3 Keys To Self-Mastery For Success EP 1362

All of the virtues, you know, the positive qualities that we admire in our heroes. Those are there and available for all of us freely in the universe at no cost or price except...

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

So why did you decide to want to start teaching about leadership from the inside out at business school? How did that come about? First off?

Well, you know, there's as always an outer story and then an inner story, you know. So the outer story is that We do in business school have an aspiration for students to also learn how to engage and have impacts in terms of how do you inspire people and turn people around in moments of adversity and direct people and shape people and grow people and all of that. But I felt that shouldn't the journey of that leadership aspirant begin from within so that you first start to know how to inspire yourself and change yourself and grow yourself and direct yourself and advance your own self in times of adversity in other ways. And so that became the official positioning of the class that this is filling a missing core in the journey of someone aspiring for the mantle of leadership, which is that let's focus first on getting you to a good place before you then help others get to a good place. Now, the inner story behind that though is that I was very drawn to inner mastery from a very young age. I remember being about nine or ten when my parents, I saw a fairly significant shift happen in their life as they started to investigate and pursue kind of like spiritual growth for themselves. And pretty much around the same time for me, these questions started to become paramount, you know, which is what's the meaning of life and what's my connection with the universe and that star out there?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, is it talking to me, you know, at night when I, I feel a mystic connection with it. Is my family my only family? What about all these other people? I mean, shouldn't they be as deserving of my love as the ones that I happen to be born into? So these kinds of questions, what happens after death, you know, and all that. And now India is that way, you know, a place with so much wealth. Because truth seekers from ancient times have been studying these kinds of questions. I've written all kinds of scriptures and practices that I'll put out there that we could. So I could access and tap a lot of that from there. And so when I started to get more academic and school, and after that think about my major in college, I thought like psychology, I'm going to study that because I really wanted to dive further into the human condition. But I also started to find that at that time, now I'm referring back to the 1980s, the psychology of that era was more focused on the dark states of the human mind.

The dark states? Yes.

Like what? Like schizophrenia and depression and bipolar and the psychology of evil and bipolar and all of that. And while I really respect and applaud those researchers and scientists who have really invested in helping to support those people in great pain, I was really more interested in kind of like what you do, Louis, right? Positive psychology of like greatness and genius and creativity and joy and harmony and all of that. And I just didn't see much of that.

There.

So I, at that time, pursued my academic sort of degree in mathematics, which was also one of my great loves. And I continue to practice this inner mastery part more as a personal investigation, just my own kind of like spiritual and personal practice. And so these two tracks for me got very split. The unofficial inner personal track and the official outer like pursuit of glory track. and so fast forward, I graduate from college, I come to the United States, I do my graduate degree as I go and start working in business. And these two tracks just getting more and more separated. And so when I came to Columbia, I had made a pledge to myself that I need to find a way to bring more harmony and integration across all parts of me, not just kind of have these be very separate pursuits. And so this class really was an excuse and a platform for me to kind of like figure myself out.

Sure, sure, sure.

That's the unofficial inner circle.

Okay, cool. So that started about 15 years ago with this, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, what has been the biggest, I guess, discovery you've had in the last 15 years of teaching, but also learning and researching while you're teaching about inner mastery and outer impact?

Yeah, I think my greatest learning has been consistent with a podcast that in my own very, very small way, that I've started, which, Louis, I'd love to have you on this. Let's do it.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it. I'm in.

Yeah, thank you. It's called Intersections. And I think that's in some ways my biggest discovery that we tend to artificially split our life into different boxes, the personal and the professional, the official and the unofficial, the public and the private. the scientist in us and the spiritualist in us, the inner and the outer, all of that. But actually they're all meant to be unified, that if we are able to discover something that I call in my book, our inner core, the truest part of who we are from within, and really aspire to let it shine through. in everything we do, then suddenly all these boundaries dissolve. The inner becomes the outer, the outer becomes the inner. One is a reflection of each other.

Right. So that's been the common theme that you've been consistent with, inner core. And what does the inner core mean?

The inner core to me is the space of highest potential. So everything that you talk about and do, it's kind of where you're seeking to direct your audience to, which is that Within you lies a place where you are beyond ego, you are beyond attachments, you are beyond insecurities, you are deeply committed to some kind of noble, uplifting, heroic purpose. You are connected, you know, with life, with nature, with people. Yes. You are curious and open to new learnings. You are very centered in a joyous, intuitive spirit, you know, that arises from the very core of your being. and you're also very committed to just opening yourself up to truth in whichever form it comes.

Yes.

You know, sometimes in a way that is comfortable, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes expected, sometimes unexpected from any quarter, inklings that arise from within, as well as knocks that you get from the outside.

Sure, sure.

All of that is the universe just talking to you, just saying, hey, my daughter, my son, wake up, wake up. I want you to come closer, closer to truth.

Yes.

And so that state, where you and I and we can kind of access and operate from that place of grace within. You know, that's what I call your core. And of course, you know, then the ground realities hit us and we drift in and out of that state, you know, sometimes much more out than in, sometimes for days or months or years. But it's funny, you know, we're living in such a polarized time today, right? Painfully so. in the state of politics and society and, you know, the geographic tensions and what have you. But I've been privileged and blessed, right? At Columbia and then in other environments like organizations that we serve at my mentor institute to, you know, offer up these kind of conversations and trainings and teachings to a diversity of people from all faiths and gender and, you know, ethnicity, everything. political and other kind of sympathies they might have. I have never found any person who disagrees with me on this thesis that, yes, there is some part of me that is actually pretty amazing and awesome and special. I kind of get glimpses of it now and then, and then I, like, lose touch with it.

Every time. In the drift.

Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's what I call the core.

You know, a lot of people are, are talking about trying to find abundance in their either career, their financial journey, their business, and also in their personal inner core. What have you discovered in the last, you know, couple of decades about how to create abundance in your life?

Yeah, abundance is a beautiful thing. Beautiful thing. And I, in hats off to you, is for what a, you have done to manifest it in your own life. Thank you. To be a living exemplar. It is not lost on me. It is not lost on me that, Here I am striving and seeking to in some ways, you know, codify, you know, whatever you might call truth in whichever form, but you live it, right? So I'm grateful for that. The thing that I have been most inspired by is how there is a capacity in this universe for any and all of us to connect with and channel boundless, boundless blank. You can call it boundless love, boundless wisdom, boundless strength, boundless joy. All of the virtues, you know, the positive qualities that we admire in our heroes. Those are there and available for all of us freely in the universe at no cost a price except the price and requirement of surrender and attunement.

Attunement or attunement? Attunement.

Attunement, yeah.

Surrender and attunement, what does that mean?

When we recognize that what we are seeking, what we are searching for, you know, to be going on a meaningful hero's journey, inspired to deliver consistently our best, be in a state of just joy and boundless love and strength and all of that, as opposed to being qualities that we need to either acquire from the outside through our, let's say, material attainments, power, prestige, fame, wealth, what have you, or through, you know, certain strengths that we want to build in ourselves by cultivating, you know, certain new skills and qualities.

Yes.

Like in AI or medicine or what have you. And I'm not saying that any of this is wrong. This is beautiful. You know, all of these auto quests are beautiful. But they become even more meaningful when we can integrate them with the notion that anytime we actually advance in those ways, all we are doing is actually awakening ourselves to that infinite, abundant wealth that was always who we were at our core. That these are just the outer material expressions or the intellectual expressions or the creative expressions or who we are at the very core of our being. And you know, this might sound a little bit sort of Hokie pokie, you know, to some of us who are, let's say, more skeptical, more scientific, have that kind of like mathematical mind, which says like, Hey, Tindra, you know, Louis, prove it to me. Like, what's the logic? What's the math in that?

Right?

And so I want to be able to speak to that sensibility. Can I do that for us? Please. Because otherwise it looks like I'm going out on the leap here. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what is the science behind this? To some extent, science is starting to emerge. In other words, today there has been, as opposed to in those 1980s and 90s when I was hungering for the science to want to study it, today in the last about 15-20 years, there has been an explosion of science on the power of things like appreciation and gratitude and compassion and mindfulness and meditation and resilience and what have you. Now, these are timeless truths that have been coded into the scriptures of faceless truth seekers of the past. And so unlike, for instance, the physical sciences, right, where actually they are often yielding new inventions to us, new things that we discover about a drug that we can formulate in a lab or a new kind of rocket that we can send to outer space. This science of human nature is actually for the most part, not discovering a whole lot of new things. It is merely revalidating the purest of the pure truths of the scriptures of the past, right? And so that to me is fascinating that it's actually emerging, guys. And if there are some things that I might say or you might say which aren't fully yet grounded in science, let's be humble enough to recognize that actually a lot of this stuff for gratitude, appreciation, was not known to scientists 20 years ago. They discovered it today. Who knows what they're gonna discover in another 15, 20, 30, 40, 100 years? So one thought experiment I encourage any of us to conduct is, imagine the science of the next 100 years and you're looking back 100 years from now, what are things that we may be able to access today, but which haven't yet been scientifically proven, but which we'll get at that time. Now, you and I will probably be dead by then. So would we have wanted to live with that regret that we never tapped into this just because the science of a time hadn't proven it, right? So that's one thought. But the other is, I find that People are in some ways living museums, you know, they are living sort of examples of truth. And so I've been very drawn to studying, you know, the human lived journeys of some of these truths and this idea that we just talked about, this abundance that lies, you know, right at the very core of a being and the, you know, attunement, attunement and the, therefore the sense of surrender with which you put your ego aside, you put your own noise aside, you put your own ideas aside and let pure truth just, you know, come intuitively in the calmest of moments to you. That is something that I've studied and happily discovered Picasso to talk about, Puccini, you know, as a great opera composer to talk about, Shakespeare to talk about, Einstein to talk about. Some of the greatest creative minds have in their own ways stumbled into these realizations that I don't create. I almost in a mystical way create a certain state of ardor or hunger within me to aspire for, you know, higher achievement.

Yes.

And I train myself in the ways of my discipline. So Einstein physics and Puccini music and Picasso and art. So I train myself and I create this ardor and hunger within me. And then I live with this belief that someone else will paint through me, which is almost like Picasso- Someone else's what? Will paint through me. paint or play or create through me.

Someone else is.

It's my connection with the universe.

It's a spiritual connection.

Yeah.

Or another way to think about it is that, you know, we think about our brain, right? If you think about it in computing terms, you can think of it as a hard drive. And, you know, you read my book or, you know, you watch one of the Lewis podcasts.

Right.

And what you're doing is you're feeding the brain. with new ideas and new information. And then the CPU part of the brain, the chip part of the brain, goes to work looking through the data to come up with insights and ideas and thoughts. So that's one way to think about the brain as a hard drive. Now there's another way to think about the brain, which is as a browser. The brain is in fact an access point to a worldwide web of universal intelligence that is out there.

Right.

When we hear about people just having these crazy intuitions at times that have sometimes just allowed themselves to just create something or make a certain choice or a decision with uncanny wisdom, perhaps that's what the science of the future will help us.

How do we tap into that wisdom and alignment and intuition in a deeper way?

The good news is to me that that doesn't have to be very wishy-washy or squishy. There's a pretty hard science to it. And, you know, the best I can offer is that what that hard science says is that, you know, any time that you're facing, let's say, a tough decision, a hard choice, something that is high stakes for you and that you feel like there really isn't any obvious answer, there is not enough data or there's too much data or, you know, the trade-offs are so acute, I really don't know which of these therefore Is there a best path for me? Create the right intention. And what that means is what you want to say is like, I want to do this in the service of, in the service of truth, in the service of my desire to want to create something good for humanity, in the service of my health, which will allow me to manifest goodness tomorrow. In the service of something more than just ego or instant gratification or a desire to punish somebody or all of that. So put those negative intentions aside, create positive intentions as a starting point, right? Then gather the facts, you know, do the analysis. I mean, get intelligent about that issue. Go out and question and ask and understand what the risks are, what the trade-offs are, what the options are. Become smart about that thing. But don't only hinge on that. So step three then is pull away. And then when you pull away, take a walk in nature, go take a shower.

Right.

I'm sure you've had, you had many of those moments. Yeah. And then somehow when you release yourself from that agenda, In the back of your mind, you know, it's starting to process all your life experiences and all you know. And if you were to believe my browser analogy, it is starting to have a conversation with the universe. And especially if you can create moments of solitude through prayer, meditation, journaling, what happens is at some level, your own inner voice breaks its silence. when you become silent. And in a moment like that, sometimes an inkling, you know, a small little subtle stirring will come from within or a certain, Hey, Tenra, you remember that conversation you had with that person like five years ago? Something about it is very salient to this decision you're going to make, you know, or so you get these little hints.

Yes.

That then you cannot step back and re-activate the analyst in you, right, to kind of put the logic together.

Do you do a lot of Solitude yourself, or have you done, you know, silent days or silent Retreats or anything?

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I have to confess that it's my greatest friend.

Really?

It's my greatest friend.

How often do you sit in Solitude?

Yeah.

Well.

At one level, I have a meditation practice, and so that allows me to go into that space every day.

Sure.

You know, for a period of time. And it's like the greatest gift from the universe, you know, to me, you know, those moments myself. The second is that I do very much enjoy full silent days on their own.

No devices, no conversations, no music.

Yeah, I I I wish I could say no devices. I have guilty of keeping myself somewhat digitally connected, you know, from time to time. But I, I'm living without conversations with people on the outside, and it's, it's, it's the most. But here's the thing. There is research to show that if you enter into that space, you know, unwillingly, then you experience loneliness.

Right.

And you have no one to speak to you.

And you're, you're wanting that and you.

Want it, you feel sad and alone.

Then you feel sad, you feel alone, you know, and all. all of that, right? And that's not a good space to be in, and I respect that. And we are social animals in many ways, and we value and celebrate relationships and human connection. At the same time, the research also shows that when you actually consciously and intentionally create space for solitude, then there are a few magical things happen. One is you realize how much in your more engaged moments of the world, you have to take on certain personas, certain identities. Yes, because that's what the world expects from you.

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And you have to co-create the agenda and you have to be there to help serve and support, you know, that community, that family, that audience, you know, that stranger, you know, that, that, that society that you're part of. But when you are just by yourself, in some ways it frees you from those burdens temporarily. and allows you to be therefore more connected with the most authentic and true as part of your unique spark.

Right.

And you can therefore discover more about your inner voice, step back a little bit from the fray and examine your relationship with the world, your relationship with your family, your, you know, your higher aspirations and hungers, and make some calls for yourself that then when you reinvest in the arena of life, you're more informed, you're more guided, you're more, you know, steady in purpose from within. what do you think of that, Louis? And I mean, how does that relate to your own pursuit and exploration of solitude?

I feel like whenever I, as you were saying this, I was just thinking about my commute to here, which is only about 12 to 13 minutes right in my car.

Yeah.

And a lot of times I don't have the music on and I'm not on a phone call because I want to be in silence and really just allow myself to breathe mentally.

Yeah.

And I think when I am alone, you know, whether it be in the shower or on a commute and there's no no music coming in or no conversations.

Yeah.

I feel like my mind isn't allowing itself to cleanse itself. Kind of like when you're asleep, it's cleansing, it's healing, it's processing, it's integrating the lessons, as opposed to always having some stimulant. So for me, I appreciate that alone time. And I think I. I'll notice when I'm not in attunement, when I have too much stimulus, you know, on the outside world, whether it be a screen or a video or something, you know, so. I like just sitting, you know, or sitting with my cats or something, you know, just like being peaceful, not having the TV on, not having music on, not being on a phone call. Because that space in between the action, I feel like is where a lot of wisdom comes from.

Ah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. I'm so glad that you have that sensitivity and engagement with it, you know, because.

And I think I wish I created more alone time. I really value. I remember I used to not like to be alone at all when I was a teenager or growing up. I used to be afraid to be alone. So in my early 20s, I was tired of feeling lonely. And I said, okay, I really need to start loving myself and figure out how to be a good friend to me. So I started to go out on dinner dates with myself to the movies, to the movies by myself, to lunch, to coffee by myself.

It's great.

Whereas I could never do that before. Before I had to go out with a friend. Hey, who wants to hang out? so this was a couple of years where I spent a lot of time alone for just hours every, you know, probably every couple of days, I'd go out by myself.

Yeah.

And I really started to enjoy my alone time, so that helped me kind of overcome the fear of loneliness and feeling like I needed people.

Yeah.

And now I've got a lot going on, so there's. There's a lot of actions I'm taking.

Yeah.

But I really value being at home and just kind of having some. some silent time as well.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, wonderful. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course.

You know, one of the things to build on what you just said, like, since you lead such a public life and in my own ways, you know, I have a fair amount of public moments in my life, too. One thing that I found as a practice to be very helpful in helping to recapture that power of solitude.

Yes.

It's just to take, like, short breaks.

Five, ten minutes.

Just five minutes. You know, whatever time you're allowed, you know, you have two minutes before the next Zoom call or whatever it might be. Just take that moment. Just go within, close your eyes and just experience Stillness in whichever form that you're most more drawn to. And sometimes just even doing that is enough to connect you with almost like eternity. You know, if it's still enough, it's very rejuvenating. That's cool.

That's very cool. I'm curious. You know, we're speaking about abundance a little bit there.

Yeah.

What do you think is necessary for someone on their core to really be in order to start to attract on the physical world? What do they need in the spiritual inner world?

Yeah.

To attract abundance in the outer world.

So as you mentioned, the book talks about these five energies, purpose, wisdom, growth, love and self realization. I'm going to pick on the love energy for a moment in response to your question. For each of these energies, what I've developed in this book through my research and teaching is a five-stage journey. So five energies and five stages for each of the energies. So you take love, for instance, as an energy. Love is about recognizing that you and I, we were never meant to be just alone and self-made in any regards, right from moments that you think life has entered, you know, the body, right? Whether it's a conception or beyond what have you, someone has like nurtured us and supported us and developed us and more than just one person. And then there are these faceless contributors of past who have also really helped create a world that is safer and more comfortable that you and I just have just felt entitled to.

Yes.

So we're all in some ways interconnected and interdependent and love is that connective tissue, you know, it's that as Rumi would say, it's like it's the bridge between you and everything.

Yes.

Now, so you take that energy of love. How do you manifest and experience an abundance of love? The first stage that I would offer is that it's not as much about the love that you express and offer to the world. It is actually for you to feel loved, for you to feel infinitely, abundantly loved.

How do we feel that way?

Yes. Now, By who?

By ourselves, by creator, by others. How do we feel that?

Yeah, yeah. So in some ways, nature has created the construct of a family. And not everybody is equally a beneficiary of that. But for the most part, if you think about there being parents, there being that relationship lovingly between, unconditionally lovingly between the parents and a child, That is a beautiful foundation on which to then over the course of your life just always feel a sense of love. Because from a very early age, you felt very protected and nurtured in an unconditional way. Now that's it. There are those of us who don't have that. And the research also shows that this is a muscle that we can build over time, even if it's something that we have to compensate for the lack of in the years that you're growing up. So there's a field called emotionally focused therapy. which has actually been very helpful to have people discover and really strengthen a sense of love for themselves from within, even if that is something that they weren't necessarily born with. But the field of attachment theory, you know, in science has been shown to really make you much more comfortable in relationships, more invested in relationships, more at peace with conflict in relationships, more successful in relationships, if you have felt that kind of unconditional love in your life. And when you don't, then using practices like emotionally focused therapy can really help you that gap.

Sure.

Okay. Now, for me, what that means practically speaking is when you, you know, the question you asked, which is a beautiful question, you know, where do you feel that love coming from? It could be, you know, as an adult, fond memories you have of having experienced that love from a teacher, from an aunt, from a grandparent, from your parents, from siblings, knowing that whether they exist physically and are in contact with you or not, that you just feel that sense of love and that connection. you know, with them in spirit, if not in form. And if not from there, perhaps for some of us, we might be very inspired or drawn to certain role models. You know, then we can have that inner circle of friends, just like we have an outer circle of friends.

Kinship and connection. So an inner connection to a role model.

Yes. Of someone you don't know. Yeah, someone you don't know, but you can imagine them sitting in your presence and counseling you and guiding you. I mean, over the years, as I've researched people like Abraham Lincoln, or a Mother Teresa or a Gandhi or a Nelson Mandela, I mean, I definitely feel like they're inseparable in a circle of friends for me.

Let's go.

And sometimes Lincoln might whisper something to me or a quote from him might come to my mind or like a flash of a story that, you know, this is how he did this. And now I feel kind of being guided, you know, by the footsteps that he's left in the sands of time, right? So that would be another path. Saints, you know, some people be drawn to the lives of saints or, you know, a higher power like God or the universe, it could be any one of all of these sources. So there is an abundance of pathways that we can actually tap into. But the point is you owe it to yourself because as Mother Teresa would say, she said, you cannot give what you do not have.

That's true.

So fill your cup from within first. So that's the first stage in love. But then the next stage is to practice qualities like gratitude, and appreciation and empathy, where you're always scanning for the good qualities in people, for, you know, the good news in the world, you know, from today, for things even about you and about life that you feel inspired by and joyful about, you know, gratitude as, you know, that's appreciation, right? And then gratitude as in, like, always looking out for even the small favors that you see people doing to you. that life is doing to you, etc. Because at that point, you start feeling loved and then you are much more naturally able to love because you live in the state of grace where you feel like there's so much beauty.

So much.

So much possibility. Yeah, life is beating you down in that way or that way, but there is so much beauty in that friend who called you, in that thoughtful email you received, in the way this server smiled at you when they were serving you this meal.

I feel like when, you know, a lot of people seem to focus on the bad that's happening in the world or the negative or the things that are unfair or things that are harmful or hurtful. And that doesn't create a lot of love within you when you only focus on that. I'm not saying you should neglect those things or not focus on them or realize that it's out there. But if someone was, if you were to say, okay, if you want to change your inner state, find 10 things today that is beautiful.

Yes.

In your life. and focus on those 10 things, their inner state will start to shift naturally because you're paying attention to something beautiful as opposed to paying attention to something that's, you know, painful. And I think it's really where we put our attention. You said gratitude, appreciation. I like to add a third thing to that, which is acknowledgement. And I think when we are grateful for the things in our life, you know, maybe the challenges that helped us learn and grow and overcome or the beautiful things that come, It makes us feel better, makes us feel happier, more joyful. When we appreciate it, the same thing happens. And I think when we acknowledge someone for the gift they brought to us or for opening the door, it could be a small acknowledgement, but it's something you see in someone when you acknowledge another. Beauty comes back as well. Peace comes back as well. And you're doing a service to someone or some ones. by acknowledging them. It doesn't have to be this long drawn out acknowledgement. It can just be, Hey, thank you so much for doing this. But I think when we add gratitude, appreciation and acknowledgement, it just increases our joy and increases our ability to attract beauty, abundance in our life and good people.

So true, so true. Beautifully put. I want to share a story.

Yes, please.

If that's okay with you. Yes. This was shared by one of my students. and one of the things I am so richly gifted by from my audiences that I ask many times the individuals to share a personal journey, a personal story, something that has been deeply moving and inspiring to them and that they want to offer as a contribution to us. So the book has a number of these stories from executives and students. And so one of them just struck my mind as you were just talking so thoughtfully about these three qualities. And so this is a a student who was a physician, a heart physician in China.

A heart physician?

Yes, he's a heart surgeon. And he said, look, most of the times I am the one who's the central kind of like hero in a story, helping heal and save life. And he says, but this one time, I tell you, I experienced quite the opposite. And he said, this is a young boy, he must have been in his early teens, and he was having some congenital heart issue. And here he is being wheeled into the emergency room for like, you know, surgery that I was going to perform on him. I'm in my white coat. I'm, you know, walking by, you know, by him. And he opens his eyes. He's under anesthesia. And so he opens his eyes, he sees me in the white coat and he says, oh, are you the doctor who's going to be performing, you know, the surgery on me? And I nodded my head and said, oh, I'm so happy to meet you. You know, I also want to be a doctor when I grow up. And so I'm so, so happy that I'm meeting you. this guy is going for this major serious surgery. And he says, and then painfully so, I performed the surgery. It was a very, very hard experience. And he passed away. I couldn't heal him. It was a tough and serious condition. And he says, and then a day later, the nurse who had been tending to him came over to me and gave me a note that he had apparently written before the surgery. you know, at some point in that process, I forget where it was before, you know, after the surgery, did he recover a little bit and then pass on? I, I forget that detail. But essentially, he'd written a note. And in that note, he said, Dr. So and so, I just wanted to thank you for the way you have cared for me.

Oh, my God.

Because he says, you reminded me so much of my brother, who has also loved and cared for me.

Wow.

You know, with the same deep empathy and you know that you showed me. So thank you. Can you believe that? So it speaks to all three of what you said, right? Like appreciation for us, like hey, you're.

A doctor, I want to be doctors.

Gratitude and acknowledgement too. And like, you know, for me, the part of that story, Louis, is how can you and I ever, ever make the excuse that life's beating up on me too harsh. I don't have the capacity to be, you know, acknowledging, right?

Right.

I mean, look what happened there.

I know. And it's a simple practice that I think a lot of people don't do that consistently of gratitude, appreciation and acknowledgement. And I think if people focused on that a couple of times a day, their life would start to shift. They would go from a dark place to a more light place inside in their core, which is the thing that you talk about. So that's your topic of the energy of love.

The energy of love. Now, I'll say one last thing on that before we move on, but before we do that, I just want to make one little small observation. as I have gotten to know you first from the outside in, right? As in, not sitting here in this moment of conversation with you, but, reviewing your content, right? And, hearing you and other podcasts and things on your face itself, I see these qualities that somehow in the mood and the spirit you bring, right? In your eyes and your facial expressions, there's this anticipation that something beautiful is going to unfold in this moment, in this interaction. And it's just like, it's so much core who you are that it just becomes, I think, very evident just in the presence and the energy that you communicate.

I appreciate it. I never knew that I would be doing this as a kid, where I'd be for 10 years now, I've been interviewing people, and I wasn't trained in school on how to do this, but I always had a curious mind, and I just I was fascinated by what people experienced, their lessons, their wisdom. I just wanted to learn. And I never felt like, for me, school was a hard way to learn in the format that it typically is right now. Not every school does this, but with the whole just, okay, read this and then review it and then test on it. It just didn't work well with me. I'd rather have a conversation and hear someone, a story, a lesson, a wisdom, and then go try to apply make my own mistakes and learn from that. So I'm always just fascinated by the wisdom of people who have a lot more experience and knowledge than me. So I'm very grateful that you're here. So the fact that you're here and everyone that comes here is a gift for me. You know, it's like I get to learn, I get paid to learn and I get to share what I'm learning with the world. And I feel like that's a, it's a gift. So I'm just, I'm grateful. Yeah, I don't take it for granted. You know, I don't take it for granted. But thank you. I appreciate it. So why these five purpose, wisdom, growth, love and self realization as the five core energies that hold the key for all of our success and fulfillment, really why these five things?

Sure, sure. You know, when I started to do this work around opening us up to our inner core as the space of highest potential, as a source of success, both inner success, it makes you feel more true to yourself when you're acting from that core and that outer success, because it like frees you up to be able to intentionally pick and choose how you want to show up in the world, what kind of behavior you want to engage in in that moment based on how you're being guided by the urgencies and the, you know, the reactions on the other person's face or what the kind of relationships you have in the room and, you know, Etc. There's like so many variables, you know, from the outside that play onto us from time to time that you kind of have to be everything in the complete opposite. It just depends on the situation you're in as a parent, as a manager, as a friend, et cetera. And so I started to see.

That.

There is this relentless push that we have on the outside to be so many different things. If you truly, truly want to be adaptive and agile and successful, the question that came to my mind is like, but then what are the enduring tenets, the timeless essentials that will allow me and you to simplify that game. Because if you think about the kinds of people I'm just talking about that we admire over the course of history, like Abraham Lincoln or Eleanor Roosevelt, all of these guys, right? What you actually find is that they were not that extraordinary. Lincoln, for example, had one year of schooling. Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, they never went to college. Gandhi and Mandela, they of their own admission were very indifferent and poor students. So like how are these guys, you know, basically expressing such genius when on the other hand, formally, they haven't really gone through the trappings of the education that we are blessed with having, you know, many of us. What I started to find is that they reduced life to its essence. And then I started to ask myself, what is that essence? Right? And of course, it's nice to think about and talk about the core, but now I've got to find a way to give it practical expression on the outside, something which is like a how-to guide, right? Which I know you love, right? And all your teachings do. And that is where I realized that, listen, this Einsteinian idea from the 20th century, that matter is an illusion, that matter is nothing but condensed energy. E is equal to mc squared. All of matter ultimately can be transformed into explosive, boundless, abundant energy. That's the c squared, the speed of light squared. You take a little bit of matter, multiply it by the speed of light squared. That's the amount of energy there is in the universe, in every atom. What if that was true of you and me and all of us too, that actually we are first and foremost not human behaviors, but actually energies, you know, and what could those energies be?

Right?

And then I looked at the sun, right? And I said, like, this is interesting. Actually, all of who you are and I am and everything, we owe to the sun because all the energy comes from there and comes into plants and we break down, you know, plants or animals and we, you know, you know all that, right? And then the sun itself, the very center of the sun is apparently from what I understood from science, is a little small piece that is about 1% of the sun's total volume.

Right?

So as a ball, as a sphere, that little center of the sun, 1% of the sun's volume. But that 1% of the sun's volume, which they call the sun's core, actually generates 99% of the sun's energy.

Crazy.

So 99% of what you and I are is actually coming from that 1% really at the very center of the sun.

The center of the sun.

Yeah.

Isn't that beautiful? It's crazy. It's almost like a mathematical secret that nature is just kind of holding out.

There for us to discover for ourselves. And how does the sun even, I mean, this is an ignorant question, but how does the sun even generate that much heat in that 1%? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And radiate for however far millions of.

Miles away it is or whatever to get here.

It's like, it's all mystical.

It's all so much. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Einstein, you know, said beautifully, he said that there are only two kinds of people. those who think that nothing is a miracle and those who think that everything is a miracle. And so this is a moment where I'm like, okay, I've been looking at the sun for all these years and here it is, I discovered today something new from science I hadn't known before. Now you take this idea of like energy, then the question is, intuitively does that make sense to you? That like when people enter a room, they have a certain energy or you feel like the energy in the room is just not good and all that or like I don't have the right chemistry with this person or et cetera. Ultimately it's a subtle force that we are tuning ourselves into both for ourselves and for others. And so I wanted to give some more form to this thing called energy. And I was personally drawn to yoga coming from my roots in India. And in yoga, they have these four different branches of yoga, Karma Yoga, which is about doing the right thing without attachment to outcome. And I feel like that's like purpose, having a higher kind of goal that you're going after. and in an egoless way just serving the goal in the advancement of humanity in some way. So that's purpose, that's karma yoga. The next one is called karma yoga. Karma yoga.

Yeah.

Then the next one is called Bhakti Yoga. And Bhakti Yoga is devotion, it's love, it's your connection with the universe through that heart-based quality. And so I was like, this is cool. That is obviously a critical dimension too beyond the diligent pursuit of purpose. is the heart-based connection, compassion, empathy, kindness, gratitude, all of that. And so that became love for me as an energy. Then there is a third yoga, which is Gyan Yoga, and that is about wisdom. It's the incisive attunement with truth. Just like there are laws of nature, there are laws of human nature. Can you attune yourself to those laws of human nature and live in harmony with them? Then you are advancing and sharpening your intellect, but just in a way that is consistent with just the way the universe is meant to be. And so that's Gyan Yoga's wisdom. you know, Zen energy, just a commitment to live beyond just a surge of emotions or a blinding belief or a distorted thought with more of a, as a friend of Abraham Lincoln once said about him, a clear mental lens. He said he had a very clear mental lens. And so that's the wisdom. That's the wisdom energy. And then self-realization, there's another yoga called Raj Yoga. And Raj Yoga is meant to be the accelerated towards enlightenment or towards your highest potential. And the idea is that if you go into stillness, solitude, we've talked about some form of just deep, you know, kind of just focus of your attention to the very core of your being, just like we send astronauts into outer space. What about sending astronauts into inner space? And that's what self-realization is. This stilling of the mind, you know, moving from what I call the interiorized mind, just disconnecting from the outside. to the focused mind, to the tranquil mind. You know, that is self-realization for you or what they call Raj Yoga. And then growth for me was just an enabling energy. You know, growth for me, which, you know, I know you love, you know, all of your own teachings and the path you've been on, including those critical moments where you've had hardship and struggle in pivoting, you know, beyond sports into what now is this new sport, right, that you're playing and helping others play. I know you're very energized by growth and I felt like growth was needed as a way to help everybody realize, you know, as Saint Augustine once said that, you know, no saint is without a past and no sinner is without a future, you know, so we all can grow.

Right.

And, you know, so that's like my way of thinking about it coming from the yoga, you're not kind of, you know, roots, you know, from where it comes. But also, if you think about just like in modern Western thinking, we have this notion of the whole person, right? Body, mind, heart and spirit. Body is karma is purpose. Mind is wisdom, is Gyan. Heart is love, bhakti. And spirit is superization.

Right.

I know.

But you've added growth to it also.

Yes, I've added growth as an enabling energy.

So how do we learn to cultivate and hone in each one of these energies at the highest level?

Yeah.

And align ourselves to our. Our highest self within each energy.

Yes.

What does that process look like?

Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, you know, that's what the five stages are that I've, you know, kind of codified over time. I have to say, look, I mean, there's nothing new in this book or my work, because time, like, truth is Timeless. Truth is Timeless. And it's just more about, you know, taking old wine and putting into the right new bottle based on the present moment.

Right.

And so to that end, these five stages are not new in themselves, but I hope that they can provide to our listeners today some structure, some guidance, you know. So for instance, with love, those five stages, just to give you a flavor for what they are, as I was mentioning, the first one is to, you know, I like to draw the metaphor from like flowers and plants, you know, for this energy of love. So the very first stage is to, you really prepare the soil. And that is about just making sure it's like a healthy soil in which love can actually get cultivated. And for that, you've got to feel loved yourself. And then the next one is sow the seeds. And that's about, you know, the conversation we just had about gratitude and appreciation. And you call it acknowledgment. I talk about empathy there and abundance.

Yes.

Then the third is pull out the weeds, you know, because the weeds will, like, suck up all the resources and kind of. dry up your soul from within. What are those weeds? You know, those weeds are, you know, judgment, when you live in judgment of people, hatred, when you allow any part of your brains to entertain joy in inflicting pain on some community out there. That is a dangerous and destructive kind of, you know, weed that we need to uproot.

An inner weed, yeah.

An inner weed. or grudges, you know, moments where we keep holding on to unsavory memories of the past, feeling a sense of bitterness or rage or anger or something about another person, as opposed to doing the right thing from the outside, whatever it is we need to do, because sometimes you have to litigate, sometimes you have to cut a relationship off or have a firm conversation or do whatever.

Create a boundary, you know, or actually.

Truly forgive on the outside too, in some cases, because like it's your loved one and, you know, we all stumble because we're all human, whatever it might be on the outside. But from within, why not declare a victory for your own self by seeing yourself more as a hero rather than a victim in that journey and surmounting and transcending and moving beyond and making peace with that. So those are the weeds, the grudges, judgments and hatred. So that's the third stage, pull out the weeds. So you've got prepared the soil, you've got sowing the seeds, you've got removing the weeds. and then the fourth one to me is pruning the branches. Because, you know, love in left, you know, unto itself unfettered can lead you to over empathize with the person in front of you, this team member who's coming to you and like talking about like how they're in such great pain because their manager is doing this and that. And you're not like paying attention to, yes, but I haven't heard the other story yet. Right. What is the manager's perspective on this? What is the team's perspective on it? You know, and so you get so consumed by just like empathy for some one individual entity. or sometimes you just give, give, give without protecting and like you said, creating certain boundaries, you know, help support and, you know, you know, your own interests as well. And so your judgments can get blurred. You may not be able to have tough conversations and make hard calls, which the universe from time to time requires you to do in the pursuit of your purpose, or there are some hard truths, you know, in the pursuit of wisdom. So pruning the branches of the love, you know, kind of tree that is starting to come together. is to be able to bring purpose and wisdom and growth into those love conversations. Not just do them in such a way that is so just unfettered that you're not being able to bring perspective. So that's the fourth, that's the fourth of these. And it's a razor's edge because many of us just withdraw love from those situations. You know, I go to like fire this guy or I go to have a hard conversation with my son now or this or that. And so I should just part love out. because, you know, because if you start getting sensitive to the person's feelings, but no, it doesn't have to be that way. You can, with unconditional love and gentility and care, still have a firm conversation and still, you know, look at the person in the eye and say, it is for your own future good that in the moment I'm going to express this hard truth to you, you know? And so that's all about the pruning. And then the fifth and final stage is to make love bloom. You know, you've got the soil there, you've got the seeds there, you've got the weeds out, you know, you're pruning in a disciplined way. Now let it bloom. Now what that means, you know, this is a thing I kind of like learned over time. It's not just enough to have the right intentions. You know, I had a CEO once of a retail chain and she said, I donate a lot to this cancer hospital for kids. And, you know, when I go there sometimes, I am just awestruck with the kind of service and care the doctors and nurses are giving. And then these parents, you know, these kids and they're hurting. And she said, I don't know what to say or what to do, you know, I just feel so uncomfortable because I can't be of any support to them, you know, I can't heal the kid and I can't give them hope beyond what the physician is doing and all that. She said, I just feel like I just don't have that capacity to love, you know, and she's, you know, confiding this in me when she's hearing me talk about some of these energies. And I said, wait a second, let me hold back. Let me offer you a thought. You know, you say you don't have the capacity to love. First of all, you're doing a lot of love by the funding you're doing to help enable this kind of healing in the hospital is your funds. So, so thank you for what you're doing there for and I said, you know, and then the other part is like, you could, you could go there sometimes and just hold a parent's hand and you could just look at them in the eye and just say, you know, I admire your spirit, you know, that you are being so strong, so courageous, you know, in what you're, you know, taking on here.

Acknowledgment. Acknowledge them.

Yeah, I appreciate it. You know, I, I admire it. And, you know, I am keen and looking forward to seeing, you know, you come to a really good place or whatever it might be. small little gestures, right? And so this is a thesis I'm going to offer, you know, our listeners as well. If you ever feel like this person has lost a loved one, how can I ever be of any help to them? I'm speechless, you know, I don't know what to say or do. Or this is such an enormous cause. There are millions of people suffering. What can I do? Never allow yourself to get paralyzed from taking some small action. Yes. Because Mother Teresa, you know, she would say, she says, not all of us can do great things, but we can small things.

Right.

With great love.

Yes, that's true.

Yeah.

So that's how does how does someone.

Learn to love themselves? If for their most of their lives, they've been beating themselves up, speaking poorly to themselves, discounting their abilities and hating themselves internally.

Yeah.

How do they shift that into loving themselves?

I really, first of all, you know, empathize with that individual. I can not even imagine how it must come from a place of great, perhaps pain, suffering, deprivation, hardship, going back years, you know, going back years. I mean, you know, Mother Teresa came and gave a commencement address at Harvard University, and she said, you know.

People.

Have told me here that, Mother, you know, what are you doing in this country? Because you know, we don't have as many hungry people, you know, or poor people here as you do back there. So, you know, all that. And of course, painfully so, the reality is different. There are a number of, you know, physically hungry and, you know, poor people, you know, today and perhaps even more so, you know, than her time. But, but she said, she said, I do see, you know, poverty. I do see Hungary. I see a great hunger for love. And she said, go back to your homes. Each of you graduate. you know, and find the person who is most hungry for love and give them your love. And so my prayer to all of us is, first of all, pay attention to those individuals, the kinds that you've just mentioned, who may be hurting and you never know what has happened in the Korean life that has caused them to perhaps live with this deprivation and grapple with it. But there is hope and there is possibility and there is a path for all of us and certainly for those that you mentioned as well. and I would say, first, develop a relationship with nature.

Yes.

Develop a nature, a relationship with nature. Go to parks, go to the national parks, you know, go to just take a walk, you know, in a place laden with flowers and the open sky and just feel that connection with the universe. and intuitively, if you can free your mind from the affairs of the day and the inner self-talk where you flagellate yourself, you beat yourself up, if you can free your mind even for a moment or two in that walk in nature, you will feel love from the universe coming to you.

Sure.

You will feel part of a universal plan. You are not alone. Nothing in this universe is separate from anything else. You will feel an intuitive capacity, as I have as a child sometimes lying on the lawns of my home, late in the evening at night, looking at the stars, you will feel like the stars are talking to you. It's a painting in the sky that has been made for you. You know, and so that's my one, you know, my one suggestion. Another might be that, you know, see if you can take on some practice of mindfulness or meditation. There's a reason why today it has started to become, you know, very yesterday by Psychotherapists, you know, who are starting to inculcate it in some of their Psychotherapy work. And having been intrigued about it from the age of 10, but ultimately getting discipline about it only in my early mid-30s, and finally now, you know, 20 years later, feeling the blessing of what it has accrued for me in these years, I can only tell you it's like, it's the, you know, I say it in the book, it's like the most perfect drug.

Right.

It's a perfect drug.

Free drugs. It's free.

Yeah.

It has no side effects.

Yeah.

No side effects. As opposed to drugs, which sometimes you get immunized, you know, after you keep using them, this thing actually gives you more and more rewards over time. The more you do it, the more you next time you do it, it'll be an even more focused and more rewarding kind of outcome. So see if you can take on a practice like that. Don't expect results on the first day or the second day. Surrender to it. Do the practice. Make sure it's a good teacher teaching path. And then over time, you will see how it will just shift and completely change your connection with yourself. Your whole sense of self will just get to go through such a joyous transformation.

Yes. Why do you think so many people fail at mastering their inner world, mastering these energies. Why do you think they struggle so much of getting in a place of alignment with these core things?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it distractions? Is it they don't have the tools? Is it just what?

Yeah, yeah. Two thoughts. One is that, so I'll share this quickly. Story. So Michelangelo, right? This great Renaissance sculptor, right? Of the yester years. so there was this piece of marble that had been quarried, you know, from around Florence in the hills and brought back into that, you know, mica of like Renaissance art.

Yes.

Florence. But it had a big gash in it, a big cut in it. And as a result, the city was trying to commission one artist after another to take it on, but they all refused because they were like, what can we do with this? It's a beautiful piece of stone. And then in strides Michelangelo at some point. looks at an impressive large piece of stone, but imperfect, right? And takes it on. And then out of that, he sculpts David.

Wow.

Which is considered to be one of the greatest contributions of Renaissance art. And so here is this pure beautiful form that has been sculpted out of a very imperfect stone. And in fact, Michelangelo himself, when he was asked about what he thinks about sculpting, he said, he said, sculpting, you know, you don't create anything, at least if you paint like you're, you know, you're creating something on canvas. He said, in the sculpting, the statue was always present within the stone. All you had to do was remove the excess stone.

Yes.

To get to the pure, beautiful form, which was always there.

Right.

What a humble and beautiful, you know, way of defining his craft. Right. Now, if you and I were to apply that to our own lives, right? Could it be that even though we have an imperfect stone with big gashes in it, our bad habits, our past failures and all of that, that actually within that there is a pure beautiful statue, right? That is lying. And then all we've got to do is like activate that in a sculpture, right? To get closer and closer, not to retrofit it from the outside, not to fix and bandage a wounded me, right? but to really awaken to something that was always beautiful within by taking and chipping off the excess, chipping off the excess. So the first barrier that I think people face is you ought to believe that there's something incredibly beautiful within you.

Yes.

You know, this thing called the musk deer, you know, it's a musk deer. Musk deer, right? They have this like incredible fragrance to them. Yes. Right? And so there's this like apocryphal story about this musk deer that is, you know, kind of getting to experience this fragrance and getting tremendously fascinated about where is this coming from and running crazy, you know, around the hill and everywhere, trying to kind of search for the source of that fragrance. Ultimately, up a cliff from where in that mad kind of crazy hunger for that fragrance, they actually jump all the way down into their own death, not realizing that actually speaking that fragrance was sourced right from within them.

Right.

From within them. So we go out after like all these hungers that we have in the world outside not realizing that that love, that joy, that perfection, that harmony, that sweetness, all of the things we're looking for is actually present within our own core. So first you've got to believe that. You've got to believe that. You've got to believe that the pure beautiful form exists, which is where I think for a lot of people, they don't get there. They don't get there.

They don't believe that. They don't believe that. They don't believe that.

And so that's my first suggestion.

They probably also have created so much evidence and stories of why it's not true. It's not true. Because this person took advantage of me, my parents left, me. I did poorly here. You know, this person cheated on me, whatever it is.

Yeah.

They find stories of evidence that prove.

Yeah.

That they can't believe there's goodness in them.

Yes.

Yes. So it's needing to learn how to rewrite those stories and, and, and tell the stories in a different way to your benefit. Yes. I think is important for us. But that's, it's hard for people to do. It took me a long, long time to do that. One of the reasons why I was seeking this wisdom is I was like, I don't know how to get out of this.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but that's step one is learning how to believe.

So true, so true. Right. And then the next step is looking for a pathway and solutions. And I think what happens there is sometimes we tend to only focus on outer pathways. Whereas actually the real breakthroughs come as you know as much as I when we pursue the inner pathways.

Right.

And the inner pathways is to start paying attention to some of these subtler inner influences like your thought patterns, which you've talked so much about. You just mentioned it in the context of the narratives you tell, the stories you tell. And then maybe at a deeper level, the beliefs with which you operate. For example, what is your belief about human nature? What is your belief about the redemptive possibilities in human nature? What are your beliefs about whether the universe is looking out for you or is against you? You know all these things. You shift those beliefs and you start getting into a much more empowered stage, right? And so this inner work is subtler. It's a little bit less tangible. The world is not going to cheer you on when you're doing that work. It's not going to be as visible. People out there are not usually really wanting you to hang out and talk about those conversations. They'd rather have you just express some criticism or something else going on. So you're going to have to go against the grain a little bit to make the space in place for it and perhaps re-architect the environment and the relationships. and which podcast you're listening to and the work you're doing. But if you start doing, you know, it's as my spiritual master Yogananda, you know, he once said, he said, what happens over time is that what you thought was real starts to become, you know, less real. And what you thought was unreal starts to become more real.

Right.

That's beautiful. I love that lesson. I'm curious of your experience at, at, at business school, teaching at business school, where a lot of students come in. because they want to learn how to start a business, manage a business, launch a business. And a lot of their focuses, I would assume, is how do I learn the skills to make more money, make a lot of money?

Yeah.

Probably is, is that a fair assumption? A lot of people want to come to learn how to build a business and make money.

Right? Yes.

Have you seen any good examples of people who have come to your classes or come to the school who have really used these core energies? to launch a business and find incredible financial success, but also keep their inner peace, their joy, their significance, their fulfillment in the process, and not lose their relationships and their health and become addicted to painkillers or something. Have you seen examples of this or do you see a lot of people struggling with that?

Yeah, yeah. At some level, already I am seeing a positive shift in the kind of motivations that bring people and the kind of plans and aspirations.

30 years ago was different.

Yes. 30 years ago, it was even more what you just shared. You know, a thirst for a certain financial and career outcome.

Yes.

That was very focused on the self, you know, self achievements of success, self attainment. It certainly is still largely true. But at the same time, I am very touched, I would say, and inspired by how today's generation is starting to look beyond. It's starting to look for purpose, contribution, service. And starting to look for contribution. Like what's the play I want to have in society? And it's starting to also at some point, like look for growth. which is how do I self-actualize? How do I become kind of like a better version of myself through this journey and through the career I choose and the company I work at and the culture and the company and the role I take on and all of that. So that's good news actually in many regards. Now, I will say that there is no single archetype of like a business school student and you will have some who will perhaps roll their eyes and yawn and say like, that's not for me.

Right.

There are these like Black-Scholes formulas of options pricing and advanced finance classes that I need to take and then I'm going to become a Czar of Wall Street or something. And that's the path I'm on. And thank you, Tandra, I don't need your class. I respect that. The cool thing is that the thesis I make to our students is that if you take a bell curve, right, underperformers, average performers, high performers, Right? You actually look at like the high performing end of it, people who might be like say senior partners at a top consulting firm or a law firm or Wall Street firm or successful entrepreneurs or what have you. You actually, I wouldn't say find a very common set of qualities to all of them. I wouldn't say that. But then if you look at the outliers, that lie beyond the main body of that bell curve, right? Who are like vastly more successful, vastly more successful. Then you enter into a very rarefied air of the Warren Buffetts, right? And the Steve Jobs, right? And the Elon Musks, right? And there you actually start finding some pretty incredible common grounds. that they say. Now, it doesn't mean that any of these are actually perfect people.

Of course.

And every one of them has their own fabulous flaws. And in some ways it humanizes them to me, where you realize that, oh, you know, I've got my flaws. If they could ascribe for greatness or aspire for it, why can't I? You mean the flaws I have? I mean, so in some ways to me, it's nice, it makes them more accessible. But there are certain disciplines, mental disciplines, emotional disciplines, physical well-being disciplines, if you want to call it almost like spiritual disciplines, that you see these people intuitively figure out for themselves are the critical enablers for what it is that they want to do.

Right. And what would you say are those three core disciplines that the elite in business all have in common?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of them is non-attachment to outcomes. which means that you are not obsessed with results for the sake of results. You don't attach your ego and your self-esteem to those results, but you're doing it from some kind of a deeper, more enduring sense of purpose. So for example, you take Steve Jobs, right? Larry Ellison, you know, the Oracle founder and CEO, he shared the story. He said, you know, this time when Steve was going through a little dark night of the soul, he had been fired from Apple. He was at NeXT Computers. Yes. Apple was starting to stumble, not do well, and Steve and I were good friends and we went for a walk. And I was very excited because I was seeing where Apple stock was going. And I was like, Steve, I can put money and basically buy out the stock of Apple. And then, because it's so low right now, and then we'll make you CEO and we'll give you a lot of stock. And then you turn the company around and you and I will both make a lot of money. And he says, Steve, pause there. He turned and faced me. and he put his hands on my shoulders and he said, Larry, that's why you need me as your friend, because you don't need more money. You already have so much money. And he says, when I do this, I want to do it the right way. I want to do it from a place of higher purpose, not because of money.

Wow.

And he says that he said, here is how it's going to play out. Apple is going to soon realize that they have a weak operating system. They're going to need a different operating system. They're going to come shopping around. They'll see next. next, they'll see that our operating system is in fact what they need. They will acquire next. Once they acquire next, I'll get a board seat at Apple. Once I get a board seat at Apple, we just wait and see. Wow. Can you imagine? This is the way reality played out.

Over the next few years.

He just kind of had it scripted in his mind. It's incredible. And then Larry Ellison has gone on to say in another interview, he said, you know, Steve went on to create the most valuable company on earth, Apple at that time, and he and yet he was not interested in fame, not interested in fortune. He was just interested as a creative mind and just manifesting his purpose. So that's one quality I've seen in these people. The second is for instance, non-attachment to outcomes, doing it for a certain more kind of enduring kind of reason than purely obsessed with a certain goal. The second thing I've seen in these people is principles. They have taken the time to codify for themselves what the core principles are on the basis of which they operate. You take someone like Warren Buffett, storied investor, perhaps the most successful ever in modern times. The values investing ethos and model is one that has allowed him to rise above the fray from the passions of the market. And there were times, I remember the telecom bubble and the internet bubble around the year 1999-2002. 2003, he was considered to be like old hat, you know, somebody who was like obsolete now, the internet had a new model for business and all. And he was like, I'm not going to invest in stocks that don't have gravity where I can't understand, you know, the logic behind them. And then the bubble burst. And as he said, you know, it's when the tide goes away, that's when you see who's swimming naked. Yeah, that's true. Most of those folks were swimming naked at that time. But he survived, you know, that downturn among others. And so there is a certain core set of principles by which he does his form of investing, core set of principles by the ways of which Steve Jobs does at entrepreneurship and that Elon Musk uses for what he's trying to manifest. So what are your principles? What are my principles based on the path that we are choosing and what we want to do, writing them down, really sharpening our thinking about them, how do you put them into practice in a way that makes perfect sense? So that's the second. The third one I would say is that they never stopped growing. you know, that they always see themselves as work in progress. They never feel like I've arrived, I made it. And now, you know, you mentioned that as such a beautiful quality in you that from very early age, you're very curious, wanting to learn from others. Here you are sitting with such a mountain of wisdom, you know, within you that, you know, that we see in your work. But at the same time, having that humility to realize, like, there's always more to learn. Absolutely. And, you know, Einstein, he said a beautiful, he said the difference between what the least knowledgeable person knows and what the most knowledgeable person knows is trivial compared to what is not known.

Right, that's true.

Isn't that beautiful?

Yeah.

It's nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Small amount of information compared to all the information out there.

So who cares about trying to rank order yourself against others and feel like who has more likes and more money or more impact or whatever? Who cares? I mean, another way I think, like, think about it, Louis, is, you know, like, let's say that we're looking on the ground there and there like three or four ants, you know, and they're like fighting and competing with each other. And one's saying, I'm bigger, I'm brawnier, I'm faster, I'm wiser, I'm smarter. Look how much time it took me to build that little mound versus you, or whatever it is. And we're gonna look at them and just laugh and say, are you nuts? You know, you're basically at the most 100x, you know, from each other or whatever. And here we are, you know, and I mean, I think that's, if you think about the universe, you know, the universe is infinite, right? Whatever you want to think about in terms of space or wisdom or creativity or possibility. from the perspective of the universe, any two human beings, you know, however you can look at them, they're just humans. Like the difference between nothing. So that's what you see in these people, a sense of always learning, abundant intrigue about what lies ahead.

Yes, that's beautiful. Who in your mind is the most inspiring entrepreneur? that you've studied of the history or of current time?

Yeah, I mean.

Not maybe based on their personal lives, but just based on how they have brought their mission to life.

For me, it's Steve Jobs. For me, it's Steve Jobs. I'm just deeply grateful that he has been a contemporary and that I have had a chance not just to study him historically, like I have with an Abraham Lincoln, but that we lived through some of those chapters with him as they were unfolding in a way that we know has changed the world. Now, why do I say that? Not because of some of the things only that he has been known for in popular consciousness, which is that he was a creative genius, he had this larger visions, he was a force of nature and the way he was gonna push through his ideas and make things happen. But actually for two things which are less well known, When you add those two to this, that's when you complete the stool with the three legs. So there's this piece that we talk about. But the other two pieces I want to quickly just offer, one is that he realized pretty early in his life, he said, I'm not interested in being the richest man in the cemetery. So that's not the goal of life. He said the goal of life is enlightenment, whichever way you define it. As a teenager, he came to India in the search of truth. He went to the Himalayas and things he wanted to for a while be like a Hindu ascetic, like a trutH seeker. Then he realized his calling was more in the world. But then he went on the Buddhist path. He went to Japan, took on his Zen Buddhist practice, which became his enduring faith for him. Did deep inner work around meditation, et cetera. Worked a lot on his diet. You and I were talking about it sometime back. And so he did a lot of inner tilling of his soil. And I admire him for that. I admire him for that. But then here's a third and last piece of it, which is that that was Jobs 1.0. somebody who was doing a lot of that inner work and then manifesting it through his voice, his vision, his purpose, his energy, and foisting it on this world, which was like, oh wow, this guy is an amazing, kind of just entrepreneur, right? And that leads him to IPO and launch Apple and succeed with the initial Apple products. But then he struggles, he fails, and he stumbles. And that's when Steve Jobs 2.0 starts to get sculpted.

And how, how old was he then when he was the failure?

If I recall, I think someone in his late 20s.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Don't hold me to that. I think someone in his late 20s. So now he's actually fallen from a place of tremendous, you know, Grace and celebrity status.

Right.

And what would happen next as opposed to just like. pure bitterness, he went on a tremendous journey of growth. Yes, you know, from time to time, his bitterness or his rage or his voicing his ideas and others didn't leave him. He had aspects of the habits in him, but he rebuilt a relation or he built a relationship with this daughter, Lisa, that he had in the past, has denied patrimony over. You know, we have to recognize that he was in some ways abandoned, the sense that he was given up for for adoption and he was raised by foster parent loving parents, you know, God bless them for taking such loving care of him. Who knows what struggles he had to work out with his own inner demons in attachment and engagement and love and connection with people. But he had to work that out. And he did, you know, with his daughter as best he could. He also just became a lot more humble and attuned to other people's ideas and thoughts and acknowledging his own errors. and bringing their voices in, as has been shared by Ed Catmull, the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios and knew over 20 years, and also Tim Cook, who's also shared about what he knew. And he says the sheep jobs of his early years, feisty, assertive, dynamic, was not the Steve Jobs that actually they saw evolve in the next 10-20 years. He was much more empathetic, much more human, so that's a beautiful story of growth right there.

The Steve Jobs Transformation, yeah.

And then finally he had this capacity of empathy that he developed over time, which was again not necessarily part of his early years where, you know, this one reporter for Rolling Stones magazine wrote this piece about him upon his passing and he said, over the last few years, I just watched him completely change. And he said he would call me and talk to me and had a curiosity about my family, about my children. I never thought I'd ever talk to him about my kids in the past. Larry Brilliant, you know, his son went through cancer. and Steve Jobs would call him up and talk to his son and coach him and guide him through his cancer healing journey and talk to him about how he can just kind of fight it and all of that stuff. He just lovingly was just a presence for him there. So there's a beautiful, very human side of Steve Jobs stories that play out and who knows what Steve Jobs 3.0 would have been. As Jim Collins said, I would have loved to see Steve Jobs 3.0, which we don't have the benefit of. So to that end, I have just.

A lot of love for him. Did you ever meet him or no?

No, no, no, I'm great. But we share one common connection in some ways, which I moved to share with you.

Yeah, sure.

Although I never met him, which is that, so when Walter Isaacson was writing his book on him, right? So he was doing a lot of research and interviews and spending a lot of time with him, the authorized biography, so to say. He said once I was with Steve and I asked him, what do you read? Let me see your iPad. Let me see what books you have in your iBooks there. And he said he had only one book. He had only one book. And I'll tell you what that is in a minute, but let me tell you another story first. Upon his passing, they had a memorial service at Stanford University for him and all the mega folks of Silicon Valley were there, of course, as you can imagine, Google founders and others. And Yo-Yo Ma was performing there and everything. And everything had been designed by Steve. because he was anticipating his own passing and as you can imagine with Steve, the experience and everything, he wanted to get every producer right.

Perfect.

And so the founder of Salesforce, he shares the story, Mark Benioff. He says that as we walked out from there, we all got a brown bag and we were curious, what's in this bag? And it's apparently Steve's last message to us. Because this is the last moment, his memorial service. He said, I went to my car and I ripped open the bag to see what, and there was this book inside. Now, remember I told you that one book? He said, I just said he had just one book. That book is called Autobiography of a Yogi.

Really?

And it is the autobiography of Yogananda, who I first encountered at the age of 10, not physically, because he passed on the 1952. but I encountered through his teachings and his writings and I kind of swept off my feet. Swept off my feet. And I started to kind of pursue his path of Kriya Yoga and meditation and, you know, all of that. And his international headquarters of his organization called Self-Realization Fellowship is right here in Los Angeles.

Oh, yeah. It's right here in 1920 with the, I've been there a few times with.

A little pond and like, it's a beautiful- that is another of their properties. Okay, it's one of his, too. That's called Lake Shrine.

Oh, it's so amazing.

And it's so beautiful, isn't it? So peaceful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a beautiful property of theirs, too. This one, the international headquarters on Mount Washington. Okay. It's this little hidden Nook between LA and Pasadena and this little Hill. And at the very top of that. Yeah, it's beautiful, actually. Come there sometime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to host you there. Okay, cool. And so. So Jobs told Isaacson, he said, I encountered this book during my travels in India. and I read it. And he said, since then, I have re-read it every year.

Wow.

And that was the only book he had in his iPad. And then Mark Benioff at the conference, when he shared that this was his parting gift to us, he said, that was Steve's Jobs message to us. And he said, most entrepreneurs don't get it. They think it's about changing the world. Actually, it was Steve's Jobs message was change yourself, actualize yourself. you have no idea what your full potential is.

Wow.

Right, which is kind of like Yogananda's message, self-realization. I mean, the organization is called Self-Realization Fellowship, that you have no idea what beauty and grace there is within you and go for that search. So that is a connection of yours, Steve.

That's very cool. It's a beautiful story.

Yeah, thank you.

I love this. Man, this is inspiring. I'm really excited about your book, Inner Mastery, Outer Impact. how your five core energies hold the keys to success. Make sure you guys get a copy or two, give it to a friend, check this out. Some great stories, great lessons and wisdom from your entire life, but you're also your research and all the different things you do. So very inspiring. I got a couple of questions, but before I ask them, where can we go to connect with you? Where can we get the book? How can we learn more about you specifically and what you're up to?

Yeah yeah thank you so there is my website htenra.com so that's just my first name h t e n d r a.com and I have newsletter articles I have a newsletter you can sign up for there and so that's my most immediate offering you know to us if you're drawn to doing something as an organization then I offer you two pathways there is my Institute called Mentor Institute and we have taken this as the foundation and builds a leadership and culture curriculum on this to help advance purpose, people and performance, you know, for organizations and these kind of crazy and changing and hard times. And so as an organization or a team, if you're drawn to it, then I would encourage you to consider that. And then we have Mentor of Foundation. It's a non-profit I've started recently with the goal of addressing some of the angst and, you know, struggles that we are all facing in society today. you know, collectively, by helping develop a global fellowship, you know, all change makers, people who would be deeply committed to building not just a prosperous world, you know, on the outside, but also a principled world on the inside.

That's cool.

By strengthening the moral and mental and social fibers, you know, in the world, starting with changing their own selves.

Yes.

And so we have launched a youth fellowship in our presence, a fully funded program for college youth who are qualified and committed and just, you know, went through the first cohort of that six-week kind of immersive journey in New York, which then is followed up by a year-long kind of additional touch because I really want to help them connect, grow, develop, and then ultimately become like lifelong, lifelong fellows. And so, you know, send out a prayer, you know, for, for the foundation, because my hope and aspiration in the future is that we can help create maybe the Next Generation Road scholarship or something. Something which be coveted around the world and can help develop people based on the latest understanding we have today of what it takes to bring thoughtful, strategic, loving, caring kind of change. Sure, sure. That's beautiful, man.

And in the book, they can get it on Amazon or any bookstore or at your website, right? Yes, exactly.

It's available everywhere, certainly on Amazon and the usual online places. Online bookstores, yeah.

You're getting more active on social media, I saw recently, right? You're starting to put some content out there. What's your main platform? form of choice that you're using the most?

Yeah, I have to say that, again, I'm a huge admirer of you and those of your ilk who have fully embraced this medium. In my case, it's still like a step-by journey, but certainly LinkedIn is one platform I'm reactive on, Instagram is another one that I'm reactive on. I certainly would encourage any of you, all of us, if you're drawn to this work, to come and sign up and be part of this Kindred family. Again, I think they get so much.

From you, but if you're drawn to more, then I'd be honored to have you. I love it.

I love it.

This is a question I asked everyone at the end called the three truths. So imagine hypothetically it's your last day on earth, many years away. Yeah. You live as long as you want, but you've got to turn off the lights in this physical world. And you accomplish everything you want in this world.

Yeah.

But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. So your book, your messages, your content, your lectures, it's all gone for whatever reason. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true, three lessons you would share with the world. And this is all we would have access to.

Yeah.

What would be those three truths that you would leave behind?

Yeah.

The first would be a sense of unity. We are all one family. You know, we're living in a time today where we are starting to get very drawn to wanting to affirm and assert, you know, different identities and intersectioning identities. And I would offer a while I really respect and admire the opportunity there for us to give voice, you know, at times to certain identities that have in the past been marginalized. There's also a lot of value in seeing us all as part of just the one, one identity. And it's not even to me just a human identity. It's the universe, it's creation, it's life, which throbs as much in a plant as it does in you and me. And how can we feel that sense of unity with everything, with everything, with everything? So that's my first. The second would be harmony that imagine that there is some invisible creative conductor out there. And you and I are all part of the symphony, you know, and we are meant to strike our note, you know, and when the moment comes and then pause when the moment comes and retire when the moment comes. And each of us has our role to play. But there is the capacity for incredible harmony in the universe. If we can just open ourselves up to that idea that we're all part of some incredible symphony and with some amazing conductor in the background in the universe whispering and guiding us to do our part. And then the third is just discovery, the idea that wow, there is so much the government doesn't know, there's so much science doesn't know, there's so much that my friends don't know. There's so much that I don't know that still needs to be engaged on, connected with. How do you really inspire the human spirit? How do you build bridges with people you consider as your enemies? How do you overcome impossible health issues that come up? Do you truly have to only engage with the knowledge of your present times and your fraternity and those that you consort with? or is it possible there is much, much, much more to the universe? And so always living in that state of intrigue and discovery, which you have so beautifully shared, has been so much part of your DNA. So I'm just so grateful for this opportunity to be here in this space with you, Louis. Even if this was just a conversation between you and me and nobody was gonna listen. Like for me, this would have been tremendously fulfilling. Yeah. The fact that beyond you and me, there is all your followers who may perhaps get something of value from this is just a great honor.

I got a lot of value and I want to acknowledge you, Hitendra, for your energy of putting out these five core energies. And I think you've gone through different transformations in your life to get here. We were talking about different health challenges you had before off camera and to see you continue to dive inward to realize what's possible in a harmonious unifying way and to share it in a platform business school that necessarily wouldn't be thinking about these things where I feel like that's where the place people need it the most is to make sure that they are grounded in their mission and their purpose when they go out and build businesses. Because I think a lot of people are focused on how do I make more money without the meaning and the mission and the purpose, the love behind it.

Yeah.

And so for you to talk about this in a business setting and for entrepreneurs, I think it's really powerful and I acknowledge you for bringing this wisdom to all of us.

No, thank you for sharing that. Look, I also have to say I have tremendous regard for the business world, tremendous regard for the discipline that it takes to succeed in that kind of competitive environment. I think capitalism has generated a lot of positive goods in the world that you and I, we all beneficiaries are often consumed and engaged with. you know, others arenas of the world can absolutely benefit from some of those just like, yeah, learnings and skills and functional mastery that, you know, business attains. And even Yogananda, when he came to the United States in 1920, you know, he looked around and he saw some of these, like, selfless Karma Yogi kind of people doing for the sake, you know, kind of advancing a certain material cause in the world. And he said, like, many of them are actually, like, just Yogis, you know, acting out something in the world, as long as you do it from a place not of greed, but manifesting something beautiful in the world. So I have tremendous respect, appreciation for America and for the way capitalism and business has in its best face of that really helped make the world so much more comfortable and rewarding for all of us. And to be able to serve that community and all that through bringing to help, you know, fill in the core, I think is something I'm definitely, as you have rightly pointed out, mission driven about. But, yeah. But again, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Letting your inner core shine through in everything you do in feeling a sense of Attunement with the universe and. being therefore able to strike whatever note that grand mystical conductor out there is guiding you to moment by moment until your dying breath.

There you go, Tandra. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus Channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.