The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #237 - Hitendra Wadhwa, Ph.D.

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I am about to have. So the backstory on today's conversation, I received the pitch about today's author and the book.

Melanie Avalon:
And I just honestly, I just briefly looked at the title and the summary and a little bit about his work. And I was just immediately a yes, I was like, yes, this is definitely something I want to read.

Melanie Avalon:
What's interesting is normally when I'm approaching a book, I do a little bit more research beforehand. And I kind of get an idea about what the thesis is going to be or what the points are going to be.

Melanie Avalon:
And honestly, with this one, I was like, I'm just gonna dive in blind, like I'm just gonna just start reading and see what I learn. And oh, my goodness, friends, this book was amazing. So I'm here with Hatindra Wadwa.

Melanie Avalon:
He is a PhD professor at Columbia Business School and founder of the Inner Mastery, Outer Impact, how your five core energies hold the key to success. And so maybe hearing that title, you can kind of see how I didn't know which direction it was actually going to go in, because there's a lot of work around the ideas of inner success versus outer success and all these things.

Melanie Avalon:
So when I started reading, I was thrilled to learn that it was actually a lot about leadership, which is something that I am something that has always really driven my own personal life. Like I was always, I was just thinking about this, I was always in like the leadership, like in like middle school groups and all of those things, which maybe we can talk a little bit about.

Melanie Avalon:
Because actually, Hatindra talks in the book about workshops and what people actually realistically learn and implement into their lives from that versus the type of work that he talks about in his book.

Melanie Avalon:
But I'm meandering all over the place. In any case, the book was a beautiful collection of Hatindra's personal story, as well as what he has seen as themes and great leaders throughout history and in our world and stories from that.

Melanie Avalon:
And then a lot of his actual work going through these five core energies that we have and how you can grow them, even though one of them is actually growth, but how you can grow them and implement them in your lives and actually have practical change, hopefully for the better.

Melanie Avalon:
So I have so many questions. Hatindra, thank you so much for your work, be for your time, and for the conversation that we're about to have. So thank you so much for being here.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
My pleasure, Melanie. Thank you for the very, very gracious introduction and much looking forward to this time together.

Melanie Avalon:
It's funny, I feel like I already know you because I listened to the audiobook, so I was listening to your voice for so long. Quick question, did you wanna record the audiobook? Did they ask you to? I'm always really curious about that with the audiobooks.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, I know it's a great question, because actually, see, this is my first book. It's been kind of a labor of love. I didn't push myself to write it for many years, even though a certain book agent might knock on my door a few years ago, knowing about my class at Columbia, because I really wanted to get it right.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And I wanted to evolve the thinking to a point where I felt like this was the time. And when I finally reached that place in the last couple of years and started to work on the writing, there was that sort of interest from my side that when we translate this into an audio book that I hope that I'd be able to record it myself.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So yeah, so when that moment came with the publisher, I did sort of throw my hat in the ring. They said, well, they'd have to audition me for it, because they have the right to decide like who actually does the audio book.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And I respected that. And so I did go through the audition and I mean, you're an actress, so you know about auditions. I mean, think about like the most prized theater production, movie production, TV production, that you really wanted to be a part of.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when you hear back from the casting folks that you've got the part, that's how I felt in that moment. And then it came down to LA. And yeah, it was quite an experience having never done book reading before, just to, it's almost very meditative.

Melanie Avalon:
You know, completely. And it's so funny. Similar story for me. They made me audition for my book and then they only let me do the intro. And then they were like, we're getting somebody else for the rest of the book.

Melanie Avalon:
I was like, it's fine. That was my first time recording in studio as well. And it's not, well, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I was like, oh, this is like a whole process. This is a lot.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, yeah. You know what the funniest experience for me was there? And since you have been on the receiving end of that audio book, perhaps you can relate to this. So it's funny, you know, I've been in the United States now for a little over 30 years.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, I came here very early in my adult life from, uh, from having grown up in India. I never really attempted to want to like completely assimilate and adapt my accent. So it is what it is, you know, for better or worse.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But along the way, you know, it does get a little bit sort of a little bit Americanized, right? So people in India feel like, Hey, you speak a little bit, you know, with an American accent. Of course, people here can very easily tell that he's got an accent, which probably means he learned English somewhere else.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But it's interesting because there were, there are a few words which have escaped my notice that it was the recording kind of studio partner who I had there, who was listening to everything I was saying, who was inviting me every now and then to pause and redo that word and redo that word.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And I was awakening myself to the realization, Oh my God, there are these like 17 words that I keep using all the time, which apparently I speak them in a way, which like people must scratch their head and say like, what was that?

Melanie Avalon:
That's so funny. I love that. Actually, I had another question really quick about it. Okay, because I mostly listened on the audiobook. On occasion, I had the written one, and I would read a little bit from that.

Melanie Avalon:
And there was one moment, I don't know what the odds are of this, but I had just listened to the audiobook version. And then I switched to the written form. And I realized that what you had just shared was only in the audiobook.

Melanie Avalon:
Did you do that a lot? Or was it just that one moment that I happened to capture?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Oh my God, you're going to have to go back and jog your memory because I'm very curious to know what that is.

Melanie Avalon:
I will.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't really recall that the recording partner had was he was quite diligent in making sure I was hewing quite, you know, precisely to the text. And so this would be very interesting if there was a certain moment of spontaneity where I just felt in flow and set or offered something that was a little bit of a, you know, launching point off from the book.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, so I'd be very curious.

Melanie Avalon:
I'll definitely find it. And you actually started it the way that you just said you started it by saying, I'm feeling something like I'm feeling compelled to share this right now. And then you like said something.

Melanie Avalon:
And then I just happened to flip to the written form. And it wasn't in that form. And I was like, Oh, that was like, maybe he like added a lot of other things that I missed because people will do that sometimes in the audio books.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I see, I see, yeah. I was saying it was a very meditative experience and so maybe that was one of those moments there.

Melanie Avalon:
Maybe he just let you go.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, exactly.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh my goodness, that's so amazing, I love that. Well, in any case, okay, so I love that, clearly this book is a labor of love for you. So when you were forming the tenants in it, it's kind of ironic because you actually talk early in the book about how, and I mentioned this already, but how people will go to leadership workshops and things and then basically there's this paradox where it's hard for them to actually integrate things into their lives from it.

Melanie Avalon:
So my question is, how did you actually come to your recommendations and what you lead people through and how is that different from like a normal, a quote, normal leadership workshop?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
for our listeners who are not necessarily seeing themselves in leadership positions today or in the future, I just want to highlight that when you and I, when we talk about leadership, that we are using, and you must have had past conversations with this community, Melanie, so feel free to win as well.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But the way I like to think about it is that it's something that life isn't inviting you and me and all of us to be doing all the time. And I explained that through this story, for instance, in the book, which is about this father who, I know his daughter, she was a student of my class and she mentions that when she was a teenager, she had this health issue and they had to go to the hospital and she was going to have a surgery in about a week's time.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
They had to have her under observation. And then she said, but one day into my hospital stay, the physician comes into the room and takes my father out for a private conversation. And I don't know what they were talking about that time, except that several years later, my father told me what actually happened.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And he said that the physician took me out and he said, I have two pieces of bad news for you. One is that this surgery we have to perform on your daughter, I mean, we can't wait one week, we have to do it today.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So we're going to have to rush into this. And secondly, we've been noticing her blood type. And unfortunately, she's not going to be able to get anesthesia for this surgery because of some sensitivities in her blood type.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So we're going to have to perform this surgery without anesthesia. And she said, I don't know that because in that woman, all I saw was my father and him disappear from the room. But then a few minutes later, my father comes back and he's glowing and he comes over to me and he says, daughter, I have two pieces of really good news for you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
She says, yeah, what is it? And he said, well, you know that surgery they were going to do a week from now? They can actually do it today. So by tomorrow, you'll be starting to recover. And within a few days, we'd be actually back at home.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So again, this will be actually ending more quickly. And secondly, they've been observing you here at the hospital over the last 24 hours. And you are the most courageous 14 -year -old they've ever had at this hospital.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So you know what? You're not even going to need any anesthesia. And it'll pain a little here and there, but you'll see it'll be amazing. With your courage, they don't even think that you need any anesthesia.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And she said that, of course, it wasn't easy to go through that surgery that day without anesthesia. But there was no way I was going to do anything but prove myself to be that most courageous 14 -year -old at the hospital.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And she said it was only a few years later that my father actually told me what actually happened. And I share the story because in that moment, was that father when he just heard this piece of news?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And now he's grappling with his own emotions and feelings about, my god, my daughter is going to have to go through so much pain and all of that. And how do I really prepare for that? And in that moment, was he living?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Or was he leading in some ways? Wasn't he leading? And then when he goes and speaks to her, and she could have rolled her eyes and said, oh, you're just being this crazy dad that I don't relate to from time to time.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And bring mom here. I kind of need to speak to somebody even more. Clarity and authority here. Because there's no way I'm going to do the surgery today. And that also without anesthesia. But she leaned into this, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And she opened herself up. And she went on this hero's journey for them. So was she also in that moment? Was she living? Or was she leading? And I'm all for that. because we sometimes think about these two as very separate, you know, a professional and a personal and a public moments and a private moments and leading versus following and all of that.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But really, if you think about leadership as being about in every moment, you know, bringing out the, you know, the maximum possibilities in that moment, you know, trying to kind of sort of, you know, have some kind of noble intent or purpose for that moment, you know, that dinner time conversation with a friend or that, you know, that just happenstance interaction with a stranger somewhere or attending to your flock in your family or having a very public moment, you know, of leadership in an organization you're a part of, wherever and whatever, it's an invitation from life to bring out the best in yourself and bring out the best in the people around you in the service of that noble intent, you know, that noble purpose, whatever it might be, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so when we think of it that way, then essentially it becomes very unifying, you know, for you and for me and for all of us to be questing, right? To be questing for that, okay, what's that state that I need to engage in and walk into and activate, you know, for myself and others?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So that there's always this magic, you know, that is unfolding between me and others. And I may be in a position of power and authority or I may not, and that doesn't matter, but there's, you know, if I'm showing up somewhere, I obviously have some desire or hunger or aspiration, or what is it that I want from that moment?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so, yeah, so, you know, to your question about what I've seen versus what I was striving to do in this book and in my journey as a leadership trainer, one was just to open ourselves up to this almost very kind of like romantic quest, you know, for like, oh wow, what's the best version of me?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
What's the best version of this person? What's the best that could arise in this situation? And what I found is that the traditional way of training people in leadership tended to be quite formulaic.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
There were different competencies that we organized that a leader has to master. Like you have to be, you know, for example, mastering how to have a difficult conversation or how to influence or how to give feedback or how to coach or, you know, et cetera, which are these official outer kind of responsibilities of managers in the world.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then for each of those, there was a curriculum. There are a series of experts. There are TED talks and books and checklists and toolkits and masterclasses. And very quickly for anybody really aspiring to be a good leader, it becomes quite overwhelming to have to learn and master and habituate yourselves to like these, you know, 13 ,000 different things.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And I realized that there is a lot of power in simplifying, in simplicity. Some of the people I most admire were people who did amazing things on the outside, but they were incredibly simple in their pursuits and discipline on the inside.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, like a Steve Jobs with design or a Mother Teresa with like serving the poor or a Gandhi with like, you know, fighting for India's independence. They stripped things to their essence, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And spoken, you know, really worked from that essence. And so I was like, okay, now what's the essence of great leadership? Essentially what I started to more and more get drawn to is that it's not a set of competencies that you acquire from the outside, as much as it is a innate state that you activate from the inside.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And that innate state, it's present in each of us. And it's really a connection with our spirit, a connection with our soul, and in some ways a connection with the universe. When we are calm, when we are centered, when we are egoless and open and connected, you know, with the world around us, we enter that state, you know?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And in that state, we get guided from our intuition and our own inner voice to know how much to ascertain, how much to be agreeable and how much to adapt and how much to be, you know, inflexible and, you know, whatever it is that that moment might demand from us.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so, yeah, so that's the big shift that I've been striving to sort of operationalize and structure and support through science and then give people like practical tools through which they can manifest the state, you know?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
About sort of not feeling like you have to learn a lot of things and almost like retrofit new capacities and qualities in you from the outside, but instead just connect with something pure and beautiful and whole and wise and loving that already exists within us.

Melanie Avalon:
I love that so much and now I feel like listeners can probably tell why I so enjoyed the book. That's a crazy story about the girl getting the surgery and I remember that from the beginning. So in that situation, for example, what I'm wondering, because you mentioned intuition, how we can know where to apply the certain mindset that you just spoke about to our life and to expand on that a little bit more because like doing the surgery without anesthesia is, I mean, that sounds crazy to a lot of people and it clearly was a great leadership moment for both of them and it turned out well.

Melanie Avalon:
Also at the same time, I feel like you could apply that similar sort of thing to other situations where maybe it wouldn't turn out so well. We presumably have pain for a reason, like it's telling us something, putting our hand on a stove.

Melanie Avalon:
Like we can't just put our hand on a stove and be okay with that. How do we actually know intuitively what we should be doing and just add one other little piece to it? Like later in the book, you talk about, this was so interesting to me, you talk about empathy and cognitive empathy versus emotional empathy and how we should always have cognitive empathy but selectively emotional empathy because in certain situations, it actually wouldn't benefit everybody.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, so how do we know? Like how do we know what to do and what not to do?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
It's interesting, right? Because on the one hand, we want to succeed in the outer arena. And on the other hand, we want to always feel very true to ourselves. We want to feel like I was most authentic, you know, in the way I pursued my life.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And sometimes there is a disconnect between what these din of the outer voices kind of tell you, but you should do this and you should do that and, you know, be careful about this and all of that. And yet what in some ways the purity of our inner, you know, kind of, you know, is also telling us.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And yet we can't sort of ignore, you know, the reality of the outer world, the risks and the rewards and everything in between. So I would offer a few thoughts, you know, on that question. One is that in nothing that we are talking about here, is there a encouragement to deny the responsibility to take an objective, rational, scientific, fact -based approach towards the things that are going on in your life?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, you put your hand on a hot stove, it's going to get burned. And that's just not necessarily going to be very good for you. And so there is, you know, at this point enough experience and science to, you know, show that to us.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so we ought to be mindful not to be doing that unless there was some, you know, other crazy compulsion like this lady who had to get, you know, surgery without anesthesia because it would have been otherwise very, you know, life threatening for her to get anesthesia in that moment.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So, so yes, there is the rational, the scientific and the logical, and we should be not in any way suppressing that capacity in us. That said, there has been a lot of research in the last about 15 years that has shown that smart people frequently end up doing dumb things.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, you take the 2008 mortgage meltdown crisis. Why is it that these titans of Wall Street, you know, very, very horned and, you know, some of them are, you know, folks that we've graduated from Columbia Business School.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Why is it that they were struggling so much with being really far thoughtful about the kind of risks that they brought into the financial system that almost wrecked the, you know, the whole national and global economy?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Well, what the research is showing now is that just because you are very smart from an IQ standpoint, doesn't immunize you from actually from time to time, getting very biased and distorted in your thinking and your judgments and your beliefs and your decisions, because you just have a certain emotional attachment to something.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So that emotional attachment to that project, to that relationship, to that sort of, you know, particular pursuit that you're deeply committed to for now. makes you walk into the room with a clear intent that I'm going to defend this person.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I am going to make sure that we do not shut down this project. I just need to continue down this path because I'm so attached to it. And then what you do is that you end up unconsciously harnessing the power of your IQ, your intelligence, to argue in favor, to harness all the facts and logic and the earth you have in favor of that thing that you are drawn to.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Not because it's the right thing to do, but because you're very attached to it. And so the smarter you are from an IQ standpoint, the more the research shows you run the risk that you will, in some ways, outsmart the other people in the room because you'll be able to think more faster on your feet.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You'll be able to answer in a very compelling way. You'll be able to harness and galvanize all the facts. You'll be able to shoot your critics down. And in some ways, painfully so, right? You see that happening today.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You and I, we're living in quite a divided times today. And people are getting very polarized. And if you look at the comments that they leave behind in social media and or in news articles, in the comments section, you see how people just basically read whatever they wish to read and draw out conclusions based on what they wish to draw out conclusions, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
That the dispassionate, objective, humble, open, inquiring spirit has been somewhat compromised at today's time, right? And so that's what the research shows. Hey, listen, be cautious just because there's logic and data and intellect that you have been gifted with doesn't mean that you will find it to be a reliable resource unless you're working a little bit on your ego and your attachments as well, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so this is where the intuition or capacity is in you and me and all of us come in, which is that what the intuition aspect of our being does is it obligates us. It guides us towards actually checking in a little bit on our inner state, not just on our outer activity of decision -making.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And the inner state is, can you step back a little bit from that choice that you have to make about what school should I send my son to? Or should we buy this home or not? Or should I actually have a hard conversation with this person because I don't think this relationship right now is working out for me or not?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Or how should I really show up in this room? How firm should I be with this person? Or et cetera, right? Whatever those issues are that you and I are grappling with. What this intuition sort of approach says is that step back from the battlefield, collect the data, make the observations, make sure you have some logical engagement with the topic, but then step back.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when you step back, take a walk in nature, go and meet and talk about it to a completely objective, dispassionate friend or mentor who has no stake in the answer, except for just your future welfare and goodwill, or go and meditate.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So just step back and make sure your emotions are calm, make sure you are opening yourself up to listening to the whispers of the universe in whichever form they come. Because maybe they'll tell you, hey, Hechenbra, this is the way you're thinking about it, but you may want to talk to that friend because they often bring very fresh perspectives.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Or you remember that incident from three years ago? Maybe a lesson you learned there is actually quite relevant here. Or you've been thinking about it this way and this way and only this way, but what if you also bring this thinking to focus for yourself?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And maybe it'll make you change your fuller evaluation of this, et cetera. So we open ourselves up to these kinds of inklings and stirrings that come from within. And when we become fully open and are not inhibiting any of these kinds of ways in which truth is trying to knock on our door to let itself in, you just never know what that holistic, full, complete, objective perspective might emerge as.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And you might end up in a place where you say, this is not what I was hoping the answer would be, or this is not what I initially thought the answer would be. But now that I've looked at everything in totality, this is the best place for me to be.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And while the outcome is still something I'm trying to shape or aspects of it are not the ideal ones for me, this is much better than where I would have gone if I'd just stayed with my rational, attached, ego -driven kind of way of thinking about it.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so I encourage any or all of us for the hard and complex and nuanced decisions in your life to develop in ourselves that capacity to step back, open ourselves up, in a sense, surrender the outcome so that your subconscious and your conscious meld together to give you a more total and complete view of the situation.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then for some of us, which is what I talked about in the last chapter of the book on transcendence, for some of us, we also might realize that in doing that, we are not merely contacting our subconscious and our conscious mind, but also potentially our super conscious mind.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And our super conscious mind is where we start to connect to, in some ways, the infinite wisdom in the universe, just like animals and other parts of nature just are incredible in their capacity to operate with such intelligence in their domains.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
We may also in that way, perhaps harmonize in a sense with whatever it is that the universe in that moment is inviting from us.

Melanie Avalon:
You talked in the end Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how he added on this transcendent layer at the very end that wasn't there originally, which I had no idea about. I was like, oh, nobody ever told me about that.

Melanie Avalon:
Quick question about the intuition and everything that you just spoke about. What about people on the other side, so people who don't experience as much the impulsivity with decisions, but rather getting locked into overthinking or feeling like it's too much intuition and they just don't do anything.

Melanie Avalon:
I mean, I experienced this a lot, like which decision to make. So what about those people?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And that's a great point. So one of the things I've sought to do is take the five energies that you mentioned the book highlights that all of us possess and that can be the foundation of a life well -lived and of success and leadership and work, purpose, wisdom, growth, love, self -realization.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
These five energies. And one thing I've done is translate each of them into a set of very simple, easy to understand actions. So there are actions that put like sort of like purpose out there, put love out there, put wisdom out there.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So in connection with what you just asked, you know, what about those who are struggling with being indecisive or just unconfident about like making a call on something in my chapter or call leading with purpose, where I took a deep dive on Abraham Lincoln and the arc of his journey and how much there is for any or all of us to learn about how to deal with the complexities of life from the, yeah, just the struggles that he faced.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
There is an action that I speak about there called push, pull, pause or pivot. And essentially what this action is saying is that in any situation where you are grappling with like a hard decision or you're hitting against some wall and wanting something not getting it, you have four options available to you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
One is to be tenacious, keep fighting the good fight and pushing forward. The other is to, yeah, just kind of step back and realize, wow, I thought this was the right thing for me to do, but along the way I got some resistance and I've learned something from that and now I'm realizing that actually I was wrong.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, this is probably not the right thing to do because I'm open enough to recognize where I had some misjudgment. That's the pullback, right? Or pause, you know, means that this is actually not the right time for me to take action.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I either need to collect more data or it very well might be that I need to let things simmer a little bit. I need to let things unfold a little bit on their own before I take any kind of, you know, action myself.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then pivot means that I do need to act, but not in the way I was originally thinking. I'm learning enough about the situation now to realize that I'll be better off first talking to that person or taking on this alternative sort of path rather than the one I was on.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so those are the four choices you have. Now, what that means is that sometimes we are in error because we are pushing too hard when we should have just paused. This wasn't the right time to tell and, you know, require this person to buy into something from you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
It would have been better to wait another two days when this person was more relaxed and they were, you know, less sort of agitated about something on their mind and you would have had a better chance, you know, to get their buy -in about that, you know, the thing that you're looking for.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So instead of pushing, you should have paused, but the opposite is also true. Some of us might end up pausing a lot. And instead of pausing, we should have pushed because there was an opportunity. There was a window of time.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So the Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln, you know, really focuses on a special window during which the Lincoln's four years are kind of, you know, essentially up, but he has been reelected now, you know, for another four -year term.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
The current Congress is a lame Congress because it's only going to be, you know, in session for, you know, one more time in these final months of their time before they get, you know, essentially replaced by the new Congress based on the people who have been elected now.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So in those about two, three months in that November to January, February timeframe, Lincoln had a special opportunity to really push and get a commitment from a majority, a two -thirds majority of the House of Representatives to ultimately allow him to pass the constitutional amendment, you know, to essentially, you know, essentially banish slavery forever from American soil.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And there were his advisors who were saying, Mr. President, this is going to be too hard. There are enough people here who are resistant to this, you know, and all of that. There's just no way we can get to a two -thirds and all of that.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And you know, if any of you have seen the film, you'll know how Lincoln just kind of pushed, pushed, pushed, coaxed, cajoled, even bribed and threatened some of the House of Representatives sort of politicians in order to kind of just make sure he had enough on his plate because he just saw this limited window of time before the next sort of, you know, wave of politicians who had been elected came in where these people were not as concerned about the public opinion right now.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
They were kind of, you know, some of them were retiring, some of them had lost. And as they were making their way out, he just wanted to kind of get this thing, you know, done. And so for me, having a collection of stories like this really alerts me to the realization that if you are not making a decision, if you are allowing yourself to stew over something for too long, you are making a decision, you know, and the decision you're making is to let the present moment go.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Let maybe a certain window of opportunity pass you by, right? And you don't want to run that risk because there could have been things that were available to you that will not be available to you perhaps in two weeks' time.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome, yeah, you literally just said what I was thinking, which was, okay, so it's basically making a non -action, an action, it's a nice reframe because rather than just stewing in this or wallowing in this vague sense of what to do and getting stuck there, there's like four options.

Melanie Avalon:
And one of them is to just sit and pause for a moment. Okay, I like that. I like how it's much more actionable and provides something you can actually do, even if it's to do nothing. You mentioned the current culture today and how everybody, it's really intense and a lot of different opinions and things.

Melanie Avalon:
And so I personally, I don't watch the news at all. I just figure that if it's important enough, it will find its way to me through whatever content I am consuming and people I'm talking to. And something I have experienced with that is, because I really, I love pursuing joy and quote, happiness and all of these things.

Melanie Avalon:
And it can feel selfish to feel that way that maybe if you're focusing on your own joy and happiness that now you're not caring about the rest of the world or something like that. So what are your thoughts on the whole debate about selfishness versus selflessness and is mastering our own inner core, is that selfish?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, that's a beautiful question. And you reveal very sweet spirit at your core in the desire you have for happiness and joy, and yet the sense of guilt and burden you feel about not wanting to, in any way, not show up for the world as well.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So let's work together on that. So one reflection that comes to mind, I befriended this beautiful, lovely soul, Jeanette Petrie, and she had spent some time with Mother Teresa and had made a documentary film on her.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So you actually see Mother Teresa live in action in that film. It's beautiful, actually, and very, very eye -opening, because you're basically in the presence of this incredible saint and change maker.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
One of the things that most struck me about spending those 90 minutes in the documentary with Mother Teresa is that between her and these sisters, you know, missionaries of charity, as they are going about the day and serving, serving, serving, serving, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
These dying and the diseased and the destitute. And some of those visuals are not easy to take. I mean, you're not even in the room. You know, you're just watching it from the comfort of your own space, but as you're watching this work that they're doing with some of these folks who are clearly in a state of physical suffering, they were perhaps homeless and out there, you know, abandoned on the streets, and then these missionaries came and picked them up and brought them and trying to kind of help heal them.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You get struck that there are only two feelings. There are only two dominant feelings that you see flowing through the spirit of these nuns and Mother Teresa, right? In the facial expressions and the tone and the eyes.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
What do you think those two are, Melanie? Sad. Sad, right? One of my students went and volunteered for her and he said like, yeah, initially it was very hard for me even to see their physical state because some of them were so just almost like near starving, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Or they had some, you know, wounds, you know, on their skin and stuff like that. It was very hard for me to banish them because it was just so hard for my eyes. So sadness or discomfort or pain, you know, there might be love, you'd expect love because after all these are very loving nuns, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But you might expect the other emotion to be something like this. Well, that's not true because- Joy, are you going to say joy? Yes, absolutely. There was basically love and joy, love and joy. That's all you see on them.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Okay, and Mother Teresa once, you know, said it to her missionary. She said, look, these people, they don't need to see your sullen faces. They already are having a very hard life, right? The first criteria that they use to sift through the applications they get for being a missionary of charity nun, the first criteria they use is that, are you a cheerful person?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
That's really interesting. Yeah.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, yeah. The second one is like, okay, do you have a service orientation and all that. Again, just to put it in her words, because she spoke in such simple yet profound ways, you know, she said, look, you cannot give what you do not have.

Melanie Avalon:
Mm -hmm

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Right? So, now let's apply that to the question you raised. I have found that in today's world, there are a large number of people who are getting very stirred about the injustice they see in the world, about the oppression they see in the world.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And their beautiful heart is immediately drawn to wanting to be of some service to a cause or another cause, sort of fight for this, sort of fight for that. What I'm finding is that there is a lot of emphasis on that sort of like outer kind of work.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But these same individuals are not spending much time on the inner work. And the inner work is, when you show up to be of service to any cause in the world, are you showing up from a place where you are connected with your core, where you are calm, you are joyful from within, you are very centered and open, and therefore, you are prepared to bring your best self.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when you do that, A, it has a more infectious positive impact on the people around you, so that they too start to experience more positivity, more joy. And B, you can think more clearly, you have access to more energy and resources from within you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And therefore, you can last longer in that pursuit of that purpose, because you don't get burnt out or have poorer health outcomes or just feel like depressed and feel like, I can't take this anymore.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
It's so hard to be a school teacher in the school, just look at the wreckage around me and all of that. No, you are taking an hour in the morning to just connect with and nurture your own spirit within.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when you do, you've developed a little bit of this armor around you, so that when you walk into these tough to serve environments, the cause, you do deeply care for the cause of education or this social justice issue or whatever, you do deeply care.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You can actually engage in those battles. I mean, imagine if there were soldiers fighting a virtuous war, and they were so busy fighting that they were not spending any time really taking care of their physique, taking care of their practice, taking care of the art of warfare and other disciplines that they should engage in in order to show up physically and mentally really strong to engage in those battles.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so somehow we have created a world where we really honor people's visible outer acts of service without also encouraging them or really, in a sense, almost inviting them and requiring them to come into that arena from a place of deep inner work, deep preparation, deep strength building, yeah, just kind of like joy connection from within.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so to me, if any of you ever feel guilty about like, how can I be in joy when there's so much pain that my sister is going through or this community is going through, and I'm meant to be in service for them, please remember this Mother Teresa story we just shared with you, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
That in fact, here is this individual who gave her whole life to be in service of alleviating the pain of those the world had abandoned. But in doing that, she did not give up her capacity to stay in a state of joy.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And now you might ask, how did she do that? And of course, there were these disciplines and practices that she and her colleagues that Missionary of Charity would engage in every morning when they would wake up early and be very prayerful and be deeply connected with, in their case, Jesus and that immersive sort of discipline contemplative practices that they must have sort of acquired as part of their church.

Melanie Avalon:
That is so powerful. That is a beautiful reframe. I love what you said about how you can't give what you don't have. And it reminds me of something else you mentioned in the book, which was the opposite of that.

Melanie Avalon:
If we admire certain qualities in other people, it means we have them in ourselves. I thought that was really cool. Does that mean on the flip side, some people don't have certain qualities within them and don't admire them in other people?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Well, I mean, one way to think about the flip side is that when you are getting very irritated or judgmental about certain shortcomings in other people, then in some ways, maybe it's a statement about, you know, the same shortcomings in yourself, you know, it's, it's like this, the world is a place of duality.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
There's light and then there's darkness and we, in some ways, create our own version of the world based on what we are paying most attention to where we are putting energy and there's really not a lot of distinction between the inner world and the outer world.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so the way we are showing up in the outer world, like, for example, right now, to me, with some of the struggles and troubles that we are having across political and social lines in America, for instance, you know, what this is revealing to me is more the state of unrest and restlessness and judgment that there exists within a given community, within a given family and within a given individual, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Because it starts from the individual, then the next place that shows up is in the interaction of that individual with the close parties around them, their family and friends, and from there it grows into the community and from there it becomes something which is a little bit more broader in a social thing, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So anything you're seeing on the outside is really in some ways a mirror and a reflection of what is happening on the inside.

Melanie Avalon:
The last two shows that I recorded are interviews. We talked about this concept that you just mentioned and it was, there was two completely polar opposite opinions on one of the, one of the guests, she studies like the animal kingdom and behavioral science and humans and animals.

Melanie Avalon:
And so her big thesis is that, that today we blame society for basically everything, but it really starts in our brains and society is not really the cause. And then the second guest I interviewed, it was, we were talking about perfectionism and the thesis was basically that it's coming from society, that society is the issue.

Melanie Avalon:
So I'm super curious, even though you just touched on it, this idea that society is to blame for the way things are, or is it like, does it go full circle, like, like where does it start inside of us or outside the issues that we're experiencing?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful question. So one is the perfectionist who feels like it's the world that kind of like socializes us and you're thinking about ourselves that way and judging ourselves for not being perfect.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And the other is like this individual who said that it's not society, it's we ourselves, right? That should take responsibility.

Melanie Avalon:
To clarify the second perspective a little bit, she basically says, like, our brains are wired a certain way. They're wired to see kits of dopamine. They're wired to see hierarchies in society. This is just the way we're wired.

Melanie Avalon:
And so we kind of project what we're wired to do onto society, and then we blame society as the problem.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
There are two ways I can answer that question. So one is based on the frame that I mostly get when I'm having conversation like this here in the United States, right? And that frame is one where the assumption is that you and I, we are sort of like tabular or so, you know, when we are born, we are like a blank slate, and then things happen to us, and then the things that we do, and gradually over time, that blank state start to have certain writings on it, either that we have chosen our own or that the world has chosen for us through the conversation that parents had with us, and then over time, other caregivers and beyond, and all of that.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So if you take that frame, then I like to really fuse opposites, which is to rather than take a position on one end or the other of that spectrum to recognize the importance of both, which means to always, always recognize that you and I, we have agency, we have choice -making, and we are ultimately the authors of our own life story, and regardless of what's coming to us from the outside, that we have the choice of what attitude we bring.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And once we bring the right attitude, sometimes opportunities show up, and breakthroughs come, and the right subset of people from within the world starts to get drawn to our inner circle, and we form, in a sense, our own ecosystem, regardless of the state of the world, based on that, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then on the other hand, it's also true that we are ultimately a function of the time and space that we live in, and we have to be very attentive and mindful to that environment and adapt to it, and be recognizing that certain choices will come to us or be taken away from us based on the conditions and times we live in.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You're living in a peaceful society, and uncertain something might happen, and suddenly there's a war that goes on, you can't just assume there is still a peaceful society and keep living the old way.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You have to adapt to that environment and situation that you're thrust into, and so on the one hand, what that means is that as we adapt, it kind of looks as if our life has taken a different turn, that we are in some ways handicapped and victimized by the conditions around us or influenced by them, but it doesn't have to be if you also look at it from the vantage point of your inner life, because on the inside, you always have the opportunity to choose your attitude.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You always have the opportunity to pursue your purpose. It may be that you just have to re -express that purpose in a different way from what you could in the past, and the example I like to use of Nelson Mandela.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
He was an anti -apartheid fighter for the black community in South Africa, and then at some point he gets thrown into prison, where he ends up being there for 27 years, and he said early in his prison life that he just had to do a reset, and he said nothing was going to change.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Nothing was going to change, because I had to fight on the inside just in the same way as I was fighting on the outside, and he noticed within the prison system that there was discrimination against the blacks.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
They were only allowed to wear shorts. Whites were wearing trousers, and they were given less calories than the whites in their food, and so he was fighting against those, and over a few years he engaged in reform in the prison system, and then of course after that he comes out and becomes this larger than life, incredible transformational leader to again keep the fight going on the outside.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So that's the fusing of opposites, which is yes, on the one hand we are going to be shaped by the circumstances of our time, and we are going to be influenced by those around us, and yet from the inside we have the capacity to ever stay vigilant and therefore to make choice -making happen on our own.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Now I want to throw in, with your permission, a more expansive frame around this. Can I play with that with you for a couple of minutes?

Melanie Avalon:
Please yes, please. Thank you

Hitendra Wadhwa:
The expanded frame is to think of yourself as a journeyer in truth -seeking and the pursuit of enlightenment. And that journey may, in fact, have begun much before you were born, perhaps even before you were conceived.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I, for one, having grown up in a culture like India where there is a belief in eternal life and in never even having been born. I don't know, it's just very hard for me to imagine that there was a finite point at which I was born.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I just feel like my spirit has always existed and it will always exist beyond the physical confines of my body. And when I look at it from that vantage point and reincarnation, for instance, which I would love at some point for Western scientists to at least open up a platform of research and thinking that is founded on that assumption.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I'm not sure why they don't, because if I look at the numbers from Pew Research and Harris Polls and others, there are a large number of people who believe in these afterlife matters and reincarnation and things.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so I think it's subject worthy of some scientific study. But anyway, so coming from that frame, to me, it's like this, that you die, you get at that point to go into this form of what you might call the astral plane.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then at some point, karmically, based on what desires and hungers and unresolved issues, etc., that you have left still to process and learn from and acquire more mastery over on the earthly plane.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
At some point, you get pulled into wanting to come back into an embodied form, into a physical form and relive on planet Earth and start going through the next part of your journey. And in that moment, when you get pulled back, at some level, it's a karmic pull by your karma.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And what that means is that where you are born and the circumstances and conditions in which you grow up has something to do with your past dispositions. And they also have to do with the conditions in which life believes you have the greatest chance for the next stage of the unfoldment of your growth.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So you are thrust into situations that can be your greatest teachers and the twists and turns that life takes. It takes those, not merely to entertain you and to give you a smooth life, but to actually be that next class that you need to sit in and take in order to open yourself up and get a little bit closer to that fully natal enlightened state that is your true nature.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that before, and something for listeners that Hetendre does in the book is he does go through a whole conversation about science, religion, faith, the differences there, how to approach that.

Melanie Avalon:
But it is really interesting that I mean, I haven't hardcore looked into the research, but I feel like they have studied a little bit, you know, the idea of the soul or the consciousness being separate from the body.

Melanie Avalon:
But yeah, they haven't really, I mean, I haven't seen any reincarnation studies. So that's really, really interesting. And also, I'm just thinking about that now. I literally, you said expansive, I'm literally feeling my mind like expand, because I've never, I've never, I don't want to say I've never believed in reincarnation, but I haven't thought I haven't taken it seriously, I guess I haven't really thought about it much.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah. It's just kind of like open yourself up to that, right? Sometimes you'll be in a certain relationship and you'll feel certain pulls that come to you or certain repulsions that will come to you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And they are so strong that it's very hard to explain them on the basis of the two interactions you had with this person in the past in this life. But if you open yourself up to the fact that maybe this is a soul and there's my soul and they have been past moments where we have cross paths and we may have had certain emotional or other forms of interaction that have left something in my psyche, in my karmic sort of imprint that is starting to play up right now.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So anyway, that's just an example of how it can become a very practical guide or two.

Melanie Avalon:
really expansive part for me. And this goes back to the selfless thing and the ego. This is what I latched onto when you said that. And then I judged myself because I'm like, that's a really egotistical thought.

Melanie Avalon:
But my first thought was, well, if that was the way it was, that would take a lot of stress out of my life because I'm so, I'm so haunted by time and like wanting to do all of these things in this short lifetime.

Melanie Avalon:
And I'm like, so I'm like, wow, if that was the case, I would get rid of a lot of pressure. But then that feels selfish because I'm just making it about my own enjoyment. Again, we're going back to the joy thing.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, well, here's the thing, right? I mean, the soul is omnipresent, is omniscient, means it knows everything, and it is present in every atom in creation. And if that's the transcendental, expansive, true nature of your essence, of your spirit, obviously it cannot be if you only see yourself as this embodied being in this body at this point in time, it's hard to think about how you can be connected with every atom in creation.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But if you were to actually think about yourself as consciousness, and a wave versus a particle, which we know from quantum physics, is actually true of the identity of an electron, which we used to think of as a particle, but it actually can be also thought of as a wave.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
If that were true of you and me, then these yearnings that you are speaking about at a human level, of wanting to simultaneously be, I don't know, I'm putting words in your mouth now, but be in 17 different experiences at the same time, and not have to give up on this in order to also get that, and in one life be able to do so much.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
That's basically the hunger of the soul, which is boundless in its capacities, but is bounded in its physical embodiment right now.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, exactly. And so because I do feel like the soul is transcendent and the consciousness goes on. And so I think that's why I'm like, I don't really have a fear of death. I've never, it's funny. It's not funny.

Melanie Avalon:
My sister, she had a really intense fear of death that she had to deal with. And I was always fascinated by that because I don't really have a fear of death, but I'm like I said, I'm haunted. But I just feel like there's so little time and there's so much I want to do.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
That's beautiful and that's special to not fear death. You might remember in that last chapter, speak a little bit about near -death experiences.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, yes, yes.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, so for those of our listeners who feel like they don't yet have that, you know, grace and capacity in them to be fearless about death and the way you've described your state, I might just encourage you to kind of study that, you know, feel a little bit because it's incredibly affirming.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
It's affirming what life, but it's also affirming about the peaceability, even the sense of joy, and the sense of, you know, possibilities that people experience when they confront, you know, confront that what appears to be like the ultimate end, but could be much more than that.

Melanie Avalon:
Do you know Raymond Moody by chance?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
anymore. The name is very familiar, yeah.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, this is perfect timing. I'm feeling that's stirring you're talking about. He really popularized the near -death experiences. He actually termed the coin in his book. He has a lot of books, but one is called Life After Life, and that, I think that's the first time they use near -death experiences.

Melanie Avalon:
He was supposed to come on the show like a few years ago, and he never actually came on. But we did quite a few phone calls, and he's, I'm just going on tangent, but he is just the most, he is the most wonderful person.

Melanie Avalon:
And talking to him, I just feel like it lights up my soul. It's been on the back of my mind that I need to lock him down and actually get him on the show. So, okay, I'm gonna, when we're done, I'm gonna reach out and really dive into that.

Melanie Avalon:
So thank you. Ooh, I'm excited. Another quick question about this idea of purpose, because you talk about three different types of people in the book. So those that, you know, those that really feel their purpose, and then those that don't really care about purpose or don't seem to, and then those that are worried that they'll never find their purpose.

Melanie Avalon:
So, I guess two questions. The first question is, so I'm definitely in the group that's like purpose -driven. Do you think we need, this is a very specific question, but do you think we need to define our purpose in specific words or terms?

Melanie Avalon:
And the reason I ask that is, because I feel so purpose -driven, but if you were to ask me what's your purpose, I don't know that I can define it. I just feel it. So how important is it to actually define our purpose?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And do you feel that you're, for the most part, making choices and living, pursuing things that are in concert with that intuitive visceral feel of purpose for you?

Melanie Avalon:
Mm -hmm. Yes

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, yeah. And I surround all these beautiful things that you're doing right in the area of health and nutrition and well being.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, it's just learning and sharing what I've learned with other people and connecting with really wonderful people. And yeah, but it feels very vague though. I don't have language to define it. And I've thought about this quite a bit.

Melanie Avalon:
And so then when I got to your purpose chapter, I was really excited to read it and ask you this question.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah. Well, I mean, you almost like just defined it for us right there, right? You, you talked about how it's, you know, in certain life affirming themes and topics, I'm sensing, you know, joy and health and goodwill and connection are part of that, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Wanting to kind of learn, you know, as much about it. So part of your purpose appears to be around your own personal journey and your growth. And then part of it appears to be this one about like sharing it, right?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And on surrounding yourself by like kindred spirits.

Melanie Avalon:
it's an incessant desire to learn and share it with other people. Because when I learn, so I love learning, and then I learned, I'm like, have to tell people. And not because I think I'm right or wrong, just because if it affects me a certain way positively, I want other people to experience that potentially, because different things work for different people.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
True, true, true, true. And you've spoken about how you don't like to read the news directly, so I'm sensing a lot of choicefulness in the way you engage with the world around you, that you want to see in that world, the things that really help uplift people, inspire people, and your own self, and then share that with the world.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So it seems to me that it's already quite clear for you, like you've also said, do you have to put it in words? For most people, it can be helpful to articulate it in words. Sometimes there's a little bit of a clarifying sort of impact it has on us, certainly for others, but sometimes even for our own self.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
At the same time, I don't see anything as a requirement that you can't have purpose if you can't put it down in words. And I'll be really sort of very affirmative about that way of just disabusing yourself from any such sort of feeling that you need to feel an obligation to put it in words because you need to think about it.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Knowledge and insight and wisdom. These are qualities of the soul and of the universe, and they have existed and operated much before any of us developed language and started to think about these things.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You think about it, I mean, Newton's laws of motion and or Einstein's famous E is equal to MC square, to the extent these are true, they have been true even before we had any mathematics or any other form of physics or things like that.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so language usually is something that is following, not necessarily preceding the core insight. For any and all of us, there have been probably instances where we've just felt something and that feeling has been very, very tangible for us and very clarifying for us and very direction setting for us.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But it may not have shown up as thoughts in very word clothes forms at that time. Sometimes that transition from that feeling to seeing it clothes in certain words can be like milliseconds. So unless you're really paying attention to that inner state, you might actually start associating it with the words that it generated just through the habit of thought inside you.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But what you didn't realize is actually before that thought was that instinct, that impulse that's stirring within you. There's a beautiful quote, which I don't have in the book. It's from Jonathan Ive, who was Apple's chief designer during the Steve Jobs 2 .0 coming back to Apple and turning it around and taking it to an incredible place of a trillion dollar company.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And he was the partner of Steve in the launch of these pioneering products, like the iPod and then the iPad and the iPhone. And he says, at first, he talks about the phenomenon of creativity. And he says, at first, there is just that spark within.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And he said, and then you give it form in words. And then it's still very fragile. And you can't really trust sharing this with lots of people. So you may just very confidentially share it with just one or two people.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And then it becomes a little bit more solid and clear, and then you can prototype. And now you can take it to more people, et cetera. It's just amazing the way he describes that arc of that creative journey.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But he starts from that point of that spark. And so I am cheering you on in continuing to pursue what you're pursuing, even without feeling that you have to have to put in words. If you're feeling very clarified, very harmonized, very aligned about it.

Melanie Avalon:
Awesome, okay, that's so helpful. And I guess I haven't really thought about it, but like, so what I'm doing literally right now at this moment, I'm talking to you, I'm learning from you and sharing it with, you know, all the listeners.

Melanie Avalon:
So I like, this is a very purpose driven moment for me. And it's funny because I've always been so growing up and like I said, I felt this way for so long. And I would always meet people who, you know, didn't know what they wanted to do or seemed casual about it.

Melanie Avalon:
And I was almost a little bit envious of that state because I was like, well, that would be, again, going back to a lot less stressful. I almost indeed people who didn't seem as purpose driven because that seemed a little bit easier because then you, it seemed like you wouldn't let yourself down as much if you weren't aggressively pursuing something.

Melanie Avalon:
I've evolved my feelings about that a bit, but for those other two types of people, so people who seemingly don't care about finding a purpose and then those people who can't seem to find their purpose, what do you offer to them?

Melanie Avalon:
And then just to add one last thing to it, it's interesting because presumably people listening to this show or reading your book or going to the workshops, presumably I could be wrong, but I'm assuming most of them are looking to seek certain things.

Melanie Avalon:
But what about that camp that just doesn't want to? Should they just live that way, I guess? Yeah, so what about the other people with purpose?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, I mean, my guess is that probably those who are not very much active and seeking purpose and they're what I call in a very cruising phase in their life, you know, they're probably not listening to you and me have this conversation right now.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And I respect that very much. I think it is to each unto their own. And I don't feel the need to offer any advice or guidance to anybody who is not seeking it. You know, I respect the state that they're in, you know, at this point in the journey and it might be at some point that they feel that hunger, you know, at some point they feel something arising within that, you know, been there, done that, you know, life just seems to be a repetition of the same cycle.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I keep having the same kind of conversations that these parties I go to, et cetera, and I am looking for something else now. My soul is feeling a little bit dry, you know, and so typically at some point, you know, even for those individuals, there comes a moment where, and when that might be, whether it's at the age of 20 or 40 or 60 or perhaps not in this life and not in the next life, but in three lives from now, it's a natural state to get into ultimately to want to ask these questions about why was I born and what's the true relationship between me and the universe and you know, is there in fact a sense of order and justice to things around me, which otherwise seem very random, et cetera.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
So even before you find your purpose, you know, it's quite possible that these stirrings and these questions and this curiosity arises to look at things from a place of deeper puzzlement, a sense of awe and intrigue and, you know, and that kind of like starts to take us down a path of truth seeking, you know, and some of us end up with the scriptures and some with, and preachers and some end up with philosophy and some just, yeah, just being a student of one's own life journey and starting to record learnings from one's experience.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But any or all of that are just kind of like beautiful pathways that ultimately take us to a place where certain breakthroughs arise. And as they arise, what's really unique and special is that we may be taking our own pathway, we may be going down very, very different sort of, you know, kind of, yeah, just journeys and hiking points, but we all seem to ultimately be getting closer and closer to the top of the same mountain.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when we get there, we start to actually find that we were all quite unified in the quest that we were on for eternal happiness, for eternal peace, for eternal love. And so for those who are in a cruising stage right now, I, you know, cheer them on and wish them well.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And when the time is right for them, then hopefully they'll know where to come to, you know, to find the calling. Now, for those who don't have the purpose right now, but want something, you know, I like to say very simply that don't ever feel that you don't have purpose because your purpose is to find your purpose.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And that's a great purpose to have, to be on fire with these kinds of asks and questions about sort of, let me try to make more meaning out of the situations in my life and the stirrings, you know, that I have within me and my highs and lows and what is it that gives me a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment from, but then regardless of what the world might say from the outside and, you know, et cetera, right.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And you start doing some of that inner tilling of your soil. And then over time, it starts to, yeah, you know, reap rich rewards and bear fruit.

Melanie Avalon:
the same way in that I really want people to do what they want to do. So that's another benefit of having a podcast is I can just create the content or like writing a book like you and then people can, you know, the people who want to consume it or read it or listen can.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm not like thrusting it down anybody's throats. I think the thing I struggle with the most as far as understanding how to actually change the inner part. And for friends, I highly, highly recommend this book.

Melanie Avalon:
We only briefly touched on everything in it. There's so much content in it. But there's one action where when I experienced this, I just don't know how you literally do that. And it's so forgiveness, like I can, like, it's not like a long list of people that I feel like I can't forgive.

Melanie Avalon:
But if there's something that happens, I can, like I can intellectually understand forgiveness, but actually like feeling it depending on the situation. Again, it's pretty rare, but still, I just don't know how you, I don't know how you feel something you don't feel.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah no i appreciate it and look coming on a human passing life there are times moments and people and situations that we feel we've been treated very unfairly you know what something and perhaps somebody is inflicted some something i don't know.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Obviously situations like that that many you may be grappling with or have in the past and i respect that very much because those are not easy. There was a situation with one individual who had you know i think been really really unfair to me in my early twenties you know in that moment we severed our relationship and i moved on and.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And i wanted to quest for this capacity to forgive now i do want to distinguish between outer forgiveness was enough forgiveness and. And as i say in the book on the outside it's not at all obvious that there is one single right answer you know in some cases we should.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Just truly forgive on the outside and move on you know it's a relationship with somebody that we love and trust and you know we're all human and we make mistakes in this person is willing to take you know responsibility over their behavior and.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Be very contrite about it and you know why would you just keep that grudge going when you know when the person is striving to move on but there are situations where you may want to. You know give the other person some form of a ultimatum or or sort of seek to distance yourself in that relationship or maybe even litigate against that person in court etc so.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I mean i can't really claim that i know exactly what the right thing to do is on the outside and any any given situation but. On the inside in the forgiveness that's kind of what i you know was offering a certain model for you know in the book and.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And so in my case on the outside i decided that i was going to continue to separate myself from this person but what i noticed on the inside when i wanted to forgive. Is that i really wasn't there yet you know so there will be these moments where somebody would bring that person up because they were still in a mutual circle you know and all that and so they bring that person up now i hadn't seen that person.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Years but what i noticed is that if the mutual connection that we had if this person would bring up that person. In a positive way in some ways than i would feel disappointed and if they would bring them up in a negative way in a gossipy way i would actually feel happy you know.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And i realized that like wow i haven't allowed myself from within to really make this journey where i only want to from within you know wish them well. You know hope for them to grow into you know the best version of themselves and be ultimately over time in a state of joy right in a way that doesn't cause harm to anybody else i really hadn't gotten to that point you know i was still at the point where i was like you know.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
She deserves this or this or that what have you and it took me years you know to kind of come fully fully work that out because this was a pretty deep deep sort of groove in me or a wound in me. But i at some point felt that i think i'd gotten that i to that place and i remember once i encountered that person you know by happenstance again.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And some public space and i was talking to somebody and i just heard this voice behind me and it was this individual's voice and this was like 20 years later. And physically of course a personal change a little bit but the voice is so profoundly indicative of like a soul in some ways that i instantly recognize the person just by hearing the voice you know and you know.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Coming from behind me and i looked around and was this person but in that moment we met you know we met briefly just just in that public space and. And it was it was it was a beautiful coming link of spirits and you know all we did in that moment was a smile warmly check in on each other cheer each other on for our lives and.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And recognize that we may or may not meet again, but we were just kind of happy that our paths across once in a positive way after that severing events, you know from 20 years ago and i felt so good i felt so good about.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
That moment because i just felt from inside that i'd finally achieved this proof point of this inner victory, the reason why that inner victory is important is because. When you know as Mandela told Bill Clinton when he asked him like you know, how is it that you managed to forgive your captors you know i'm in 20 spend 27 years in prison.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
And Mandela said look if i didn't forgive them I would still be in prison, I would still be in prison, and so the real capacity to really sort of dig into our inner soil and till it till it until you know that the seeds of forgiveness, you know get to ripen within us.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Comes when you realize that I mean I want to be enjoy I want to be in peace I want to control that capacity I do not want others to in any way impinge on it. That is a sacred space I have you know the purity of my heart and I want to build a castle around it you know where where nobody can sort of penetrate through that castle and.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Kind of get me all kind of you know riled up within because because I love that state you know and I want to view the world and approach everything from that state recognizing that when I wake up in the morning and I engage with life and get out of bed.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I recognize that there are gonna be imperfections. I recognize that not everything is gonna be always to my liking, and things will happen. And I will be a player, and I'll engage, and I'll be empowered, and along the way, I'll kind of roll with the punches, and I'll make my calls, and when I need to litigate, I'll litigate.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
When I need to pull away from a relationship, I'll pull away. When I need to give it my all, and continue to just forgive, I'll do that. And those will be choices I'll make from the outside. But from the inside, my space is too sacred.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, it's too sacred. And when I do allow myself to get emotionally all riled up, and keep holding on to a certain feeling of hiddenness, or grudge, or judgment, or dismay, or betrayal, it's not the other person who's hurting me.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
You know, that happened 15 years ago. It's me who's doing it to myself now, with the emotions, the memories that I'm not sort of willing to make peace with. So that's kind of like the logic of it. But I did want to start with my personal story, because even though I know that logic, yeah, I mean, that was a situation where I had to keep working on myself, and it took me many years to get there.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
But I did feel good, you know, once I got there. So I'm cheering you on on this, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, it was it was really timely because I was reading your book and then kind of similar to you, this person came back into my life that I thought, you know, from the past and I had just read your section in the book.

Melanie Avalon:
And so I, I felt, you know, I felt the immediate reaction, I wrote down everything I wanted to say. And then a little tool I use is if I feel like I'm doing something impulsive, I say wait three days and see if I still want to do it in three days.

Melanie Avalon:
And then so three days later, what I came to is kind of what you just expressed. And it was partly from reading your book, I was thinking, like, regardless of the other person and how I feel about the other person, like the actions I take right now, is that how I want to feel and be like just me?

Melanie Avalon:
Like, so is doing this the way I, like, is it the inner core that I, you know, I'm trying to cultivate? So that was really helpful. Well, thank you so much. You're so wonderful. I like again, I just love your book.

Melanie Avalon:
I cannot recommend it enough for listeners. We only, like I said, barely scratched the surface. So definitely get it in our mastery, outer impact, how your five core energies hold the key to success.

Melanie Avalon:
And am I always in this show just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is with the question of what is something that you're grateful for?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I was looking at my daughter just yesterday and just feeling such an incredible sense of blessing and beauty and just the preciousness of life. I know she's not my daughter, she belongs to the universe, but having been somebody who was born with this from the moment that she came into the earth to now when she's 21, it's just incredible, the magic of life and the unfoldment of the human spirit.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
I'm just grateful for creativity, creation, birth, sustenance, the journey that all of us are on for the unfoldment of our spirit and having my daughter be a living museum of that for me.

Melanie Avalon:
Well, that is so beautiful. And actually, that's perfect. Listeners, check out the book because Itindra shares a story about her graduation speech that really relates to this forgiveness piece. So that's a teaser for people to read it.

Melanie Avalon:
All right, how can listeners follow your work?

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Yeah, I'd welcome you to visit my personal website, which is Hitendre.com. So that's H -I -T -E -N -D -R -A .com. And then if you're interested in some of the offerings that my team and I have put out there, both for you as individuals, as well as for organizations that you might belong to, then my institute is called Mentura.institute. So M -E -N -T -O -R -A .institute.


Melanie Avalon:
Perfect, we will put links to all of that in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for your time. You are the best. I'm sending you all of the love and good wishes, and hopefully we can talk again in the future.

Hitendra Wadhwa:
Thank you to, this is really, yeah, so enriching. So grateful.

Melanie Avalon:
Have a good day. Bye.