Episode 15 - Sunny Nagpal

Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of Veerai's Wellness Podcast. Today we have Sunny Nagpal with us. Sunny Nagpal is an educator, mentor, parenting coach, NLP master practitioner, and genetic brain design coach. He is the founder of Kindle Life where he helps kids and teens discover their inborn nature to nurture themselves into happy and joyful learners and leaders. He has worked extensively with Dr. Kiran Bedi at her NGO. He has been a volunteer since his school days of Chinmaya Mission, which has a worldwide spiritual organization presence. He is an author of 4 books and has personally interviewed 300+ Dignified Personalities and made over 1,000 videos on happiness. He is an active content creator and a great human being. Knowing him personally is deeply enriching. Thank you so much, Sunny, for coming today. Very, very warm welcome.

Thank you so much.

Obliged and honored to have you on the show. Thank you, thank you so much.

You treat everyone like a VIP, king of kings.

No, you have an extensive background and I really needed to, you know, spell it out because the viewers need to know. And you are yourself an active content creator, so I'm sure you have a large following and your viewers know about you.

So Sunny, I'm happy to be here.

1,000+ videos on happiness. So what is, you know, the thing behind it? What, what is your mindset around, you know, happiness and why so much content on happiness?

It was COVID and everybody was upset with lockdown and, you know, the challenges that COVID brought. So yes, so I just wanted to spread happiness and I said my first video was like this, uh, if COVID can be viral, if COVID can spread, why not positivity and happiness? So that's how I started. And then I started bringing a candle and we'll sit in the dark and then suddenly switch on a light and say, yes, you can bring— you can be the light of happiness. So all these crazy things, kitchen items like washing powder.

Yesterday I saw potato and leadership.

Yeah, yeah. So I love metaphors. Everybody was talking and making videos. I wanted to be different. So I came up with objects. Cut down your limiting beliefs. You know, sauce is love from me too, and I am the biryani, the self-love, the self-validation. So I make my own biryani, I eat my own samosa. Sauce is definitely a bonus. We all are human beings, we need love, but remember to love yourself. Make your own biryani, make your own samosa and pizza.

Sunny, how do you manage to smile all the time? Please tell me the secret behind this smile all the time.

Very easy and simple. It started in school days. I come from a school which is spiritual. It's called Chinmaya Vidyalaya. We have 100 schools, and the school motto is keep smiling. And the founder, Swami Chinmayanandji, He said in one of his photographs, his autograph said, 'Keep smiling for me.' It always touched my heart. And all spiritual gurus, they say, 'Be happy in the ocean of happiness, in the ocean of bliss. Don't go thirsty.' So that always inspires me to celebrate life. And if you really love God, higher power, universe, You can't be cursing and complaining and criticizing his will. So that connects to me very much. And one more saint has said beautifully, look happy, be happy. So look happy, smiling on the face, be happy, smiling in the heart.

Superb, great. And you work a lot with kids and teens, Sonny. So what is your experience with working with children? And what made you think that, you know, you should be working with children? And what is it that are you actually passing on to them? That we would really like to know.

That simple. If I come and train you, you will have 1000 reasons, Sunny, why this will not work. Adults usually use their brain more, and little ones are readily available, come teach me. And I always say I love children, children love me. Now there's a beautiful reason behind this. My brain design is very good with kids only. So it is called the frontal lobe, right frontal, which is good with equals and juniors. Nice, goody-goody, caring, a lot of fun, no conflict, creative. So that is my brain design, that is my human innate talent. That is my inborn talent. So I started working with kids. Now if I have to tell you some concepts on happiness or neuro-linguistic programming— so as we grow adults and elderly, we keep repeating our old patterns. So you may gain wisdom, talk wonderful lines and quotes, Same thing if your daughter or son does. Who will get more claps? Who will get more benefit? Who will reap, uh, fruits forever? The children, of course. And they will not get shaken up with life's little pinpricks, you know. So I love to give all that I'm blessed with to kids more than the moms and the dads and the granddads.

Yeah, great. So tell us about your work with genetic brain design. That is something which is very new, and it was something for me, you know, it was for the first time. So I would really like to know about that, and I'm sure the viewers will also like to know about it.

Yes, that is all about what you love and what you're great at. So passion marries potential. Then when you add purpose you get peace, prosperity, and paise.

We all need that, right? Yes.

And see, Genetic Brain Design coaching is all about finding what you are amazing at, finding what comes to you naturally. Like Oprah Winfrey says, what makes you come alive? Flow state says when you forget time and space, when you lose yourself. Lot of times it has happened in your favorite exam, you would have forgotten, oh, I'm sitting in amidst students. So that is a secret. So one is finding what you're great at, one is finding meaning, finding fulfillment. Because Tony Robbins says there's no greater disaster than having all the success and the money and no fulfillment, being empty. So this is what we do, what we are born for. Why are we born? How will we attain that fulfillment? That secret formula we have, and we do that in our basic programs, advanced programs. So that is very close to my heart. And same thing, I'll go back to children now. Imagine the world would be a beautiful place if I pass this to children. Yes, because adults are anyways in the wrong jobs, peer pressure, parents' pressure, and all kinds of pressure, the kama, desires, greed. So let us prepare children so that they have amazing future, and we are unique. We tell you how you are unique. General parenting books may not help you, but a book which suits you, a book which suits your brain design— how much ever I may say your child is water, loving, what if you are fire? You will handle him according to your brain design. So all this happens when the child is in mother's womb. And the brain development happens, and the coding happens. Not the AI, not the latest engineering or other, uh, EI or AI. It is about your brain codes, your meta programs. What is important to you? What matters to you? Everything is coded. He may say leaders are nurtured, but leaders are born also. Confidence can be learned, it is a muscle, but all the great personalities you see on top, they are all born with it. What they're doing effortlessly— see, all of us go to Harvard and learn marketing, but it should be in your blood, no?

I'm reading a book called Karma right now by Sadhguru. So Sadhguru is very, you know, specifically explains in that book how the karmas of our ancestors or pre-ancestors have been imprinted on our DNA and how we still carry their karma in, you know, our present birth. And this is something which is absolutely, you know, mind-numbing and mind-opening for me at the same time. So what you are saying right now, I can totally relate it to what I'm reading right now, you know, the brain, uh, genetic designing. You know, I think we are pre-designed, but if we can consciously do something to design when the child is to be born, I think that is something which will change a lot of things for parents and children for years to come and generations to come. I think this is what genetic brain designing is.

Yes, nature and nurture. When we did for Dr. Kiran Bedi, she said, 'Nature to nurturance, that is what is brilliance.' So you're born with it, ma'am said. Yes, Sunny made me aware what I was born with. I added the tools, I sharpened them, and then you carve your destiny. So it's not just I'm born with it and they may not be using it. So there is one Oprah Winfrey, there's one Dr. Kiran Bedi. Otherwise, before meeting her, I used to write emails to all schools. Every child has a Dr. Kiran Bedi in her. Yes, true, but there's only one Dr. Kiran. Yes, yes, we all have a leader within.

Our styles are different, right, right. Superb, Sunny. I mean, the great work you are doing. I'm so inspired by you, Sunny. Uh, you know, share some story, you know, from one of your students or mentees that you have mentored and they have come back with, you know, the kind of impact that you have created on them. I think the viewers would really love to know and hear about it.

There are many stories.

There are many.

Yeah, I will touch many in like this. Yeah, I was in Navjyoti India Foundation, and it was a family of 4 or 6 daughters. And in slums, there are like, you know, social studies come true— more the children, more the income. Want of a male child, it is still true in the villages. And we were in the location where it was a village also and was a slum also. So she, after 12th standard, she was one of the toppers. She got scholarship 100% and she was getting married. The boy family was coming to see her. So we went there. I was a project head. I went to the Sabji Market. Her father was a vegetable vendor. So we told, you know, your daughter is selected for the scholarship, so we request you to give her a chance. Said, you don't know, you don't have daughters. When you have daughters, you will know. So today she's a banker.

Oh wow.

Then, yeah, so all this happened effortlessly. And then we have, you know, earlier nobody used to take science group in the slums. They used to take arts, commerce. Then there was a fight. No, I want science. Then they started becoming engineers. Then even girls started taking engineering. So now today they are, you know, doing M.Tech. So we are very happy for those stories. Then one of the families came from Shivkasi, 300 kilometers away, for brain profiling. The teachers had told he will not be able to write, he is naughty, this, that. He said, no problem, children are born with different abilities, so if you can channelize that If you can take your child's— no, feel the confidence what he has. He's an entrepreneur. School's education system is now restricting, you know, do this, don't do that. So these are some of the greatest, you know, moments which I share with my beneficiaries, clients. They travel 300 kilometers, 500 kilometers only for brain.

Wow.

And they feel so relieved.

Great. I mean, this, uh, when you, you know, just said about listen to the child and, you know, listen to their nose. So my daughter, she is homeschooled and she absolutely refuses to go to school. Uh, we tried to put her to school and she was like really adamant that she don't want to go, and she would make our life hell for 5 months. You know, this year we tried her to put her back to school, but Finally, she, you know, came back to homeschooling, and she was homeschooling for last 2 years during the COVID period again. But then when she's back, she's such a happier child. I mean, we can see the difference. So it's about, you know, recognizing what the child needs. So I have 2 kids, right? My son loves going to school. He was after my life that he wants to go back to school after the homeschooling, you know, journey. So he is enjoying school very much, but my daughter does not like school and she doesn't want to go. So I think as parents we need to understand that they are different people, they have different needs, they have different learning needs. My daughter wants to become a baker, so if I tell her that, you know, you should study this, that, she would ask me questions. Why do I need to read this? I want to become a baker. Why do I need to study Hindi when I have to do baking? So as parents, our job is just, you know, facilitator. We cannot impose what we think on our children. And I think you're very, very right in understanding the children, spending time with them. And I'm trying my best listening to them. Wow.

Yeah, yeah.

And then they open up.

Yes, be a friend. Yes, connect before correct. Touch lives, not just teach.

Right. Tell us something about parent coaching. What has been your experience with coaching parents?

Only parents need coaching because we become parent by default, and then from day one we think we are pro, and we want trophy kids, and we are satisfying our own egos. We are living in our own fantasies. We are busy fulfilling our own lack, and we are passing on our wounds to children. Yeah, like you said, we should listen. And in listening, a lot of— because we have our own brain design, no? And we have to prove that, you know, you are mine, you better listen to me, and how dare you, you being half of my size, give me back answers. So in scolding and thrashing, we end up damaging the self-esteem of children, right? Right. If you are not taking the no of the child, he'll become a slave. And we all want slaves, we all want obedient children, and then we expect them to go out and shine. That is a sad story. They should not, uh, retaliate and revolt with us, but they should not become people pleasers after marriage. They should not become people pleasers at work.

How will that happen, right?

I think as parents, I am born with less confidence. All these thrashing will make me a people pleaser, will kill me thoroughly, fully. I will never rise. And if you are not validating me, I will only be a beggar of validation from outside. If you are not looking at me, I will only want to be seen. And all children are trying hard to be seen, to be loved, to be validated, to be accepted. It sounds very easy for you and me sitting here talking, but think of those children. What did they do? And do teachers have time to see, to appreciate, to validate? So this is why I love going to school, and children feel very safe, comfortable And they say, this is the only period we feel at home. And they share every little thing with— in our writing exercises. So think of those moments where none of the teachers, no parents have given them space to be a friend.

Wow.

And Indian scriptures, Indian scriptures also say this. Till 5, treat your child like a king and the queen. 5 to 12, discipline them. After 13, be a friend. I will not ask you your children's age, don't worry. You look young.

Yeah, thank you for that. Uh, so Sunny, I can actually, you know, see the passion in you when you talk, you know, about children. Uh, What insight would you want to leave us with, the parents who are watching this show? And what, you know, one message that is there in your mind that you would like to pass on, which is very, very important and we all need to know as parents?

One quote which goes, don't take life too seriously, because take only one thing in life seriously, that is not to take life seriously. You look happy and be happy. If you are radiating happiness, your children will learn happiness. And radiate one belief: my child is a king, my child is a genius. Believe in the divine potential, right? And most importantly, just let them be.

Yes, just let them be.

Yes. They are divine beings. They are born with divine potential. Give them love. Love heals. I went up to my mentor and said, because in genetics we say some designs need more love, but then my mentor turned around and said, hey Sunny, who doesn't need love? So all of us need love, and love is a one-way traffic. Love is sincere concern for the happiness of the beloved. Are we living up to this definition, or are we only attached and dying in our own fears? And in the name of love, we are bargaining. Look, I'll give you mobile if you study. I'll give you mobile if you study well. So we have started all the bargain, and we are giving wrong things, and we think we are such good parents, you know.

I'm disciplining my—

to earn it. You will earn love also like this. Love should be unconditional, and it is there in the books. It is there with the Lord. So whether I put water to Sun God or not, sun shines. Whether I go to temple to pray or not, I get the breeze and I get oxygen free, which hospitals charge. A few lakhs, and we forget that. So let us be loving. That is the most important.

Wow, thank you so much, Sunny, for the kind words and superb insights. It is a pleasure knowing you, having you on the podcast, and listening to you. I think we are really, really thankful for your time, for your knowledge, for your insight that you have shared with us and the viewers of this podcast. And On behalf of all my viewers, I would like to say many, many thanks. Thank you so much for coming today.

Thank you. You're doing a great job. You are the light I was talking about. So you are that sunlight, powerhouse, lighthouse. Just keep doing that with a smile, always, forever. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Suneet.