193: Becoming The Complete Man

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If any of those things feel familiar to you, you're in the right place. Listen, we are all challenged with the external and internal battle to be the best we can be. And I'm speaking specifically to you today if you're a man, because our guest today is Purdeep Sangha. He's widely known as the strategist to businessmen and teaches men how to become what he calls The

Complete Man. His personal mission is to help men grow their businesses massively, increase their personal fulfillment in life, and improve their personal relationships with their wife and kids. And I think today's conversation is going to be interesting, because if we're really honest with ourselves, we all struggle with one of these topics. And we're all chasing this esoteric idea of being the best we can be,

what he calls complete. He's the founder behind the movement of men becoming mindful alpha males. And I'm interested in understanding how those two words fit in the same sentence. My name is Darrell Evans, and I'm your host of The MindShift

Podcast. And over the last three decades, I can attest, as I've said before, to having to navigate through many of the areas that I think we're going to dive in today and get Purdeep's background, and interesting philosophy and science based information on and in this show my goal every week is to bring you someone like Purdeep who can help you shift your mind so they can shift your results. That's why we interview interesting and incredible

people. Now if you're a woman listening this, don't leave this this this is this is where you need to be too because someone in your life might need to hear what he has to say. Purdeep, welcome to The MindShift Podcast.

businesses. And I'm very passionate about the work that we do, and helping entrepreneurs, executives, executive teams, live, you can say be better business leaders, but also live with greater fulfillment in their personal lives. It's a personal mission that I have, in particular, working with men, because of my background. I grew up in an immigrant household. My parents immigrated in the early 70s, over to Canada. And I saw the struggles that my dad went through. I saw he was a great

family, man. But he went through a lot of personal fulfillment challenges which led him to, you could say, being addicted to alcohol, and eventually that caught up with him where he passed away as a result of that.

So it's my mission in life to really help people live more fulfilling lives in particular men, because I know that when we have stronger men in society, and we can talk about that, if that ever topic ever comes out in terms of men in leadership or political roles, but if they're stronger men than the household is more likely to be stronger and more healthy and successful as well. And I think that's what we need as a nation as a as a

global community. I think we need to get back into grassroots, family and think about each other and treat our neighbors and our community as family members, because I think we've kind of steered away from that a little bit.

alcohol situation. I know what that looks like and in my own personal life, so I know how devastating that can be not just to the human who's going through it, but to the family members and relationships that are close by so my heart and empathy goes out to you for the loss of your father. Where does your entrepreneurial journey start? You grew up in the corporate world, but you got an MBA. And so tell us a bit about your career growth into the world of entrepreneurship?

amazing. It was an amazing way of growing up. But what I noticed at a very young age was I got involved and when I was younger, I was actually working for a family friend of ours, and not necessarily on our own orchard at that time, I started working when I was eight years old, like a formal job. And it was a family orchard. And I started to understand or try to look at, okay, you know, what is different about this family? What is different about this, this business? How do they

actually operate? I was very fascinated by that at a very young age. And then when we had our own orchard, and my parents were actually doing fairly well compared to other people in the industry, I started to, like wonder like, why are my parents doing better than other people?

Like, what is their secret if there is a secret, and I started to notice that they were treating our employees differently, that they just had a different culture that they were actually utilizing the resources more effectively, that they had systems in place, although they weren't educated, they had to utilize every resource that they had, and not waste anything, because they came from a world of poverty. And for them, you can't you can't waste the resource, right?

Because that could that could be your health, that could be your well being right, that's food on the table. So I started to analyze these these things very at a very young age. And then my parents, the orchard growing up in an orchard was great, it was fun. It's a business. But my parents really had different a different dream for me, and my brother, my brother's younger. They wanted us to get an

education. And they wanted us to not have to work in, you know, you can say extreme weather conditions right up here, it's, we use Celsius, so sometimes 38-37 degrees Celsius working 10 hours, 12 hours a day. It wasn't something that they wanted for us. And so they told us to get an education. So I went through the education system, and originally started in science, because my parents wanted me to be a doctor. But that wasn't for me. And so I had to switch out which they weren't, they weren't

happy with at all. But my my passion has always been in business has always been in entrepreneurship. So I have done science and went in went to multiple business schools went into the corporate world for 14 years was a successful executive, was really a go

getter in the world. I was the youngest guy in the industry with the team that I had I was I was known as kind of the, the young, you can say, they used to call me, the guy that blew things up and put them back together because I would go in and just and really reinvent things. And then when the time came, my goal is to be a CEO of a major corporation. But my heart wasn't in it anymore. I was just tired of the corporate world. Because I didn't think that a lot of people were living

the corporate values. We talked about all these great things. But yeah, when it came down to really helping people, did we really do that? And I stepped out and started my own firm. And from there, it evolved, it wasn't always easy. I had thought that I maybe made a bad decision at the beginning, and had to reinvent myself and our business a number of times to where we are today where we focus very much on helping people in business, but also on the personal side.

to that just a moment. But what pulled you into it outside of the story of your father and then reaching that corporate threshold of saying this, just isn't for me anymore.

I could ask him for anything. I was just talking to my wife yesterday and I'm like, I missed my dad, because I could just ask him for anything and he'd be there, and but when he drank, he was a completely different man, scary, because he had his own challenges that he never dealt with in life. Like he would wake up in the middle of night screaming and tear night tears, and the house would just blow up. And as a young kid, that was

scary for me. So I tried to figure out at a very young age, what made him tick to the point where I started to learn his behaviors and mannerisms, and how him and my mom interacted. So I was a student of psychology at a very young age. And then the the family friends that we were working, that I was working for, I was managing employees at the age of 16. So I was responsible for 50 plus people in terms of their performance.

Then at 17, I became a personal trainer, because I had a passion for helping people with their health. I was an academic tutor throughout school, all of these things kind of came together. And I actually it was a bit of a pivotal moment for me when I was in, I can't remember exactly, it was either grade six, or seven, where we had a substitute teacher that came in and wrote a bunch of words on the chalkboard, but circles around them, connected them with lines, and said, This is a mind map.

Now this was years ago. And this gentleman was from Europe, that's really where you could say this whole concept of brain and psychology and mind training really originated back then. And I was so fascinated by it, that I started to pick up books on Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, these inventors, you know what made these people geniuses. And I started to train my brain at

that time. And I learned how to have a photographic memory speed reading all of these things in terms of enhancing my mental capacity, to the point where when I was in, I could do things that other you could say kids my age really couldn't do. And I could play sports without having the best talent and outperform people. And academically I could I could ace the test without having to really study. And it wasn't until I was in in second year university, I was studying

for a biology exam. And me and one of my peers were quizzing each other back and forth. We had this textbook, and he would open up the textbook and ask me random questions and I would do the same. And after a while, but five minutes he looked at me, he said, Purdeep, you know, you have this entire 500 page textbook, memorized word for word, page by page. He's like, you know, that's not normal. Right? And it hit me at that point,

present with my own mind. Plus, my grandfather immigrated over after as well, my grandfather was a very unique person. So my grandfather actually had just as much of an impact, if not more, as my dad. My grandfather was in the British Indian Army for 30 plus years. So we saw war. And he spent most of his life in the military, right, being away from his family more than he was

actually with his family. But he was also a very spiritual man, to the point he's most spiritual man I know, he's long gone, though. He's no longer around. But his father. So my great grandfather was a spiritual teacher in India for almost 60 years. So through our lineage, we were taught spirituality. And I learned that from my grandfather, meditation practices, mindfulness practices that I implemented, I look back at it at this point, I say, now I understand, I understand what

has led to this point here. So all of that I could say these challenges, right, having amazing people in my life, my grandfather, my dad, and everything that I experienced throughout life has led me to where I am today, where I have a very unique skill set to be able to work specifically with men. And we have groups, we have masterminds, we have workshops, where we can relate like, you know, I'm not that I haven't seen everything, but we talk

about everything. We are have open conversations, from addiction to marital problems, to all these things that guys don't normally talk about. And we have a team that skilled to be able to work with people, to work with men on that. So all of the challenges, like I look back, and I say, you know, it wasn't fun growing up like that with my dad, especially because I was terrified, in a lot of ways, but you know, my dad was

awesome. If my dad wasn't the way he was or who he was, I wouldn't have the skill set to help as many people here. So that's that's literally what led to where I am today.

bit north of a decade. And I didn't understand it. And I'm still learning it growing up in a Christian household. And that isn't, there's nothing wrong with that, let me be clear, but just understanding how to take personal time and being able to step back and be present and be still and to silence the noise. It is a journey I've enjoyed, actually, it's one of my greatest works every single day, to try to be present and mindful, before I go into the

chaos. Which all of us leaders have to do, right, we have to find some space, before we go into the chaos that we signed up for. Right? I think that's interesting. Can you define let's kind of get right into this idea what is to you an alpha male? What is that?

That's essentially it, you are point zero, you are it, that's where it starts. And so if you want the life, you have these dreams, these aspirations, you have to create it, there's no ands ifs or buts about that. You're either a creator or you're a follower. That is the aspect of being the alpha male. Now, the other aspect to that is you take care of the people that you are a part of your family or

part of your community. So people will take a look at a wolf, an alpha male from a wolf pack and say, Well, you know, that's, that's aggression? Well, the number one purpose of the alpha male is to protect the pack, is to ensure the livelihood of each member of the pack. And so that's what an alpha male does is protect your family, protect your loved ones, right, protect the principles of, of society, and don't stand around watching poor leadership,

as well. It's your role to actually stand up not in an aggressive way, not in a we're talking about a physically violent way. But in a way of mindful, being mindful, which is the other aspect. So being an alpha male is really about being a creator, if I can sum it up into one small segment.

experiences. And I think there is a sort of a negative or alternative conversation in most people's mind when they hear alpha male, Oh, he's out here trying to, you know, pump up these idiots or these arrogant, pompous, you know, in search are now and after that. So, I love the way you you transition that. How do you work with your clients on the aspect of

mindfulness? I'm really curious, because of what I believe I've heard and your journey from a spiritual standpoint and how it aligns with how you operate, how do you interject or introduce mindfulness to your clients?

really about. Now, there's another aspect to that as well, which is about and this comes from Buddhist philosophy, which is that talks about making decisions as if it's going to have a ripple effect throughout the universe. Right? So if you make a decision today, what is the ripple effect it could have throughout the universe to other people, other beings, and

generations to come? But they also add another caveat to it, it's kind of funny, and they say you laugh at yourself as though it's actually going to make a difference. Meaning that be aware of what the impact could be, but also laugh to say, yeah, you might not be as important as you think you are, because it might not have a huge impact at all. So it's one of those both.

It's both. It's that dichotomy of saying, yes, you mean something, every action you take has a ripple effect, but also don't focus so much on and don't be so serious about your intentions and your actions, that you can't enjoy life, right that you can't be fully present. And that's that's essentially the mindful aspect. Now we have experts on our team that teach mindfulness, and it's not something that we necessarily do directly as an organization, but we have partnerships with

individuals. One of my friends is a professor at a local university and, and he teaches mindfulness. He's a PhD in psychology and has been practicing yoga and mindfulness for decades, originally from India. So we have practitioners that help out as well, but we start small where it's about undivided attention, especially for entrepreneurs. Is because mindfulness is really like I said, it's about being present.

And out of all the people out there, the highest group in terms of if we were, say a category, people who are not being fully present are people in high pressure jobs, for example, executives, entrepreneurs, leaders, because they're constantly thinking

about work. So we have to train them, we also show them some neuroscience tips to be able to shut their brain off from work, and actually move on to the next period of life, which is maybe spending time with their family and maybe spend time with their wife, maybe it's spending time with themselves, right? A lot of people these days have a tough

time, sitting in silence. And what I mean by that is not listening to music, not listening, watching TV, not listening to an audio book, but just being right without any other stimuli that we have in today's society, which isn't easy.

And I like being a parent, a father, a husband, that kind of thing. Is this challenge new to this modern, technological era that we're in now? Does your study, science, experience in your business speak to that?

time on the phone. So I'm gonna come back to answer your question. Yes, it is a challenge. It's a perfect storm, because we have family units

changing. One of the dynamics there is we are spending less time having dinner at the table with our families, undivided attention there were I remember growing up, we would sit at the dinner table, we would sit there, you know, we might not be able to talk as much as we wanted to, and joke around, but at least we were spending time as a family, family dinners are slowing down. They're they're almost I'm gonna say extinct in a lot of families, right?

Because people are busy. People aren't spending time with each other watching TV. So family units are changing. Plus, we have this technological era, which is causing issues, we have more and more research now. We have, we understand that. Yes, it's causing people to have ADHD type of synth symptoms, right? They may not have anything you can say, biologically wrong in their brain, but they've created these symptoms that they can't pay attention to anything, and we have an addiction to our

phone. This latest research shows that when you take a phone away from a person, especially women, for example, they have similar biological reactions as they do if you take a baby away from them. What Yeah, that tells you something that tells you how addictive people are or how addicted people are to their smartphones. So absolutely. It doesn't take a genius you walk into a restaurant, especially in I'm gonna say bigger cities like Toronto, and you see couples on

the phone. Yeah. And I remember this is two years ago, no, this was before COVID, I was walking down the street and downtown Toronto, and I was just like, I'm just gonna do an experiment. I'm just gonna count the number of people and how many people are actually looking on the phones. And it was a 90%. Even when people were walking together couples or friends or whatever, nine out of 10 people were actually putting their heads down to their phones. So yes, this is impacting people.

Yes, there's an addiction to it. Yes, it's causing problems from people being less present in the moment. We have to be conscious of this, we actually have to draw the line, especially as parents because kids don't have control over their brains. They don't understand this. So we have to be able to be that logical reasoning for them until they get to the right stage.

his inbox. And he was awake, and he's on the east coast. So he's three hours up on me. So it's 12:05. And he messaged me right back. And I said, Hey, man, what the heck are you doing? And like, I don't care what you do at 12:05, but get the heck out of your email. Like that was not what I expected, first of all, I just wanted it in top of your box when you got it, because I know what a busy day. So I've been very intentional and done a lot of I had to take a look at

myself at 38. I'm 52 now. So I've been on a 14 year journey of trying to be mindful of Oh, no there's no appointments after three o'clock? Oh, no, no, I don't open email till eight o'clock. Because if the minute you open email, you've got other people's agenda taken over your life. And you talk about family dinners. And now this idea of walking around on our phones. I just recently had someone say to me, you know, I saw you at Starbucks two times? No, no, they saw me at Starbucks one

time. And he saw me at the supermarket in the same neighborhood another time. And she literally said she she works for my wife. She was I was doing this like, and I know those of you listening on the audio can't see me. But she said she was frantically waving at me to get my attention. And I'm zoned out because I'm listening to a podcast almost unequivocally when I'm out and about. And I just was in my own world. Now, I

wasn't being rude. But I wasn't mindful that there was this human who I like and know and who was just, she was just trying to have an interaction. And she felt bad. Like, she was like, Oh, he doesn't want to talk to me. So Purdeep I resonate with that, just because this just happened, this just interaction just happened. Both those interactions happen within the last 45 days. And we spoke about it last Friday. And so what do we do? What do we do?

We're not going to get rid of technology, we're not going to change the way advancements are, but what do you advise us? Me? Guilty as charged? What do you advise your clients? Like are there some simple things to do that if they're listening right now, they could begin to be thoughtful about that would help them become more aware, become more present?

works. You cannot deprogram or unprogrammed evolutionary biology, which is they know how to get you hooked. When I was at university, they were hiring the best behavior scientists. This was years ago from Stanford. Like before, they were even completing programs, Facebook, because they wanted these people, they know how to get your brain hooked. They use professionals to develop their apps, it is exactly what is happening. So first of all, take those off. Secondly, shut off

all notifications. If you say, hey, look, you know what, I gotta have this app, shut off all notifications.

understand these things. Anytime you use your phone, they know how to condition you to use your phone more often. Put your phone away when you're actually working right and be conscious of that. And those are simple things. And it does take a habit to get there. But if you develop this habit, it's going to become more effective. And once you're going to feel better, right? This whole thing is how we feel at the end of the day, and how we feel throughout the day.

Typically, people are addicted to things because it makes them temporarily feel better. That's essentially what it does. Right? Yeah. And they've created a pattern of, hey, look, you know, someone's messaged me, I'm gonna go and check it out. Right? Because that makes you feel good. It makes you feel important, but they've lost this feeling good about being fully present. And a lot of people don't know what that's like anymore. Well, it's a weaning

process. Once you start to learn how to be fully present again and put your stuff away, you're going to feel like Wow, I feel liberated. So it's going back into those detox modes and having you know, putting your phone away for a week or whatever that looks like.

you suggest that we do? Because, look, I know what it's been like for me to become 14 years into this decision making of when I go on vacation, I go one step where I take the app off my phone, that is the time I take, I take email off the phone, I take all the apps off the phone, because even when I'm on vacation, I may want to look at something. I do the notifications, they're gone. But what do you recommend for the person? Because I know what kind of journey has been like for me?

What do you recommend for the person to do in place of right? Because it's like a nicotine habit or an alcohol habit or a drug habit? They've got to replace it with something better and healthy. What do you recommend they do, to try to break the the biological desire to again, the commercial organizations, these folks, they want you to stay on these things to social media platform never

wants you to leave. I mean, just in the last six, seven years, they went from 43 minutes of time on Facebook, or Meta whatever they call themselves today, to admit an hour and it's over 90 minutes now a day, right? Television has done it for years. So we're bloat, we're blowing up cell phone companies. But let's be clear TV and media has done it the same way that the average US adult spends four

hours a day on TV. That may not be you that may not be me, it may not be your you as the listener, but look at the studies. So this is a continuation of addiction, just in a different way. What do you recommend that someone does as they're trying to break these habits?

gonna be a moneymaker. So I think that's one thing, seek professional, but if people aren't going to like this approach, and this is the truth of it, a lot of the reason why people get stuck necessarily on the phone or get addicted is because they're bored in some way, shape, or form with what they're doing, or their life or themselves. So their life in front of them is not as exciting as whatever's coming up on their

phone. So the approach is make your life a little bit more exciting, a little bit more fulfilling. So if you're sitting there with your spouse, the reason why you're tempted to go on your phone is because your engagement with your spouse is not as exciting. You know, if you're an I'm just throwing this out there, and please forgive me for this example. But if you're sitting there and, and your wife is, you know, tempting you she starts taking off her blouse, and that should catch your

attention, right. And that should catch her attention take you away from your phone, if you're still tempted to look at your phone, there's something else wrong there. But, but your life has to be a little bit more exciting. And that means that you want to engage those people

in your life, right? You want to engage your spouse, you want to have a passionate relationship with your spouse, not necessarily I'm talking about sex, but maybe conversation, maybe it's an activity that you're looking to do, right, same thing with your kids. So your life needs to be a little bit more engaging, and inspiring and exciting, even for yourself. I think that's something that we've gotten lazy with, is we've allowed ourselves to go to technology for excitement. And

that's ultimately it. And we're going to continue down that path until we actually put that that effort into making our real lives a little bit more exciting. And that means engaging, just like the example that you used, you know, social connection is a huge engager it is it can actually it's one of the things that actually keeps our brain young, scientifically. So we need to and I'm not talking about virtual connections I'm talking about in person connection. Yeah, real

connection, that in itself. So again, you know, people might say, you know, my life isn't that boring, or whatever it is. It's yeah, there's something in that moment that you're not excited about that is causing you to find something that is more exciting. And you got to work on that.

of NASA. Frank is one of the best on the planet in marketing and digital marketing and business growth, someone I respect highly had never had a chance to meet him. In fact, Frank, if you're listening, I love to have you on the show. But what do you do to help businesses grow?

operations. So what we do is we we bring all of that together, for the business owner, the entrepreneur, so there's no gaps in that creation of a customer, and the keeping of the customer. And so that's what we do essentially, is we help businesses grow through that part, we also are really good at solving problems. And so if businesses have a problem, or hurdle, and a lot of the times they don't even know what the problem is, or that they even have a problem, we come in and

enhance that. So that's what we're experts at. And that's essentially what we do is we have expertise in many different areas, and we fill in the gaps. So people can actually grow their businesses faster and more effectively and have a competitive advantage. Essentially, that's the other part too is you have competitors, and you want to do what you're doing better than your competition, and we help businesses do that.

way you want them to go. Or their challenge, but you're not defeated by the challenge, right? You actually approach the challenge. And what it really comes down to is who you are as an individual inside? Do you feel great about yourself? because when you feel great about yourself, regardless of what's happening in your external world, you're going to feel like that inner force isn't in alignment. So that's what it is. Right? And you see that and, and we all have that at some

point in time. The The important thing is to have that more frequently. That's that's the bigger challenge, because life is has its ups and downs. But it's like how frequent can you connect with that inner force, the more frequently you can, the more powerful you will be. And that's where you have massive success, great relationships, inner fulfillment. And you're on that journey, you can say towards being The Complete Man.

I'm clear on it now. And I think the listening audience can now understand where your heart comes from. And it really started with a tough story in your personal life that seems to have driven your mission to a certain degree. And then you add to it the, the the new world, modern world that we're in, and it's just becoming a spiraling effect in many ways, I as I've said the beginning, I'm very guilty of many of these types of distractions, and broken relationships and doing things

that I didn't intend to do. So you have to get to a point where you're like, enough is enough. And let's start reeling it back. This mindfulness journey for me has been better part of 12 years to technology journey is a never

ending journey. I own companies, run businesses I advise, there's always something coming so I think it's continuous, continuous evolution and journey and I say in MindShift, we're always on the journey from inspiration to realization, which is how do we go from what we want to do to how we how

we're going to get there. But then when life knocks us down, which inevitably does, how do we go from break down to break through, and I think what you're doing in the world is really helping us helping men go from these areas where things are out of balance, and maybe broken down a little bit, that when they become aware of that they can go to that next level of breakthrough. So I want to honor you, and thank you for that

work. And taking the stance that you take, I mean, The Complete Man, it feels to me like, I don't know if I could ever get there, but I know that we you probably agree. The success is in the journey. Oh, yeah. It's in the journey. And so man, I really want to thank you for being here. My final question almost always, to my guests is if for some reason, today happened to be the last day, you could graced this Earth with this message? What would you want everyone to remember you for?

mistakes. It's our job as human beings to mistake or to forgive those who make mistakes. And so that's not for me, I would say I would just pass that down, pass it on for my father. Because that, for me is one of the most profound things that has changed my life. And I think it's important for us to have grace to forgive those and forgive ourselves.