He Built an Empire but Nearly Worked Himself to Death | Ep 256 with LD Chen Head Coach of Oneness Institute of America and Europe

0:00Today's episode is sponsored by PipeDrive, the number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses. I'm excited to share more about them later in the episode.

0:15So LD, I have to say one of the most fascinating topics that I like to talk to someone about is this mindfulness, but not just mindfulness, but ancient things that we still can use today could be thousands of years old, but it's still relevant. And I'm very curious from your perspectives, all the things that you've been teaching, learning throughout the years when it comes to mindfulness and how this can help humanity. Why is it so important that you want to talk about this? Why do we need it today? At 32, I was a successful CEO around a company with more than 1 ,000 employees. But I was suffering heart attack, asthma, back pain, liver disease, and the LD, but not, leg numbness, next deafness, so more.

1:03In one night, I collapsed and my wife, she has a medical degree. She said, LD, if you keep going, you will die very young. That was a wake-up call, actually. So in the next over 10 years, I kept searching, find a solution, try to. And I've seen so many famous doctors, different medicine practice, exercise swimming, but nothing worked until one day I founded the book. Yeah, I mean, it seems what you're saying is so simple. It's like so in meditation, it seems so simple, but yet a lot of people get it wrong or maybe they overcomplicate it. What are you finding when it comes to oneness and the substantial benefits that you've gotten from it?

1:49What do people get wrong when they think about it? And how can they implement it? Oneness, actually, it's from Chinese word like Dacen Lichan. They share the same principle as meditation. Non-doing, non-attaching, be present. But the different, actually the practice is just very different. So meditation, more likely you're sitting, close your eye and observe your breath. So one is standing. And the posture standing there is so genius design. And they make every piece, every part of you, like your spine is losing and you smell the neural cascade. Just relax. Hundreds of muscles and all the spine, the superhighway of the nervous system just relax.

2:39And in this kind of effortless way, you're split up. And then your open eye connects with nature, your ears open, listen. And if you practice outdoor, you can listen far away and also the singing of the bird. So in this kind of effortless posture, you can completely 100 % connect with nature and be one with nature. And you don't find another posture can really do this kind of job. Like really, if you look at how we work every day, how we're sitting, how we sleep even, only this posture can really free you and your mind and body can really relax completely. And then another genius is to connect with nature.

3:23And when you look, it's like 360 degrees. In this condition, it's another kind of relax. And you don't need your mind or your body to involve and relax completely. So in this kind of condition, people just the neural superhighway, the neural system, just free. and clear, and also the chemical kind of neuroscience, all the neurochemical just relaxes all the muscle. But the one thing science cannot really explain is kind of how come there is so powerful energy and awareness can just build up. And there's one example. In 1980, there's one mother living in Georgia, and her son actually was being hit under the car.

4:18and couldn't release. And herself, in her already 50, she lifted up for several minutes waiting their neighbor to pull her son out. And later, she couldn't do that, repeat that again. Why? This is mother's love. So our people actually already observe this kind of energy inside of us. But our striving, every day the stress, the tension just block the energy. So what one is, designed so geniusly is just relax all the block and make our power, our self, our being and release. And so this is kind of I know most of the practice, especially from same route from the East, they try to do the same. But one has been applied, especially for Kung Fu Master, they're standing longer hours and And then they build up the powerful energy.

5:18So this is, so one is a little bit different. The practice is very different. And then the energy plus awareness is so powerful. I think that this is different for others. I'm always fascinated by what the body can do when you allow and you clear the body and you get it to be able to do the things it needs to do. It's always incredible what it can do on its own. Like you said, from the healing and everything. But we are in this hustle culture, you know, right? You had a thousand employees, right? We're this hustle culture. We're always trying to achieve high success so we can buy things and so we can do things.

5:56Yet we don't realize the amount of stress and pressure and the impacts that this is having on us. So you're talking about spirit and love and compassion. I know you've mentioned these before. but how does someone begin in this journey because we are in this hustle culture? One of the biggest game changers I've seen for founders isn't another pitch deck, another tool, or even another investor. It's how you manage sales. And I'll be real, when we first started, we were getting leads, we were getting business, but the pipeline was so messy. Leads were falling through the cracks. We weren't following up.

6:35We were losing tons of revenue and money and everything was all over the place. It was chaos. That's when we started using PipeDrive, today's sponsor and the number one CRM for small and medium businesses. But the thing I love most, PipeDrive AI, it actually helps you work smarter, not harder. It gives you real-time deal recommendations, writes your emails with one-click prompts, and even summarizes entire email threads in seconds. For us, that meant no more guessing who to follow up with or what we said last week. We focused on closing great clients and more deals. If you're a founder or creator trying to scale your sales, you need this.

7:13Over 100 ,000 companies are already using it and you can try it right now. Go to Pipedrive.com slash founders for a 30-day free trial. No credit card, no commitment. Just head to Pipedrive.com slash founders and see why I trust it every day to grow my business. So if we look at all the students in China for the institute, and they always have some incentive. So maybe no one come to a I want to life transformation now. So like my teacher, a Grandmaster Yi, he tried to find really best Kung Fu. For me, I tried to find the healing. So the big group of the students, they're from looking for healing.

7:57They suffer from long time for chronic disease or mental health issue. And people, some they are looking for, for example, the pro athlete. They try to find to enter the zone. And exactly, they try to reset. And also the A-list actor, they try to ground themselves on the off stage. So this has been getting more and more popular. So right now, especially people living in this modern world, there's so many kind of life self-help methods, but those are more like a toolbox. So for example, if you feel anger, you can do this. If you feel you're a bad relation or you're distressed, you use this tool.

8:43One is different. One is more like a foundation. When you practice more and more, you're getting... So my teacher, my sensei-grandma, so you mentioned, human is like a muddy water. So before practice, it's like so muddy. And when you practice more, the water can be clearer and clearer and clearer. So when you practice more and more, the foundation is getting stronger and stronger and stronger. At the beginning, maybe you still need some tool from one toolbox. But when you practice more and more, this foundation is getting stronger and stronger and enough. That time, your anger just dissolved automatically and your compassion just generated automatically.

9:24So this kind of once you kind of practice more, it's like you're already standing in some foundation and the anger, the noise or stress will have less, very less impact on you. You've talked about spherical awareness, and I'm interested about what does this mean, but what really happens within our mind and body when we do this? Modern people use so stress and attention inside. So for example, when we're training a student from the beginning, so the posture is much easier to teach them. But after teaching them post-show, they start to practice. You can see someone is still concerned, this part is not relaxed, that part is not relaxed.

10:11And also, this kind of 360 degree relax is kind of your eye watch but don't see, and your ear listen but don't hear. It's more like make you really calm and relax. I actually, I did some comparison because recently I have so many things to do. So, but if my mind drift away to compare with I keep this kind of 360 degree awareness, you can feel sudden difference. And also if you can feel like a smile and relax. and also you can suddenly feel the breath is just down. So there's so many small hidden switch buttons in our body. And when you do that, you can feel... So personally, you can feel something change immediately, but the long journey to find a life transformation is just step by step by step.

11:16And people can definitely follow the guidance, like me, actually just step by step didn't set some really goal and people because of stress all the way. So what we do is kind of help you enjoy the practice instead of like try to do something or force you to do something. Once you enjoy that, for example, at the first month, you have to build up some richer, like some routine. But after that, every time you practice, you so enjoy being one with nature. You don't want to stop. So in this kind of condition, you can be very natural to practice wellness. And also, when I start to try to introduce this to the West, I feel a little bit of stress.

12:07And I didn't want this let down. So I talked with my teacher, Grandmaster. He said, remember, wellness is everything. Just be wellness. This just makes me relax, release. Yes, I'm doing wellness. And I introduce wellness. I do it in wellness. So just nothing is like a flow. I studied a lot about Bruce Lee and the energy that he would use. Be one with the water and being able to leverage energy to create strength and power. Healing. I remember he got injured and he healed himself and such. A lot of people struggle with meditation. I know a lot of people that are like, I want to meditate and they struggle with closing our eyes and shutting everything off can be very difficult because we're hooked, right?

12:57We're addicted to the phone and we're on it all the time and we can't disconnect. This seems like an alternative, maybe not necessarily we're comparing the two, but more of like, let's say myself, I struggle with meditation. Do you find that maybe oneness might be something easier for me if I'm already struggling with the other? So Bruce Lee is my hero. Actually, I read many of his books. At the beginning, I thought he only just Kung Fu Master. But once I read his books, I understand he just embodied this kind of be water, my friend, into every kind of his life, daily work, everything. So what you mentioned, actually some of our students, they face some similar challenges.

13:45Actually, other practice, they help her to improve some part, but she feel like a paddle. So the wellness is more like training your body. Instead of like trying to train some part, like mind or kind of other things. So training your body and enjoy is the thing, kind of enjoy and let the body do the thing. It should be easier. But anyway, so for the wellness, it's simple. It's not a quick fix. But after you practice wellness, there is nothing you need to fix. So for me, I have two kind of really suggest. One thing is kind of practice right. Second is commit. and practice right. So the students in China, we both provide online and in-person, but the student report in-person training can just give them quick, very effective way.

14:49And I think right now the biggest problem, even there is so many practice, one is I think it has been tested for so long, especially Kung Fu Master, they need the result instead of theory. And it's also based on toys and zen, but Confirmaster combined and used its kind of, you have to see the result for the Confirmaster. And one fight will decide you'll either die or survive for 100 years ago. So that's why wellness is really time-tested. And also it's not a theory. and if you practice right and if you commit then you will see the change well ld um i'm super inspired i mean i love what you're doing to help others and you're you know spreading this ability that helped you to other people to help them that's what i'm all about the impact i believe you have a book coming out can you share about the book and what else you have working on oh yeah so this is a book.

15:53One is the simplest self-healing secret you were never supposed to know. So, actually, when I decided to introduce to the West, my sensei, grandmother, he very supportive, but he only gave me one sentence. Yodi, we are, this is so good. Don't try to compromise to appeal to the trend. And this is how I try to really bring the authentic practice to the West. So right now, I know there's so many good practices from the East. One thing is kind of very few people already know the authentic way. Second is kind of when they are being introduced to the West, they're being stripped away many authentic.

16:44so for me it's kind of i will make it to be the biggest movement one of the biggest movement to help people but still keep it's authentic only the authentic way can really help people for life transformation and also the simplest way well ld chen i'm super inspired i can't wait i hope everyone grabs this book oneness because we are so stressed it's really killing us in a sense, right? Like we live longer, but I think we should be living much longer. However, we have so much damage, I'm sure coming from stress related issues. It's quite insane. I know I deal with it myself. So I hope that everyone checks out the book LD.

17:29And I hope that we can do some oneness sessions together here in the in the near future. But thank you for joining us today on Founder Story. Thank you, Daniel. So everyone can live longer, but most important live meaningful life. Thank you very much.

18:12we started using PipeDrive, today's sponsor and the number one CRM for small and medium businesses. But the thing I love most, PipeDrive AI, it actually helps you work smarter, not harder. It gives you real-time deal recommendations, writes your emails with one-click prompts, and even summarizes entire email threads in seconds. For us, that meant no more guessing who to follow up with or what we said last week. We focused on closing great clients and more deals. If you're a founder or creator trying to scale your sales, you need this. Over 100 ,000 companies are already using it and you can try it right now.

18:47Go to pipedrive.com slash founders for a 30-day free trial. No credit card, no commitment. Just head to pipedrive.com slash founders and see why I trust it every day to grow my business.