Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
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.