Vishen Lakhiani talks with Dr. Srikumar Rao about "vegetable moments": painful life events like breakups and failures that the universe serves up for growth. Rao argues that believing in a benevolent universe helps you reframe setbacks as opportunities instead of disasters.
Chapters
If you were a good parent, what would you rather be feeding your child? Ice cream or veggies? Obviously it's going to be vegetables, right? This is so good. Now I want you to think back to the time when you were a child. Did your parent simply give you ice cream whenever you wanted it, or did your parents make sure that every now and then they would sneak some vegetables into your dinner? If you had great parents, they obviously would be encouraging you to eat vegetables. This idea is actually bigger than you think. It is the idea that the forces that care for us, the forces that care for us will every now and then service vegetables, even if we don't like it, because they are looking out for a greater good. I want you to listen to this analogy by Sri Kumar Rao, the incredible business school professor who is one of our biggest teachers here on mindvalley. Rao teaches a course called Personal Mastery in MBA programs around the world from Columbia to Stanford. He has been featured on theted.com he has spoken at Google, and he is a master at getting business school students to view the world in a dramatically different way that leads to greater happiness and success in their life. Now, Rao was going to introduce you to a concept that I find really intriguing. It's called a vegetable moment. Pay close attention.
The Benevolent Universe model. Albert Einstein said the most important question you will ever ask yourself is, is the universe friendly? Most of us believe that the universe is indifferent. It doesn't know we exist and couldn't care less. But what if the universe does know you exist and was well disposed towards you and the universe always gave you exactly what you needed for your growth. It might not be what you want, but it is what you need. Imagine you're a small child and what you want is a tub of ice cream. And what your parents give you are fruit and vegetables. You don't want fruit and vegetables. You want ice cream. And it's only when you have a much greater level of understanding and maturity that you can say, thank God I got fruit. Fruit and vegetables rather than ice cream. What if the universe was like that? It gives you stuff. It's not stuff that you want, but it's exactly what you need for your growth, regardless of whether or not you believe the universe is friendly. If you believe the universe is friendly, your life would improve dramatically. There are things that you can do to believe the universe is benevolent. Just look for examples that it is. And as you look for examples that the universe is friendly and well disposed towards you, you will find them. And the more you collect them and the more you ponder on them, the more an internal shift happens in you until you really believe the universe is friendly and your life has changed.
Did you get the nuance of what Rao was saying? What Rao was saying is that every now and then, the universe, or God or whatever you want to call that higher power that seems to guard us through life, will serve us a big heaping bowl of vegetables, even if we don't like the taste, because it's looking out for a greater good. If life was just about ice cream, it may not really help you grow. A breakup in a relationship, call that asparagus. A business failure, call that cauliflower. What if all of these is nothing more than the universe serving you vegetables because it's going to make you stronger in the future? Ask yourself, was this just bad luck? Or was this the universe simply serving you vegetables? Was this a vegetable moment to help you grow? If you find these ideas interesting, join me in this masterclass with Sri Kumar Rao, where he's going to go into so much incredible, profound ideas and wisdom that changed the way you look at the world. And it gives you greater power to show up as your best self and shift the world to your desires, to grow like you've never grown before and to emerge as the most incredible version of yourself. Join us in this masterclass with Sri Kumar Rao.
