How to Eliminate Stress | Dr. Srikumar Rao

There is one reason and one reason only, that you feel stress. And that is I'm going to speak to you today about how you can cultivate extreme resilience and eliminate stress. But I must tell you that that's just a. A bait and switch. Because what I'm really going to talk to you about is how you can become a radically different person, think, have a different model of why am I here? What is it all about? And when you become such a person, you don't have to eliminate stress. It kind of goes away by itself. So that's my hidden agenda. Okay, so let's get started. That's me. And if you really want to eliminate stress from your life, here's what you have to do. I must tell you, this really works. I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist the temptation to put that on. Okay. Most people report that there is more stress in their life than ever before. I have asked thousands of people on six continents, why is there stress in your life? And of course, they've given me dozens of answers, and I've basically boiled them down into eight major factors or eight major categories. And I'm going to share that with you right now. But what I really would like to do first is please ask all of you to stand up. Please stand up. So here's the deal. As I said, I've heard hundreds, thousands of people tell me why they think they feel stress in their lives. And I've basically boiled it down to eight categories, and I'm going to list those categories right now. And if you feel that one of those categories applies to you, I'd like you to sit down. Okay? Okay. So let's get started. Number one is financial. I do not have enough. I've got mortgage payments to make. I've got kids tuitions. I've got all kinds of things. I want to get a bigger house, and darn it, there just isn't enough. So that's one cause for stress. Then there's relationships, typically with partner or spouse, but can be with siblings, can be with children, can be with, you know, colleagues, bosses. You'd like your relationship to be a certain way, and darn it, it isn't. Okay, Children. We all know that children are bundles of joy, correct? They're sent to bring happiness and fulfillment to you in your life. But have you noticed that children do the darndest things? And they begin early, they poop right after you've changed them. They fall in love with the most inappropriate people. They drop out of school. So, yes, children are bundles of joy. They bring you growth and fulfillment. They also cause you stress, business and career. If you're an entrepreneur, you want your business to grow, you want revenues to be coming, you want customers to be satisfied, you want to be promoted, you want more responsibility, bigger paychecks. And darn it, it just isn't going the way you would like it to be. So, health. You'd like to be able to run the marathon. You'd like to be able to run the marathon in under two hours, which would be a really big deal, but already you're taking the elevator rather than a short flight of stairs. And by the way, when I say health, it need not be just about yourself. Could be the health of people who are close to you as well. Then there's the big external stuff. Politics, environment, climate change, animal welfare, crime. This is a catch all I have too much to do and not enough time to do it all. And then there is, I'm not where I want to be. We have an image in our heads of where we would like to be, and we're not there. In fact, I was even talking to someone who had a very robust meditation practice, and she was upset because with her meditation practice, she thought that she should be calm and serene, and, you know, she just wasn't there. In other words, she was stressed. That she was stressed. So I've got most of you, and those of you who are still standing, would you come and talk to me afterwards? And I'd really like to find out which of the categories I miss. All right, So I told you I was going to get you to think differently, and I'd like you to consider that if you mentioned any of those factors as a reason you felt stress, you are wrong. There is one reason and one reason only, that you feel stress, and that is that you have a very rigid idea of this is the way the universe should be. And the universe is not playing ball with you. Think about that. This is important. You have in your head a vision of, you know, I have to be financially secure, whatever financial security means to you. This is how much I should be getting in terms of an income. And it should be stable, it should be predictable. This is how big a house I want, and here's how much it's going to cost me. And that should be coming to me, and it just isn't happening. You want your relationships to be along a certain line, and your partner has a different view. So you have an idea this is how my life should be. You've got a rigid idea of this is how the universe should treat me. And the universe goes its merry way and pays no attention to you. And that is the only reason you feel stress. Let's go further. You probably have not thought of your life in this way, but I now encourage you to think of your life in this way, or at least examine it. Your entire life has been an attempt to control some part of your environment, some part of the universe. Let me repeat that. Your entire life has been an attempt to exert control on some part of the universe. You're an entrepreneur, you really want to grow your business. You want to serve a certain number of customers, you want to have certain revenues coming in. Because if all of that happens, you think you're going to feel a certain way and you really want to feel that way. You go to college, you get good grades, you go to grad school, you get good grades, you go off, you join a company, a well known company, you move your way up and you want to become department head or you want to become CEO. Because when that happens, you will feel a certain way, your friends, colleagues, society will look at you a certain way and hey, that's good, that's what I want. It is an attempt to control your environment. Everything that you do is in some way, shape, fashion or form an attempt to control your environment. Your entire life is an endless quest to have control. This is important. So do you get what I'm saying? Yes. That's what you're doing. Your entire life, you're trying to have control. Well, I have some news for you. You do not have control. Further, you never had control. Wait, it gets better. You never will have control. What you have is the illusion of control. Control. And this is really important for you to know, so let me spend some time about it, some time on this. The illusion of control comes about because in your life you have set a goal for yourself. And you've said, you know, here's my goal, and if I do all of these things, then I'm actually going to achieve my goal. And guess what? You succeeded. And you did this many times in your life. And each time you succeeded. And so you think, gee, I really can do it, I can do it, I have control. And not only have you done it, but you've observed others around you and they seem to have done it and they got the results they wanted. So all of that combined to tell you, yes, I can do it, I have control. That is the illusion of control. And this, by the way, could have happened nine times out of 10, 99 times out of 100, 999 times out of 1,000. So you say, yes, I can do it. In reality, any of the thousands of things that could have derailed you did not be grateful, be immensely grateful. Now, the illusion of control will break down in your life, in every one of your lives. It will break down sooner or later. And if you're firmly vetted to the illusion of control, that's when you go to pieces. Now, I'm not knocking the illusion of control. It is a wonderful creation. That's what makes you get up in the morning and strive and do all of the things that give meaning to your life and accomplishment. But it's wonderful to use the illusion of control, knowing that that is the illusion of control. Because when it breaks down, and it will sooner or later in every one of your lives, you don't go to pieces. You simply say, ah, this is where the illusion broke down. Where do I go from here? Okay, there was a wonderful novel I was reading which really brings home the myth of control, and it's a really good novel. So it has a protagonist, and there was a king who was somewhat autocratic and a queen who was even more autocratic. And in a distant province, the natives were rebelling. And the king got tired of this rebellion, and he really wanted a peaceful kingdom. And being a control freak, he decided the best way to control the situation was to magnanimously accept some of the demands of the rebels. So he decided he was going to do that. And the way he was going to do that is he was actually going to go to the place where the rebels were and give a speech in which he would magnanimously concede some of their demands. And he hoped to bring them in the fold. So he announced that he was going to be giving a speech there. And it so happened that the leader of the rebels decided, this is a golden opportunity. What I'm going to do is I'm going to bump off the king and the queen. And he really wanted to control the situation and make sure that it happened. So he sent not one, not two, not three, but six separate assassins to bump off the king. Now, the motorcade route where the king and queen were going was published. So the six assassins positioned themselves along that, and assassins number one and two were somewhat slow getting off the mark. But assassin number three threw a bomb, and the king and the queen were in an open car with the roof folded down. And the bomb struck the folded roof, bounced in into the street behind, and blew up the car behind the kings. That was the car that contained the bodyguards and that tipped off the driver of the royal limousine that there was something wrong, and he stepped on the gas. And assassins number four, five and six didn't have a chance to do anything. So the King and Queen went to the Governor's mansion, or the town hall, rather, and the Queen berated the governor because he didn't have control of the population. And she arbitrarily decided that they were going to scrap their program and they were going to go right back to the capital because obviously it wasn't safe. She took control of the situation. So the only thing that they were going to do was stop by the military hospital to visit the wounded. These were the people who had been in the car behind that got blown up, and then they were going to go straight back. But the Governor was somewhat flustered at being ticked off so publicly, and he forgot to tell the driver that the route had been changed. So the driver proceeded along the original route, and the governor said, no, no, we're going to the military hospital. So he stopped and was reversing. And as he was reversing, assassin number five, who happened to be in a coffee house next door, came out and he saw the King and Queen in the car just a little bit ahead of him. So he promptly took out his gun and took pot shots with them. And I don't know how familiar you are with handguns, but if you've got a homemade handgun and you are a dozen or more feet away from your target, and you take hastily potshots, odds are pretty good you'll miss. He hit the King in the neck and the Queen in the stomach, and both of them died within minutes. Now isn't that a wonderful tale of how you don't have control? I lied. That was not a novel. That was history. The King was Archduke Ferdinand. The Queen was Queen Sophie. The fifth assassin was Gavrilo Princip, and that gave us the First World War.