Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Breaking The Achievement Spell And Finding Meaning with Sonny Garg
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A Fortune 125 executive seat, elite credentials, and a life that looks “made” from the outside and yet one sentence slips out at lunch: “My life sucks.” That surprising honesty kicks off our conversation with Sonny Garg, former C-suite leader and author of Desi 2.0: My Family’s American Dream and the Cost of Never Being Enough.
We dig into the real engine behind nonstop striving: chasing validation. Sonny breaks down how self-worth can get welded to achievements, especially for kids of immigrants raised on relentless “shoulds” about school, status, and success. We talk about the comparison trap, the way social media amplifies performance over authenticity, and why even “good” habits can become part of the happiness industrial complex if you never question what you’re optimizing for.
Then we get practical. Sonny explains his shift toward a “minimally viable me,” the core version of himself he wanted to build from, and why being a present husband and dad required redefining “enough.” That meant earning less, dropping status signaling, and changing his environment so his daily life matched his values. He also shares the harder inflection point: a seizure at work that left him with a fractured T7 vertebrae and forced a deeper reckoning about burnout, ego, and the painful limits of living for someone else’s approval.
If you’ve ever wondered why the ladder still feels empty, Sonny leaves us with questions worth returning to: What are you chasing, and who told you it was worth chasing? Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
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Welcome And Sonny’s Backstory
SPEAKER_00All right, here we go. Sorry about that. Hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today, gosh, I f usually ask how to say your last name. I hope I don't butcher this. I have a very special guest today. His name is Sonny Garg. Did I say that? Okay. Beautiful. All right. Well, and and Sonny's got quite an interesting story. He's a fortune, fortune, a former Fortune 125 C-suite executive with over 30 years experience examining conventional thinking to transform mature organizations and build new ones across private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He is a distinguished executive in residence at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, a White House fellow and an Aspen Crown fellow. He holds an MBA and a BA from the University of Chicago and an MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. But he's got a new book out, Desi 2.0, My Family's American Dream and the Cost of Never Being Enough. And I think that title alone gives us a place to begin this conversation. So, Sonny, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Joe. Really appreciate it. Look forward to our conversation.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I I love having authors as guests because usually you've had a a moment to get your thoughts together. And it's not just going back into your memory and trying to remember, you know, how how'd you get here? But generally I like to start a conversation with, you know, tell me a little bit about how you got to this place. It sounds like you had quite an interesting story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And it's such a, you know, it's it's it's an interesting question, right? Because we all need narratives to make sense of our lives, right? And so part of the question that sort of underlies the book is when do those sort of inflection points come, you know. I mean, uh certainly there are times in our lives that are sort of structured, right? Our birthdays, anniversaries, new years, where we take a step and go, oh, what's going on? And is this something, you know, where is my life and where do I want it to go? But for me, the for me, the big impetus for the book came about, gosh, now almost
The Six-Word Wake-Up Question
SPEAKER_0213 years ago. I had just been named to the executive committee of this Fortune 125 company called Exelon. I was having lunch with an old pal of mine, and he was very complimentary to the fact that, wow, you know, you're on the executive committee of this big company. And I looked at him and unexpectedly I just said to him, I said, My life sucks. Oh no. And he looked at me kind of quizzically, and he said, you know, he said six words that really began the journey that ended up with this book. He said, he said, What are you chasing and why? And you know, and I had like read all those books about meaning and a life of meaning and Aristotle and all that other stuff. And for whatever reason, those six words just stuck in my head. And and so that's really the book is really just an outgrowth of trying to answer that question, not only for myself, but to pose questions for others, right? To be able to say, for all of us, you know, what are we chasing and why are we chasing those things? And who told us those things are worth chasing? And how does how does that affect how we think about ourselves, right? And is the chase how how how tied is for me, you know, the chase was all about achievement. It was all about the next rung on the ladder. You know, my my my parents were immigrants from India, and you know, the idea was like, hey, they came here and I'm gonna, you know, you're going to Harvard and you're gonna be a success and you're gonna be a physician, and and so your identity gets caught up in your achievements. And not just that, but your your sense of self-worth gets caught up in your achievements, and then you're only as good as your last achievement, you know.
SPEAKER_00And whatever you accomplished lately, that becomes kind of a you know, a haunting thought, you know.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And then you're stuck in comparison trap, you're stuck in, you know, never feeling good enough. And that's why the you know, the subtitle, The Cost of Never, you know, never being enough. And so that was, you know, I wrote it both for myself to help me kind of make sense of decisions I made and why I chose paths that I chose and forks in the road. And part of it was to sort of I really the bigger part really was to catalyze for other people who might read the book a set of questions around, you know, what are they chasing and why are they chasing those? And who told them those things were worth chasing? And you know, where do you draw your sense of self-worth from? Right.
SPEAKER_00And so you you heard those six words. Obviously, you probably didn't sleep too good that night. You were you were you were chewing on that and processing it. What what what did you do next? Like what did you what was your what were you chasing? What and why?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's a great it took me a while to figure it out, but you know, well, I I so the first thing I did was, you know, what what type A high achievers do is they they go to try to figure out and solve the problem as fast and easily as they can, right? So I you know, I I write in the book a little bit about getting trapped in what I what I ended up calling the happiness industrial complex. You know, like okay, well, do these six things and everything will be great, you know. If you if you meditate in the morning and take a cold shower, and if you you
Validation As A Way Of Life
SPEAKER_02know, maybe do a cold plunge and you know, and all those sorts of things. And and all those things are they have value in and of themselves, but absolutely, really, you but you know, you're trying to optimize a you have the assume it assumes that you're optimizing something that's worth optimizing. Right. And part of what part of what I discovered, you know, was that just my what I come to call DAC 1.0, which is the programming, sort of like the the way I was programmed, was just a was just not a healthy programming, right? It was, you know, my father grew up very poor in India, my grandfather worked on the trains in the British Empire. And so for my dad, you know, achievement was a way to show the world that you were worth more than they thought you were worth.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Right. Because he had been so dismissed, not only by the Brits, but also within the caste system of India.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. So I have no idea what that's even all about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so, you know, it was like, hey, show the world that you're better than they think you are, right? And so that was sort of the trap, but that was the programming, all done with the best of intentions, but really creates this never-ending cycle of the next achievement. And so for me, it was like after I realized that it was a deeper sort of misalignment. And I didn't know what, and I was chasing just what people, what I was chasing was validation and recognition. And, you know, I wanted people to tell me I was great, you know. And so that's, you know, Harvard tells me I'm great by letting me in, right? The White House fellow says, Hey, you're special. You know, this company says, Hey, you're on the executive. And so I'm constant, but you're you basically have turned over your entire sense of self to others to decide for you what's worth doing and to validate that. And so it was really coming to a clear understanding that, you know, A, that the gift my father gave me was agency to choose. And I needed to be more thoughtful about what I was choosing and why I was choosing those things. And B, that you know, I needed to start separating my sense of self-worth from my achievements.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. So at this time, I I know you say you were basing your self-worth on these achievements, but if you were to sit, like you said, and meditate or or or whatever, have a moment inside your head, did you feel what did you feel about yourself truly? Like, did you feel like you were okay and and no, no.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think I think that's why I, you know, luckily I was having lunch with that pal, and you know, we had we had a very good, you know, we had a very we we'd come through a program together which was really based upon sharing stuff that you knew you normally don't share with people, right? And so that was a gift. And you know, when I said my life sucked, I think what I was saying was that the life I had built just felt empty. You know, I called it in the book, I called it my David Byrne moment, you know, where you sort, you know, if you remember the song Once in a Lifetime, I talked This is not my beautiful house. Exactly. This is not my you know, you know, like wow, how you know how did I get here, right? And so that was sort of that thing. It was just like, well, how did I get here? Where, you know, where I have every from the external perspective, I sort of tick all the major boxes. And if anybody's looking at me externally, they're like, wow, you're really successful. And you know, you got great career, all these great things. We got your family, it looks like they're fabulous. You know, it's it's basically, you know, it's what the world what people show themselves off on now social media. You know, it's the best of ourselves, but it's not necessarily it's not necessarily the true self, right? Right. And the true self just felt like this wasn't who I wanted to be in the world. I just didn't feel good about myself. I wasn't the dad I wanted to be, I wasn't the husband I wanted to be. Even at work, you know, it was, you know, the higher you got out, the higher you got, the the more you got sort of separated from the people who actually did the work, you know, the more you sort of start commoditizing people in your head. You know, when you're a $30 billion company, you know, people become, you know, we use the words like instead of not even FTEs full-time, we do belly buttons, right? I mean, it was just sort of like, and I was like, this is not, this is not who I want to be in the world. But I didn't quite know who I wanted to be, but I knew that wasn't what I wanted to be.
SPEAKER_00So you ever spend time by yourself at that point of your life where you just went for a walk or yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I spent a lot of time then really just examining, you know, it was a combination of one of my favorite authors is this theologian. His name is Richard Rohr.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh can you hear me okay? I somebody outside. Yeah, yeah, no, you can find Richard Rohr, and Rohr talks about you know, entering liminal space where you know there's a there's periods and times where the things that were dissolve and you have to let yourself kind of have the grace to let yourself enter into a space that that will reveal itself, but you have to give it time, right? And so that was the first thing. Yeah,
Escaping The Happiness Checklist Trap
SPEAKER_02exactly. So, you know, it was like it was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna solve this thing by doing these three, you know, meditations or whatever, right? I really need to dig a little deeper. And so it was really then what I what I term in the book, and using sort of a software analogy, because I'm Indian, I guess I need to talk about software, you know. But um, but you know, but you know, we uh I I kind of came up with the notion of a minimally viable me, right? You know, like a minimally viable product. Let's start with like what's the core of who I want to be, and and let's let's figure out like let's build from there instead of trying to define the end product. Let's just start, well, what are the key features and functionalities that matter? And let's see if we can build a life that starts there and kind of grows from there.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And what did you come up with?
SPEAKER_02Well, I came up with a number of things. You know, the first thing was that I really wanted to be I wanted to be at home with my kids more. I wanted to be, you know, I felt like I was missing out on their lives. They were gonna be entering high school, and I felt like I wasn't the kind of dad I wanted to be.
SPEAKER_00And so really, you know, so when you keep time with your kids, did that bring you joy?
SPEAKER_02Like I always where do I find joy?
SPEAKER_00Where's that?
SPEAKER_02Well, that was the thing. That was the thing that was the most important. Like what, you know, what do I want to anchor this in? You know, what am I gonna tether myself to? And it was. I mean, just spending time with my wife, and we had two girls, all right, you know, was the best thing. I mean, that's where I got the most joy. And what I realized was that, you know, I needed to that that that for me at least, that the joy um came and it what what people call quality time came from came from quantity, you know, that I couldn't program. Like the rest, you know, you're programming meetings and you're programming, you're programming meetings, and you're programming all that kind of stuff, but you can't program quality time with your kids, right? And so I think that's really where I am.
SPEAKER_00And to a little point, you can, I guess you can plan vacations and and you can.
SPEAKER_02I mean, but you know, as you, you know, the actual time, yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_00It's it's gotta happen, you gotta do it.
SPEAKER_02You're just hanging out and something funny happens, or something insightful, or something meaningful, and they're just like, oh, well, shit, you know, let's talk about that. Sorry, am I allowed to cuss on here?
SPEAKER_00You know, we're kind of a PG 13 here.
SPEAKER_02Okay, good. You know, so you're able to, you know, it's just those unexpected times of like you you can't schedule those. And so, you know, for me, it was like, okay, well, how do I do that? And then the biggest insight that came from that and the biggest challenge became, okay, well, how do I live the lifestyle I'm living and have time with my kids? And so the big, you know, the big change in that minimally viable me was, hey, maybe I don't need to be making as much money. I mean, the big question, the big question that sort of revealed itself and it sort of came out of this short story by Tolstoy called How Much Land Does a Man Need? You know, which is like, well, how much is enough? Like how much money, how much money do I really need? How much, you know, how much stuff do I really need? So my wife and I sat down and we're like, okay, well, us to live the comfortable, a comfortable life. And again, this wasn't a life of, you know, I wasn't taking a vowel poverty, you know, but you know, and it was significantly less than what I was making as a corporate CEO. I mean CE C suite guy, right? And so I said, fine, let's go and I'm gonna go and take a job that pays me less, but gives me more time with my kids, and still a job
Liminal Space And Building A Core Self
SPEAKER_02that's interesting, right? And so that's what I did. So I left corporate America and I went into an early stage company that you would think you'd be working a lot harder, but there was a little more flexibility. I was working hard, but I could be home for breakfast, I could be home for dinner, I could be home with my kids, right? And so that was the real goal. But it was really the understanding, going back to what you said, what you were saying earlier, it was like, you know, saying, okay, the minimally viable of me wants to be a better dad and husband, which means I want to be around a lot. And then that required us, required me to reimagine and rethink things that I was chasing. And I said, okay, well, I don't need to be chasing more money. I can be chasing, you know, enough money, right? And and that changed everything. I mean, then that then things just fell into place from there. And then life got a lot easier and simpler, you know. Then I was just like, well, I'm not gonna go to, you know, when you're a C-suite executive at a big company, you know, particularly in a town like Chicago, you're you know, you're a civic leader and you're going to galas. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm like, I'm not going to galas anymore, and I'm not going to do that kind of signaling of importance, right? And so once he sort of stripped all that away, I had so much more time and so much more options in life. And, you know, going back to the idea of it really was recapturing my own agency and saying, hey, what's you know, I I'm gifted. Like my grandfather again worked on in the train stations for the British, right? He didn't have choice, he didn't have agency. I went to frickin' Harvard. I had choice, I had agency, you know, like go use it, buddy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, and sometimes that's questioning the very things that you think are you're supposed to be, and saying, no, that's not who I that's not who I want to be. This is who I want to be. And you know, the side the other piece you were mentioning, taking long walks. So certainly there was a lot of this that was in the context of time by myself, but a lot of it was in the in community, right? There's a great social psychologist, his name is Kurt Lewin, who talks about behavior as being a function of person and environment. Okay. So part of this was to change the environment I was in. It was not only just changing me, but it was changing, you know, the people I hung around with, people who wanted to be, you know. So maybe I wasn't hanging around with the billionaire class, and you know, and that's okay because you had to find people that were sort of aligned with how you wanted to live. And so it was really and so it was just a really, you know.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it interesting when you're when when you change your values a little bit? And by that I don't mean, you know, what's right and wrong, but what's important, everything else seems to kind of come into alignment, like when when you really do it, and you notice things like these people you want to be around rather than these people you should be around.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and where you're spending your time rather than where you should be spending your time.
SPEAKER_02100%. I mean, you know, there's a I talk a little bit about it in the book, but there's a professor at University of Chicago Business School named Harry Davis, really wonderful, wonderful human being. He's probably here, Harry's probably in his 90s now. Okay, and he was a leadership expert, but he always talks to the students about their shoulds. He goes, You got it, he goes, you know, you're you're I should make this much money, I should do this with my life. And he's like, you need you need to write those shoulds down, and then you need to challenge those shoulds. Right. You know, and we're all sort of, whether we know it or not, you know, we're as we are growing up, as we are learning, as we're being formed, you know, we are we are learning what we we are accepting a set of shoulds that maybe sometimes we don't question. And so part of this is the is the challenging of those shoulds and the unlearning of what you've learned, not because it was in any way necessarily wrong, but it may not just be aligned with who you are. And so, you know, what I tell the business school students is, you know, I've got an executive in residence there, is your whole life has been about the what and the how, you know, and the what's been a lot of the what's been defined for you. You know, well, what should you do? We should become a consultant or a banker and you should make this much money and you should have this, and your kids should go to these private schools. And so you've spent your life mastering the how. How do I get there? Well, I gotta get the right ACTs and the SATs, and I gotta, but you never asked yourself, why do you want those what's?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You've just accepted them, you know. And and then at some point in life, going back to the idea of these inflection periods, something happens. Either
Choosing Family Time Over More Money
SPEAKER_02you got a friend like I did, or you know, later on I had something even, you know, that kind of was a different inflection point that was even took me deeper into this sort of journey. But you know, you you you have to make time to ask yourself these questions, otherwise, inertia just takes you in a direction, and you end up, like I said earlier, at your David Byrne moment, and you're like, Man, how did I get here?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And it's it's unfortunate. Most people, when they have that moment, it comes after some kind of major challenge, you know, health issue or an addiction or a relationship falling apart, or whatever it is, that big thing that you can't really swallow down, and then then you ask the question when you know it's maybe better suited to ask it while you're in the middle of it, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean, and I think that's the question, that's the hard thing is, you know, how do you do that? How do you make that a practice or how do you begin to do that in a way that you know that's honest? Because it's so much easier just to go along, right? I mean, you just sort of because you know, you're like, well, maybe this isn't everything's everything's not great, but maybe I'll just make a few tweaks here and there, right? And so sometimes, yeah, you need these external shocks to the system that you know that awaken you, right? And and I, you know, I I I don't think that that's as you're saying, that's not unusual, right? I mean, that's just a part of the human condition. Otherwise, there wouldn't be all these stories about people who have, you know, some kind of health issue or relationship breakup that makes you reimagine. I think the hard part is the you know, I think we all have those moments. The question is, is do we do you embrace those? And then do you sit with the discomfort that comes in unwinding it? You know, because that's really we all have those moments of like shit, this may not be what I want to be doing. But then the question is, is am I willing to live in liminal space and challenge things that supposedly make me comfortable, but maybe are making me uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there's a whole conversation about comfort and the the value or lack of thereof of said comfort, but that's a whole nother conversation. And in in the notes that I have about you, I I have a bit about 2019 where you did go through a health challenge. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So, you know, like I had mentioned in 2013 is when that buddy posed those six words and that question, and that led me to two years later leaving corporate, going to an early stage, you know, reorganizing my life really around my wife and kids and trying to be less of what I call in the book and a, you know, an addict to achievement, you know, to the point where I, you know, I quit all these fancy boards and all these other things. And I even when I went over to the startup, I told the the CEO, I said, you know, I don't want a title, I don't want an offer. Yeah, I'm like, I don't because all that shit is just it is, you know, it's like it's like it's like a drunk walking into a bar. Like, you know, like I can't, I I'm not ready to walk into the bar yet. Like it's just it's too, it feeds my worst, my worst, you know, parts of myself. And you know, but once my kids were already going off to college, you know, I started re you know, reverting to that that achievement thing. Okay. And you know, got to the place where I was just completely over, you know, I was I was I was working all the time again, and I was hopped up on like, you know, nitro coffees and stimulants, and like and and my body just basically said, you're an asshole.
SPEAKER_00And it's funny how it happens sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, you're not listening. And I had a seizure and you know at work and ended up fracturing my T7 vertebrae. And you know, it really sort of it brought home to a deeper degree what I had been thinking about for the prior six years, but really not really, really, you know, going a little bit deeper and a little bit more honest with myself about, you know, still being tied into my sense of self in terms of these big achievements. And so that was sort of you know the second sort of stage of the transformation. Let's just call it or the beginning of the transformation.
SPEAKER_00That's your 2.0 there.
SPEAKER_02That was a big 2.0, you know, and in in in the book, the other piece that sort of underlies the story is, you know, there's one is obviously this achievement, but the other one is trying to, you know, trying to be a good son, you know, to to immigrant parents. And so, and my parents were, you know, had a lot of challenges in their upbringing, and so they weren't the most, you know, there was a lot of dysfunction, let's just say, in our house. And so really trying to reconcile what it meant to be a good son to people who really had trouble being kind to themselves, right? And so I think that was this, that was the next piece of sort of uh realization of you know how I sort of was living my life in a way I wanted to redirect it and reimagine it.
SPEAKER_00So what was your next move? You get out of the hospital and you're you've got your yourself together, you're recommitted to to your program.
Challenging “Shoulds” And Changing Your Circle
SPEAKER_00What what happened next?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, one of the things that I write about in a book is I was in the hospital and you know, I was less than a mile away from where my parents lived, and they never came to visit me.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02And so it was it was a really it was a really difficult. It was the same, it was the sense that I was trying to live my life for whereas maybe before I thought about it as achievement, I was trying to live it to make them happy, right? And and I needed to kind of disconnect from from my sense of happiness from their happiness, right? Because they weren't going to be.
SPEAKER_00They were just don't want to be happy, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, and they'd grown up in such a harsh, different world, and it just couldn't, they couldn't get themselves there, right? And so I think that was the piece. Like I can't be, you know, I can't be responsible for their happiness. I can I can do what I can to support them, but I can't be responsible. And so I think those types of things. And then I've just tried to rebuild a life that you know is is around that, trying to slow down, you know. I'm actually wearing a t-shirt right now that says live slow, you know, and uh, you know, and I I just like yeah, just try to eat you, just try to be more just try to go into what you said earlier about, you know, when you recognize there are certain values, how do you reorganize your life around those? So I tried to just say, okay, well, how do I reorganize my life around, you know, a life of humility and a life of gratitude and a life of compassion and a lot, you know. And all that stuff they talk about in the books, but doing it all the but it's really it's a well because it's all it's because doing it is is letting go, you know. I love Joseph Campbell, you know, the guy who wrote, you know, Hero with a thousand faces and came up with the hero's journey, you know, and he said, like, you know, life is about slaying the dragon of the ego, you know, and and it's hard, man. When and our society, so it wasn't just you know, part of the book is yeah, certainly directed at immigrant kids and families, but our society is you know, it's a consumer materialistic driven society that you introduce yourself by you know how much shit you have and how much you know, and and that's just that it's all our job. Oh, did he? Yeah, I mean, like it's all ego, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all this stuff, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's it's such it's so prevalent, it's it's ubiquitous. It's uh you you just can't get away from it.
SPEAKER_02You can't, and then in the age of social media, it's even worse, right? Because then people are supposedly living their best lives because they're curating this story of themselves that isn't real, right? You know, and so it it and so that even further distances us from each other, right? Because then we just reinforce this sense that there's something wrong with us because everybody else seems to be living their best life, you know. Right, it's not you're like that's not the key. Exactly, right? So I think like that's you know, the goal of the book was really not like I said earlier, now you tell my story, but to be able to, you know, raise a create catalyze conversations about like hey, well, what is a not not a not what not not what's the meaning of life, right? I mean, I think that's the wrong question. What's a life of meaning? What's a life of meaning for you, right? And then being, you know, and then taking advantage of your agency and your choices, which most people don't have, to really lean into that. And a lot of times, you know, and what that looks like is going to be different for everybody, but I do think a lot of times that slaying the dragging of the ego can help.
SPEAKER_00Happiness and joy is really the one thing you have control over, and that's about it. You know, you have the choice to be happy or not, and and find what what does that for you? And it's it's so many people get lost in all these other external factors, and there isn't there aren't any.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. They get lost in the shoulds, and
The Seizure That Forced Honesty
SPEAKER_02there's a disconnect. And you're like, then the part of the question is is why do you believe those shoulds? Right. Right? Like, why are those things the things that you think are gonna make you happy? Like what real, like you said earlier, what really does make you happy? What brings you joy? Right, man, lean into that. You know, it may not get you, it may not get you on the cover of Time Magazine or you know, or whatever it is, but you might you might be uh you know, you might be in a much better place mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
SPEAKER_00I agree. So what when did you go from the realization to I need to write a book?
SPEAKER_02You know, so I I would probably about four years ago. Okay, you know, so what was that, 2021, 2022? Yeah, I mean, I you know, part of what I'd been doing even before the seizures, I'd been given a talk down at the business school, University of Chicago Business School, okay, um, in a friend of mine's leadership class that I jokingly called the accidental executive. And I was like, you know, in the in the it was sort of this cautionary tale. It's like, how did I become a C-suite executive and hate my frickin' life? Right. You know, like I like, and it was sort of looking at these business school students who were so anxious and eager and saying, Hey, I got everything that you're supposed we're telling you you're supposed to get. And I didn't, I wasn't, I hated it, you know. And so afterwards, people would come up to me and just like, hey, you know, this part of your story resonated with me, or this part of your story resonated with me. And I realized it was an you know, it was an opportunity to, if I wrote something to maybe catalyze it, to do a number of things, right? One is to obviously tell my story, two to catalyze a sense of questions for people, and three, as my mentor would have said, give people permission to ask those questions, you know. And so that was the idea. And so then I started writing, I started writing a few chapters, send them off. And you know, fortunately somebody said, Hey, this is pretty interesting, you know, why don't you go ahead and write this thing? And so, you know, so I did. And I've always loved writing, so it wasn't it wasn't like a wasn't it wasn't yeah, it wasn't it wasn't a brutal, I mean it was hard from the perspective of it's always hard to examine yourself and be honest with yourself, and you know, hopefully I was somewhat honest. And you know, it's hard to basically create a narrative that sticks together, right? Because life is a set of series of you know disparate things, and you're trying to you're trying to create this sense of this thread of like, oh well, here's here's the thread that ties it all together, and right, you know, it may have worked, it may not have, but you know, it gives me enough that I can sleep at night and get a sense of okay, well, this is where I've been, this is where I'm at, and this is where I'm hoping to go.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So when was the book published?
SPEAKER_02Uh it came out August 4th, so it came out last week.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's brand new. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Brand new, yeah, it just came out. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So how's it being received?
SPEAKER_02I you know, it's hard to know, right? I mean, it's a little early, yeah. It's a little early, you know. I mean, it it's that's a gamesmanship with these books, right? I mean, you know, first you got to get the testimonials from important people. And it was funny because I was joking with a friend of mine, a friend of mine, she had won Pulitzer Prize, and she she great, you know, grace, uh great uh great, you know, she uh graciously wrote me a uh you know a blurb for the back of my book, you know. But I joked with her. I said, I said, the whole book is about not defining yourself by achievements, but the only way I can get somebody on the back of the book is if they've got a big achievement. I'm like, there's something really messed up about this, you know. And then you gotta get all your p pals to put things on Amazon and reviews, and so who knows? I mean, I you know, my my feeling on this has been I just throw it out into the world and see what happens, you know.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully our listeners are gonna take a shine to it and we'll go. So, Sonny, you've got a very interesting story. Your background's incredible. You're obviously a very talented, gifted person as as you mentioned. Do you have one thought that you could leave our listeners with that would kind of sum up your position here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a great question. And I I keep going in circles in my own head, you know. I mean I I I guess the one it's not a thought, it's a question, you know, which is just to be asking yourself, you know. I I guess it's two questions. You know. One is what are you chasing and who told you those things were worth chasing?
Why He Wrote Desi 2.0
SPEAKER_02And two is you know, when you when you and two is around your your sense of worth. You know, where are you tying your sense of worth to? And and whose voice is whispering in your ear when you're doing that. Those are probably the two things that I think I if people are gonna walk away with, I'd love to for them to think about. And you know and and and these questions never there's never an end to the answer, right? We're constantly but the the challenge is to to give yourself the grace and the space to basically explore those periodically. So maybe you don't have those massive inflection points where you feel like your life is completely out of alignment, that you're constantly readjusting in in a way that feels more natural.
SPEAKER_00So right. But that's even better, you know. Professional athletes do it every day, right?
SPEAKER_02Every day, right? And you gotta look at it and you gotta adjust, right? And I think that's part of what we you know we don't do for ourselves many times. And we, like I said earlier, we just kind of get into inertia, and then we wake up and we're like, oh shit, this isn't where I wanted to be.
SPEAKER_00Well, how uh how do we find your book and how do we get in touch with you and all that good stuff?
SPEAKER_02Well, the easiest way is just sunny garg.me. So S-O-N-N-Y-G-A-R-G dot M-E. And that's my website. And from there you can email me or you can get a link to the you know different places to buy the book, whether that's Barnes and Noble's Amazon, my publisher. And look, I love hearing from people. Uh my what I love doing is is this, Joe.
SPEAKER_00Love it.
SPEAKER_02I I love having conversations, I love just talking and meeting new people. And so, you know, I I'm jealous of you 400 episodes. That's great. You've got 400, I mean it's 400 people you've been able to help shape your life and learn. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm open for any, you know, I'm happy to talk to anybody anytime. It doesn't, you know, they don't need to have a podcast or anything. I just love meeting and talking to folks. So hit me up on my on the website and we'll see where it goes.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. Well, listen, I'd love to have you back maybe in six months or so and see how the book's doing and and see how you're doing. I love that. Guests to come back and kind of you know follow along. I I I have, you know, like I said, I've had 400 episodes, probably about almost 300 guests. So we've had a lot of returns. So yeah, really a great relationship. You know, every time you have a conversation with somebody, you have a choice. What are we gonna do with that? And so I like to see if we can build on it. So I I love that.
SPEAKER_02And Joe, tell me, where are you located?
SPEAKER_00I'm in Southern California between LA and San Diego.
SPEAKER_02Oh, nice, beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and actually, I have a botanical garden and a a nonprofit called Gardens of Hope, and we do what we call therapeutic horticulture out here. So people come to the gardens for retreats and things like that. And beautiful. A lot about healing, you know, that's that's what this whole thing's all about healing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, I I yeah, and then I think there's different avenues and pathways, right? Lots of ways to get there. But the the the the most important way is to get out of your head, exactly. The first step is getting out of the left brain and letting yourself get into the right brain. I love that. If you can do that,
Closing Questions And Where To Find Him
SPEAKER_02you're you're on your way.
SPEAKER_00So well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and I want to thank all of our guests for making this show possible, and we will see you next time.
