Kunal Tulsiani. Post-Exit Spiritual Growth

0:00The root cause of any agitation you have guaranteed it's going to be relating to yourself. Kunal Tulsihani. Seven years after stepping away from his highly successful business, Kunal has gained profound personal insights into purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. In this episode, he shares how these insights now direct and drive his post-exit journey. He also offers actionable advice for you and me to live a more meaningful life. If you die with money in the bank, you've basically wasted life energy. Your happiness should not be dependent on anything outside of your control. You should be thinking, what can I do for you rather than what can I get from you?

0:34I see people going to charity auctions and they're putting their hand up, 20 ,000 for this or 30 ,000 for this. Have they checked if their drivers had dinner? Why does one person smoke a cigarette and absolutely loves it, another person can't stand the smell of smoke? If the cigarette has happiness, why wouldn't it give happiness to both people? It's the same with everything in the world. It's not the world that has happiness. It's actually how we relate to it.

1:03I'm so happy to see you here today because you've been an inspiration for me for years, as you know. So I'm extremely happy I can share some of your wisdom with my audience today. Absolute pleasure being here. Thanks for the invitation. Did money make you happy? Yes. In both ways? It gave me the ability to not think about it anymore. Who are you? Who am I? I am fuel consciousness. Beautiful. What's your purpose? My purpose is to find out my true nature. What is money? Energy. You're brilliant. What are the most important human character traits? Most important human character traits? Unselfishness.

1:47Being grateful. And love. Unconditional love. Because keeping your heart open is really important. and I think if you love conditionally some things are going to open your heart some things are going to close your heart unconditional means keeping an open heart all the time so I'd say these are the top three How do you want to be remembered? By who? Anyone? Whoever remembers you? Somebody who brought them a little bit of peace How do you choose people you surround yourself with? I look for higher values So either people who have high values or are aspiring to higher values. What would be the highest values?

2:33Those top three. Okay, fair enough. Kunal, what time do you wake up in the morning? So I try, my routine generally is about 4.45. Why? So when I was 22 years old, I started studying Vedanta. it's basically the veda is the oldest philosophy we know about known to mankind and they say a satwik time is between 4 and 6 a.m it's when your mind is most poised and calm and objective so that's time i like to study philosophy and then i start my day but i'll that's my routine sometimes obviously if i have had a late late night out dinner without you're a fun person you go out. I know. So it doesn't seem to affect your social life that much.

3:25No. Yeah, absolutely. How does the rest of the day look for you? I'll wake up, I'll study for an hour, shower, change, have my meetings, my most important meetings I'll have in the morning. Once I finish those, then I'll go to the gym and have my lunch, take a little afternoon nap, and then have my afternoon, which is which I spend in my office. So for how many years you've been doing this? It's been about 18 years now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's coming to 18 years. What do you think this quite unusual regime gave you during those 18 years? It's interesting because I think, so I met this guru who basically said, you know, move to India and study this philosophy full time.

4:13And I said, well, my desire for business is too much. So I just, I can't, I can't do that in my early twenties. She said, okay, just do whatever you want, drink, smoke, party, do whatever you want. Just make sure that you study between four and six. So I said, okay, that's fair. I can do that. But actually when you wake up at that time, it means you have to sleep at a certain time. It means you're eating at a certain time. So basically first of all, it gave me discipline. And I know at about 9pm, if I'm having a really interesting conversation, then I'll stay. but if it's not more valuable than my mornings, I'll be home in bed by 10 o 'clock.

4:51But yes, I'd say discipline, that time in the morning just gives me objectivity, right? So I take my mind out of the world. I contemplate on big theories, I guess. It's like when you take a boat, you take it out of water and you have to clean it and put it back in. That's what I'm doing in the morning. so I'm sort of resetting my priorities resetting my goal yeah and it gives me that throughout the day I can carry that through the day So you mentioned your desire for business was too strong Yes Let's talk about that Let's talk about your path in business So it probably starts with my parents my dad they came here from India 50 plus years ago with nothing he started on Pettico Lane Market an electronics stall and then he grew that to one shop and then five shops and sort of retail chain.

5:48So that work ethic sort of came from them. I studied business management. I went to boarding school. I came out, I studied business management at Westminster University. And during that, I was doing a coursework on IKEA. And I saw that the amount of people that go to IKEA and think they know how to assemble the furniture basically by you know they go on a Friday by Tuesday the kids have nowhere to sleep you know the bunk beds are all over the floor and they just want to get someone to fix it so I immediately got I hired some builders I put them on mopeds and I started a IKEA assembly business I then had a good friend of mine whose father he's a Russian oligarch he wanted some cupboards fitted in his office so uh i went we fitted those and um at the same point the same time ikea launched the same services as me which is doing very well by the way um so you know he said why don't you do something with my son and so we set up a company which would integrate um audio visual into like smart homes basically uh unfortunately my friend um had a very bad car accident um and he was over the drink drive limit and he got six and a half years in prison which was crazy i mean oxford graduate like super smart really bright guy and uh just one one mistake and uh he was a piece of prison so i was in working from their office so the father couldn't really speak english um i he kind of made me take over the the obligations of his son um which was not there was not a learning curve it was it was a straight line um because he didn't speak english so sometimes the banks would come and they'd be talking to me in english and he translated and turn up so i'm trying to this was sort of around 2005 2006 um and coming to 2007 i was like yeah just it's too much you know because he was obviously he's used to having you know 500 plus staff and there was just me so um very difficult i left in 2007 going to 2008 and i find a fight obviously it's a financial crisis yet um so thankfully i had my contacts and i um had by that time i had some investors and i got into um real estate i actually had to get planning permission uh for a little extension and when i got the planning mission i realized wow just with a drawing an application you can make a huge amount of value creation with not very much investment.

8:28So that's what I did. And we did police stations. We were buying police stations because they have that area in the middle where the police car would have to drive in. There are residential areas. So we'd buy those, get planning commission to convert them to houses and then we'd sell it on and buy the next one. And so far we've unlocked over a billion pounds worth of value in central London through police stations. Well, no, not through police stations. We did one million square feet in Vauxhall, which was a 200-bedroom hotel, 279 apartment scheme. And since then, I had that exit. And I've been investing.

9:06I set up a family office because my parents got old, so I was sort of managing their assets and my own. And I've been investing in... It's interesting because in the Gita he talks about, in chapter three it's about karma yoga karma yoga is about having an ideal outside of your self-centered interest so i've concentrated on impact investing um i don't believe in charity because i think charity is great but every time they need to raise funds they have to go with their you know begging bowl to try and raise money and i feel if you can set up a business which is impactful which is evergreen so it's funding itself and it's constantly giving back to society so i'm looking for those businesses let's go back a little bit please and i want you to talk about that big building you you did it sounds a lot easier than it was um i was again 28 years old um and it was it was an advertising site in voxel um and i basically went for planning permission for these two towers um we i did a joint venture with the landowner so they put their land in because they weren't allowed to um they weren't allowed to spend their money on speculative development because it's a pension fund so um i've raised the money and we basically got planning permission um and as we were going for that the whole area was was coming up there's american embassy came in and um a lot of 9l's whole battery power station now apple i don't know if the head offices there so the whole area sort of came up at the same time as but we were the first ones to go in for an application on that new plan that that the council had put out when you sold that project yeah how did you feel about it if you go back to that moment so there were quite dark days so we had to appeal so we were closed you know and and when i was looking for funding everyone I was like, Kunal, you know, who's going to, people aren't even investing in developed buildings in 2012.

11:15It was after financial crisis. Nobody believed in this pipe dream. So it was very, very difficult. And again, I go back to my philosophy of, you know, reading in the morning and the Gita, which is basically a fight, which we are to war. And Krishna is advising one army basically on how to fight the war, a righteous war. And so I was taking my learnings from there and I was applying it to everything I was doing. Give me an example. I want an illustration. Like what specific story from the danta helped you in a specific business situation? So, I mean, for example, it says, you know, when you meet someone, you should be thinking, what can I do for you rather than what can I get from you?

12:03so the attitude of what can I do for you um I was sort of because obviously I was young and I was in these big meetings with I was the youngest person at the table um it was very much well what can I do for you so when I'd meet the council they'd be like what do you guys want what do you what can we do for you um and then you're kind of on the same page as everyone you're listening to them you're under when I was meeting the landowner I was like what is it that I can do for you what do you need and they would tell me what they needed so it was just finding out what everyone else needed um but the main thing is i wasn't getting paid right because there was no money so it was it was years of me having to really put in effort without getting anything in return and not knowing if i was going to get anything in return um and that's what kept me going was just like okay what's my obligation what you know 16 000 jobs are going to be created it's homes it's it's a landmark for the country so let me um not think about myself because if i thought about myself I would have stopped it a long time ago so well I'm not really I don't know I'm not sure about this so I'm just gonna step back so it was the whole thing really was what kept me going I find it absolutely fascinating because in your 20s it's perfectly normal to be quite selfish and you at that time so early were so not selfish already so when tell me about how you exited that project when it was over and you were free from it.

13:28Yeah, I think the whole crux of philosophy, if you were told but asked me what is it in a nutshell, it is going from selfish to unselfish to selfless. Right. So I think if you understand the concept behind it, it will give you more of an idea of how I got to where I got to. So it's easier for you to solve your friend's problems than it is your own. right because when you're thinking of someone else your mind is less agitated you're you're more objective you can think clearer you can make better quality decisions that's why the answers in you you can use it for your your friend whereas for yourself when you're thinking about yourself your mind's really agitated you can't think very clearly so for me it was like well the more unselfish i am the more peace of mind i'm gonna have and and and that's why you know obviously to a limit if you go too far you start resenting you know so it's a it's a it's a limit but it's it's a slow slow one percent sort of better every day um so that that's what so when i was thinking about my exit was not again not about what i'm going to get out of it or what's going to happen and i think as you get to that point it's like okay now you get a certain amount of responsibility now there's the response okay so it i if i at the end of it got my had my exit and then was like okay let me go and spend this money on myself and i know that's not gonna bring me happiness you know i've seen enough people with money who aren't happy so because that's my my interest i've asked them you know um and i can see they're always searching for the next thing it's like chasing a mirage you know so for me it was to continue my my goal is self-realization right it's if you look at maso's hierarchy of needs the very top is self-actualization reaching a full potential as a human being so self-development's been always been my goal and i know i'll never reach it because self-development self-development um it's a process it's a process yeah it's a process that can always be developed and you can always um you can always grow towards it so my all i wished was for my that site to be solved um at the time so i had my exit and And wanted to continue pursuing my spiritual goal.

15:44Because this was part of my journey. Everything has to be aligned. So karma yoga is a way of reaching the self through action. So my business was my karma. And so I continued. So I got married in 2018. My wife was a student of Adantha. I met her at the Nashvam in India. And we got married. She came to Klander. she's a sound healer, Vedic sound healer. So I've just continued my sticking to my principles. Thank God I have them because there's so many opportunities where you can go off the rails. You know, it's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of money. And you need to have those values. But it didn't happen on day one when you just started your business that you already had all this knowledge and all this spirituality.

16:39So if you go back to when you just started your business, what was the motivation for you? Oh, to make money, to, I mean, my, the whole thing for my parents were, you know, money, people don't respect you if you don't have money, people, you don't, you need the power, you need the, you know, it was very much, you know, I had, I was living in central London, had very wealthy friends, you know, it was all about just, you know. So tell me a little bit about that time because I want to I want you to help me explain to our audience how you developed over time into where you are today yeah so obviously I came out of boarding school you know and I hadn't had exposure and moved to central London so I hadn't had exposure to the nightclubs and to the to the it was very I was sort of in a bubble um and when I came to central london and i had some i met some very wealthy um arab friends of mine who just wanted to party every day yeah they just want to go out and you're that just that was what life was about right it was about going to you know having nice things and and girls and just having a great time um which i realized um i went to a nightclub had to get my credit card the next day because i'd left it behind and I went and I walked in I was like this is just disgusting it just smells bad it's just if you ever go to a nightclub you know the next day it's just it's a flash in a flash in the pan you know and I realized I was like this is I want to spend time developing my day life my my action not my nightlife there's no point being having the best table in the club because it goes the next day you wake up with a hangover and nothing really to show for apart from a long receipt out of your pocket.

18:26So I saw at that time that that wasn't bringing me happiness and I was chasing something. So when I read the Vedanta Treatise, this amazing book. And I did read it. Amazing. It just talks about, you know, the self and it talks about, you know, why does one person smokes a cigarette and absolutely loves it? Another person can't stand the smell of smoke. If the cigarette has happiness, why wouldn't it give happiness to both people? It's the same with everything in the world. It's not the world that has happiness. It's actually how we relate to it. So how do you catch your shadow? Put your hand on your head.

19:07It's all about self-development. Even if you say, you know, life, you have you and you have the world, we're constantly improving the world. But if we can improve ourselves a little bit, every experience becomes that much better. so by developing yourself actually you're developing every experience and when I read this and I read this and I was like actually that really resonates with me it works and that's when I started sort of studying it deeper and that's when my business started you know dealing with my friend in jail and and you know dealing with his father and their responsibilities and that came to me very very early I was just applying it and my discipline and my perseverance and And everything that I was studying, as I said, I was slowly getting better and better and better.

19:55And everything was growing, growing with me. Everything was just falling into place. You know, it's like when you wake up with nature, you know, you're sort of up and the birds start waking up and the sun starts rising. And you're kind of, you're in line with nature. You're flowing. I was in flow. Despite all the challenges and visiting your friend in jail and all of it. Yeah. It was all part of obligation. It's all obligation. Like, what do I need to do for you? What do I need to do for him? What does he need? What does, so it was just, it was literally just giving. So you were already thinking that way at that time, in your early 20s.

20:28That's when I, that's when I came across this, I came across a philosophy. I went to India. I was supposed to go to a wedding and the groom broke his legs. I ended up going to Ananda in the Himalayas. It was a spa. And there I met a teacher. And when I met the teacher, he gave me the book. And then I started studying and then I had classes in London. And that was in my early 20s. So when you first had this idea that you wanted to earn money and wanted to go into business, it was before you discovered Vedanta. Then you discovered Vedanta and you started thinking more, it's my duty, right? And seeing your business through the values of Vedanta.

21:06Is that correct? That's exactly it, yeah. Okay, but then you left the Russian oligarch and you started your own property business. Yes. How did your spirituality grow together with your business at that time when you were already your own man? One of the concepts, the main concepts, is desires, right? So the more desires you have, the more agitated your mind is. And what we do is we keep picking up new desires. So I want to buy a house and you get the house. I now I need furniture and now I need this and I need that. And then so there's a constant. We keep adding desires. and the idea is to say well you should reduce your desires as much as you can not stifle them not be you know not frustrate yourself but just to a point where don't add new stuff imagine you put all your desires in a bucket today and just slowly work on reducing what's in that bucket don't keep adding things to it um so for me i had to think about that like what are my core desires what are the things which i'm going to work on see your vasana your your innate nature so what is that and everyone's born with a different age somebody might be a musician somebody might be born with a desire for speaking or for theatrical performance whatever it might be mine was for for business so I said okay let me focus on my core desire which was business and that's when I just put everything and focused it in one direction and I think if you if you put focus anything in one direction it gets a lot of power light in one direction has a lot of power wind in one direction has a lot of power absolutely and water in one direction um so i just focus all my energy on on emptying my bucket so you focus all your energy on your business you achieved amazing success in it and then you sold it yes what were you thinking you wanted to do next at that point at that time i actually wanted to teach the philosophy so what i'd learned what i had um because i believe the best way to learn is actually through teaching.

23:12I think you retain 90 % of what you teach and only 10 % of what you read. So I like that. You know, I like talking to people. I like being challenged on it. I like not only teaching, but just discussing. So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a philosopher. And so I realized like, okay, if I want to have free time to be able to do that, I need to get my finances in order. You know, I had to organize myself so I had to learn about wealth management you know I joined Tiger 21 I was already a YPO member um and I needed to work out how I can organize my organize my my family office as such yeah that will fuel so I'd have to worry about it anymore yeah and I can really focus on um giving on continuing my journey to try and be more and more unselfish um sometimes you go backwards you It's a challenge.

24:09Yeah, I guess going back to Maslow Pyramid, you were basically focusing on building your foundation, your safety and security, so you could focus on self-actualization. Exactly. I absolutely get it, yeah. Yeah, so that was my thing. And everyone says after exit, don't do anything for a year. You have to make no stupid mistakes. So I didn't, you know, which was lucky for me because by the time, you know, we had the final payment, it's 2018. So I'm learning about equities. I'm learning about, and then we had COVID. So I didn't do anything stupid. And I changed the name of the family office, Impact Assets.

24:46So I constantly think about, okay, what's impact? I want to be able to look back in 10 years and not just have made money, but I want to be able to, what is the difference I've made? How many lives have I impacted? Because I think that's what, for me now, even looking back at my property business, when I drive past some of the buildings that have been built, I'm like, oh, wow, like people are living there. You've created homes for people, you know, that's going to be there for hopefully a very long time. So in your impact investing, how do you balance pragmatism and spirituality? Again, if you've got, it's like math, right?

25:23If you've got your core values, you understand, okay, you know that I'm trying to do this for the benefit of other people. Like what's the benefit of others? But as I said, it shouldn't be charity. This money should come back and go to the next thing. So it needs to be done really responsibly. And again, karma yoga, which is as it says, chapter three of the Gita, this is all he's talking about, right? You need to, when you act, you have three types of yoga, right? You have karma yoga, which is action. You have bhakti, which is devotion, which is basically being grateful and having some sort of a thankful, being grateful for whatever you've been given.

26:04So today we're breathing and we've got our blood pressures managed and our everything is what our blood systems are working. So actually just having some devotion to something that's providing this to us. And jnana yoga, jnana yoga is the philosophy is a study of self self. So my karma is to work and that's what I do. So every situation I'm looking at, OK, how do we how's this going to help people? And that's part of my way of getting to my goal. When I first met you, you were actually at the crossroads. I remember it very well because you were thinking, should I dedicate my life to philosophy or should I do business at the same time?

26:48So it sounds like you found that balance and you found how to do both. Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, it was sort of, you know, let the family office run itself. And they give me time to, you know, to teach and have philosophical discussions. But I realized I'm not reusing this, not my true nature. So my nature for business is still there. So even though I've had my exit, I still have, you know, I'm in my nature for business. I'm thinking, how can I apply that nature? and I see it as one road I don't see them as two roads I see it as one road um and going down that road business I can I can help founders I you know I I sit on the board of the companies and I I give valuable insights I believe from my perspective and have discussions I mean like discussions we have and discussions with people who are talking about philanthropy and or talking about charity um so it's all part of the same the same thing do you think there is a conflict between a desire to earn money and be successful in materialistic terms and being spiritual i believe in order to be to give you need to be full right if i feel empty i need to take right if i feel full i can give so this there's an imaginary void of emptiness right so you have this this feeling that oh i'm i'm not full i'm empty which is what the philosophy is is telling you it's explaining to your true nature which is you are full right it's an imaginary void so that feeling of i need to i need to take listen i need to do this i need all these things there comes there should come a point hopefully where you feel full and which is why i say to people who's rich and who's poor and they watch what's your definition of rich someone who's rich It's a question to you.

28:44My definition of race? Well, it depends. I guess if you are specifically asking about finances, it's very different from more philosophical definition. From philosophical definition, it means that it's somebody who actually really appreciates everything that life gives. I think that's the most important thing. You would say, you know, feeling gratitude for what this life gives us and then we feel rich. It's a feeling. It's objective. And from a financial perspective? Well, for me, it's not having to worry about money too much. It's what you said before, when actually your finances are set enough for you to feel secure enough to be free to pursue what you really want to do, which is self-actualization in whatever form that particular person can decide to do it.

29:40So, which is fair. Absolutely. spot on but I'd say that if your desires are within your level of income you're rich if your desires are outside of your level of income you're poor so you know that's a good one so it's it's about it's not about wealth management it's about desire management yeah and I agree to see so this is so it's about okay what is it that you you desire what is it that you want make sure it's clear right say okay I'm going to get to 100 million after that I don't need to make any more get to 100 but don't get to 100 and move it to 200 and then move it to 300 because again you're just chasing after something a mirage why do you think people get stuck in this chase in a mirage because they believe it's it's there right so what's a mirage when you're when you're thirsty in the desert and you see water you get there and you put so much effort to get there and now it's moved so what are you going to do you're going to put more effort to get to the next one and it's moved and you just keep going until you realize actually it's not there so it's about when do you understand that it's not there and then when you can start looking in internally to say okay what is it that i actually desire because you can give your people say oh i'm making my money what are you doing it for making it for my children but you're not spending any time with your children you're working all the time so what are you going to do you're going to leave them with loads of money and no values right but maybe if you spent time with them more time you can leave a little less money but you leave them with value so they know how to manage that money it's a little lopsided and I think it's just that it's greed it's cravings and that's what causes a lot of agitation and ultimately leads to people being quite unhappy so let's do a quick case study two days ago I talked to a friend of mine who sold his business for a large amount of money.

31:29And now he says, I do want to start another business because I don't think I have actually proved myself because I think it was mostly due to luck that I got successful first time around. So I'm really driven to start a new business as soon as possible so I can prove myself. What do you tell that friend of mine? Well, that's his desire, right? If he believes that, there's nothing you can say to him that's going to change his mind, right? That's his belief. And it's not for me to even say that he's right or wrong in that. Do you think when he gets there and has another very successful business, do you think he'll feel satisfied?

32:08Well, the question is, does he feel satisfied every day? Is it like when I get there, then I'll be happy? Or is it I'm really happy and satisfied and now I'm just going to do something that I love, which is building businesses? So that's the question to ask him. If you're saying, well, I'm unhappy, but if I start another business and I'm going to be 10 years and when I sell that one, I'm going to be happy then, then I'd ask him to question. I'd question that again. So it basically boils down to where that desire to do business comes from. Is it your nature and you want to self-actualize through doing business?

32:48Or is it because you think that happiness happens in the future once you achieve? yeah are you doing it from a place of lack right or are you doing it are you do you have a scarcity mentality or an abundance mentality let's talk about it for a second how do you understand that well there's a back to the point of if you feel that you you're a little empty and you think this is going to fill you it's not right yeah it just doesn't it's that you can put nothing external again it's a shadow right there's nothing external is going to fill you it's an internal it's understanding your true nature if everything is one you're part of that oneness it's like trying to explain to the it's like imagine a drop in the ocean right you're trying to explain to the the drop just dissolve yourself and you'll become the ocean a drop saying no no no i'm i'm an individual right i'm this is me this is my it's like no no just just it's like explaining to that drop just release your sense of individuality and you will become part of the totality because you are the ocean but he believes he's a drop and you said that is the process of education it's like no just relax just become one with everything and that's your true nature right so if you don't understand that then you will keep searching and searching and searching externally, not knowing who you really are.

34:13Why do you think so many post-exit entrepreneurs are not open to talk about spirituality? People talk about spirituality. People discuss philosophy. You ask them, do you believe in God? Do you not believe in God? If they don't believe in God, they've thought about it and they've decided they don't believe in God. If they do believe in God, then, and maybe it's their religion. So I'm not, I think there's a big difference between religion and spirituality. I think all the religions have taken this philosophy and given out at different times to different groups of people. If you look at spirituality, and I think it's quite abstract.

34:51So it's about taking people from where they are. It's like if I said to you, you know, if you said to me, okay, where's the library? I'm looking for the library. And I said, it's next to the post office. I said, well, where's the post office? If you just go to the park, take a ride. how do I get to the park it's like if you leave your house take a left you're going to get to the park once I tell you how to get to the park you'll know how to get to the post office and you'll know how to ultimately get to the library but if I'm just talking abstract it's not logical it doesn't make sense so it's about saying okay where are you now and slowly going step by step towards your true nature and I think if you start talking too abstract about things people just don't they're just not interested in it I think it loses its practical its practicality the reason I asked you that question is because of that drop versus ocean that you discussed before because when you were talking about it I immediately thought okay that drop is holding on to its identity because it wants to have control over it and feel that this is the little world I control and then I immediately thought okay isn't it very common for entrepreneurs to be control freaks so once we are building that business being being control freaks we satisfy that desire for control but then the business is gone and we don't have it anymore we still want to control ourselves and I find that lots of people are very uncomfortable giving up that idea of control to grow spiritually it's interesting it's interesting I I think that if you if you talk to somebody for example if we if we say where's that but what's what's everyone's calling true calling so we won't say happiness because happiness is if it may be a fleeting emotion but if you take take a four-foot spring reduce it down to one foot what's happening to your hand top hand I've taken four foot spring yes happening to your hand?

36:55Well, it's being pushed up. Pressure, right? Reduce it, increase it to two feet. What's happening? Less pressure. Less. Three feet? Even less. Four feet? Almost none. None, right? Because this is natural state. So I believe that everybody is trying to get back to a natural state, a true nature. Every river is leading to the ocean, right everybody is trying to get back to that place so they may say i'm not interested in spirituality i'm not but what are they interested in getting back to the ocean it's just about the road they need to take to get there it may be winding it may go backwards upwards left right but ultimately it's going to lead to the ocean so if you can try and just direct them to maybe go in this direction a little bit, a little bit of a push, you know, and it says don't, and maybe I'm totally wrong, right?

37:52We could be, all the philosophies could be totally wrong and every, everyone has their own individuality, their own, but if they were to ask me, which what I've done, and I can only tell you as far as I've got, is I can just say, well, maybe go in this, this direction, look towards this direction, which is look, have more peace of mind, at least, you know like just try and be a little you know a little more unselfish she look if you take a take a smoker again all right a smoker he's sitting in his meeting cigarettes thinking cigarette cigarette cigarette the mind is goes outside he takes a drag he's in bliss it might be for a second or two but he's in bliss so what's happened what's the science behind that so he had a desire for cigarette created an agitation agitation got really bad and then he had a the satiation of the agitation created that feeling of bliss, right?

38:44So we understand that desire creates agitation and the satiation of that desire creates happiness. So if we can, to the extent we can reduce our level of desire, we'll increase, it's inversely proportionate, we'll increase our level of peace of mind and more objectivity. We can make better quality decisions. So if they can understand that, they say, okay, well, what do I really, what is that guy, for example, really looking for? You're the entrepreneur who said it was just luck. What is it exactly that he's looking for then? He wants to prove it to himself. He wants to, it's just understanding what is that core desire, making sure that he can satisfy that to reduce his level of mental agitation and have more peace of mind and then hopefully get into a meditative state, which means everything you're doing, doing calm and objective.

39:36and it's like when you pour water, if you're pouring water from a jug, you know, if your hand is shaking, the water goes everywhere, right? If your hand is still, you can pour it perfectly into the cup. So it's the same with your mind, right? If your mind is calm, you can, all your actions come out perfectly. Can we talk about stages of spiritual development? I remember very well the conversation you and I had when I mentioned that having children pushed me very much out of my selfishness. And I suggested at that time that I felt that I was quite spiritually developed thanks to my children because I was so unselfish as a mother sacrificing myself every day to my three children.

40:21And your reaction at the time really surprised me because you basically said, oh, that's actually a very low level of spiritual development. And we argued a little bit. And this is exactly when you gave me that book Vedanta, which of course describes different levels of spiritual growth very well, but I'd love you to talk about it. So, I mean, would you have the same attitude if they weren't your kids? The same attitude? If it's someone else's child, would you do the same thing for someone else's child? No. Right. So it's the mindness in it, right? And it's that mindness, which is a selfishness.

40:59It's me, my family, my kids, my house, my business. That's within your sphere. The idea is doing something outside of yourself, outside of your self-centered interest. So things that don't have the my attached to it. You know, holding the door open for somebody, letting someone go in traffic. You know, those small things that you can do, which has no benefit to you whatsoever. You know, and so that's why I think if you're doing something for yourself, or you're doing something for your child is really you're doing it for yourself it's just a version of you um and as you as you said to me you know that that it's it's it's basically i care for them more than i care for myself so it's just a version of you personified in in another form you know um so obviously it's great but your your home should be the the center of your affection not the boundary so start with yourself make sure you're okay make sure your family are okay and then how do we expand that how do we look at the community how do we look at the country how do we look at civilization how do we look at all living beings you know like how do we keep keep evolving our eccentric circles that's why you know i i i said that to you um at the time um but but so so in the gita he talks about um different levels of charity it's great charity is great like even the lowest level is the best is great better than no charity um but the the lowest form is um economic all right so writing a check so i can write a check to a charity yes it hurts you know you know for for five minutes it's okay right then a little higher than that is physical so i could help you move house if i come and help you actually physically move that's that's a little that's higher higher than that is emotional so being so being there for someone giving them emotional support um higher than emotional is intellectual so helping as they say you know teach a man to fish uh to actually applying yourself intellectually um this is the highest actually self-development why so if you develop yourself every situation you come into every decision you make is going to be for the betterment of other people so those are that's the sort of the ladder of of charity so it's okay to act in self-interest because that benefits the rest of us it's about getting self-knowledge right so self-development if i'm strong physically then other people i'm not a burden on other people right if i'm they tell you when you get on the airplane put your mask on first before even for the children it's important you have to be in you have to make sure you're okay you feel full and then you can give and you can serve yeah so that's why it's important to understand your true nature have these values learn understand yourself have the correct way of thinking and then you for the benefit of others ultimately beautifully explained thank you so let's go back to your life um so so you sold your business you had this idea that you really wanted to teach philosophy yeah so how did you go about it i as i said it was it was teach it then i realized well i'll mentor so i think talking to people who are quite old already are quite set in their ways so i said let me look at the next generation and let me have these discussions with them you know and have it more of a discussion so I started mentoring for YNG, which is the kids of YPO's.