We Become What We Always Think About

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Congratulations, we made it to Saturday. One more Saturday in our lives. It’s a Saturday morning here, as I’m recording. Happy Saturday morning to you. Welcome or welcome back to Success with Srini. Today’s podcast episode is driven by something that I read on Facebook, I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, but then this podcast is on Facebook. So because this is on Facebook, I have to log in, I have to check a few things. So as I was doing that, this popped up in my newsfeed, and I’m gonna tell you that in a second here. But then this podcast is also for you, if you are frustrated with repetition, and frequency, not creating results for you. It’s the same old effort, same old routine, and same ot results, nothing new. There’s no newness to anything that you’re doing. This is for you. If this has gone to a point where you think that life has become mediocre, or you’re fostering mediocrity and this is for you. If you are constantly in friction, or you unknowingly have subscribed to friction living, I have done numerous shows on these three concepts, today is not any different, the same. So that is today’s story. In bits and pieces, this is my story, too. It’s all our story. And that is why we do self improvement on a daily basis. We pursue new thoughts, new ideas, new wisdom, new interactions, so that we overcome our challenges.

Now, this is the story. Question is how do we rewrite the story? What does it involve to rewrite the story? All there are a few things. The first and the foremost is that we accept the fact that these are the circumstances within which we are living, we cannot change the circumstances. There are people around us, there are situations around us. The world is happening in its own way around us. So there is not much we can do to change. And if at all we make the effort to change, we need to agree or surrender to the idea that it will involve effort, and it will involve sacrifices. The key to all this is you cannot change things around you. Unless you change something about you. That’s the message. And that has been the message across all these podcasts that I have been doing here and all through my radio shows, that is the message I’ve been spreading, or I’m driving.

So one amazing thing about all this is, no matter how bad our circumstances are, we are bigger than our circumstances. That there is something within us, the part of us something somewhere deep within our soul somewhere deep within our mind, something that is bigger than everything that’s happening. And I’ll tell you the I’ll give you proof for that the proof is you woke up this morning, the proof is that you are listening to this or something like this. And the proof is that you’re going to lead today, or you’re going to end today, depending upon when you are listening to this with the hope that there is tomorrow. If you’re ending the day, and you’re starting the day, you are going to spend the rest of the day today hoping that tomorrow is going to be a better day, or that which you are pursuing today. And in the moment today, right now, there is an outcome for it. See that thought is bigger than anything that’s happening around you. So I want you to hang on to that thought, I want you to give some faith to that thought so that it becomes in a way, your reality, at least in your unconscious mind. Of course, our conscious mind wants to see the proof. Now how do I know I’m successful? Or how do I know that I’m getting there? How do I know that things that I’m doing is working. Our conscious mind is constantly looking for proof. I get it, I understand that. But then sometimes things are invisible unless and until they happen. And you got to keep on persisting through those times when everything is unknown. And that’s the secret. And that’s the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people. Now coming back to how do you structure this? How do you go from things that are very repetitive, mediocre, and filled with friction to a point where you feel good about yourself and you have a sense of glory? How do you rewrite the story?

It might take you 30 days to create a habit but that habit could change your life for the next 30 years.

As I was scrolling Facebook, which I don’t do, I came across an incredible post is amazing. This is from Business Growth mentor, at least that’s what it says here. Five insights. The first one is, it might take you 30 days to create a habit but that habit could change your life for the next 30 years. Incredible insight. What is that habit that will change your circumstances? Well, positive thinking, looking forward to the next day, believing that what you’re doing today is going to add up, and you’re going to show up with great results. That’s good. But then how do you do it? Well, here’s what I have done and have been telling on radio, through all my shows, which is you got to start reading, you got to start listening, you got to start participating in activities of success, participation in an activity of success includes running, going out, and all that. Like physical participation, that creates good health for you, then financial participation creates wealth for you, then emotional participation, relationship that creates security for you things of that nature. We need to surrender to a new idea, open possibility. Because when we do that, in a way, we are setting all those possibilities in our unconscious mind. So that these ideas become self actualized. So if you start thinking about something over and over and over again, the unconscious mind starts to believe it.

The reason why you are believing your circumstances are incorrect, and you are going through this pain and suffering is because you tell that to yourself that story, you tell that yourself consistently. If you keep telling yourself or you start telling yourself that things are going to be good, they’re going to be better, you’re going to get to the goal, you will have an incredible life. You say that for a long amount of time, with repetition frequency, your unconscious will start believing it will start self actualizing that idea or that saying that’s the secret? Where do we start with it, I can’t sit here and keep telling myself my life is going to become better, I need to do something about it. So we start reading, we start listening, we start experimenting with life.

It might take you an hour to complete a workout but it will keep you in good mood for the next 12 hours.

The second insight here is, it might take you an hour to complete a workout but it will keep you in good mood for the next 12 hours. Do it if you’re not done it go out workout for an hour early in the morning. And you’ll see what it does to your entire existence throughout the day. Amazing.

It might take you 30 minutes to complete a morning routine, but it will build momentum for the rest of the day.

Third insight, it might take you 30 minutes to complete a morning routine, but it will build momentum for the rest of the day. On this podcast. I have declared my morning routine. Give it a chance listen to it. See if you can model it. If not put something that works for you. I wake up in the morning, give myself 30 minutes to center my mind. That’s how I start my day. I try starting my day 4:30. Listen to the word try. I’m not saying I do it. I try. The reason why use the word tries because I fail. I’m not consistent. It’s not rock solid in my existence yet. Sometimes five o’clock, sometimes 4:45. But I try. But I fail to wake up at 4:30. But every time every day, I wake up at 4:30. And I give 30 minutes to myself to complete a routine. My personal routine, the first 30 minutes. Of course, I have two and a half hours, three hours of routine. But the first 30 minutes define my entire trajectory for the rest of the day.

It might take you five hours to read a book, but you will keep the knowledge forever.

It might take you five hours to read a book, but you will keep the knowledge forever. That’s the fourth insight in this post. I have never read a book in five hours. Even though I took multiple classes on speed reading. I never did five hours. But I have read books multiple times the same book multiple times. And I wish I could read one book of week. That which I used to do back in the day. I don’t these days because my life has other priorities going on. Or my life is demanding a different kind of me as of today. But there is truth to this. If you can read a book from the beginning to the end, doesn’t matter 5, 10, 15, 20 hours or days, whatever it takes. It could change your life forever.

If you take three months to learn a new skill, that skill could make you millions.

And finally, this is a big one. If you take three months to learn a new skill, that skill could make you millions. All you have to do is invest Three months into a new skill, every seminar, every workshop that I have done, and if you’ve been to any of these workshops, you see me saying that in some shape or form, that our job is to keep on acquiring new skills, and a skill that specifically creates wealth. It has to be learned, it has to be mastered. There’s no second thoughts about this. I don’t know why people procrastinate, the job that you have today may go away, guess what, it will go away? How do I know I’ve seen it happen? The role that you play the title you have the certifications that you carry, they’re going to fade away. The certifications were in that moment, at that point of time, was were given to you, or were relevant. What did you do?

Yesterday, a friend of mine, a client of mine, texted me saying, “Oh, you have a gift”, on a different context. I said, we all have gifts. You know, the biggest tragedy of this mankind is that nature, Mother Nature has gifted each one of us something special, something unique to us a gift. But many of us, we have squandered that gift completely. Because we don’t value that gift. We don’t give what it demands from us. No self discipline, no commitment, no drive, no consistency. The biggest fear I have, the biggest fear right now, as I’m recording this podcast is, what if I dropped my consistency with this podcast? What if I see the numbers? Someday only five or seven people are downloading the podcast demotivates. Me, I stopped looking at the stats. Because if I look at the stats, then I’m creating a rebel in me some some thoughts, some little thought that yes, “Srini, don’t do it.” Not worth it. Some would add up the waste of your time, you could do bigger things. Tell me what other big thing I could do. But my mind will defeat me. And I know it’s it has defeated me in the past, it is going to defeat me even now. Trust me, I know that I understand myself, or at least to a large extent, if not all. That’s my biggest fear in this is may be some that if I drop my consistency, to learn on how to do this and do this on a consistent basis, then it may go away.

I want you to pause for a second and ask yourself, what is that gift that you have that was given to you at birth by mother nature. And your mother nourished you raised you to be who you are today. But then along the way, you have not done justice to that mother nature that gave you that gift because you got busy because you thought that your other needs are more important to you. I have many such gifts I’ve squandered. So I understand the value of that statement. Mother Nature gifts. We humans. We don’t give it what it takes. I hope today’s podcast is helpful.

Oh finally, the closing comment on this is, long term thinking really is the key. Long term thinking. It’s not about long term thinking. It’s about thinking right and staying with the thought for a long amount of time. And goes back to my earlier point which is invest in yourself. And that you have everything in your capacity and in your reach, to move yourself from whatever story that you are playing in your mind to whatever state you want to get to within which you feel more happier and more fulfilled. And for that you need freedom of thought.

This whole podcast episode was about freedom of thought. I hope this is helpful. I’m sorry, I took it deep on a Saturday morning for you. Now, if I take this day for you on a Saturday morning, imagine what my day is going to be. I’m going to wake up. In other words, I’m going to get up from my laptop today, as I’m recording here. And I’m going to lead Saturday today with the same intensity that I let my weekdays. So very likely I said Happy weekend or we are almost at the weekend. I’m going to take it easy. I don’t take it easy.

I say that. I don’t take it easy. Because if I take it easy on a Saturday or on a Sunday, my Monday is going to be a funk day. My start is going to get mashed up. We’ll talk about this later, maybe tomorrow or some other day. But then for now I’m going to stop up here I hope today’s helpful if it is do me a favor write a comment write a review share and give me a like so I can reach some more people that’s all for now you take care. Bye.

Measure Of Life Is It’s Breadth, Not Length

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Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today is a Friday, as I’m recording Happy Friday morning to you. On the podcast today, I want to drive a point, specifically if you are trying to get in shape, trying to have good health and get control on your habits, like food habits, exercise habits, and things that come in the space of health.

Last week, my dad turned 88. Precisely on February 5th. 88, incredible life. In fact, when he started his job, his first job, British were still in India and India got its independence in 1947. And the British stayed back, some of the officers stayed back to help the administration. So the British were still around. When my dad got a job. He was 17 years old. He got a job in police department. And then over the next 50 years, he ascended to different roles. So he retired when he was 58. So, next 40 some odd years incredible journey.

Now, in 2013, he had a stroke, and he lost some of his functions. So part of his memory, some of his he has processing issues and things like that. Since then, he’s okay, he does his basic things, but then all the performance stuff has gone away. And dementia has come in now. So the case in point, why am I sharing all this? Well, he has a desire to live, and he has a desire to accomplish more things. Before the stroke happened, he was one of the most busiest people I used to go to India, I can’t even spend time with him, he is busy. He has to go to some places, he has to meet people. He is all the time writing his poetry or writing books or going out and speaking, constantly busy helping some young police officers mentoring them to come into the force, he will always busy. But always looking forward to what tomorrow has for him.

I remember a long time ago, many, many years ago, while he was still active, he told me he said the reason why I want to stay longer is because I want to see how the government is changing. How the social fabric changing, how new things are developing, I want to see as much as I can. And even today, when he’s fully compromised, my mom is not around, she’s gone. She passed away in 2015, my dad comes into my office, the room where I record my studio, little studio, I have my room. And he looks at all the books that I have, whatever books I have, and he looks at them. And then he has this expression on his face, where he says I could have done more. But I couldn’t. I remember that this was 2017, I had a larger library in my house, he once came up into the library upstairs. And he looked at all the books, I had the books completely spread out throughout the room. He looked at them. And he did this, “tsk tsk tsk” like that. And that sound, a sound of regret, a sound of I could have done more, and I couldn’t feeling and that bothers him that he could have done more.

And since the stroke he had a stroke in 2013, nearly 10 years, almost nine years now almost nine years now. And he could have avoided that stroke with a proper diet and a proper exercise, he could have avoided that stroke. And the case in point, again, is that for your health, you have many options. You can take the diet, you can exercise you can work out, you can feel good, you put 30 minutes in the morning, running or jogging or swimming, whatever the rest of the day is going to be beautiful. Energy is going to be incredible. But then what are you doing to keep your mind active? What kind of foods that you are eating? What kind of exercise are you doing for the mind? You’re assuming that if you just can take care of the body, the mind will take care of itself? Yes, in a way.

But then this generation, my dad’s generation, older generations, they all depended on medications in life was designed through medication. Have a headache, take a pill, their blood pressure, take a pill, they have some blood sugar inconsistencies take, you know shots, pills, whatever. In this generation, where we are in and our children are growing up in this generation our belief system is that we need to keep control on our invisible functions of the body and those invisible functions include sleep, hunger, heart rate, heartbeat, your thirst, whatever. All that invisible functions, we need to get control on them and we get control of all the invisible functions to the body by regulating our known functions to the body. That means, we need to exercise we need to work out we need to eat right these are the non functions.

So, if we take the non functions, then the unknown functions of the body which are which nobody knows, for example, tonight, you will be hungry tonight you will go to sleep, but you exactly do not know when you’ll be hungry, exactly not know what time you’ll sleep. Very rarely I meet people who will exactly sleep at a given time. I know people who wake up more or less at an exact time that they have in their mind, but then rarely have met people who will say exactly 10pm, I’m going to sleep and will go into deep sleep. Where we have seen that could be possible, you know, anything is possible. But you get the point.

Question is, there is enough amount of medication to deal with the known functions of the body, something goes wrong, there is a medication for the unknown function of the body when the brain stops functioning or is functioning at a lower level your neurons have died, because the stroke. Now what he takes a pill called Donepezil, which supposedly helps the brain to overcome some functionality loss due to dementia. But then that’s it, there is not much happening in that space. And, again, you look into new technology here these days, and companies like neuro link and all the trying to replace the brain functions with new technology, when you see all that kind of innovation happening. But then there’s not much of medication as much as there is to the body to the brain.

So my takeaway from this is that if you have time and you do not know what to do with time, go workout, go run, do like 10-15 minutes of exercise, it doesn’t need to be full blown one hour, you know, people dress up to show up in the gym and do nothing. You took and had a meal, just go walk out, you know, step out of the house and walk around. If you are in between doing nothing, and you have some time, some lag time or whatever, just go and do some activity, and make sure that you’re tracking those calories, you know how many active calories you’re burning, kind of get control on this function. You know, you have time you know what you have to do do it. And as a result of doing it consistently over a long period of time, the unconscious functions will also start regulating themselves. That’s how this works. And obviously, the brain has to be kept active. So there are some brain exercises, try to play chess or start to learn a new language or a new skill.

Very late in life. I want to share incredible story. I was motivated by this myself, you might have heard the name Grandma Moses. I think her real name Grandma Moses, she was married to a gentleman by name Moses. I think her real name is Anne Marie Robertson, and Marie Robertson. And she was 81 years old when she discovered that she could paint and she started painting. I think overall, in her lifetime, she painted about 1,500 paintings on big vaults that outside on the big walls and in a big buildings.

And out of all the paintings she painted out to all the 1500 paintings she had over 25% of those paintings came after she was 100 years old. Incredible story. She became famous because those paintings eventually landed in greeting cards and magazines. Some New York reporter was walking by in the fields of this remote area where she used to live and he saw all these paintings. And he took photos of those paintings and made her popular she became incredibly famous along the way made incredible amount of money. I think she became a millionaire as a result of this photos if I’m if I’m not wrong.

No matter who you are, what your age is, you can do anything that you would you if you want to do something you can and this is the bottom line. I get this question all the time. And I’m too old? should I start this business? Or should I start that write a book? You know, my career is ending? What should I do? My answer across the board is you can do anything you want to do as long as you are willing to do and anything that you do involves effort. Anything you do involves commitment, hard work. Nothing is easy. Not even this podcast. I promise you I took like four takes this morning. I was not, I never got a compiler into the story. But you get the point. Anything, anything you want to do, you can start at any point in time. And age is just a number as they say.

Thomas Jefferson, remember this quote, says, “My only fear is that I may live too long.” That’s profound. My only fear is that I may live too long. That’s the fear I have what if, you know, my grandmother had a stroke, paralyzed. My father had a stroke but he’s not paralyzed but he has he lost part of his memory. My grandmother did not lose memory, but she was paralyzed. So different kinds of stroke. And what if I live long, and I also will have something like this, that fear crosses my mind that fear turns me into a performer. I respect that fear. I know it is possible. There is a possibility of that. But then I’d use that fear to create the motivation.

As I wrap this up, my message to you this weekend, be careful what you’re eating. Be cautious what you’re eating. Be cautious. What’s he doing pure, unconscious functions of the body, which we do not know, which we do not have control upon. And just to know your conscious functions, define your unconscious functions, the body and those conscious functions you can choose. And you choose it right this weekend.

That’s all for now. You have a wonderful weekend. But I’ll come back here tomorrow. We’ll talk a little bit more. Bye now.

Worries Create Clarity Despite Overwhelm

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Today’s podcast episode is based on an interesting conversation and an observation that I recently had in a social setup. And here’s the backstory. A friend of mine invited me for a small ceremony that was happening in his house at his place. And he invited many of his other friends who I do not know. So he introduced me to all his friends, and one of his friends immediately recognized me. And he said, Srini, I heard you on the radio, and all I thought of talking to you, but somehow I couldn’t make time and things didn’t come together to talk to you, to meet you. I’m so glad I found you here. I was expecting naturally, because in the past, I had been in social setups, where I meet people, and immediately they start telling me about their issues, their problems, their challenges. So I was expecting something is going to come from this. And as I was expecting, it happened.

So he goes into a very deep story of his life, specifically about his career, job. And his children, and his parents in India, and his money situation, and the economy and the COVID. So these are five, six things all of us are dealing with, or many of us are dealing with, and very same story more or less the same story. See, for me, I have been questioned on the mountains in the wilderness, anywhere, everywhere, people have asked me questions. And every time I’m being asked something, I’m always willing to coach, I’m always willing to share. And nothing stops me.

You know, if somebody has the curiosity to learn, I’m going to go all the way I’m going to invest, invest myself into them. So for me, it was a normal day for him. He started explaining his story. And I could see his entire persona shift, like breaking apart as he’s telling me his story. And I would stand there for about 45 minutes listening to the story. And my job at one point, and he’s here, because he’s also there to meet other people and have a good time. And he’s getting into his story so deep. I was feeling bad. I said, No, I’m going to spend all the time that I’m there. And I’m going to give him everything that he needs so that he can go home from that point on. He’ll feel liberated, he’ll be taken out of his problems. That was my goal as I was talking to him.

So one of the questions, interesting things, many things he expressed, but then one thing that stood out is his employees and coworkers are telling him that he needs help. That’s not a good position to be in when your co workers and employees are telling you that you are falling apart, you need to go do something about yourself. So given the context, and given the situation, and given the way he was falling apart, my job there as a coach, as a mentor, or whatever role that I was playing in my mind at that time, or in that interaction, was to kind of give him some positive reinforcement and set him on a path so that he can feel good, and he can set his path from that point on feeling liberated. So that was my goal. One of the things is, I saw this individual getting worried about everything, if somebody is talking about six, seven things in one sentence, like Job economy, children, kid, wife, career, traffic, taxes, people talk like that, that means there are some deep disturbances happening. What is usually are manifestations of disturbances. So there is something seriously going wrong being with him.

So one of the first things I told him was, it’s okay to get worried. In fact, successful people are worried. Anybody, anytime you see somebody who’s successful, please take it for granted. They worried a lot to get there. Okay, but superficial worries, destroy people. And majority of the people, all of us, we somehow could not differentiate between what is a meaningful worry and what is superficial worry. So I taught him how to separate these two things. For example, do you have any control on taxes? You don’t. Do you have any control the COVID? You don’t. You have any control of the longevity and the age and medical challenges of your parents? You do not. None. What do I have control on? I have control on my work? I have control on my activities, my engagement, my interactions, and everything that I can do things that I cannot do, I cannot do. It’s in the hands up some other people. Why should I get worried? So I asked him, I told him, “Listen, why don’t you go home tonight. Kind of take a paper, draw a line on the left side. Write down meaningful worries and the right side, you write down superficial worries. And list all your worries, and categorize them into these two buckets.” What is going to go on the left side of the line, what’s going to go on the right side of the line? This gives you at least a perspective. Every day in the morning, you wake up, you say, Okay, I’m going to be worried about meaningful worries. No meaningful worries, they get you to success.

Now, all worries are same. Honestly, all worries are same. All worries, create overwhelm. All worries, create stress, anxiety, and all the other different things that come with them. So the nature the overall nature of every sing. But then, because some worries are meaningful, they get you to success if you stay with them longer enough. But along the way, meaningful worries do create clarity. That’s the big one. Meaningful worries, create clarity. Superficial worries, to not clear clarity, they take you into multiple different loops. And you keep on falling into this pattern. Eventually, superficial worries destroy you. So meaningful worries are key to success. Superficial worries, destroy.

As we’re leaving, and I pulled him aside and said, Listen, you need to have good health, I understand all your worries, it may not be possible that you just starting today, you will only focus on meaningful worries, and you ignore all the superficial worries, I don’t think you would be able to do it. But let’s say you do, still you need a lot of energy, you need a lot of power. Every time mind can literally take over every aspect of your life. So you need a lot of strength. And the only way for you to really get the strength is for you to start having a good health. So you commit yourself to eating well, eating right, sleeping right, working out right. And majority of these worries, even though they may not go away, but their effects on the body will diminish.

This was the gist of the conversation. I hope this is helpful to you. The reason why I kind of made a podcast out of it, not that I have not shared this before. If you’ve been to any of my seminars, workshops, you’ve been to any of my webinars. I have talked about this, this is not new. But this is something that happened recently. And this is very fresh on the top of my mind. So I took that and I’m sharing it here hoping that while it’s active on my mind, it may impact you positively.
That’s all for now. You like to this podcast, write a review, rate it, share it. And if you have a question for me, by all means, let me know the number into this podcast and into my radio show and into my office is 888-818-0404. That’s all for now. Be safe wherever you are. And I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye now.