity to others. I guarantee you this will fill your life with satisfaction, trust and optimism. Dalai Lama actually said this. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot exist. Ashish and I take this and we dive into and share personal and professional reflections to illustrate how critical this practice is to embrace our inner critic. Take the advice, but not the abuse. Only then can we stand tall with our self worth intact and stay till the end. As Ashish provides several tips to fuel up your compassion that I promise you will unlock an inner kindness that become your next superpower. So join us as we talk and rewire for happiness together.

Enjoy.

Hey Ashish, how you doing?

I am amazing, Anel, and you, my dear friend.

I'm doing awesome. I just, I love these conversations. We've gone practice to practice and we're about to talk about one of your favorites, fueling up with compassion.

Yes, it is so, so powerful. You know, we always talk about how we get happy, how do we feel successful externally by doing things. And I think this is another one of those that look, no matter what happens outside, there is so much of when we take actions externally that is outside our control. But this practice of fueling up with compassion and kindness, which is practice number six in the nine hardwired for happiness practices, this is something that is 100% in our control. 100%. And so the beauty of that is that we don't have to depend on anybody. And right from within we can be happier, healthier, have more love and meaning in our lives. So I'm really excited to dig in into the research that I've done in this space and just share tips right with our listeners around how they can truly also start to master their inner worlds versus trying to control the external world and hustle for worth.

Do you know, this is one, Ashish, where when you and I met for the first time last July, I was like, ashish, I just learned a course on sympathy and the difference with empathy. And you're like, yeah, no, but then there's compassion. And I was like, wait, what, what do you. There's compassion. And you know, just jump into that. Ashish, tell me, what is compassion and why is it so important?

Yes. So look, compassion, you know, is really comprised of two key things, right? Which is one is empathy, truly being able to feel with what the other person is feeling. And when that is combined with a powerful desire to take action to make a difference, we experience compassion. Now quite different from sympathy because unlike sympathy, in sympathy there is an implicit I am bigger, I am stronger. I am better. And hence I feel bad for you. I feel pity for you. I am the savior. You need to be saved. Compassion is a relationship between equals. And so a big, big, big difference. And look, the data is really clear. The research is very clear on the importance of compassion. And you know, Dalai Lama is famous for saying it's the most direct route to our happiness, compassion and kindness. In fact, he goes, you know, he said love and compassion are not luxuries, but really necessities. And without them, humanity cannot survive. By the way, it's way more than humanity, right? Extensive research done with animals show this is actually the compassion. And to care for others is a trait that is in all sentient beings, right? That is in all animals. In fact, there were studies where they had rats in mazes and when you had a fellow that was stuck, they would do everything they could to kind of open the latch. So I think this is really, really something that is common across all sentient being. To be able to be moved by another suffering and to take action without any expectations back of being able to alleviate that suffering. Now, medically, there are lots of benefits that come from it. Those who are compassionate are more resilient. They are able to actually recover from illnesses faster. When we feel compassion, our bodies are actually releasing a compound called oxytocin, which actually reduces inflammation in our cardiovascular system, which further reduces risks of cancer. In fact, there was research that was done by Michael Poland at the University of Buffalo, where he found that stress is related to higher chances for dying, except for those who spend a lot of their time helping others. In that case, there isn't a relationship between stress and death. It's so powerful, it can actually allow us to live longer, it can allow us to live healthier and truly allow us to actually be happier. When we practice kindness and we practice compassion, even seven days of doing acts of kindness, actually based on research done by Lee Rowland and Oliver Curry in 2019, shows that we actually increase our happiness, right? So what the spiritual teachings show us around being kind and being compassionate are literally have grounding now from science that proves that they are not just nice preachings, they truly actually help us because there is a physiological and neurological underpinning of what that enables us. So really, really powerful practice, not just for our happiness, but also for our health and love that we experience in our lives.

So oxytocin is something that the body releases even when you give yourself a hug, right? It's that warm fuzzy feeling. And yes, I mean, and as you know, you shared that with me once, and I don't want to. Just briefly, can you maybe just help people understand how simple and how powerful and important oxytocin is and what it can do for them when they're practicing compassion, please.

Well, in fact, what I might. You know, as much as this is just an audio cast, but to our listeners, just follow along with me. Just take your two hands, put them around you like you're giving yourself a hug. So hold your hands and just gently rub your arms up and down. And just feel it more than me telling it. Feel it. Just do this with me. Anil's doing it. I'm actually just rubbing my arms, just gently. Soothing. And I'm going to be quiet and just for 30 seconds. Notice what is coming up for you as you do that. Just experience that. Tune in to that feeling. What do you notice? You'll notice a little bit of a release. You'll notice some relaxation. You'll notice warmth. That is oxytocin going through your body, releasing. It's truly something that can help us calm our sympathetic nervous system down and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. And it's so easy, right? It's something that we can do all the time to really be downregulate and give ourselves this gift of a hug. And it's so important because we are our worst critics. We are our worst inner critics, you know, And I share this thought experiment and oftentimes when I'm giving keynotes or doing workshops, and so I invite everybody to participate in this thought experiment with me. Let's say you're walking down the hall at work, you're in a rush, like so many of us are. You have a laptop in one hand and a coffee in another. You have a colleague coming from the other end who has also got a coffee and a laptop in their hand, and they trip and fall. What is the first thought that comes to your mind? What is the second thought that comes to your mind? What do you do if you're like most of the people I share this with, they say, oh. I ask, are you okay? And I kind of stop what I'm doing, even though I'm busy, and make sure that they're okay. I give them their laptop, I help them, you know, get up from the floor and move along. Right. That's what a lot of us would do.

Exactly. Absolutely.

Now imagine if it's the same scenario, walking down the hallway and another colleague is coming from the other side. And this time you trip and fall. Yep.

Been there.

What's the first words that come to your mind. Right. Without going explicit. Right, exactly right. I am such a blah, blah, blah idiot. Or I'm like, I should have been. You know, it's all these condemnation words. So, so easy for us to kind of be kind. But you know, when it comes to ourselves, we just beat ourselves up. So these inner critics are always at rage within us and we cause so much suffering. We speak to ourselves anil with much harder words than we ever will speak to anybody else. And that's the beauty of self compassion. Right? That's the beauty of practicing self compassion is we can stop doing that because it doesn't really do any good.

You know, you hit it on the head with the inner critic. And I just ask our listeners to just pause for a moment and just ask yourself, when was the last time that little voice in your head condemned you, criticized you, judged you, sabotaged you? I mean, for me it happens nearly hour to hour and there are times where it can get pretty loud. And especially in the example you just mentioned, Ashish. But let alone if you're giving a presentation and you make a mistake or you're speaking to your partner and you make a mistake, you beat yourself up. Instead of being your biggest cheerleader, you turn out and you amplify that inner critic. Ashish, why is that? You just mentioned earlier that all sentient beings have the ability to express compassion, self compassion. Why is it that we as humans have this tendency to be, I don't know, I'm going to say, like almost drowned out by this inner critic, by this voice, by this self judgment?

Yeah, great, great question, Nel. And I think it comes back to this negativity bias, you know, that our brain has. It's a survivalist instinct, right? Think about the whole idea about over focusing on mistakes that we make, shortcomings that we make, right? It's all about, you know, look, next time you do better because that way you'll be more accepted, you will be more successful. And it's even less from more success. It comes more from more accepted because this desire to be loved, to belong, to be worthy, you know, look, 20,000 years ago we roamed around in groups of 25 or 30, and if you were excommunicated, that more or less meant near death because we could not survive alone in the wilderness. But that's still around. You know, we've evolved over millions of years. We've only settled down in the last 20,000 years. And that's where it comes from, right? In fact, it is so Universal. There have been extensive studies done across cultures. Then the findings are just the same, right? Anywhere from 50 to, to 70, 80% of people suffer from imposter syndrome. They feel they're not enough, they feel they're not worthy. And they're always looking for evidence. They're looking for evidence for when they mess up. Like, oh, here we go again, People are going to notice you, they're going to excommunicate you, you're going to fall from your place. And by the way, it's so interesting, Anil, that in one hand it can actually help us, push us to be more successful. But oftentimes it fundamentally gets at the heart of our, you know, makes our failures much worse. And I'll give you a simple example, right? Let's say you're giving a keynote or you're in a meeting and you mispronounce something or you said something wrong, okay? It might be a really small thing for everybody and they've already moved on because think about how much time people actually pay attention to what you're saying. But to you, you are hundred percent focused on that. It's right there for you. And so now all of a sudden, the next time you're gonna speak, you're already thinking, oh my God, I messed up. And then you're gonna be even more focused on what you're going to say. So which means you're gonna be even more nervous. So the chance becomes even higher that you're going to make a mistake, right? And the next time you trip up now, it becomes twice as like. And so all of a sudden we self sabotage, right? And in fact, one of the things that I always got feedback on as I was growing up, you know, in consulting, because I had this imposter syndrome and I was like, I was my worst critic. I always felt not enough. And you know, I used to get this feedback. Why do you go into these long explanations all the time? Like I used to take so long, especially if I was making a point where I was disagreeing with somebody. I was, I used to take this really roundabout way to kind of get to the point. And people were like, can you please be direct? And I couldn't. Only when I calmed my inner critic and all of a sudden I could speak with lucidity and clarity because I was not worried about what other people think of me because my sense of self worth was not dependent on them. I knew what I was doing.

Ashish, that's huge. Just, but just pause on that for a second. Your recognition of your Self worth, you acknowledging it, appreciating it, keep going because that's powerful right there. I think people overlook that when we.

Are earning and we are looking for validation from others. And I say this to leaders all the time, right? When you are looking for validation from others, you are fundamentally making it so much harder to be clear and to be able to do what you think you need to do because then you're not being authentic. And people smell that. People smell that. And so the journey on self worth starts from being self compassionate. It starts from developing this capability about accepting yourself or as you are, imperfect beings just like we are. I'm not perfect, I'm imperfect. But all I can do is show up and try and do my best and hold that intention and that's it. And if we hold that for ourselves and we hold that for others, I think we are able to achieve so much more together and individually.

Ashish, that resonates so much with me. I mean, I'm going to, I would like to share a similar example. So I, when I was living and working in the UK a couple years ago, my leader, my manager at the time asked me, hey, just share and help people understand you. You know, so we're both of Indian descent and you know, I kind of thought through and three words came to mind and I presented it to the group and I said, look, you know, three things. One, at a young age I struggled with validation, I struggled with comparison and I struggled with achieving under validation. I constantly seek validation from others because I was constantly compared to family, friends, their kids, my sister, cousins, and I just, I didn't feel good enough. And so anytime I entered the room and had to do something, I always was seeking validation that what I was doing was right, what I was saying was right. And that led to the second of constantly comparing myself, like, am I saying it better than or as well as the other person? Is the grade I'm getting? Is the work I'm doing as good as this other person? Is the role I have as good which then lead to the third one which is achieving. We're overachievers, right? We want to constantly feel like we're exceeding our family's expectations and you know, those of our peers and you know, the bar can't get any lower and, and I just felt like these three things just caused my inner critic to literally sabotage me. Ashish. Every step of the way. And like you said, I felt like such an imposter. Do I belong here? Do I belong at this table? And I mean it Just. And I never felt that at a young age I was able to personally culturally understand and appreciate and embrace, like you said. That's why I resonated so much, that self worth that I am good enough. I'm okay.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts? Sorry, mate, Just taking a pause there because that was one of those moments.

It's a lifelong journey, right? It's a lifelong journey. In fact, Anil, the other thing that's present for me is if you remember about three months ago at the beginning of the year when you were sharing when your inner critic was raging. Do you remember?

Oh, God, yes. Yes. I mean, go ahead.

No, share that story. Because I think it was so beautiful when we connected and you had called me over the weekend and.

Yeah, yes. So, you know, I mean, I shared this example, which probably happened, I think, in around 2017, 2018. And I thought, okay, I've got the hang of my inner critic. I've been meditating. Here we go. I'm calming that inner critic. I'm calming that voice. I'm listening to it, but I'm not following it. And then in early January, I came back from the holidays and I just had a raw moment where I just broke down. Peers around me were getting promoted. I wasn't sure if the work I was doing was good enough. Ashish, you and I started collaborating here on the podcast, and I just felt like I was letting you down at times. I wasn't showing up as strongly as I wanted to, and I just. All this was just. I just felt overwhelmed, you know, and, you know, I had to. I spoke to you and you just. You opened up and you just said, hey, is it your ego? Because I feel like this is all stemming from that ego that's just trying to, I don't know, knock you off your. Your, Your guard or. Why are you. You know, you almost had me. Like, why aren't you. Why are you being so hard on yourself? Why aren't you just giving yourself a little bit more compassion than you are? Why are you letting the ego and your inner critic get the best of you? And I was speechless. I was just like, wow, put the mirror in front of a guy and remind him that this is something that you think you've overcome it, you think you're prepared for it. But like you said, I'm not perfect. It's progress, but still learning how to tackle it.

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.

And it's something that we all experience throughout, right? It's a constant because again, right, listen, millions of years of evolution and kind of the wiring in our brains can't be done. It's a lifelong journey, but every step we take, we can truly build this capacity. In fact, this research done by Dr. Richard Davidson from University of Wisconsin Madison showed that even two weeks of daily 30 minute compassion meditation actually increases our compassion, increases our willingness to be altruistic. And you can find the meditation, dear friends, on our community in the masterclass. It's a loving kindness meditation that we recorded that you can practice. And I'm a big believer in micro practices. So if many of these, if 15 minutes, 30 minutes is too long, we literally have a version that's like 10 minutes long. So it's small and you can start from that. And as you integrate with it, as you practice with this, just notice what's coming up for you, how you are developing your inner emotional landscape to allow yourself to be happier, to allow yourself to have more love for yourself and for others. And through that experience success. You know, so many of us want to be successful and our drive and our inner critic, right is. And I always say to people, you can't shun your inner critic because that's the reason that voice is where you are today. And when you shun Anything down. When you shut anything down, it only gets stronger. The answer is to befriend it. Answer is to write, put an arm around it, have it sit right next to you and say, I hear you, but I am going to choose to be compassionate to myself. I'm going to listen to you, but I'm not going. I'm going to take the lesson, but I'm not going to accept the beating. I'm going to take the lesson but not accept the beating.

Amen. You know, and Ashish, something I was just looking at from practice to purpose. What you said to me in that moment as a follow up was, Anil, you're on the hero's journey. And part of that hero's journey includes, you know, tests where you're gonna fail and you're gonna succeed. And you know, having you by my side has definitely helped me. But you know, you're only there only so often. I have to rely on myself 24 7, 365. And so strengthening that, that resilience, that partnership as you rightly called out, with my inner critic and just being able to embrace it is powerful. It just unlocks so much from inside of us that I think that we sometimes underestimate what we are capable of. That kindness and compassion you said we'd share with someone who trips and falls in front of us. If we just applied that to ourselves. What we can unlock within ourselves is just truly magical.

Yeah. And look, I think to help folks, you know, put this into practice. Dr. Kristin Neff. I have so much respect for her. I mean she has spent her 20 years researching. She's a preeminent researcher on self compassion and she put together this beautiful three part model that I would share with you all that has been instrumental in me being able to develop my some compassion capability. And I hope it is for you too. She outlines three keys to a happier life that self compassion can unlock for us. The first one is practicing self kindness versus self judgment. Self kindness is we are as caring towards ourselves as we are towards others. You know the story that we started with around the coffee, right? You fall down. Why are we so kind and compassionate to others but so harsh on ourselves? First one, self kindness versus self judgment. Second is about recognizing our common humanity versus isolation. You know, when we mess up, we often feel we're the only one who messes up. Nobody else. Everybody's perfect. We are the one who are messing up. And when we recognize that this is actually a shared human experience, we can truly find a moment of connection with others. We can give ourselves the grace we give to others. So that's the second one which is recognizing common humanity. And the third part in our model is mindfulness. Being open to the reality of the present moment. You know, recognize what you are experiencing. The hurt, the suffering, the pain. We can accept it, we don't need to exaggerate it. We can acknowledge it without exaggerating, right? In a. In the episode around mastering our emotions, mastering our moods, you know, we highlighted this notion of how can we truly learn the capacity to be with unpleasant emotions. Don't act on them, don't suppress them, but just be with and recognize like everything else, like every emotion, like the emotion of joy, the emotion of you know, just being, you know, feeling loved, emo, all the positive emotion, emotion of looking forward to something, right? We feel like, oh my God, we feel this exuberance, all of those emotions. Just like the other emotions of not feeling, of feeling shame or guilt or you know, we messed up anxiety. All these emotions are impermanent. So there is no need to crave, there is no need to be averse to them. We can just learn to be with. We'll see it, observe it and they are like little waves in the ocean, right? They rise and they fall and so we can just learn to be with. And when we put these three things together and really practice in our day to day, there are tons of moments even as you said that come up when we are beating ourselves up. Just consciously practice these three things. Self kindness versus self judgment. Recognizing our shared humanity, we are united in imperfection. And by the way, number three, being mindful. Just learn to be with. These three are instrumental in truly building a self compassion muscle which then holds the key to a happy life. It can give us strength, it can give us resilience and truly allow us to be at our best.

Ashish, I am thinking through that and I'm wondering for those that, let's say you're in that moment, you're at work, you're in that meeting, you're standing in front of your team, you make that mistake, you're hit by that emotional tsunami. What would you advise for someone to do just in that split second, what can they train themselves to do? Not to fall apart but rather stand strong.

Great question, right? So one look. This is best developed continuously in moments when we have struggled. I'm going to share something that they can do now, but this is something that we invest in way before, right? It's about kind of practicing pre event think a little bit like swimming when you're drowning is the worst time to practice swimming. Yes, it is, right? You want to practice swimming, you got to practice ahead of time, right? In a safe enough place. And so that when it is called on, you know how to swim, right? Even if I tell you, forget about even swimming, even the notion of floating and recognizing that if I just let myself go, I'm actually going to float up. The time to practice it is in calmer waters. When you are in that moment, you've fallen off, you really don't know how to swim to the shore. But you know, you fall into the water at that moment to tell somebody, hey, just don't flay your arms. Just let yourself be. Oh my God, it is so, so, so hard, right? So the important thing is to actually inculcate a practice that we do morning and evening, a ritual while we kind of build this muscle to a level that can support us. But even in those moments, let's say early in the journey, you find yourself in a meeting, you've said something or something's happened. A boss says, hey, there's a mistake, there's a mistake in the calculation, or there's a word that is misspelled and you feel like, oh my God, what the hell did I do? My friends, I invite you to do the following. The first thing is just plant your feet. Because when these things happen, we find ourselves thrown off balance. So plant your feet. The ground is stable. Just lean into that. Nobody needs to know. Second, take three or four deep breaths. Breathe in to your belly. Calm your nervous system down. As you do that, and as you feel your heart rate start to stabilize, extend into your dignity dimension, which is your length. Sit up, extend. This is the dimension which is all about worthiness. Just as you are, right? So just extend into that. And remind yourself, right as you extend into that, that you're worthy just as you are. And from that place, practice those three things. Be kind. Hey, it's okay. Everybody else messes up too. It's not like you're the first one who showed up to a presentation with a misspelled word, right? Recognize it's those three things putting them into practice. But the way to create that ability in your brain, to be able to consciously work through them, you have to first actually find your center. Find your center, find your place of calm. And then from there, you can actually practice. Yeah.

How awesome is that? I mean, I was smiling ear to ear as you were just describing and saying that, Ashish. Because I can imagine when you're in the front of A group presenting, you are able to kind of, like you said, just group yourself. And I add the I'm awesome in the back of my head. Sorry, I just do. Because it's just that extra reassurance that you're giving yourself to say, not only is my body, not only is my emotion, but also my language. I'm ready. I'm lock sync ready to go.

Yeah. And by the way, the reality is it's great to do this for you. You can remind yourself also, many of the times we make a mistake, most people don't even notice it or actually don't think it's that big of a deal. But for us, it's really big. Right. So I think that that just, just notice that as you do this, it allows you to go forward, but by the way, go. It's not even that the mistake you made is that, is that extreme? Okay. But this is extremely helpful, even if it's actually a really big deal. We all are imperfect. We all can try and show up and be our best, but you know, most of us are not performing surgery on babies with lives at stake. So I think taking ourselves less seriously is also a big, big element in this. Right. I think we need to put things in perspective. We lose in that moment that I think this is really, really small. And just go back and even think about, you know, a year, two years from now, you're going to actually remember that little thing in 99% of the cases, not. And that can help us. Right. Recognizing we're not alone and recognizing it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme. And this emotion that you're feeling is going to go away too. So. Yeah.

Do you know, for those that know, Ashish and I, we've only been working together since July of last year. And I'll be very upfront. In the last six months working with him, I've actually felt like, oh, crap, I'm falling short, or oh, am I putting in the effort, the work, or oh, did I understand that concept as well as he did or as quickly as he did, or am I showing up as strong as. And as you hear me say all of this to you, this is to the gentleman across from me who has only strengthened, reinforced my self belief. And so I invite all of you. When you think about the relationships you have with people, whether they're your peers, they're senior, they're junior, it's an open invitation to just, you know what, they actually support you, especially if you're able to just be your Authentic self, you're able to explain to them, hey, this is how I understood it. Could you give me another perspective or just give me a moment here, let me take a look, let me see how I can come to it on my own understanding. And I assure you, you will get the support you need. But you got to give yourself that initial space before you can expect the person opposite or next to you to do it for you. It's absolutely critical to invite yourself to have that space. And Ashish, you've done that for me and you've reminded me of that and I'm greatly appreciative of that.

Well, you do that for me, my dear friend. And I always say we can be together in our loneliness. We can be together in our imposter syndrome, right? 83%. As I was sharing with you, there was, this was research done by Bravada and a couple of their colleagues. It was published in the Journal of internal medicine in 2020 where they found 82% of people facing feelings of imposter phenomena, struggling with a sense they haven't earned what they've achieved and they are a fraud. Okay, so literally 82%, right? It's such a big number. Tomorrow, do this tomorrow. Connect with the teams you lead and share if you truly feel moments when you're not enough, normalize this notion that we all feel it. And for those who report to you, oh my God. Notice the magic that happens when you show up, when you're vulnerable, how they show up and they will become stronger. They will become stronger. And then we can say, hey listen, we can practice self compassion. Share this tip Share this Podcast Share this episode Share the work of Dr. Kristin Neff and so many others. Share this Practice self compassion together as a team and you will be stronger, you will be happier, you will flourish together. It is about practice, dear friends. It's about practice in the more places we can practice and our life is filled with moments where we can choose to either self judge or we can choose to practice self compassion and kindness. Practice it and you will become it.

You know the beauty of having the happiness squad community, Ashish, is it's given me the opportunity to meet others who need this level of support and who are able to support me. Because if you're not comfortable at first to speak to peer at work and you want to speak to someone who's in the same boat as you, you know, that's, that's the beauty of having a community of people that you can lean on, that can support you. But you know that's, that's the power that the foundation course that Ashish mentioned. Just these few simple practices by doing it daily, it can unlock so much potential and you'll feel the difference. I mean, I'm hoping all of you that did put your arms on your shoulders and just gave yourself that hug. Notice the difference. Notice the feeling. That's something you can feel anytime you want, especially when you're at your most vulnerable or when you're at your most strength. Ashish, do you have any closing thoughts before we leave our listeners and join again for the next practice?

No closing thoughts other than practice, self compassion. Practice, practice, practice. This is a really big deal and if we learn to truly integrate this into our being, we can lift ourselves up and through that also start to build that critical muscle. If we can be compassionate to ourselves, think about how much it increases your ability to be compassionate for others. So with that, my dear friends, we'll close off wish you a wonderful rest of the week. Share this Practice Share this Podcast Share our community with those you love, those you care about, those you work with, and collectively we can achieve our purpose around democratizing happiness and helping a billion people integrate the art and science of happiness into each our lives and together create a lot more kinder, healthier, happier world filled with people who wing with more love and meaning in their lives.

Awesome. Big hugs and lots of love Ashish.

Take care. Bye Anil. Till next time.

I hope you enjoyed the episode today on the Happiness Squad Podcast. Make sure to hit subscribe on your chosen platform that you listen to us on. If this episode made you think of someone, take a screenshot and share this podcast episode with them. Go to www.happinesssquad.com where you can catch the show notes for this episode and learn more about us and the community we are building. The community is where we gather weekly to practice and connect with other locals, learners, teachers and practitioners working together to unlock our best selves. Lastly, follow along on Instagram yhappinesssquad for tons of behind the scenes as well as short videos designed just for you. It's where we hang out in between episodes once again. Www.happinesssquad.com all links can be found in the description below. Until next time.

Sam.