Hitendra Wadhwa || Inner Mastery, Outer Impact

Hittendra's research and teaching on personal leadership have been covered by many prestigious outlets, and he is the author of the book Intermastery Outer Impact. In this episode, I talked to Hittendra about personal development. Growth is often associated with the mastery of skills, but Ttendra reminds us that inner work is also growth. The internal battles we face lead us to become more attuned to our most authentic selves and in order to unlocker full potential. He shares with

us five core energy and how to activate them. We also touch on the topics of leadership, service, purpose, and transcendence. This is a really personally meaningful episode for me and I'm sure you'll see just how incredibly humble he is. I really appreciate his mixture of humbleness and wisdom, and I'm sure that you'll get a lot out of this episode, just as I did. So that further ado, I give you hit Tendra, Lahuah, Hit Tendra. So good to see you.

Thanks for coming to my podcast, Scott. It's always a pleasure to be with you and this time and even greater honor to be with your listeners as well. Oh well, congratulations on your new book, Innermastery Outer Impact? Is this your first book? Is my first, and thank you for that. It's been quite a labor of love. I was thinking about writing about twelve years ago and every year since,

and I just wanted to mature the work. I wanted to get it to a place where as a mathematician, as I guess I have been in my past life, I was waiting for all the pieces of the equation to come together. And so I'm grateful, you know, for this moment. When I finished the writing and send it over to the publisher. I remember walking over to my wife and just saying, you know, I think I can I think I can die in peace now. You know,

it's finally there. Oh wow. Well it's a really great book and it brings obviously brings together so many years of your thinking, so real huge accomplishments. Tell our audience a little bit about you, like who are you? Yeah, yeah, well, just on that first comment, I do want to express my gratitude to you, Scott, and then behind you obviously a whole community of you know, psychologists and neuroscientists and others who have been pursuing, you know, the advancement of

the branches of the tree of knowledge. And then you in particular, as someone who has been so great at distilling those you know and helping in a more kind of accessible form those of us who are not necessarily you know, a PhDs in advanced scientific disciplines to get to in real time and you know kind of access

and integrate you know, some of that knowledge and practical ways. Anyway, So I'm very grateful because yes, I wrote the book, but I was standing on the shoulders of giants, you know, in the kind of reading and study I was able to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very gracious of you. So about your question, Yeah, I mean I grew up

in India. I came to the United States when I was about twenty one to pursue higher studies and kind of advanced mathematics, which ultimately became really an application of maths to business. And yet from a very early age I was kind of very drawn to, you know, truths about human nature and also but life and the universe. And I guess in India one had the opportunity to engage in access, you know, on those issues from a

place of scripture and spiritual study. And that was very, very rewarding for me really to seek to understand two seekers of the past and what they've discovered. And it is also you know, a very integrative kind of you know, place where they get very open and interested in any form of like truth seeking that has been done any part of the world, any cultures or traditions of contemplation, devotion, mysticism.

And so I was able to actually get in some ways opportunity kind of access I guess, you know, a pathway to insite and inspiration, which is the spiritual. And then I was drawn to wanting to study psychology in college. It was my one of two favorite topics. Math was

the other one. The reason I didn't end up majoring in it is because at that time, when I looked at what students are studying in college, it was kind of like focused on the dark states right of the human mind, the psychology of evil and depression and schizophrenia

and all of that. And while you know Kudu's right, I mean, obviously hats off to the folks who have been really helping serve and support people in those states to kind of bring them to light, right to a better place, I personally was just like, my instincts are more drawn to studies of like creativity and genius and joy and ecstasy and you know, intelligence and all of that things, which was not being served very well at

that time. And so anyway, so I left that path, went on to study mathematics and moved from there to management. And then the hunger decided to grow u from within me, which like the you're you're kind of like not really there yet with regard to what you want to be

when you grow up. And so in my early to mid thirties, I went back to some more of my reconnection with my spiritual roots and asked myself, how can I re express these more practically on the outside and be connected with, like, Okay, what's been happening in psychology

you know since I last left it. I was so thrilled to see the work that I know, you're so deeply steeped in, you know, around themes of positive psychology and other related disciplines cognitive behavior therapy and other such things that are starting to inform us, you know, about just how beautiful the possibilities are, right and aluminously capacities

are in human nature. So anyway, so that that became then the final formal step I was able to take to teach a class of Comber Business School and bringing life and leadership together, you know, into into a discipline of what I call personal leadership. Okay, what's personal leadership? Let me actually illustrate it for a story. Right, So there's a secret Service agent who was an executive participant in one of my workshops, and he shared the story.

He said that this one time, my wife and I were sitting in the backyard and we were just going to you know, have some vine and some food, and this man breaks in with a gun, you know, from across the bushes and comes into a backyard and then threatens us and asks that one of us, goes in and collect all our valuables and jewelry and cash and come back, and he'll hold the other one hostage. And he said, in that moment, I as this like very well trained person, you know, in secret service, was just

about reacting. Someways when my wife jumps in and she says to that match, she says, I can't believe that you are doing this. You know, there must be something seriously challenging and difficult that was going on in your life. There must be some crisis here because you can't be feeling proud about doing this. You know, you're putting yourself in harms way, you're putting us in armsware. You know you must be getting forms to do this by some circumstances.

And you know, my husband and I we were going to, you know, sit here and drink some wine and have some food, and why don't you do that, you know, join us, you know, put your gun aside and tell me more about your story, because I'm really concerned. I want to know about what's going on with you. And he said, I was terned. And this man he puts his gun down and he actually sits with us, and he eats dinner and of course it's a sad story. It's a tough story, and we start to emphathize with

what he's gone through. And at the end of it, he's reaching out for his gun and I say, look, you can leave, sir, but you can't take your gun. And he left, and then he said the next morning, it's him and he's knocking on a door and he looks at me and he says, sir, I'm not here for the gun. But I didn't want to sank your wife and you for what you did for me last night,

because that was so important for me. And you know, I just want to share a story because you asked for his personal leadership and I would say, what that you know woman did in that situation, that was personal leadership. You know. Personal leadership is his idea that in every moment of a life, official on official, public or private, front stage, back stage right, whether you're officially anointed as a leader with power and authority or be or not.

You know, it's just a in aer choice we make to show up in a certain way, to seek to have the maximum positive impact within a sphere of influence, you know, to bring out the best in ourselves and bring out the best in others, and so that is what I've been very drawn to, wanting to qualify, and you offer up in some practical form. I love that. And I'm sure you teach that in your leadership program at Columbia that you've taught for fifteen years? Is that right? Yes,

in which you have been a very valued contributor. At Scott. It was great to have you in class. The students have loved your ideas and thoughts. You came into a just a brilliant session on resilience and and yes, yeah, I've been doing it for what fifteen years now at the Business School, and over time was drawn to kind of like finding other platforms through which to offer it to the world, and so through the institute I was

able to set up mentor institute. Over the last ten years, we've also been doing organizational and corporate work around you know, culture and leadership. So when you tell your students, I'm sure you tell them the story that you just told me. What is a good example or a good story that

would illustrate public leadership? Just to contrast it, When you talk about public leadership, I'm assuming you mean Scott the idea of like leadership in public arena where it's actually helping to move you know, some organization or some movement

into a positive space. Yes, okay, So I have been very drawn to studying some of these iconic figures from history, like an Apron Lincoln, Mother Treeesa, Mark mcgandhi Na Roosevelt, you know, Nelson, Mandela, these kinds of folks, and I actually have been so drawn and invested and inspired and formed by their work that ended up writing a chapter on each of these five figures in my book because I really wanted to help people see these figures and what we can learn from them in a new light,

in the sense that sometimes we just believe that some people are just special and they're bond with some kind of you know, silver spoon in the mouth, and they're just meant for greatness and all of that, and then we, you know, don't realize actually how much instructive power there is to having us like study and make some of these people part of our inner circle of friends, really

get to know them through studying biographical and auto biographical accounts. So, you know, my hope is if you read one of those chapters, is that you see the kind of growth they went through, and the kind of very very human qualities they had and capacities they had and actions there too, right, And what you realize is actually they were pretty pretty ordinary people. You know. They were like Ellen Roosevelt, Matfiza. They never went to college, you know, Abram Lincoln had

one year of schooling. Mandela and Guardhi by the own confession, basically we're very poor students. And yet they had shone so luminously, right, but after having made lots of stumbles and lots of falls. So to me, like as one example, since you've asked, you know, of public leadership, you know, a very luminous way. You take Mandela when he went into prison, very firebrand, very angry, very invested in the black cause in South Africa for a lot of kind

just rage and you know, impatience. And then he's in prison. Then he comes out of prison twenty seven years later, and at this point he's a bridge builder. He's a

pillar of reconciliation. You know, the South African government which is teetering at that point under the weight of the foreign actions against you against them, sanctions and all that, and then the riots that were happening in South Africa, so they realized that the game might be up sometimes soon, but they need somebody who's a peacemaker, you know, who isn't just full of grudge and revenge and hatred and anger.

And over the years, over the twenty seven years, Manella's reputation was building as one of those kinds of people that they may be able to trust and very different and distinct from other leaders of the African National Congress and other revolutionary parties in South Africa at that time because of this way in which he was able to reassure the white population and their leaders that look, we are going to do the right thing for South Africa.

We're going to do the right thing for the people of South Africa, including the blacks, and we're going to do it in a way which is going to allow us to make peace with the past and then embrace the future rather than keep burning, you know, with hatred and causing in his own words, what he would say, rivers of blood, you know, flow through South Africa. Now,

how did Mandela become that kind of an integrative, peaceful agent. Well, there's a lot of lessons to be learnt for what happened over the course of those you know, twenty seven years in prison, and in some ways they just like are so emblematic of the core thesis of my book, you know, this idea of inner mastery to outer impact. You do your best outer work when you do your best inner work, you know, because over the course of his time in prison, he really worked on taming his anger,

He worked on other aspects of his character. He actually wrote to his wife and said, look, when we're in the world, we're so obsessed with wanting to succeed and achieve and attain and consume him. He said, but when you're in prison, you don't have like the opportunity to do that. So instead you can actually spend all this time to like sculpture character, you know. So he worked

on that. He studied and understood more Africana white you know, South African history, and there he rose so that he could empathize with the enemy, and then when the time came for negotiation, et cetera, he was just more credible, more influential, more inspiring, more disarming you know, to them as well. So anyway, I mean, he's fund a great example of public leadership. Yeah, that's a great example. Now I know that you're fascinated with the Indian emperor Shoka.

All right, so tell me why you like that? Cat? I love, I love how you draw these things out, Scotten.

Can I just say I'm just deeply honored, first of all, just to be your Scott first of all, with you as both a their friend and somebody I'll look up to you, you know, for your scholarship and your podcasts and so much more, and then for the you know, the guests that you had on this podcast, you know, who I've enjoyed listening to and who I know are just like so much more accomplished, right than what your

listeners are being subjected to today. So anyway, so I just wanted to share that, well, my friend much belong here. He very much belonged here, and so it's an honor for us to have you here as well. But yeah,

I want to know why you like a Showka so much? Yeah, yeah, so a showca For those of who don't don't know about him, So he is an Indian emperor from like a couple of centuries you know BC, right, and he initially had a very power hungry kind of path in life, where he is noted to have killed a lot of his own relatives in order to accelerate coming from royalty, you know, his path to being the undisputed king and leader,

and he was annointed that. Then he went on a land grabbing kind of like expanding his terrain and territory

kind of series of wars. So that's one, you know, kind of key dimension of a showcun But then there's this other dimension where what happens is at some point in one of those wars, he actually goes down to the battlefield and he actually speiances the pain and the suffering, the injured and dying soldiers, the widows, the orphans, and it's just kind of melts his heart, melts, his heart, melts his art, and he comes out from it like a newer figure where he's now just reframing what it

means to be a king and it's not as much about ruling over you know, his people as it is about serving his people. And so with that, you know, turn the rest of his tenure is luminous, is beautiful. He ends up being very you know, invested in keeping the border secure so that you know, he can continue

to afford that kind of security to his kingdom. But he's really mostly focused on service, upliftments of the poor, and dispensation of some combination of himu with Buddhist kind of you know, kind of teachings of that time that he actually actively propagated, you know, throughout throughout his kingdom to help support and help people understand, you know, the deeper meaning of life. So he's a beloved figure in India,

just like Alexander's call it Alexander the Great. You know, in popular speak, Ashoka in India is called Ashoka the Great. And on India's actually flag, the very center of the flag is this wal with these folks in it, and that wal is actually a symbol that comes from Ashoka sam and is really in honor of his reign. He's considered to be the pre eminent, you know, king in

Indian history. Now, the reason why he is pre eminent some regard is because of all this greatness of service and dispensation of powerful, beautiful teachings and really role modeling what a king ought to do for me. Though my interest comes from something different, you know. My interest comes from the fact that he went from that very dark place to that very bright and beautiful place, that capacity in one life to be able to move from one

version of you to this other version of you. You know, I see something similar, although you know it was not as extreme in terms of the dark side of that chapter. With the life of Saint Augustine, you know, he also went from like a really based kind of you know, way of living to a beautiful, beautiful life that allowed him to help medi your time become one of the great saints of Christian dum so anyway, But that pivot and that capacity to grow and reform one's character, I

guess was what really is that? What you mean by having dominion over yourself? You open up your book with ewen Ardo da Vinci quote, you will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself. If you had to unpacked what it means to have dominion of yourself, would you say that's it to grow and learn from your mistakes? Is that? How do you see dominion of yourself? I want to just kind of unpack growth for a moment, because we often celebrate growth in our world on the

basis of outer qualities that people can master. Right, So, somebody didn't know how to play a guitar, and then they became the world's greate as guitarist, or you know, started from nothing and became like the greatest long distance athlete or something. You know, that's considered growth. Or I didn't know much about business and I became a great entreprenew I learned a lot about how to start a company.

You know, that's considered growth. But that's outer growth, right, And then there's another dimension to growth, which is what we might call inner growth, and what is in a growth. You know, one way to think about it is that within us, in our quest to be authentic, to be true to ourselves, what we often don't realize is that we first have to fight a lot of inner battles to earn that right because within us are so many

competing selves. You know, there's a part of me that wants to lash out of this person when I'm really angry, because I want to just like give him a piece of my mind, right, And there's another part which wants to hold back and be more careful about it because I feel it will demotivate them, or I feel like maybe I'm being too rushed in my judgment and I need to kind of you know, there's a part of me that wants to just gratify a certain urge or a desire, and there's a part of me wants to

hold back because I realized that it may not be good for my long term health, you know, or something like that. Part of me wants to be lazy and chilled out, and a part of me wants to be really committed and driven, and you know, hands on all that, right, And so I mean, we don't really you know, respect and honor this inner kind of tussle that is going

on within each of us. But if we did, we start to, in a sobering way, realize that before I am true to myself, I need to know what my true self is, and I need to actually make some amount of warfare with my false friends within those drives and impulses and urges and addictions and habits and emotional surges that may in the moment feel very fulfilling to gratify, but actually two minutes later we regret it, or two hours later we look back and say, what were you thinking, Tendra,

Or like why did you send that email? Or like two years later, like I wish I had a little bit more discipline at this part of my life, or what have you. That's what I see, you know, in that quote, is that the dominion over oneself is a recognition that there are many competing forces and energies within us, some taking us in the direction that will allow us to be unconditionally happy in the long run and fulfilled and of value to the world, and some that will

keep us far from our fullest potential. And then one can actually separate those out, become aware of them, acknowledge them, and then move one's life gradually, step by step closer to those, you know, pulls, impulses, aspirations and stirrings that take us in that, you know, in the more positive direction. I think that to me is a person who's increasingly gaining dominion over themselves. What do you think of that?

You know, you do a lot of thinking on these topics so much, Scott, So, I mean, I don't know what are your thoughts on that. I was gonna say that I have long thought about what authenticity means, and I pushed back into the notion there's such a thing as a real self, because as you say, there's we have so many competing selves, and well, I would say they're all part of us, you know, they're all what makes us who we are. There are maybe more long

term oriented, so to speak. And so is that basically what you mean by getting in touch with your real self is getting in touch with those those potentialities within you that can make a more longer term impact than like the joy of eating greasy pizza on a Sunday night, Like it's not going to really impact yourself for the world in the long term much. Is that what you

mean by real self? I think that's a nice challenge to put on me, Scott, because you definitely exposed in the way I was just describing it, you know, a certain NATO consting you know, of that idea than what I actually would want to communicate in the example that we have come across that way. So thank you for

giving me another opportunity to further you know, elaborate, right. So, yeah, the way I kind of like share that in the book as best I understand it, right is, you know, and of course these are topics where we can just

continue to grow in our own personal understanding. Is that within within you and within me, there is an inner core, and that inner core is the space of highest potential within us, from where our you know best impulses arise where we When we are in that space, we are beyond ego, you know, we are beyond attachments and insecurities, and we can be free, you know, to choose with wisdom the right actions, the right speech, you know, and

the right feelings and thoughts, you know. And so and we driftn in our in and out of it, you know, from down to time all of us have maybe glimpsed it. Some of us are more anchored in it, you know, some make more kind of steady commitments to kind of like strive to be operating from that place. But most of not all of us, right are at times apart from it, and at times a little bit closer to it.

And if you were to intubitibly, you know, as a listener to this conversation that Scott, you and I are have, and if you were to reflect on one other moments that you feel most you know, at your calmest, most centered, most connected, most committed to like a noble uplifting purpose. Well, that's giving you a glimpse of that inner core is. And so that is how I would define your true self,

That your true self is that core. And in some ways it's one of life's most beautiful goals to help us get to tune into and awaken and get more connected with and express in everyday lives more and more of that core. Now, if that core coming from that place of centeredness, connectedness, calmness, et cetera, tells you, hey, listen, this is the moment to engage in the joy of life. And as part of that, sit down with your body and actually enjoy that pizza. Then why not? You know?

Then why not? And of course make sure that you don't do it in such an overindulged and you know way that actually your diet every day is that pizza, right, because that might get you into a place you don't want to get to. But but why not, right enjoy some of those beautiful specials of life. I agree. There's the psychoanalyst Karen Horney I think is very underrated. She was one of the first ones to really challenge Freud, and she wrote a lot about the real self she

I think. I think the way that she wrote about is very much aligned with how you write about it. She said, it's that a live, unique personal center of ourselves. That's how she describes it. I think that's a beautiful or to the idea of the of there being a core. But she really likens it to where the aspect of you that you feel most alive, unique, personal, and creative and and and yeah, flurishing, thank you for sharing that.

See I'm getting I'm getting to say take notes. So, yeah, I know you guys are both a very well aligned. I love the definition, but I would call that healthy authenticity. I don't think there's such thing as a real self, you know, And I think that that becomes dangerous that way of thinking, because then you serve don't take responsibility for your naughty bits. You say, oh, that wasn't really me. You how many celebrities do terrible things and they that

thing I did last night? You know that wasn't the real me. It's like, yeah, it kind of was, kind of was. You gotta take responsibility for your whole self on the route to personal development. But I love it. I love that definition of I would just call it healthy authenticity or your higher self perhaps, or your creative self. Yeah, your unique self. I like that. I like that higher self,

better self. Yeah, high authenticity, And maybe there's like the potential there to embrace paradox, right, which is you never want to lose sight of that potential within you because that can help you a little bit in moments where you get you know, really you know, to struggle with self esteem issues and all that because because you feel

you have that right. But at the same time, to your point, you have to realize that there's an embodied version of you, right, which is acting in the present moment, and you have to take ownership and responsibility over that, which is what you just said, right, And so that's the paradox. Yes, And in your book you outline five I believe there are five core energies and absolutely these these are things that will help you unlock your greatest potential, no doubt, no doubt. So can you just tell me

the overall outline of those five sure? Sure. So the idea is that, you know, when we talk about this idea of the inner core and activating the core and living you know, from that core and leading from the core, then well, you know, how do you make that practical? Right? That's the question I was on And what I realized is that we tend to often in business schools and leadership programs, et cetera. You know, like guide people on what we need to do on the outside. And so

it's very behavioral training. But behaviors come from somewhere, They stem from some you know, something from within. And I thought it was more important to first create the inner pathways before the outer expressions you know that they lead to. And that's what I found very helpful to do through these energies. And so I mean, you know, for those of us coming from you know, a whole person kind of view, you might think of four of these energies

as what they call mind, body, heart spirit. You know, I'll call them differently, and I'll tell you what I call them. And the yoga traditions again, we have these four major schools of yoga, you know, current Yoga, BA Yoga, Gya and Yoga and raj Yoga. And again those four aligned very well with mind, body, heart Spirit. And those are four of the five energies that I discussed in

my books. So what are these energies? So the first of them is purpose, you know, which is this very sort of physical engagement, oriented doing, oriented energy of recognizing that I want to show up and you know, leave like a positive kind of you know, footprint in the sense of time, and what is that going to be for me? What is the why behind what it is that I'm choosing to make my vocation invest my energies

and times in the world. And you know, the outer goals might change, the outer even vocational like formal roles and titles might change over time, and at some point my body ages and I retire and all of that. But those are like the outer changes you know, from inside the intention, you know, and the drive could still come from the same core, you know, the core purpose, the core values, which I'm just re expressing through a series of different goals over the course of my life

as my resources and conditions keep changing. So that's the purpose. Energy makes you very anchored from within, an agile from the outside or adaptive from the outside. The you know, and some of the teachings and thoughts you put out there on resilience I think would speak well to that. The second is wisdom, and wisdom is about recognizing that, you know, as I said, the road to hell is

paved with good intentions. You know, you can have the best of intentions, but if you're like going to be consumed by limiting beliefs or some distorted thoughts or some emotional spell that is not allowing you to be the best version of yourself. Well, then you know you're not going to be able to fully manifest you know, your your true possibilities and potential. And so wisdom is about always seeking to be tuning into truth in whichever form

it comes comfortable or uncomfortable. You know, there's a change of facial expression in the person in front of you, and you were asking something of them, and you know, did you pay attention to that? You know, was there a glimpse you got of like what might be the feeling that they're going through and that they're politely nodding on the outside, but they're not be genuinely invested, might be troubled. Well, you know, are you inquiring to learn

more about that? You know that would be a wise response coming from a place of truth seeking that you're going through. And the more our emotions and our thoughts are things that we take ownership over, we engage with them, relate to them, see whether they're helping us, you know, get your good place fantastic? What signal are they sending to us? What insight and understanding are they giving to us? But also whether they're not working for us, what can

we do to redirectgre shape them. So that's the wisdom energy. The third is gross and you know, we were speaking a little bit about that. There's the outer growth, but there's the inner growth. And the inner growth comes from not merely seeking to measure a certain profession or a discipline or a skill or a world class you know,

certain quality, but seeking to do three things. One is to tame those trigger moments so that you can act out your best self more and more, rather than feel pain and disappointed with certain conduct because you've got very aroused in some way that was too intense. That's one

part of growth from the inside. The other is that in your everyday moments you're seeking to more and more as best possible, not operate from a place of distraction or disgruntlement or something, but from your core, from that space of highest potential, your best self with as much

as possible. And then the third is to really certain contemplative you know, practices and moments, take time to really dive within and discover more and more and more about that hidden potential is you know of you know, unconditional perhaps like joy and peace and tranquility and fulfillment and love that you might actually be able to find you can access, you know, from the deep, you know, well spring of what you have at the very center of

your being, so that that's the growth energy, just keeping and growing in those ways, you know, through the activation and expression of your core. The fourth is love, you know, and love is an energy which is about recognizing that everything in the world is connected with everything else. You know that as roomy is the Sufi say, he once said,

is love is? He said, love is a bridge between you and everything you know, And it's been very humbling, you know when I like study in nature to see how much intelligence there is in nature, you know, at every ship, how things are in balance right everywhere the planets. You know. I used to think that the Moon is like this ornament, you know, made for the romanticness you

know amongst all of us. But actually, if it wasn't for the Moon, the Earth's you know, access of rotation would be wobbly, and then we would have fluctuating temperatures that are super cold and super hot, and the human species wouldn't be able to survive on the planet. So the Moon is secretly actually help me and keep the oarth and balance in a really good way. Jupiter has its role, you know, in the planetary system, and who knows what role other galaxies have in order to keep

our galaxy whole and alive and everything. So if everything is connective with everything, that means there's no such thing as a self, you know, human being, a man of woman. You know, we're all really taking so much, taking so much from past generations, from the mother who bore us, you know, and whoever are the caregivers that nurtured us

over time. And if you come from that humble place of just appreciation, connection, gratitude, then love is about taking joy in other people's joy, finding success and their success, and seeking to be of service to the higher self, which is, you know, the whole universe, all of humanity, rather than just your individual self, you know, as in yourself right. And then finally there self realization and selfalization is the fifth and final of these. Energy is the

most subtle in some ways. It's about this idea that actually there is a part of you that is core split. You know that it's from where your deepest turnings aries and through practices like walks in nature or speaking to somebody that really inspires you. Reading a poem that just uplifts you, or a contemplative practice like prayer or meditation. You know, you get to connect, you know, that subtlest

energy within you. You're kind of like in those moments beyond thoughts, beyond feeling, an idea arises, if feeling arises, but it's not an emotion, it's not actually enclothed and thoughts yet, it's just some subtle state of being from within and that celfrization and the value of that is like if you really strive for that practice, that nurture that, then when you satisfy a lot of your psychological hungers from within, and then you can show up, you know,

as a parent, not wanting to impose a certain order on your child, not wanting to show up as a leader at work, wanting to have people really like you, love you. I think you're the smartest, but to do you know, do service, you know, do service to the child, and do service to your people at work, because like your own hungers are being met from within anyway, So

that circuzation, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'd love to ask you what your reactions and thoughts are there's some that you feel more resonant with scarce than others, or some that you don't like. Well, these all seem like things I would want to put within my best self, or my healthy authenticity or my highest self. For sure, these are these are wonderful skills and states of being to cultivate in one's life. Absolutely, you would really make a great guru in India. But your only limitation for

that is that you're too humble. Yeah, you're too humble, I mean because these these gurus they say things very similar to what you're saying. You're saying a lot of very wise things, but you don't really have this bone in your body that where you think like your word is the is the word. And there's something very very endearing about that. By the way, I say this is a positive thing because I don't really find a lot

of gurs endearing personally. And I know that might be a controversial thing to say, but I actually find your energy more endearing quite frankly. So anyway, I don't know if you, if you've ever thought of the guru root. I have been blessed to have been, I guess, in contact with such great people in the world. Such great people in the world, some very unsung, you know in

terms of their public position and prominence. Some just in history that I've read, you know, I've read about the life, I've read about the teachings that I feel so vastly you know, unprepared to take on that mantle you know, of saying whatever you want to call it, because I know, I know my clause, I know my very early steps that I'm taking towards the advancement of my own quest for coming close to the core. It's a joyful journey.

It's a joyful journey. And I realized that in some way like you, Scott, I mean, you discovered it much early in your life, your purpose in some regards. But I realized that for me, if I can share, you know, some of these small you know, yeah, just ideas, thoughts, breakthroughs, inside stirrings and inspirational things whatever. There's stories that have been of such great value to me that from the sideline, I just love to be able to kind of like offer that up to every true seco on the passage,

you know, to to a higher place. But the idea of Guruhod, I mean, that's you know, there are some people out there who have been blessed to have been connected with, like I said, some from history and some in real life, that there's such such a high bar for this for me that I wouldn't even want to go there. Well, how did you come up with these

five core energies? What was your methodology? Yeah, you know, because you know, you're such a qualifier of knowledge that we all strive to bring structure right to the ideas and thoughts we want to offer. And so when I first started to do that in my class and personal leadership, I had come up with you know, purpose, wisdom, and growth. And then I started to feel like something is missing, something is missing, and that turned out to be loved. Like I thought, like, you know, love is covered in

with them because it's an emotion. Then I realized, actually, it's not an emotion. It's like a core force in the universe, and much more core for like anger to me is not a core force in the universe, but love is. And I realized it had to be given identity of its own in the inner structure of human nature. And then science started to explode with findings about mindfulness and meditation and some of the benefits that people see

from it. Now. I had been very drawn to those disciplines from a very young age and hadn't really regularized my own practice until I was in my early mid thirties. But by that time I had so around. You know, twelve years ago, as I started to see the science come out in it, I said, you know what, he Candra, this doesn't have to be you doing this in the closet anymore. You now have you know, CEOs are coming

out and talking about their meditation practice. You're in a business school, you have scientific validation for it, and even though it's not something that has ever been taught necessarily in a business school, let's come out and talk about it. Okay, Now, how does it fit into the framework. And so that's

where the selfization energy became one. And I'm just so grateful that we're living in the times we are, Scott because again, because of the beautiful work or you know, science and some of your own studies and everything, we have the opportunity now to be more free and open about talking about truly the whole person, of which selfalization

is one one dimension. Thank you for explaining a little bit more the genesis of your thinking about these core energies, and I really like how you distinguish between living with these energies versus leading with them. Can you tell me what the difference is between the two, like even like personal leadership that seems to be tied to living it, But maybe I'm not understanding that distinction correctly, So tell me a little bit more. You've actually been pointed the Achilles'

heels of this whole work, because I do. I did struggle a little bit, but kind of like how exactly to kind of offer that up. One way to think about it is that we have two steps to take in life. The first is to activate these energies within us, to be connected with our core, to activate purpose and wisdom and growth and surprisation and love within us. The second part, then is to express it on the outside.

The purpose of that is to harmonize you with the messy and muddy world that we live in, so that your modus operandi, the manner in which you engage in conversations and interactions and work and responsibilities and fun and play, is through purpose and wisdom and love and growth and surprisation. And in part the reason for that is because you want others around you to be activated in the same

way as well. Because if I'm interacting with my child, and I can get that child connected with their core, get that child to be flowing with love, get that child to be really calm and connected with oois them.

If I'm interacting with the team at work, and I can get that team really inspired and fired up about their purpose, or I'm striving to heal a nation and make people collectively across communities come together to do the next step or nation building that we need to since we're dismantling the old order and trying to reassemble it in a way that takes a more closer to an

ideal society. Again, the same thing. Do I just want them to do what I think is the right thing in a command and control a way because I I know best, Or do I want them to be engaging in a million different innovations at whatever stage and level they're at in the social order by being activated at their core, operating from a place of great loving connection, you know, wise, openness to truth, deep commitment purposefully to

the right, you know all of that right. And so that's the outer game of these energies and the inner game is to activate in ourselves. The way we get a little limited sometimes in our relationships with people in our roles as managers and leaders at times or professionals, is a we may seek to engage in certain actions without actually having shown up the right way in the room because perhaps and tensions are not as pure, or

we're not as center or open or et cetera. So that's, you know, a state where the energies from inside have

not been have not been lived. You know, you're not really living these And the second way we sometimes get, you know, to beyond worst enemies is that, let's say we are coming from a good place, but we don't realize that part of our responsibility is not just to accept people on face value for how they're showing up, but to feed a certain center of stewardship, you know, on our own side, that what can I do to help this person get to the core, to help this

person express these energies, And that's leading to me. So leading is helping other people get to the core, while living is first being committed to getting yourself to your core. Nice. Nice that it seems like a good first step. Okay, for the end of this interview. Now let's let's uh, let's shoot to transcendence. This is this last chapter of your book. I love this is my favorite chapter of your book. You talk about the mystic in all of us.

So in the last chapter of book says, the longing for transcendence, for a feeling of being connected to something much greater than yourself, is the highest of human hungers. Talk a little bit more about transcendence and maybe why we we don't seem to have a lot of that in our society today. Well, you know you're asking the question with a lot of you know, sweet humility, Scott, because I'm talking to mister transcendence. Right, listeners, did you know that he's got a book on it, He's got

a whole class on it. He's been dedicating years of study to it. Right, And Scott, I remember, I don't know if you may recount this moment, but you and I we were sitting if I could reveal this at La Pequotinia, you know this restaurant eighty fourth and Amsterdam. Yes, manbe ferst met and you were sharing with me what you're working on next and uh and you and you said transcendence, and it lit my heart. You know, I just was so thrilled, you know, right there, I knew

that we'd have a lifelong friendship. Definitely, definitely. But brother, you've you've thought about transcendence longer than me, so I really would love to hear your thoughts about it, and you have a lot of wisdom. I don't know if I've thought about it longer than you, Scott, but I have been just personally, I guess, like really inspired about one thing to grow towards experiencing it. I guess that's something which from the age of ten I was very

very wrong too. You know. I'd hear about these mystics who were in a state of just like inspired ecstasy, you know, kind of like an expansion of consciousness, but they were connected with like every atom in creation and all of that, and I just thought, wow, like that sounds to me like the highest in human potential. You know, I'd love to get there, but there's like infinite in India.

One of the ways to describe the idea of God right is not as like a bearded gentleman on a throne somewhere sitting down in judgment of humanity, but just as this force, this creative force in the universe, which is described as infinite, ever new, ever conscious joy. And that was the idea of transcendence, where we go be owned our physical frame, we go beyond just our limited individual identity. We feel a sense of almost like timeless, eternal if you want to call it immortal, like connection

with the energies of the universe. You know, that is something that I was very drawn to studied, you know, philosophical and scripture kind of ideas on ultimately looked at meditation as my pathway towards taking small steps towards like advancing towards that boundless you know, kind of top of

the mountain kind of thing. And then yes, in my book, I found that actually speaking with some of the steps you've taken to recognize Maslow and some of his you know, here here is this very story psychologists deeply loved and appreciate and value by the scientific establishment. Having put his hand up there and said, like, you know, guys, we should be starting transcender and you know, there's something really

powerful in that human state of consciousness. And then William James as well, right, and then you know, I was able to knit together also stories from the Puccinis and the Einstein's and the Brahms and Tennyson's of the world, and then also see transcendence ultimately as being intuitively what I think Lincoln and Gandhi and others were seeking to manifest in their approach to helping support and serve the world,

you know, with the nobility of their mission. Anyway, I realized that actually there is a fact base, even though it's a little bit sort of out there in terms of how much science can measure and really create like very formal validation for the states of consciousness that transcendence represents. Why not talk about it? Why not bring it out there in some formal treatments today? Right, So, hey, hats off to you for leading that, you know, leading us

on the path. And I felt more empowered enough to right reading a book that et Tener add that last chapter. You you did a brilliant job with that last chapter. And it just I've been wrestling with the arc of your book. It's been it's it's fascinating, and I wondered if you could explain to me a little if it was intentional where you go from interdominance to inner surrender. It seems like that's the arc of the self realization journey of your book. Now, how much do you resonate

with that idea? That's a beautiful thing, you know. I hadn't really thought of the arc of the book that way, but now that you say it, it really rings true to me. Right. It starts off with a quote about interdominance from da Vinci, and then it ends on transcendence and a whole section on inner surrender. They don't seem like that's exactly the same thing, but maybe intermastery kind of at the most mature version is inner surrender, not interdominance. I don't know. I'm just to bring this up for

conversation purposes. I love it, I love it, love it. I'm going to be reflecting on that for the rest of this week and weekend, and something rich will emerge

from that reflection. Well, thank you, Scott, But just kind of like giving me that kind of frame through which to view this, I guess I'll give you one quote that just comes to my mind on this, which is there's a nun who was deeply engaged in contemplative meditative practices, and she wrote in her diary something that later on was published after a passing, and she in one of the moments, was talking about how she said that, you know,

I got up at like four am. I really struggled for two hours to get my attention and concentration and theorization, and then finally the breakthrough came and then after six I was able to experience something quite beautiful, you know.

And then she later on wrote about it. She said that these contemplation practices, they're like you being on a beach and you're pushing this boat against the sand right towards the ocean, so you're having to do a lot of push, push, push, and then at some point it just starts to float on its own and there's no

effort needed. So the inner dominion part is the intentional effort, full work that is required or us to take ownership and to actually expend some effort, you know, and to have some struggle in order to get us to a more beautiful place. But yes, to your point, the ultimate goal or intention in that pursuit is to be in the state of flow where it's completely effortless and you almost have just surrendered and pulled away all of the

encumbrances to what is your natural self. That was always there, and you don't even have to be effortful about it at all. The effort you had to put was just in pulling the veilbag. Yes, boom boom. And there's something very fascinating seems to happen when you're in the full state, and that's that your best self seems to naturally emerge. Your highest potential emerges naturally and organically. It's not something

you need to like, wrestle or dominate. I thought the arc of your book was beautiful and the whole book is really good, and I recommend my listeners to go out and get it and think more about that inner work that you can do for yourself no matter what your life circumstances that you can't control. Denner, thank you so much for being on the Psychology Podcast today. It was a real pleasure and honor to have you on. Yeah.

Thank you, Scott. Thank you for all the beautiful work you do, and all the best to your listeners as well and both their in and out of journey towards success. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll

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