Elevate Your Energy to Fulfil Your Purpose #findyourpurpose #elevateyourenergy #selfdiscovery

the journey from your head to your heart is never easy but it is the most important and fulfilling that you will ever embark on it is the greatest Adventure energy is how we show up and it's what we're communicating to the world through our body language through our words and just our presence and the way we connect to what we desire is to deep down know that it will happen at some point if you feel you deserve it it will happen at some point when I talk about fulfillment now we're talking about spiritual energy because spiritual energy is about meaning and purpose when you are doing something that makes you feel life when you are doing something that allows you to express your talent your skills and your potential you you experience this Flow State you in flow you just enjoy it you can do the thing that you're doing for hours without realizing this is what we call being high in spiritual energy it's when you're fulfilled is where you are part of a bigger Mission my guest today is someone who says that energy is everything he says it's the fuel that drives your success and gives you the power to achieve your potential and when manag well it'll transform the way you live and work Simon Alexander on is an international keynote speaker bestselling author of energize and an award-winning coach featured in media such as the BBC Harvard Business Review Forbes and Financial Times in today's conversation let's unpack how to create the kind of energy that supercharges you into a whole new level of clarity focus and vision Simon welcome thank you so much for having me so good to see you and uh how are you today I'm feeling good I'm feeling good I had a good first quarter to the year so far and now looking to build upon that as we move into the remainder of the Year amazing so I've been following you for a while and um I somehow resonate with you this book you've written called energize and I'm thinking you know is this book from a business point of view is this book from a a more kind of a some people might say woooo point of view you know but it's it's a very interesting topic to me because as a somebody who's been practicing yoga for like I don't know at least a couple of decades and longer without a teacher since I was the age of 12 and I've been studying up on all of the yogic philosophies and and all kinds of other philosophies where Prana you know the idea of energy is at the very very center so I wanted to start by asking you this question so people can look at energy in very very different ways if you are talking to a physicist they might Define energy as the ability to create a certain amount of movement within a given time frame as a yogi uh if you asked me to Define Prana I would say it simply means the subtle life force that permeates everyone and everything in the universe let's start by having your definition of what you mean by energy what interesting thing is you talk about physics you talk about yoga you can also look at Chinese culture they call it Chi if you look at Mari culture they call it Mana if you look at popular culture in the Star Wars film franchise they call it the force now whatever label or description we use we're actually all talking about the same thing which is energy as a life force energy as a way of how we move in our daily lives and so the way I Define energy is through four di mentions it is your physical it is your mental your emotional and your spiritual in today's world we focus exclusively on physical energy when we think about energy just go back to the beginning of the year and remember the sort of news resolutions you heard your friends and family mention they may have said things such as this is the year I want to improve my diet or this is a year where my health and fitness is going to be my number one priority or where I'm going to have a better balance between work and rest all of that has to do with physical energy but if we are to feel energized on a more regular and consistent basis we also have to look at the mental the emotional and also the spiritual side of things so how do you define energy though I think energy is simply the way you show up in life it is a feeling that people get when they're in your presence so when they enter your field the energy that you emit can be felt it's like a universal language that has no words yet you and I feel it my Angelou I think summed this up best when she said people will forget what you said people will forget what you did but they will never forget the way you made them feel uh there's a there's a saying that goes energy introduces you before you even speak and that's what I'm talking about you might go into a room of people two people come up to you but one for whatever reason attracts you to start a conversation with them but you can't pinpoint what it is they're just something about that person and they haven't said a word yet yeah this is energy energy is how we show up and it's what we're communicating to the world through our body language through our words and just our presence amazing yeah I can completely relate to that that you actually relate through your nervous system almost your psychic senses those unspoken senses that we we're not necessarily putting into words but you know whether someone is for you or not yeah definitely okay definitely as you mentioned it's a very subtle thing energy is a very subtle thing it's certainly very difficult to write an entire book about this one so what led up to what in your life what in your life circumstances what in your world led up to you writing about specifically m energy energizing there are three moments in the journey that come to mind that contributed to me writing about energy the first is a story I share in the very first chapter of the book where post the event of Leman Brothers collapsing and Leman Brothers was the first job I had after graduation I went into this hedge fund which I thought was going to be a glamorous role and where I would be paid good money but unfortunately the reality was anything but and so I was in early I was last out of the office long hours punishing work my health suffered in every way I was sacrificing sleep I survived on junk food and I just didn't have time to exercise and so I got to this point where I completely broke down one night I said to my girlfriend at the time I would be taking the Lun train home after going to some client entertainment I ended up coming home midm morning drunk disoriented and and this was the Catalyst for my my girlfriend and I to have a deep conversation about where I was in my life and what was going on in my head and up until that point I had I'd never really seen the value of that because I'd grown up with this assumption that as a man I should be strong I should just pick myself up go again and just toughen up and not to share my feelings and emotions and just to get on with it and and it was weak to do so but but my girlfriend at the time had given me this space to speak into and it was very uncomfortable for me because I hadn't really done anything like that before but just having her support gave me the reassurance that I had someone there to to support me so I I quit that job soon after I moved into another role still within the finance industry but one that was kind of on the hours so I could start making my health a priority but that was the that was the first moment that made me think about energy because I was exhausted I was was tired I was spent I had no physical mental emotional spiritual energy in play the second was as I started building my business speaking became a bigger thing of what I what I do I was having this experience where a lot of people in the audience would come up to me after I came down from stage and they would be saying to me Simon I loved what you said on stage I loved your energy and you know if I could have just a small percentage of the energy you have I could go on and accomplish so much in my life and career and that got me thinking about what led me to that point where I could show up on stage with a certain level of energy that would connect with the audience in the room and the third was just through observation I I love reverse engineering success story so looking at individuals teams and companies that accomplished fantastic things and understand how they did it and what I noticed is that those who were able to go the distance do things most couldn't was because they had the energy to do so they had this ability to show up day after day after day as their best selves you shared in your book a quotation by I think it was SATA nadela when he was addressing the people in uh I think it maybe a university in India and um I made a note of it here it's um it's a really nice one where he talks about what a what a leader does is he shows up with his energy what he brings to the equation is the energy that distinguishes him apart from somebody who's a follower let's say or somebody who's a manager that was uh very interesting to to kind of put that together I thought it was a great quote because when you look at organizations the most powerful energetic force is between those at the top and those that they lead so if you work in a company and your boss comes in first thing on a Monday morning before they've even said a word you can tell whether they had a bad or a good weekend yeah and that kind of sets up the energy for the day in the office and this is why if leaders want to lead those around them effectively they have to start by Leading themselves and it begins with managing their energy so when you talk about energy managing your energy we'll talk about that a little bit later because you you've got a a good couple of chapters on on various ways that you have recommended people do that but just uh since we're talking about leadership what what would you say are perhaps the three key elements of a really good leader as opposed to a mediocre somebody who's leading but who's not effective what would say the three qu three key qualities in terms of managing their energy sure for the first one I think it's awareness if a leader is to manage their energy better they have to be aware about their blind spots what is working what is not working and for someone to be aware they have to be open to feedback and even though people give lip service to feedback lots of us don't actually like to receive it so if you can put it out there and actually be open to it get people to give you feedback bad or good feedback because all feedback can be useful and that gives you an idea of where you are right now and what must improve and you have to be vulnerable in that you have to be open to asking for help a lot of people think just as I did when I started in the financial industry that you have to know everything as a leader people don't actually want that and so when you are vulnerable in a position of leadership it doesn't make you any less of a leader it simply makes you human and I think that's what people crave is that they want to look at their leaders and see a bit of them in in this leader they want to say actually the leader is like one of us they have their own challenges they have their own blind spots and if we can help them then we can all benefit from it but if there's this distance whereas them and us then guess what yes they might work for you but they're not going to go the extra distance or the extra mile uh when it's needed when the company or the team goes through some difficult times but if the leader can be vulnerable to say what are your faults you know we've gone for a good period there's a challenging period coming up I know what we must do but there are some areas where I could need some of your input on and I know you will be stronger to me in some areas and if you have any ideas I would love to hear them so I think the first thing is awareness and that stems from being vulnerable and also having a level of humility that you don't know everything ego assumes you do humility knows that you can't know everything so I think it's awareness second is listening and it's not listening to respond but it's listening to understand and this is important because when you listen to understand especially when you're working with a group of people or even big teams across different locations when you listen to understand it helps you communicate better Warren buffer even said that the greatest business skill that we can develop is the art of communication but we can only communicate effectively if we know the best way to communicate and when we can communicate effectively we get heard we get better engagement from the people that we are speaking to so the second is to listen to understand so you can communicate more effectively and the third which I think is challenging especially when you are an ambitious leader is finding this Rhythm between work and rest it's not to see them as opposites but of but as partners of the same team work and rest have to find this Rhythm where yes you have periods of deep work but there'll be moments also where you must pull back to have rest so you can come back reset and rejuvenated interesting selfawareness the ability to to know when to stop and to balance recuperation and and activity yeah and being willing to listen so look the the the the reality is Simon you know and I know work my entire professional career has been in corporates and as has my husbands very very senior levels and what I've noticed is what you say is absolutely what I Vibe with completely wish that was like that and yet I know that the pressure of investors I know the pressure to make every quarter you know that to make the numbers that you've declared there's a whole range of reasons why somebody who runs a large organization maybe from I don't know anything from 10 billion and the upwards you know that I just don't see it happening I see I in my personal experience I have and myself have been somebody who's LED teams across internationally and delivered into into this the the the boards of Banks and large organizations you know it projects large one large deals delivered those managed people and one of the things that I I know for sure is that there are actually few leaders who are so self-confident so self-confident in their ability that they can be vulnerable enough to actually take on board feedback and and I think it's also challenging isn't it for them because on the one hand they have been given a role where they've said they're going to accomplish a number of results mhm and they've said I'm going to accomplish these results through these means this is my strategy so they need to go ahead and do that not everyone's going to like it so that's the dichotomy that in the real world I see how about you you coach Executives what do you find in this area in terms of your challenge as a coach to really hone that message home yeah well first of all I I relate to a lot of what you said because when I work with Executives and I have conversations with them and I talk at organizations what I noticed is that so many of them attach their emotional well-being to results and outcomes their identity TI their identi tied with them their identities tied to the result and so let's say they hit their results in one year well what are they focus on their focus now is on next year they can never be in the present because as soon as they hit one target their mind is now looking to the Future for the next Target and it's difficult but the the challenge for them and people in those situations is to not tie your emotional well-being to the results and outcomes because those things in many cases are out of your control there are external factors that you simply cannot account for in your plans and your strategies but instead it is to tie your emotional well-being to what is in your control how you show up how you relate how you connect with other people that is what is in your control if you tie your identity and your emotional wellbeing to something outside of your control like outcomes and results guess what your identity changes who you are you become someone who has lost themselves in this endless cycle in this Rat Race that you can never win and I remember when I was speaking in Dubai I was talking with Marshall Goldsmith and he was sharing with me some of the people he worked with and he told me that when Michael Phelps retired from swimming at the Olympics one of the first thoughts he had in that first year of retirement was about committing suicide because he didn't know who he was anym he had been so many years training for the Olympic Games he's been so many years focused on being a swimmer that competed at the highest level that was his identity and his emotional well-being was tied to the number of gold medals that he could win now when he finishes doing that as a career what is his objective now what is his goal he's got nothing to tie his emotional well-being to his identity becomes lost and so I do resonate with what you're saying there is because so many of us have grown up in the corporate world with having to tie success and emotional well-being to outcomes and results but I think it it is slowly changing when I started in the financial industry if I were to have suggested to HR or even my manager that we should have a well-being committee I think I would have been laughed at they would have questioned what I was drinking or eating but now there are many companies in the world that have their own well-being committees that are putting initiatives together or programs to make well-being a central focus of their employees now it might not work for every organization and they might not have got the results they have wanted yet but just the fact that they are now open to different perspectives and thought I think is a good first step it's interesting you say that things are slowly changing I think I from from what I see myself as a coach also the experience of having worked in these organizations and having gone through my own self-discovery transformational Journey yeah LED programs to people to you know of transformation one of the things is the the first point that you mentioned out I mentioned earlier about self-awareness the thing about self-awareness is that it needs you to be honest with yourself yeah and I feel like that's a the first step is the pitfall for most people because it because being honest with yourself means actually looking at your point of view the the where you've come to today in the success you might have had may very well be because you've used certain strategies for success to get you there and they may not be the strategies that are serving you but they get you the results so it's it's just that self-awareness for all of us whether you're a leader in a in a corporate or or otherwise you know is a is a fundamental a fundamental step and a fundamental sort of willingness commitment you know if you want to want to transform so would you say that perhaps the game of self-awareness self-discovery transformation is perhaps not for everybody they need to be ready to to embrace that yeah you do have to be ready I mean there's this saying that goes you can't change someone that doesn't want to be change and so there is an element of someone being open and willing to change but the more that people talk about it the more that people suggest people to look for coaches mentors and to do activities that will help gain a deeper understanding about who they are I think the better because if only one or two people say we're not going to listen but some of the people I work with you know they are founders of startup companies some are doing very well and some CEOs I'm working with they were in some cases suggested to explore coaching from an investor or another CEO friend said oh I've had some coaching for a while you should explore it as well and that led to them and I having conversations so I think the more that we can see and hear about the impact working on your soft skills can have the more people start to question how they can incorporate that in their in their daily lives They're Not So Soft though are they they're not but but the thing is they are Cena soft yeah and what I've come to realize as well not just for myself but also the people I work with is that we need those soft skills in order to do the hard problems in life because business whatever you're operating whether you have a product or service based business it is fundamentally all about people and your ability to connect to manage and to lead people will determine how much success you have in the long term agrees yeah absolutely in your book you actually talk about focusing on what matters most and it's a whole chapter you've given to that and you coined a term which I really like it's called question storming so um what is question storming and how is question storming different from brainstorming and when is question storming most useful so first of all the difference brainstorming is when you get a group of people together and you come up with solutions to a problem you throw ideas into the middle of the table you get everyone to contribute and then you decide which of those ideas do you go on and pursue that's brainstorming it's focused on Solutions question storming is focused on questions what are the questions that we want to try and answer and for me the reason why question storming is more productive is firstly it means that we are all equal if you have a question whatever your level in the organization you can ask it this is a chance for all of your questions into the middle so it doesn't put people off asking a question so any question you have let's put it into the middle and also the difference between question storming and brainstorming is that a single question can create a wealth of insight questions are like the keys to unlock the right path to where you want to be and so if you question storm put it in the middle people could spot the right question at the right moment that unlocks their creativity and for me question storming is best right at the beginning because before you jump into a project before you overcommit to something it allows you to perhaps explore things you didn't think about just because somebody asked a question and you didn't think about that so it forces you to go back and reflect about what additional information the team needs in order for people to have greater clarity as to the next step I love that I really really appreciate that because I've noticed that you know the extent to which your life is amazing is the extent to which you're able to to ask the right questions yeah of the of yourself of the universe because without asking that question without asking for the right thing you're not actually going to get anything new and so I I actually love that I'm surprised we I haven't heard that somewhere else before congratulations on that I'll give you I'll give you an example so I was talking with a new client recently and he said one of his biggest challenges is prioritization because when you are an icious individual there are lots of things you want to do and so you end up saying yes to many things some of which in hindsight you you regret because you wish you had said no because at the time you said yes you didn't think in a few weeks time you would have packed up your diary and so one question I said to him is if you only had 2 hours a week to focus on your business how would you use those two hours and immediately that forced his mind to focus on what mattered most he said actually if I only had 2 hours I would go out and meet as many interesting people as I could because some of my best opportunities have come from conversation have come from me sharing with other people my industry or people outside of my industry who are doing amazing things what I'm up to and what my challenges are and from those conversations they've said to me actually you should speak to my friend or you should speak to this person when you travel to this city so that's how I would have spend if my two hours if I only had those two hours a week you do that a lot don't you you actually Network I've noticed you you tend to to be a big one big believer of making connections networking and now it sounds like obvious but actually knowing that many of us don't manage to actually make the time and find the opportunity the right places to to go to yeah when we talk about habits in my book I talk about I talk a lot about lifestyle habits because it's about energy when I think about business habits one of the most important business habits you can Embrace if you want to succeed longterm is every week look at how you can expand nurture and develop your network don't don't rest on it it has to be one of your top priorities I focus on this right at the beginning of my entrepreneur journey I still focus on it today and the value of a network is not how many people you know I mean yes that is important to some extent as as you build an audience but it's how you can add value to that Network that's the real measure of your Network can you connect people together can you introduce people to an opportunity can you refer someone uh to someone else can you bring two people together to Kickstart a collaboration if you can add value to that Network that's how people want to be part of your business they want to be in your circle and they want to give you something back over time because you then become seen as a person of value and for me it's never been it has never been more important especially when you think about today that there are so many people doing what you are doing uh it's a combination of what you know and who you know if you can get both in place you've got a greater chance to succeed I really like that that's absolutely if there was one thing I think that many of us could do more of is to actually create a network in which you're adding value and I think that's um something I'm going to take on Simon and what's also important actually when you think about Network and I think some people get this wrong is that when you think about a network what you want to also be thinking about is how can you have diversity in your network because if you want to stand out in the world of business and even leadership to some extent you want to be thinking different you want to be acting Bold And original and the only way to do that is to have diversity in your network if you only hang out with the same people doing the same work as you it is impossible to think different but if you start deliberately spending time with people out industry which was one of the things I focus on early in my career I would go out and I would spend time with anyone from film directors to musicians to chefs to bartenders to Tech entrepreneurs to investors what happens is you get all of these insights that are different from the average person in your industry first you think well how can I take what they're doing and apply it to what I'm doing in my field and second is there a way we can collaborate to put together something so unique that people can't help but talk about it amazing I really really appreciate that that's um that's a real valuable again adding value to this podcast it's a it's really worth noting actually and and actually putting in as a as a thing to practice to take on I'm particularly bad at it because I get very busy with writing creating content I travel quite a bit which is great you know other other responsibilities and so on and I find that the thing that suffers the most is going out and meeting new people yeah I mean this is this is one of the uh secret sources behind the marketing of my book I I I did an interview recently where someone said Simon I followed your book journey and I was in all of your book marketing how you got it out into the world and just the unique ways you shared it with with the audience so we did stuff such as the Conor hotel in Mayfair designing the energized cocktail so if you went to that bar during the first few weeks of the book's publication and you ordered the energized cocktail Not only would they bring out a trolley and they'll mix the drink for you but when they present it on your table they would do so on top of a copy of my book a signed copy of my book for the Drinker amazing and so people would take photos and videos of that experience and share it onto social media and then we did one of the world's first book launches in the metaverse so if you put on your virtual reality headset you could then join me me in this virtual conference room where my avatar would be talking to you even though I was at home in my living room and people could experience this unique environment that had never been done before that is so unique how did that come about so these came about through my network so in my network I I knew a guy called agustina Peroni uh who heads up the the BART con hotel in Mayfair H he's an icon within his industry he's accomplished some amazing things and so we struck up a friendship over the years and then we put it out there as to what we could do as a collaboration and it wasn't until the book was due to be published and I said how about we we do something for the book and that's when the idea came about for the metaverse it was through an investor who had invested in this company who was building education Platforms in the metaverse and he says Simon how about we designed this platform for you in exchange for you marketing it to your audience and we could do something special for the book so that came from having a diversified Network and that's what I mean by adding that as a layer of your network and how can you start to broaden the people that you uh you connect with because what that does it feeds your creativity but it also helps you think different and start collaborations that other people would look at and go wow in marketing they call this they call this a UTP which stands for Unique talking points how do you turn your audience into your marketers so you don't have to pay a marketing team amazing that's I absolutely so cool so so so cool so that came about from the question about question storming but to figure out to what matters most to people you advise people to ask themselves these four questions and I'm going to read the four questions to you the first one is what does success mean to you the second one is what does fulfillment look like to you the third is what sort of impact do you want your life to have the fourth question is what would you do if money were No Object so those are the four questions you say to people if you want to really get you should get clear about these things because that'll help you to focus on what matters most to you so can you talk about the difference between success and fulfillment when it comes to experiencing these in yourself energetically sure so I I I'll share it in the context of my experience so on paper at the beginning of my career I would be deemed as successful Simon went to the L School of Economics Simon graduated he studied at Lemma Brothers a well-known American Investment Bank he went to a hedge fund earned a decent pay packet got good bonus on paper Simon is successful and that would have been the definition for most of society and my family but inside I didn't feel successful and this is where fulfillment comes in you could look successful but you can be successful in something you hate I was lacking fulfillment I didn't feel that I could be in this industry for a long time I remember in every job I had before I quit to start entrepreneurship there were moments of my day where I would retire into the toilet cubicle and just close my eyes resting my head on the side of the cubicle dreaming of a different life that for me is the difference between success and fulfillment you could be seen to be successful but the very thing you're successful in could be something that just does not align with who you are I think people are successful often because that's how who they are they work at whatever they' they've got at hand absolutely and they give it their best because that's what they're doing and so from that point of view we can get success it may not necessarily be we're running someone else's race and and so when I when I talk about fulfillment now we're talking about spiritual energy because spiritual energy is about meaning and purpose when you are doing something that makes you feel alive when you are doing something that allows you to express your talent your skills and your potential you you experience this Flow State you in flow you just enjoy it you can do the thing that you're doing for hours without realizing this is what we call being high in spiritual energy it's when you're fulfilled is where you are part of a bigger Mission but when you're low on spiritual energy that's when you're going against who you are you're not doing the things that allow you to express your gifts and the way that manifests itself is through physical tension so this is why people who hate their jobs on Sunday nights or Monday mornings they have this feeling of physical tension inside their stomachs and that is because your body your spirit knows that the thing you're about to do is not what you were meant to do our body knows deep than we also know but it's about having the courage to face that and to understand that we have to make some change the nervous system is so co-related with higher Consciousness beyond the Mind beyond the identity and that's always I talk about it a lot in my books it's we we in in in vic terminology we would call it Atman which is or Brahman which is Atman is is higher Consciousness you know that is the field they call it the unified field in in physics they you could say de cha often talks about field of pure potentiality it's constantly giving us the information that we that would be useful to us if only we had I find it's about tuning your nervous system so it's like you know attuning yourself what does that mean it means you know sort of like really allowing the nervous system to become capable or receiving that and and interacting with that field so when we talk about energy I feel like that's a lot of what what you're talking about absolutely and and this is why in in in my book I talk about how our thoughts create our reality that we are both the sculpture and the sculptor is that there is no so there is no one reality for all of us the way we interpret the experience we have of the world that creates our reality and so what that means is that at any given moment we have the power to choose one for over another and when we choose a different for that completely rewires our experience of the of reality so we think a different for that creates a different action different action creates a different result and that different result either affirms a new belie or it gives us the motivation to do something better to do something more than we did yesterday and so when we realize that we can choose our own thoughts and we can interpret reality in however we want then we literally become our own creator of our future are you someone who is more mentally inclined or you someone who's more spiritually inclined when it comes to which thoughts you allow to turn into your next reality as in as in I see one as being something which is related to what we already know yeah and the other is from that field of creation you know pure potential it's like something happens you you it's something crops up in in your awareness that may not have been there how how how does that work for you so simplest way to put it is something I learned from from Zen Buddhism when I spent some time in Japan so I used to go Japan every year for uh a couple of years before I became a father and I remember learning this statement from one of the temples I visited where it said be attached to no outcome and open to everything and so that's how I kind of go about things I'm attached to no outcome and open to everything yet I'm operating from the identity of My Future Self so I think where people face challenges in the present is when they're making choices and decisions based on their past self exactly so they end up repeating the cycles of their past self that's where the questions come from absolutely you know absolutely so that's where the stuckness is because there's nothing fresh coming they get stuck there's no allowance for fresh Insight but what I do and this is what I share in the chapter what matters most is you have to look ahead in time and get some clarity as to who you want to be so really connect with that person it could be 10 years from now 20 years from now but just pick a moment in the future where life is exactly where you would like it to be and you are the person you want to be and then from that point in time transfer that future self to the present moment and act from that future self to make today's decisions because what happens is there is no more dilemma there is no more indecision because if you operating from that future identity you already know what those choices and habits are for you to embrace and I think for some people that might be a dilemma because operating from the Future Self what if that future cell is one that loves peace being present and the activity of success and accomplishment everything else suddenly becomes you know a thing to do as opposed to a way to be because you're already experiencing yourself in that state of fulfillment right so there is no future self that is becomes the now self it's like this is how it is absolutely and this is how we create wormholes you know in physics a wormhole is how you get from one point to another Point almost instantaneously this is how we do it for us is we bring back that future self to today we act as if we already are that future self so we come from a place of being not doing how are we being as that future self and then when you come from a place of being everything seems to fall into place because how you show up how you see yourself how you connect with other people is from that future identity and you accelerate far quicker than most ever will so it actually can take you to whatever it is that your soul your higher self whatever your purpose for taking birth in this lifetime is and to actually fulfill on that as opposed to you know it can it can come faster I think sometimes the the challenge I'm thinking from people that I I've coached people who are really working on this idea of feeling being fulfilled now to let go of the identity that they know themselves to be because that's so strong that's the ego wants to hold on to everything doesn't know anything different there's fear around being different and so you know and then there are of course this all these conversations around culture what you being brought up with other people's expectations you can still arrive in a place where you think okay I'm not I'm I'm now at a stage where I'm not really bothered by what other people think of me this is you know I I have a time here and what am I going to do with that time to make it truly like how can I honor my word to my higher self to my soul that I will accomplish before I take my last breath whatever my mission was that I came here to do it doesn't have to be like a saving the world type Mission it could just be becoming a higher version of yourself it could be resolving a particular issue so my question around this more an inquiry with you Simon because we're talking about the you know feeling fulfilled the inquir is around you know you don't really want to do the things that you've always done yeah pursued the goals you've pursued the value the things that you had as top of your core values they seem to shift a lot they do and they must shift if you are going to become the person you want to be because we we evolve every moment that you work on yourself you open your mind up to new knowledge new experiences new insight so that is part of the evolution you can't be the same person you are yesterday if you're evolving every single day and so when you look at the future and who you want to become it is and this is where you have to accept this as being part of the process it is going to cost you your old self and when you can find peace with that you can focus on molding the person you want to be indeed I think it's a really really important point to embrace and contemplate because the the reason why I feel a lot of us don't have that sense of fulfillment and being true to ourselves like leading life from being true to not the self the identity but the self which is the the one beyond the identity which is pure potentiality pure potentiality is what it's about and this is funny enough this is what bronny w wrote about in her book the top regrets of the dying the number one regret amongst the dying was I wish I lived a life more true to myself than a life lived for others and so if we can focus our energy and attention on living a life more true to ourself of understanding who we really are because if we want greater wisdom it begins with knowing yourself so as you begin to know yourself for who you truly are that's when life begins indeed indeed I I mean I I for myself I I completely Embrace that I I also I have compassion for for you know for the fact that there are there's a lot of resistance that can come up when something when that pure when the higher you approaches you and you can get a glimpse of that even through a tiny even just a few moments of silence and there's a little crack in the thoughts and then suddenly it captures you you know what happens is like the self wherever you might be I think it's not a a static Journey it's like there's this fluid spiral you know so so you may you may have overcome a certain amount of resistance when the last time it happened but the next time it happens it might come and get you anyway so I I have compassion for the journey for the self-discovery journey with a capital S it's it's it's never easy I mean uh the journey from your head to your heart is never easy but it is the most important and fulfilling that you will ever embark on it is the greatest Adventure I mean would you want to go through life having never discovered who you truly are and who your potential is or would you rather have explored it yes failed yes fa some hard times but you became closer to who you were meant to be absolutely that really great inquiry I I love having these conversations with with people who are deeply you know engrossed in their own Evolution cuz uh there is nowhere you can't go and you can't go and learn this kind of stuff you you can't do a class on it already you know only come from personal experience this leads me to thinking about the Paradox the dichotomy of wanting something and being fulfilled without that thing so meaning that when you want want want something you're so much in the energy the vibration of the Desiring of it it's like I want this I want I'm going to be that person I'm going to be that person that it can take you right out of being in the moment here and now and appreciating who you are and what you have right now so being satisfied fulfilled in the present moment because you're chasing something so how do you bridge the desire the feeling of lacking that thing that you're wanting because you don't have it right now but you are wanting it the attachment that comes with wanting something sometimes you want something so much I was listening to somebody the other day I think I was listening to a podcast and and the guest was talking about how she was so absolutely obsessed with her business that it was literally to cost her life she was so attached to the success of her business and this is kind of human right it happens and people want something so much this is how people go through the emotions of depression and anxiety because they are attaching their well-being to a future that may or may not happen it could be getting a promotion it could be getting that dream job you've always wanted it could be moving cross country it could be getting a man or woman you want in your life these things are what we tend to attach our emotional well-being to too and if we don't get it if it doesn't happen then we go off the rails we find something to to soo our pain in that moment but what's more important is that the future yes we can do the right things to make it happen but we shouldn't attach ourselves to it if we if we find peace with focus in what we can control then we become Empower to take some level of action and the way we connect to what we desire is to deep that down know that it will happen at some point if you feel you deserve it it will happen at some point and then Focus your energy on the present what can I do today that will increase the probability of that thing happening and then just leave the rest to the universe because what happens is when you overthink it when you focus too much on the outcome you give up too soon and lots of people do they start something with these big hopes and dreams and they're not consistent because they become impatient and 6 months seven months down the line they're not seeing results and they give up whereas if they just stayed on a journey a few months longer they might have been open to that hockey stick growth where things start coming in like an avalanche and so what I try and do myself now is focus on rewarding myself for the execution of the process not the accomplishment of the outcome because he ow me what have said when I hit this target when my book becomes a bestseller when I hit these objectives then I will celebrate but what happens is that if you are only rewarding the outcome you will never get out of that cycle you're always going to prioritize and put on the pedestal the outcome but if you focus on rewarding yourself for having executed the process then guess what you're going to be more motivated to continue with that process and so it's just about reframing what we reward and the relationship we have with future outcomes and the current situation we have enjoying the journey really celebrating the journey and also the the thing that you mentioned about attachment I think is really key but that's the dichotomy isn't it when you want something you're so there is a tendency to be almost become obsessive with it or become obsessive with it and then that mean what does that mean that means you're really attached to it but then finding that balance between the the the the goal the vision and at the same time you know trusting the universe it's like trusting is the big thing here it is tough because we don't know the future we don't know if the decisions we're about to take today are going to open the path to where we want to be so there is certainly a degree of trust that has to go into it and also self-belief you know you have to believe to some degree that you have value to offer the world that you have something that is going to help you get get to where you want to be there are there are two sales that occur all the time the second is selling you to others and the first is selling you to you and unless you can sell you to you it is always going to be a challenge to sell you to others and this is why there's a combination here of inner work and outer work and it always starts with the inner work because if you spend enough time working on you the outside stuff becomes a lot easier how do you spot somebody who's aligned internally and externally in that way presence you can tell by their presence how they carry themselves how they speak and the way they interact with people and also how they deal with tough situations you can see someone who is aligned in that way I remember when I spoke at an event last year in June 2023 with deepack chopper so I was speaking before deepack I spoke there was a break and then DPAC came onto stage and in that break I had a chance to connect with DPAC and his presence was incredible he was absolutely in the moment listening to you hearing your questions and answering it from his experience and you can tell he's done a lot of work in himself and that he's operating at a high level of Consciousness nice like that no it's very true now Simon in everyone's life there's always that one traumatic situation that happens right which say usually there are more than one but there's at least one that happens where you shapes your view of Life shapes a view of yourself and especially what's possible in your in your life coming coming up so usually that happens in in childhood something like that in your book I saw one incident you mentioned where you failed a year at University I think you you you failed three out of four courses was that correct it was a proper failure three three FS out of four exams uh I mean I just need a one morning it would have been a clean sweep but it was complete failure and I had to reset that year I was just dreading the conversation with my dad I saw that as soon as I saw I I so resonated with that I've been there done it got the T-shirt yeah I I was frozen in front of the computer screen looking at the results because I knew I would have to go downstairs and tell everyone what it just happened there was there was no avoiding it I I had to share that and it was so hard at the time I thought I had thrown away my future I thought that I could never create the life I wanted to have Chinese culture right cult it's very focused on academics and what would I do now but that traumatic experience shaped me in the same way I guess losing my mom did and and going through a a tough family situation when I was younger shaped me as well but this particular moment of failing that year of University and having to reset it sh shaped me in the sense that it taught me the power of relationships but also being responsible for your future because in the following year when everybody was applying for internships at the companies they wanted to work for I couldn't do it the normal way the normal way was you go into a company's website you fill in an application form and on the first page they ask you for your exam results of the previous year and that's the first filter I couldn't get past the first filter you fill in those exam results the computer then tells you whether you've passed that first round and then you have to fill in the other details before you submit the application yeah but I couldn't fill in even that first page so I had no choice in that next year after I reset that year but to go to company conferences and to build relationships with as many people as I could so that I could just send them my CV and they would say things such as hey Simon I will forward your CV onto HR and let's get you in for an interview so I was able to bypass some of these application forms and go direct to people working in the company already to get an interview because I knew that if I could get into that interview I could show them what I could do they would love you I I I do resonate with that I have had I mean I don't actually have a degree I chose to buy to to get straight into corporate the opportunity came up I thought I was going to do it for a year and I ended up buying a house at the end of that year because I did so well in the first year and and what happened was that later on you know I wanted to move into it and Indian it was starting to to buzz a little bit in tiny little scraps of uh newspaper articles in in Indian newspapers when I was traveling around Delhi and stuff I'm like what is this thing I really want to do this I I just knew instinctively I could do it and my it was Business Development sales developing relationships and I mean just there no way that I could fail at that I just knew it except for the fact that when I came back home here I was looking for a for a for a job in this nobody was the companies were not set up here and then I came across one ad in the Sunday Times and they wanted it was for this type of role it was a very I didn't know how big or small the company was turned out it were 150 people it was a startup and um they wanted somebody with 5 years of software sales experience wow I mean there's just no way I I I didn't have I had technology but not software so and they wanted uh a degree some sort of an um engineering or an MBA and possibly even a PhD that was the kind of level that they were looking at and I'm like no I don't care I'm I'm going to I got in touch with them and I I literally it took me 6 months to get the job and there were like 200 people ahead of me I got the job and I spent 15 years in that industry the biggest deal I won was a billion dollars and you know what that tells me what we've just spoken about there is not enough people pick up the phone call people or reach out and message people if you just ask if you put yourself out there you never know what could be possible it's about relationships at the end of the day isn't it and I think I think the challenge that what what I hear people tell me today when I'm when I'm you know talking to younger people wanting to leave you you know leaving University wanting to apply or or or just sort of in that that sort of space it's because everything is so digitalized now and they don't even know whom to contact and it does take a certain type of research to to get to that people are not used to being approached it's kind of like a complete no no whereas I know back in the day when I was doing these things you know it was it was you could pick up the phone and ask to speak to somebody I think you just have to be clever nowadays and when I talk about energy I think one of the ways that we can feel energized in doing something such as how to get a job or how to get a collaboration or how to reach out to someone it's it's a gamified the process treat the whole thing as a game if you were to treat it as a game how would the action you were about to do work if it was more fun if it was more fun to do what would that look like and so for me it it came down to attention I knew that if you could get people's attention then they would be open to hearing what you had to offer in the world of digital I think that actually makes things a little easier because even though you can't pick up the phone and call someone because not everyone shares their numbers and it's hard to get a number as it was perhaps back in the day what you can do now is do things a little different instead of just sending a text or an email drop a voice note drop a video message do something that makes you stand out yeah because it it will easily get you ahead of the people that would just do the obvious thing yeah do something different and you get their attention then they want to look at your profile they want to find out more about you and that's how you start a conversation absolutely I completely resonate with that so um you could have written a book about Charisma but you didn't you wrote a book about energy that's that's what you're talking about is in a sense some aspect of Charisma but it doesn't have to be that elusive I think make because I think when you presenting yourself when you work on your own energy again we're talking physical mental emotional spiritual when you work on your own energy you show up differently and this is how Charisma is born Charisma is born because of your presence now your presence can only be a certain level when you're happy with yourself when you're confident with who you are and you believe you have value to offer to the world now those things are in place guess what the way you walk into a room will be far different to someone who walks into the room without that foundation in place Charisma is a natural byproduct and presence is a natural byproduct of you working on your own energy definitely agree with you on that one definitely agree with you on that one and so we when we talk about success Simon it's one of these things which I noticed that you know some some of us are geared towards accomplishment success achievement even from our backgrounds whether it's Indian Chinese you know and any any background and then there are those people who are not it seems to me that um the in my my observation like in terms of I kind of put them in three buckets three three different groups of people there are those who when they hit adversity they get up and they challenge it and they they overcome it so it's like when the going gets tough the tough get going the second group actually don't have that reflex they don't have that reflex they tend to more give up or over time or they don't have the grit or the ambition I don't know whether they which one of the three sometimes it varies don't no grit ambition or give up and obviously when you don't get the results you want you know you start to form an idea about what's possible for you in life maybe like oh this is not for me and then they they become the followers of those people who are the tough ones and then there's the third type who in the face of adversity they decided early on that they're not cut out for success and they're okay with it they might innately lack motivation or ambition alt together they settle for something and they can be happy within that settling sure so I think um it's fair to understand that there are different people not everybody cares for is success is not a key value for everyone achievement accomplishment is for many of us so what's the difference between motivation ambition and energy as you're talking about it sure so motivation first of all is something that has to be renewed motivation is like a push Force when you think about energy if you think about it from a physical perspective it's a push Force I need to feel motivated in order to do something so something has to push you in order to take action and this is a difference I think between motivation and inspiration motivation you read a book you go to a seminar and you get a you get a shot it's like an energy shot into the system and then you might go for a few more days or a couple of weeks and you need another shot this is motivation is constantly having to push yourself inspiration for me is more of like a pulling force and this is where energy becomes interesting because if you have a compelling and a magnetic vision of where you want to be in life then what happens is that just pulls you forward it has a charge on it it's the moments where you find yourself waking up early in the morning to do something with the smell of possibilities without requiring motivation you just get up and you do it the best way to explain this is if you've booked a two-e holiday to somewhere exotic and it's a lovely Resort the day before even though you know you have to wake up early to catch the taxi to the to the airport you do it you do it because that visual of where you want to be is just pulling you forward effortlessly you don't have have to motivate yourself but try waking up early in a in a in a dark morning during the winter season doing a job you hate you need motivation it's very different and so that's the energetic difference I think between motivation and inspiration one is more of a push that you need again and again and again and the other is more of a pull it has a magnetic charge to it that just continually pulls you forward and that's why for me it's important to begin with the ending mind you know we talked just now about success being in different guises for people but the most important thing when it comes to success is to know what it means for you what does success mean for you don't care about what other people's definitions are but what is it for you and it can be something as simple as I want to be a great housewife or husband I want to exit a business I want to have an impact in the world I want to move to a different country and make a success of it I want to be promoted to manag and director of a company now as long as you are clear on what that is for you that's the best starting point because then you can decide what the actions are going to be today that will help make that possible for you interesting and I noticed that when I talked about um motivation I I talked about motivation and ambition you responded with motivation and inspiration which is which is actually very very interesting to me because what it tells me me is that in fact ambition in some ways is a form of inspiration for some people and yet and and it could be a driving force you know I think also the reason I I probably didn't mention ambition is because if you want to be better than who you were yesterday if you want a better life you are already ambitious ambition is part of your DNA yeah because we're not meant to live a life where we just coast and we kill potential and we let our dreams wer on the side life is given to us to experience in its entirety it's a miracle of life not everyone gets the gift of experiencing life in this in all of its forms but you have been given this opportunity to live life and so if you are wanting to develop yourself if you are keen on being better than who you were yesterday if you feel there is more you you are ambitious so for me we all have ambition at different degrees and I agree I think ambition is just something which is innately there yeah and it's there to the in varying sort of levels of uh of existence in in in in individuals we may not articulate ambition in some cases if it's not related to a career or to acquiring or to getting getting into a relationship or something we don't think about it that way but we do we do resonate very much more with inspiration because it's an inner feeling it's a more Pleasant uh it makes us feel good absolutely inspiration is I think what keeps you going on the tough days and you you are going to have tough days it's inevitable uh when you are embarking on a path of growth you are going to face challenges and the ultimate factor that determines how far you progress is how you respond to those in your response lies your greatest power but how you choose to respond to that is entirely up to you interesting and you were mentioning in your book about uh managing energy you were talking about managing energy was a you actually uh did an exercise which is what we call in Yoga Yoga Nidra what are the most effective ways of supercharging your energy and in particular I wanted to talk about energy zappers as well on the other side of that so there are there are people and things that zap your energy but let's talk about what how what do you consider to be energy superchargers supercharges what the first thing is movement really essential I think if you want to get energized quickly for me it is one of those habits that has been the domino effect in in motion so as soon as I made daily movement of priority a non-negotiable that inspired me to then want to change my diet it then made me want to explore different Avenues out of the corporate world that I was in but it was moving my body on a regular basis that put my mind in the mental state required to make better choices so that would be the first one that comes to my mind the second would be to expose yourself to negative ions now negative ions are things that we find in nature close to sources of water like rivers and oceans and sea expose yourself to negative ions because that can do wonders for both your mental and physical state I actually drink reverse osmosis water which has negative ions it actually puts back in negative ions that get stripped in the uh in the process of uh you know at the plant yeah yeah and and I think we we underestimate the power of just going Outdoors disconnected walk Outdoors under sunlight in nature in these environments so those will be the two quick things I think that we can do now nice I think with with regards to the movement thing what I've discovered is people often so many people struggle with weight losing weight staying fit and so on and one of the things that I feel like no one is talking about is you've got to find your mode of what makes you feel good when you move it's not always the gym if the gym and this is also the reason why people don't have consistency in in movement because they think if I don't go to the gym for one hour and do all the things that other people are doing then what's the point of doing it I might as well not do it but movement is different for all of us for some of us it could be doing an intense gym workout for others it could be going for a swim going for going on your bike walking in nature you just got to find what makes it fun for you totally totally agree with you on that one and I think if we can do that then what happens is because you're and and actually I found I hated going to the gym and but the moment when I when I was going to get married I wanted to lose a little bit of weight so I'm like okay I'm going to get in the gym and I made myself uh hire a personal trainer the personal trainer then was there so I had to show up course I had to I paid him so I had to show up and what happened was really interesting what I found was just the fact that I showed up I hated doing all the gym stuff because I was a swimmer up to that point I did yoga yoga but not like I do now now my yoga practice is like way other levels but in those days it was sort of more you know stretchy type type of stuff and what happened was I was on the machines and at some point I absolutely got addicted to it because I felt so good afterwards and I had so much energy around from the from the um the the resistance moving past the resistance the apathy the mental noise about it and then suddenly it became this thing of like something became indispensable in my daily life you know so I even now I can get onto a machine I will choose the machines I like don't have to do you know what everybody else might enjoy and there are some I like some I don't so I think that's really important but what I have found for myself is like yoga is oh there is no wa I get up at 5: in the morning to be in the class at 7 7:30 in the morning in in central London I I don't care I will I will eat 5:00 the evening before just so that I can manage my my sleep and and all the whole routine so you know it it it's incredible how amazing it makes you feel if you find the right mode for yourself and and here's the thing you may not always want to move your body or exercise but as you've shared you never regret it after you never regret it once you've done it really don't that's very very very true yeah absolutely one of the things that I I really want to ask you is with regards to the um energy element so with regards to managing energy Simon there is this conversation in social media about energy vampires and all kinds of stuff like that now I'm somebody who's very very sensitive I'm super sensitive to energy people places I can't often go into very crowded places because I come away feeling really Zapped and so on I I haven't figured out how that that kind of works in a sense but what is your view about this business about people stealing energy how do you what about shielding does that come from a place of fear should you do it what would you do if you were to Shield yourself yeah well first of all I think we only have 24 hours a day we already have limited time and so we do have to be conscious about how we choose to spend that time and who we spend it with and so when I look at environment there are two types of environments there is that which you can control and that which you can't so let's take the instance of the environment you can control if you know there are people that zap you of energy that drain your energy that you already know ahead of time if I spend time there I'm going to feel like it was a waste of an evening I'm going to come out negative worse than I was before I went in then just eliminate that from your diary or do less of it it's as simple as that but of course I understand there'll be parts of your environment that you cannot change so it could be your colleagues at work it could be some family members you just can't change that environment you have in your life and so what you have to do with the awareness of how they affect your energy is you want to dilute the impact of it so if you know ahead of time that you're going to go into a conversation or go into an environment where you know you're going to come out feeling a little negative then you can have a solution that after you come out of that what can you listen to that will get you back into the Zone that you were in what book can you have on the dashboard of your car that you can dive into before you set foot back home so you can start to create solutions that help dilute the impact of that that moment of being in such a Negative environment do you do you put up energy Shields and stuff like that for yourself ever is that something that works for you yeah so I'm very conscious about protecting my energy so one of the habits my wife and I have and she works for herself as well is every week we block out Monday and Tuesdays uh we block out Monday and Tuesdays for Content creation for catching up with some admin tasks for just being nothing days so we can kind of do what we need to do uh and we just have that space for ourselves and so very rarely we'll have meetings and other stuff booked in there Wednesdays every other week uh we have as a date day so we spend time by going out into the city uh we have a lunch together we just talk about our relationship we talk about family and then Wednesday afternoon Thursday and Fridays is where we then do all the other stuff uh we do the meetings we do a lot more of what we have to get done at work and then weekends we spend time with our daughter beautiful super super nice it's a really nice model for a lot of people what you just described I think the thing is you have to be conscious about blocking out me time in your calendar you have to decide ahead of time what is my ideal week what can I start blocking out ahead of time that I tell myself on my Pro is because if you don't there will always be something that comes into your diary you're not going to get it perfect every week but if you know ahead of time what your ideal week looks like you can Benchmark your weeks how close was I to hitting the ideal week and you keep refining you keep tuning things every single week based on your experience and eventually you'll get to a week that kind of works for you amazing thank you so much time as I say okay I could carry on having this conversation I think we'll we'll bring it to a close close with this one here today and I really want to thank you for joining me today and uh for sharing your wisdom for your experience and your time really thank you so much for having me thank you [Music]

Channel: Self Discovery Channel - Smita Joshi

Views: 181

Keywords: Karma & Diamonds, Smita Joshi, self discovery, How to find happiness, How to be happy, self discovery journey, How to be successful, Boost your energy, Simon Alexander Ong, Energize Book, top leadership qualities, how to be successful, success strategies, how to fulfil your purpose, find your purpose, coaching tips, how to manage your time, performance coach

Id: y4zawrdRnt8

Length: 73min 46sec (4426 seconds)

Published: Sun May 19 2024