The Comeback Mindset: Turning Adversity into Purpose with Sunil Robert Vuppula

In this inspiring episode of Transforming Stress, Dr. Ash is joined by Sunil Robert Vuppula—award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and resilience advocate—to explore the extraordinary power of the comeback mindset.

Drawing from his own journey through adversity, Sunil shares how purpose, resilience, and meaningful human connection can transform even life's darkest moments. Together, they discuss why our greatest setbacks can become the foundation for our greatest growth and how aligning with purpose creates lasting fulfillment beyond professional success.

💡 What You'll Learn

• Why resilience begins with purpose and identity
• The importance of building multiple identities beyond your career
• Sunil's practical 3M Comeback Framework: Movement, Momentum, and Memories
• How meaningful relationships help us navigate adversity
• Why success without alignment often leads to emptiness
• Practical ways to build a life of purpose, resilience, and service

✨ Key Insight

🗣️ "Comeback isn't one big moment—it's a series of small choices that move you forward."

🎯 Who This Episode Is For

• Professionals navigating stress or career challenges
• Leaders seeking greater purpose and resilience
• Anyone rebuilding after adversity or personal setbacks
• Individuals looking to create a more meaningful life

🔗 Connect with Sunil Robert

🌐 https://www.sunilrobert.com/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awardwinningmarketerandstoryteller/

🔗 Connect with Dr. Ash

📘 The Boiling Frog | The Boiling Frog Workbook
🌐 https://drashkumar.com
📲 Instagram: @theboilingfrogdoc
🎙️ Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash

Ready to transform stress into strength? The journey starts here. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello friends, and a very warm welcome to Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash. Are you ready to turn stress into your comfort? For over 30 years now, Dr. Ash has worked and gained education across three continents: India, the United Kingdom, and the United States in healthcare. He's witnessed firsthand how stress can impact our health and our happiness. But here's the exciting part. He's here to help you transform your stress into a powerful tool for growth and resilience. Each week, he'll share practical tools and life-changing insights from his books, including The Boiling Frog, to help you manage your stress, find balance, and live a life of purpose. Please join us every Friday at 5 pm and let's start turning stress into strength together. Now let's dive into today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Hello friends, welcome to the Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash podcast. And today I have a very special guest, Mr. Sunil Robert from across the pond in from New York City. His journey has been of a massive resilience, a very humbling journey. He has helped 10,000 corporate executives. He had a near-death experience. He was on the brink of suicide, and he turned around his life completely and took his life to the highest heights of the career. He's an author, he's a best-selling author of two books, a global executive, he's a TEDx speaker, and most importantly, Sunil's purpose is to inspire thousands of people, young men who are finding themselves in very challenging situations. His own story is of completely remarkable resilience. So beyond his massive achievements, what really drew me to Suril was his beyond imagination, remarkable resilience. And not just resilience, I would say beyond resilience. The post-traumatic growth he has demonstrated in his life is really deeply inspiring to me. And I will share with you more how I connected with Sunil. Sunil, really I'm delighted to have you on the show, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Thank you, Dr. Ash. Um, it's such a joy to be on your show because when I first heard about you, you'll be surprised to know where I heard about you, and and we will talk about that in one of the farthest uh parts of the world in the continent of Antarctica where Akash and I were running. That's when I got to know of him. So I call out to Akash for taking a moment to uh introduce us as we have similar passions, similar missions, similar outlook in life of trying to use life's adversities, life's stress factors, and then see how they can be used as tools of transformation. So I'm delighted to be here. I I'm from you know you know the the the thing about being at a point of rock bottom or at a point of suicide is every growth accomplishment that comes later is a bonus. It's so one of the reasons I live a fearless life is because I know I was at one point at rock bottom, I had nothing to lose because from then on it was everything to gain. So all these accomplishments, they they may not mean much to someone else, but from where I started, it's all a huge bonus, and today's meeting with you is a bonus, and I'm so grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Thank you, Sunil. Uh, likewise, um I really share uh your joy, and you mentioned Antarctica, where uh I used to read a lot of uh work from Antarctica by Ernest Sir Ernest Shackleton. And uh there's a book he had written, Leading from the Edge. Leading at the Edge, which is about dealing with the absolute crisis. So now that you have mentioned about Antarctica, and you went there for a marathon, which is you went to the harshiest environment to do a marathon there. Tell me about your inspiration, and I know you've done around seven, eight, you've done marathons across all the continents of the world. Take me through that journey.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah. So I was not a natural athlete like you both. Uh for the benefit of the listeners of this podcast. Dr. Ash and his brother Akash are natural athletes. Uh uh Akash, his younger brother, actually played cricket with two of India's biggest names of his era, Sachin Tendulkar and Vinath Kambli and stuff. When he showed me those pictures of having played cricket with those legends, my jaw dropped. Because I am one of those who's not naturally gifted athlete. But then, in a very remarkable way, you know, it's actually linked to all this topic of resilience. About 25 years ago, I was involved in a motorbike accident. And a big piece of my right knee was surgically removed, and the doctor's prognosis was for the rest of your life, you'll sort of live with an incapacitated knee, and you will not be able to do what normal things that people can do. For example, run, jog, squat, lift, anything that involves knees and and your legs as your uh as your starting point, you will not be able to do. Which sort of put me in a bit of a spiral of depression because at that time I was still single. I had this flowing long hair, reasonably well-built body, and I was in the I was what people in India called tall, dark, and handsome at that point. Just so so so to be attacked at at my knee and and have a bit of my self-esteem robbed seemed very unfair to me. And for the next 10 years, I went off the rails as far as my health was concerned. I was eating badly, I could I lived with a carefree attitude. And when you and we in in South India, we we are rice eaters, and if you consume tremendous amounts of viryani and rice, your your belly starts getting disproportionate to your overall limbs and structure. So I was obese. Uh, and the doctors looked at my numbers and said, Man, you have cardiac in your family history, you have blood pressure in your family history, you have you've got a lot of things going against you, you've got to do something about it. So at the ripe old age of 42, I really needed to review my life. And the first time I tried to do something cardiac was on a treadmill, I could not even last for a minute. The reason is not because I did not have the stamina, but because I was scared of falling off the treadmill because I could not hold on to the balance of running on a treadmill. So from there, within about four or five months, I was able to do the Philadelphia half marathon in the fall of 2010. What a transformation story it was. And when I posted it on Facebook, I was struck by the number of people who said, wow, what an inspiring story. What it, I mean, I didn't think much of it at that time. I thought, you know, I it's I was just reclaiming my own health. I was reclaiming my own strength. And from that moment, what seemed like an impossibility. So the Dr. Ramo, the orthopedic surgeon who removed my uh knee, and and he said, forget sports. You will actually have to walk with a cane uh to for the rest of your life. And and I'm glad I proved this prognosis wrong because not only was I able to get back my limp, uh uh overcome my limp and get back my gait, the in in the ability to walk straight and walk confidently, I was now getting strength to even jog and slow jog. I by no means I'm a fast runner uh like your brother or any of these three three and a half hour, four-hour uh marathon finishers. I am the back of the pack kind of a runner. But from there to even do some of the toughest marathons like the Boston Marathon and Tokyo Marathon and most recently Antarctica Marathon is a dream come true. Who I mean who wouldn't take this kind of a blessing, uh Dr. Ash? So, with all due respect, um uh with all modesty uh aside, I feel you know, when life throws you melons, you make melon juice, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Very, very true. What has this journey of going from almost uh limb-threatening injury to running a marathon? How much first of all, how much time it took Sunil?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

I trained for about four months to to do the half marathon because obviously I had to really like for example, I remember days when I tried to go for a four or five mile run on a long weekend. Um I would run out of juice at mile three or mile four, and I would call my wife and say, Hey, you gotta give bring me water and bring me some Gatorade and give me a ride back home. And on a Saturday, she'd be doing some household chores and she'd she'd like to snap her fingers and just say, Okay, what is this newfound addiction that should come and bring me back home and stuff? But the journey is the transformation. See, in our running circle, there's a saying that says, your four months of preparation is actually your transformation. The race day is actually a celebration of that transformation. On race day, you are merely there to receive the medal. All the hard miles have been put in, all the strength training has been put in. You are ready because the five hours or four and a half hours or three hours, whatever is your race time, is a celebration race. Because the journey itself is the reward. The journey is where you transform. So even though I've done about 24 full marathons, I would say in the last 15 years, what I have become and how I have found my physical limits and how I was able to push through those physical limits is a transformation story. And I'm not by any means saying this is a unique story. Every marathon runner would agree that it's in that training period, it is in that 300-400 miles you put in in the training that you truly know your limits, truly become who you are. And each race, Dr. Ash, will test you. You cannot say, like you say in tennis or any other game, that you've you've got this muscle memory and cumulative experience that will take you through the game. Yes, it works truly in that sense as well, but each marathon tests you. Each marathon is different, and you you can't carry or transfer your previous experiences into a race day because that race day, the marathon course will test you. You respect the course, you put a battle plan together, you execute that battle plan, and then you celebrate at the finish line. So for me, the journey is in the transformation.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

The journey is in the transformation. And I also read uh from your work that in your framework which you share with your listeners, uh, that physical vitality is a very important component when people have a setback in their life, and how to have the breakthrough from that setback, that journey, the physical vitality is a really huge component.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Absolutely. In fact, though those three elements are the pillars on which you you launch off into this battle against adversity. Now we must define what adversity is, right? For example, the management world talks about e-stress, distress, and stress in the middle. If you're not completely uh being challenged or stretched, you are in e-stress. Or if you're completely pushed to beyond a point, you're in distress. But there's that happy medium or right in the middle where you're being stressed. In fact, just uh a couple of days ago on CrickInfo, there was an interview by Virat Kohli where he said stress is a privilege. Pressure is a privilege. So there is that right amount of pressure which champion athletes, marathon runners, professionals like you who are constantly spending their life optimizing their hours for maximum impact, there is that right pressure that we need to define. So when you are struck with a debilitating kind of a prognosis, either it could be health or relationships breakdown or even existential crisis where you're searching for meaning in your own life, no matter what it is. If it is physical, then to combat that physical adversity, you need that strength of purpose, the mental cognitive, cognitive bandwidth, or cognitive horsepower. So those are the three pillars I argue in the TED Talk that I shared. But more importantly, this ability to see things misaligned is is pressure point. Why are some of the most successful people disillusioned with life? Why is there that gnawing emptiness in their spirits? Right? It is misalignment. What they pursued as a relentless journey towards achievements, the moment they got that achievement, they saw that emptiness that follows. It's called uh post-Race Day blues or post-accomplishment blues. You you see it all the time uh after any big event like a World Cup or IPL or any um Super Bowl, for example. The days following that, people experience what is called a post-event blues. And the metaphor there is some of your life's most dramatic accomplishments you can look at, and you discover the the following days after the euphoria dies down. Let's take our own Antarctica marathon as an example. For weeks and months and years, we've been dreaming about that, and then there is a certain phenomena called post-Antarctica blues. When you are getting back to terraforma, when you're getting back to the main continent of South America and then subsequently North America, you come home, you you've got this mountaintop experience, and now you're coming down to Earth, terraforma. How do you handle that void, or how do you handle that transition from this dizzying heights to grounding reality, right? So this ability to see yourself out of alignment, and again, alignment presupposes a standard ahead of you. And when I coach leaders, when I train people, I ask them, what is your true north? What is the principle by which you are willing to measure your success by? Not a defined principle by external sources. You know, sometimes young children or teenagers and young adults, their success is defined by parents. And sometimes, even after they do all that, they feel disillusioned because they tried everything from an external validation. And the same is true of us. What are we pursuing these massive dreams for? Are you pursuing them to get this social keeping up with the Jones kind of Jones kind of phenomena? Or are you truly powered by a purpose? And that misalignment often causes adversity at different levels. But just you are a physician, you come from the medical world. So for you, you are a better source of talking about the physical resilience. But for me, I as a non-medical professional, somebody who's just studied resilience as a theme, for me, it's a misalignment between what is a perceived reality versus what is actual, right? So in my case, my own journey through my adverse childhood, young days, where I was at that point of giving up to finding that purpose and then aligning myself with that purpose helps me keep going forward. So I don't either get buoyed up or lifted by these accomplishments or the social media validation or even accomplishments like getting on a podcast like this define me. They give us a high, they give us joy, they give us some degree of happiness, but I'm not defined by it. Should something crash and burn in the next few days, my identity should not be so shaken up. So alignment and it's linked to who you are as far as your identity is concerned. You know, when we attach our identity to things that can be taken away, then you'll be truly tested when that happens. Like, like, why do some politicians find it difficult to quit their chair? Why do superstar sportspeople find it difficult to retire or give up their space at the right time? Because they're so caught up in that web of success, they don't know when to go. In fact, uh Sunil Gawaskar said when reporters asked him, Why did you retire so early when you had so much more game in your tank? He said, It is better better to retire early and let people ask why early than not retire and let people wonder when is he going to quit, right? So linking all this together, I feel resilience is a function of your ability to find alignment and linked it to your identity. And if you're sure of your identity, nothing can stop you.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

I know many people in this world have only their identity limited to their profession.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

And if there is anything catastrophic there, they find it very they just fall apart. So any ideas you would like to share here, Sunil, that how one should have multiple areas of our interest, including our profession and outside. So, like I can say that your identity today is not only a corporate professional, you are also an author, you're also a global executive, you are also a marathoner, you are also a family person. So when one identity is threatened, you got something else to fall back upon. Many, many things else going for you.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

So here I want to define roles that we play in our journey, right? Among the many roles that we play in our life, at every stage in our life cycle, each role assumes significance, right? And the ability to hold those roles, multiple roles, in constant tension is a function of your identity. For example, very early in my teenage life, I defined my identity as not someone who's seen as a loser as defined by others, or someone who said, this guy will not amount to anything except a rowdy cheater. I must share with your viewers that when I was in college and I was involved in college politics, I was a pretty rebellious kid. I was involved in group violence, gangs, student politics, getting beaten up by others, beating up others, uh constant visits to the police stations, and and word spreads, right? People know that you know this this young man is going this down this path. And many people had given up on me. And the identity that that was thrust upon me at that stage was he's a future criminal, future rowdy cheater. But then a dramatic transformation happened in my young years, and that's where my identity really shifted. Now, here I want to talk to you about how some of us view our life. To be this crazy sprint. And in my second book, Bound to Rise, I actually talk about how life is not a crazy sprint. You've got to view it like a marathon. And it you're in it for the long haul. You're in it for the long run, so to speak. And in that, I want to talk to you about the many roles you get to play. And where we come from in Asia, South Asia, India, China, some of it, we see careers in a linear manner. But you come to the Western Hemisphere, you don't see careers in a linear manner. Here you see young people very early defining that they're going to be in the non-profit world or they will join an organization dear to their heart and change the world. They're not looking to make money. And of course, there are some young kids who go pursue Ivy League credentials and go into the world of wealth management, banking, finance, high finance, all that fine. But when you see that as immigrant, as an immigrant, I moved from East to the West, I realized that I should be in a position to embrace both worldviews and define my life in such a way that I'm not defined just by my corporate role. And so even when I was at work, like for example, in my last role in TCS, I was able to actually use my God-given talents and gifts and the love of speaking and love of public speaking and training to train more than 40,000 engineers in different client locations, client accounts, and share my knowledge. Now, I was not paid for that. Of course, they paid for my stay and other stuff. But my passion to make a difference to the folks around me is a function of how you see your identity, what gifts and talents you possess, and how you can bless the world around. See, if I said, look, I want a week time to go out and I want to train some people in Minnesota, where 3M account and Target account, Target Corporation are located. My company will say, if training is your passion, you better go and do it. But but I said, I'm in marketing, my primary calling is marketing, but I have this gift of teaching. I love communications, I want to train our people. And through our HR people, I was able to find opportunities where I was not going to be paid extra, but it allowed me an avenue to express myself. So that won tremendous amount of respect from my audience because they saw here was a guy who's not coming because he's paid to, but he's coming because he's he loves this topic and he wants to bless or offer the gift of that talent to me. So audience receptivity was high, and they were taking this content with you know open hearts and minds. So the ability to link your identity to the many roles you play. So there I was playing the role of a trainer, but there subsequently in my day job, I am a marketer. I come home, I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I go to church, I'm a church member, I'm in the community. In the neighborhood I live, I must tell you a funny story. I every summer I rally all the kids in my neighborhood and say, I'm gonna teach your kids public speaking, right? Which parent does not want their children to vanish for three, four hours on a given day, on a particular weekend, free babysitting, right? But the flip side is not only am I imparting these young kids the love of communication and public speaking, I'm telling them this joy in storytelling, the ability to share with each other their stories. And many of these kids grow together because we all live in the neighborhood, right? And friendships get deepened. I'm creating an avenue for me to take a peek into their lives. Some of these kids are now become teenagers. Uh and every time I see them, they come very affectionately and talk to me. I get a window into what's happening. All because I chose to use my gifts as a good neighbor, as an uncle who loves them. You know, in our community, we are referred to as uncles, right? That role as a responsible citizen, responsible community builder, allows me the love and the affection of many families from which these children come.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

So you are, if you start looking at it globally and say, I have so many of these roles to play, and when something goes wrong in one avenue, the other roles come together to multiple identities, are there, and your life is not hanging by just one rope.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Correct. And so that's where de-risking or that's where going all in is a risk. Because ultimately no one cares. You are they say, right? No one is indispensable at work. I'm a resource. I I'm I'm paid, I'm paid for the time that I put in. I get a designation, all that is fine. But should I be hit by a bus tomorrow? No one's going to take the role of all the other roles that I was playing as a dad, as a spouse, as a community leader, as a church member, as every other role, right? And above all, a great citizen of America and the love that I have for my country, homeland, back home in India. Every year I go back to India, at least twice. And when I go, I use my 30 days of time to inspire young people in engineering colleges, MBA colleges. Wherever I get an opportunity, I just go and sort of give the blessing or the gift of my experience and passion.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Sunil, that is really, really very inspiring. And I think that purpose which you have is also a huge piece of resilience. When the challenges come in life, if somebody has a deep purpose, like your purpose is inspiring thousands of people in the United States, around the world, and India. Young youth, and recently I heard that you also go to prisons in New York, uh to New Jersey. So that purpose is a huge yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Again, when you see your cause as communities and individuals, you will never miss an opportunity. You know, I'll I'll share a very fresh example, fresh uh cross-on or a bun from the oven. Three, four days ago, my wife and I were at shopping for a new car, and we were at a car showroom, and we were talking to different young people who were uh you know car salesmen. Then they you talk to the finance people, you talk to the accounting people, you talk to the guy who runs the numbers, then one guy comes and sells you the car servicing plan. We were dealing with one guy, and suddenly my wife and I started asking him, 'You I hope you had a good Mother's Day.' And he said, Yeah, it was a mixed feeling. I it was bittersweet, and then and then we could have just left it there. My wife is very perceptive. She said, Um, what do you mean? Uh, can you tell us? As we were talking, he just shared that this year, about four or five months ago, his 16-year-old son was involved in a car crash and he died instantly. You know, prior to me becoming this uh sensitive, compassionate leader, I would have just dismissed it. He's a stranger. We are there to buy a car, just get on with it. Do the be cordial, be polite, finish the interaction, and go. But we spent the next 45 minutes to an hour just walking with that man through the journey, and he was sharing about how he and his wife come from different worldviews. They were sharing, he was unpacking what was going on. You know, the world's biggest cross to carry is a parent or an adult burying a younger one, and no amount of theoretical empathy or anything can truly measure the grief of it's against the run of nature, right? Young people should bury the older ones, that's the cycle of life. But for us to reverse, and when you bury a young person who's 16-year-old, my heart just sank into the chair that I was sitting in. We were just so where I'm going with this anecdote is for us, it could have just been a car buying transaction, but we spent time with that man and we took his number, we just exchanged emails, and he said, Is it okay to share more as we keep going forward as they navigate this journey, which will be their lifetime journey of grief? And then to put it around and saying you should always be focused on a mission, thousands, hundreds of people, but never lose sight of the individual. Because ultimately we are individuals. Uh, if somebody comes to me and says, I want to change the world, I want to deal with you, I am not the world. I am Sunal. I am my name is distinct, my identity is unique. So, this whole notion of being able to see the individual. In fact, that's why when Akash and I hit it together, we started getting into each other's stories because you know he's a remarkable guy like you, unique story, and then we our stories start connecting and meshing. In fact, somebody uh said we are not all human beings, we are stories in collision with each other.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Stories in collision with each other.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Is a story, and the moment I take time to take the story behind this human being, that's when true and authentic bonding happens. Right? I mean, we are talking such deep uh resilience as a theme. It wouldn't have been possible just straight away. We turn the microphones on, right? A lot of layering happened. We went back and forth and we talked. I now know a little bit of your story, and now you know a little bit of my story, and we are building these stories together so that the ripple effect of other stories can be inspired. So, my mission is yes, to transform the world using my communication skills and my story, but I will never lose sight of the individual, Dr. Ash.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Thank you so much for uh sharing that, Sunil. Really, uh you have put it very beautifully that stories are so important part and how sometimes you've had you might have had a might have had a story you have been telling yourself, but there is another layer of beauty in how you can reframe those stories. So, one of the stories when I was reading about you, when you had a real close brush with death, and when you wanted to end it all, I know this is something very personal. Uh, if you would like to speak about it or if you don't want to share about it, that's fine as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

No, I I I want to share because when you share your rock bottom moments, then folks will also appreciate your mountaintop celebrations. So my rock bottom was when during those teenage years when I had uh attempted suicide, not just once, but twice. The second time I almost pulled it off. I felt uh again. Now you might wonder why this reasonably good-looking man who seemed to have got everything together at this now, at least now, hit that rock bottom, right? I was the oldest, I am the oldest of four siblings. My dad, who had a well-paying job, had suddenly lost it, and over a period of four to five years, we had really crumbled as a family. And at that time, I was coming into my teen years, I was from 14, 15 onwards, all the way till 18. We had no food to eat, no place to stay. We were being evicted from rental homes time to time, and I was really boiling a lot of anger and rage against my parents, against my the conditions and circumstances that I was growing up to be. And, you know, comparison is the thief that steals away all our joy, right? I would look around and see my classmates and neighbors doing reasonably okay. I mean, we are not from a wealthy community or a wealthy area, but they were doing okay. Their parents had decent jobs and government jobs in some instances, and they were doing all right. They had a place to stay, they were eating well, wearing good clothes, and I was struggling. And so, for example, one of the nicknames I got bullied with was called Alter. Kyunki, I used to wear clothes that were altered, given away, hand-me-downs from other people. And being evicted from homes is a very dehumanizing experience. Um, there were times when we would be taken into relatives' homes, but there were times when we were just waited out outside, in in outside my grandma's house or somewhere where there wasn't enough place for everyone. So these are physically hurtful times uh of conditions of poverty closing in on us. That was only one piece, but the other piece was my existential angst as a young teenager. I was rebelling at home and I was in a polytechnic, things were not going well, student violence. Uh I had a love affair at that time, which ended in a big heartbreak. And so there was this feeling that nobody loves me, no, I don't have a future, my self-esteem hit rock bottom, and I just wanted to end it all. Because the reason most people choose the path of suicide, and subsequently I ended up working in a suicide prevention organization called Sahaya. The the Telugu word Sahaya in and and even in Hindi, I think, to some degree means help. Uh it's it's uh organization run by Befrienders International, where you counsel the folks who are suicidally depressed, feeling lonely or or uh anxious and they need some kind of an outlet. So subsequently I drew into that area, but one of the reasons why young people or anyone get pressured or get pulled into depression that ends up to suicidal efforts is often that seems like just your one choice away from solving everything. You see, recovery on comeback is a million set of choices, million choices incrementally adding to your comeback. But to snap, you just need one choice. And whether it is an academic failure or a relational failure or a financial failure or some kind of an existential emptiness that drives you to that point of no return, you're only one choice away. And it is at that time either providence works, as in my case, you know, God sent some students from the nearby engineering college to drag me out in time from the path of an oncoming train. But had it been not for those students who just took me home, kind of brainwashed me, and continued to just speak words of encouragement for me, my life would have been, I would have been a forgotten footnote in history by now. My I dread sometimes to think of all the possibilities that subsequently got uncovered when I started fighting back. So, rock bottom, you're only one choice away, but comeback is a series of choices. So for me, the transformation did not happen overnight. When somebody says he made a comeback, the first point is getting that alignment back and saying, I want to fight. You see, when you make that single big choice and saying, I'll fight again, that's when you are on the path to come back. It may take a few more million steps to get to the mountaintop again. But once you've got up from rock bottom, the only way is you're going up. Because you made that pivotal turning point kind of a choice to say, I will fight, I will survive, I will not give up, I will not surrender, I will not quit. To me, comeback begins at that pivotal choice, and it's linked to again your what have you been feeding your mind, your spirit all along. The world tells us that we are not having any inherent value, you only possess value to the degree you achieve. That's why young people get disillusioned when they don't have much achievements going their way. If you remove the label of achievements and you say you possess inherent worth, wealth, inherent value, inherent dignity, then you are detaching the achievements from the individual. You're talking potential. You see, alignment is always a function of how much you believe you possess as potential to contribute to the world. Sometimes that potential may take a long time to come out in the form of performance or contribution or value. But just that residual belief that you possess potential, that you have inherent value is the starting point. That's what I tell young people wherever I go. I did not see that inherent potential when I was about to commit suicide. I started seeing external validation.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

So Surreel, uh sorry to interrupt you. You mentioned that when you wanted to commit suicide in 1989, would you mind taking me to that moment where you were what this is really important because we are seeing a lot hundreds of thousands of suicides now all over the world on an annual basis? I want to see what is the emotional state when a person is in that.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

First is real confusion. Confusion that does anyone care? Does anyone care? See, often in suicide prevention circles, they say an attempt to commit suicide is a cry for help, is a cry for conversation, is a is a cry for attention. Does anyone see me as valuable? Does anyone care enough to think of me? Right? That that cry for attention. I thought if I commit suicide or I I ended my problems, some things around me, me will change, and maybe my siblings and everybody else will have a better life after I go. Because when that heartbreak happened, it just it was one of those, you know, teenage crushes or whatever, you know, puppy love they call, right? When that happened, I thought I'll I'm not loved at all. Nobody will ever love me.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Feelings of isolation. Which unfortunately, those feelings of isolation are unfortunately in Hollywood and as well as Bollywood, it's glamorized in like movies like allows allow me to say that movies like Dave Das and all that is glamorized.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Glamorized, totally, totally. Nobody says, you know, it's not movie success. You know, nobody says, let her go, you'll find somebody better, right? Nobody, it's not, it's not politically correct, right? So so the ability for you to hear truths about yourself, and that's where I struggle. Even I have a young son who's just graduated college, we need to be able to identify that not every student will make it to Ivy League. Not every young person will make it to corporate echelons, right? Not everyone has a gift, but if you can find your place under the sun, you know, one of my favorite writers uh in American literature is a writer by name Horatio Alger. He was around the same contemporary of Mark Twain and so on, right? Horatio Alger's stories have a very unique angle to it. Every character of Horatio Alger rises to some degree of success, but not stupendous spectacular success that you expect to see in movies. In other words, they come from modest backgrounds, they have their own set of struggles, and then they go achieve to a modicum of success, and they live happily ever after. Much like real life, right? All of us will ever make it to the, not many people will make it to the covers of Fortune or Forbes or but like a Horatio Alger story, the moment I discover that God made me for a purpose, and like a Horatio Alger story character, I will get to some degree of success, and that's okay. Right? I may not become the best and the brightest and the shiniest star on the firmament, but I will shine bright as far as I am allowed to based on how God created me as a star, right? So to to when you find the true North, when you find that that's maybe the best place and that put tremendous freedom on my shoulders because pressure is lifted off. I'm no longer thinking I should become the superlative adjectives. No need. Right? So the comeback for me began in that suicide moment to say, look, I'm running away, but maybe God has created me to be a fighter to help my family survive, to help my mom survive, to help my siblings survive this crisis. When I saw that switch from being a victim to a shaping personality, someone who can make a dent in my family's fortunes and the future, my struggle began then, Dr. It gave me a purpose, it gave me a tremendous so that loneliness, that confusion, that anger, that slowly it was not overnight. Obviously, I still was mad at my father for not, you know, finding something and getting us back on the track or something. But because I started so early, and that's where comebacks are powered by the right kind of people, you know. Right kind of people you need to have voices that speak courage into your life. You need to have voices that will tell you you can do it. Because there are enough people who will say you can't do it. There are the crazy ones who will come along and say, Of course you can do it. In fact, a friend of mine said, if you are not guaranteed success, I don't know who else will be guaranteed success. Because he was saying you've got the right attitude, you're willing to work hard. I mean, you've got all the ingredients that are necessary for a success. You will make it. And when somebody says you will make it, you walk around with such confidence. And the word encouragement has courage built into it. So when you encourage somebody, you are literally pouring courage into that person's life. And so when I got the right kind of encouragement, Doc, that confusion, that anxiety, that fear of the future, all that got replaced by faith, faith in myself, faith in God's plan for our lives, faith in the universe. I would trust everybody, I would travel, I would just go to wherever life would take me, with almost fearless faith. You know, they were then the that quitting mindset slowly dissipated. And I said, you know, I will never do this again. I will die fighting, but I will never compromise, quit, or surrender. That's that was the moment of that uh lonely moments in my journey.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

So the the one of the one of the things when person is at the uttermost despair is isolation and shame and not having any option to, as in your example, completely then transcending it, having a purpose, having a meaning, and also having a lot of encouraging and nurturing connections is the antidote to to being in that rock bottom situation, and now from there you had a great comeback. Now you are helping people who are on suicide watch and you have got working for this charity. So what is this something you had planned, or it just came to your came that basically destiny brought you there that now you want to help people who are in this kind of similar situation?

SPEAKER_02 48:21

It's it's crazy how you know when you're just open and observant, God or universe sends things your way. The way I heard about this suicide prevention organization was I was driving my motorbike, and right in front of me was an ambassador car. Back in those days, ambassador cars used to be there. There was a sticker on the bumper sticker on the back. It said, Depressed, suicider, or lonely, call Sahai and the phone number. In those days we had landlines, right? And so I just memorized the number, went to my office because those days we didn't have cell phones. Went to my office and I called that number and said, Look, I just saw your uh sticker. My name is Sunil, and and I'm uh 19 years old. I want to be a volunteer in this organization. They said, Oh, we are looking for volunteers. Give us your details, and then there. I must tell you, the three years that I was there in that organization from the time around 19 to 2021, those were the most formative years of my emotional maturity. Here I was, a 19-year-old, imagine sitting in front of a couple, married couple, maybe five years, seven years, almost like twice my age. And the couple will ask me, What experience do you have to counsel a married couple? And then, of course, we are trained to handle those kinds of questions. So I'd say, look, my job as a counselor is not to offer you specific marital counseling. My job is to walk you through the current emotional upheavals you are going through. So both of you are obviously in a conflict scenario. I want to hear your story, I want to hear her story, and together the three of us will navigate and dissipate the energy and the conflict and see if you can walk out of this meeting room with some degree of clarity on why there's this conflict. So when I offer that kind of a perspective and say, I'm here to listen, back to my suicidal uh situation. If there were people who were willing to sit me down and say, Tell me what's going on, and then just met me with silence, maybe I would have been able to tell them what's going on. But once I tried that, and then once people saw that I was really behind this smiling, mischievous, naughty face was an emotionally turbulent situation, they started paying more attention to me. The next few years till I really matured and came back, they were all being watchful about me. So it's easy to pay attention after the initial attempt or the warning signals, but it's tough to pick up signals even before somebody goes there. So if someone is unnaturally quiet, if somebody is not responding to texts, if somebody's not really being themselves, we need our antennae to work over time and pick up those signals. Because shutting down is the first sign of loneliness. Shutting down is the first sign of something is happening that we need to pick up more and interpret more of this noise that is coming from them.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Yeah, that is that is so true. That is a pattern we see very commonly. Now, Sunil, I wanted to really dig a little deeper into your corporate experience. I know you have 25 plus years of corporate experience, including working in companies like Tata, where you work for 17 years. We spoke about suicide, people wanting to end life feeling empty from inside because life is not happening their way, they've not achieved enough. But now I want to go to the other extreme. I want to have it all. When you have it all, when you are working with corporates who have got best of cars, best of houses, best of jobs, and there is an emptiness. What are called the bowling frog phenomena. And the bowling frog phenomena is when low-grade stressors, which are outside our level of awareness, slowly and slowly are eroding us from inside. Have you seen this kind of phenomena in your corporate life?

SPEAKER_02 52:49

Yes. Yes. In fact, some of the most um stressed-out individuals are these highly paid, highly achieving executives. And I always found very interesting that the very people who have solved multi-million dollar problems and multi-hundreds of people teams sometimes don't pause long enough to ask how they are doing, right? And so at some point, that manic obsession towards achievements and accomplishments puts you on a path that is almost self-destructive. You may not destroy yourself, but certainly everybody around you will start feeling the pains. If you're a toxic, high achievement-oriented and driven person, watch out for your inner circle of teams at work, inner circle of family, inner circle of friends. Because you can't have that kind of a laser-like focus if you're concentrating on all the roles that you play. Either you're dysfunctional at home or you're dysfunctional to the inner circle of teams, because you're it's always about me and always about myself, right? So I'm not passing a value judgment, but one of the reasons corporate arenas have become toxic battlefields is because of this manic dog eat dog world kind of a culture, manic competitiveness. Uh, they pay lip service to teamwork, but teams are burning at both ends. They say they talk about meritocracy, but only a handful are picked and promoted based on whims and fancies without a transparent way of measuring performance. So the corporate world is not the utopia that we make it out to be. I know of far too many broken leaders who are pushed, pushed, driven, driven, almost to the point of being tired. Uh great accomplishments financially resounding. Um, you have all the shiniest of gadgets to display, big homes, all that is great, but that feeling of misalignment, that feeling that maybe there's more to success uh than just mere accomplishments, right? So the people who have discovered their true alignment, their true passion, their true ikigai are the ones who are really flourishing. For example, I decided very early that sales is not going to be my long-term career, and I moved into creative fields like advertising, PR, and corporate communications. Then it was no longer feeling like work. Because it it was a passion of my childhood to be in the creative uh environment of coming up with copy, coming up with creative words, using words as a means of creative communication. Because I aligned my passions, the misalignment I felt when I was in sales completely got eliminated. I was feeling that icky guy kind of a thing. And that boiling frog kind of a thing is you you you talk to some of these executives and ask them to take some time off and switch off and be human, you'll find it. It's as if you're taking away their pacemaker. Right? Why is it? Because their identity comes from this relentless treadmill of achievements. Today, if I get hit by a bus, I should say I've lived well, I live fully. And that's why I never postpone any opportunity to dare think of a daring adventure. We went to Antarctica and we jumped off the ship uh into the polar plunge, right?

SPEAKER_01 57:00

I see water.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

It's why would you postpone such an opportunity, right? Again, not to post it on Facebook or Insta and Tampa just no, it is living in that moment fully that you've trained for, worked hard, just go and get the best of experiences. There was not one person I did not talk to on the ship. I tried to make conversations with everybody, get to know their stories. I met such fascinating people, and Akash will tell you as well. The kind of people I met, I will cherish for the rest of my life. What stories? And yeah, I don't know if I you know brought them any joy, but I came back certainly elevated and elated. Why? Because I said to myself that I will do this, it has nothing to do with professional success, nothing to do with my mission. But someone somewhere will say, if a guy in his 50s can take good care of his body like that, I should certainly be doing so. And if a life is transformed, somebody gets a spark of inspiration, I will do it. So the world of corporate executives, the world, in fact, now anxiety is the new epidemic that is driving people with the advent of AI. People are scared to death. What will happen? And that's where if they had avocations outside of work, if they had a healthy set of relationships that are thriving, then you'll not worry about your future because then you'll know your community's got you, your family's got you, you've invested in everybody, you are you are at peace. That the community will look out for you. And and if you didn't, and all your life you just were manically swimming in your own lane, then you look around, there's nobody. So the corporate world is now a very lonely place, a very anxious place, and then some something's gotta give, and it'll push many people into dysfunctional outcomes soon. I'm worried.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

One of the strategies to deal with is uh is to have a purpose, as you you and we have talked about. Other is having multiple identities and a lot of interest out of work, and also you mentioned earlier during our conversation is having a deep faith.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Yeah, yeah. If faith again, um we we come from India, we are a very religious people, so for many of us, faith is an integral part of our life, and we learn from our grandparents, we learn from our parents of how we our lives are merely a channel of blessing for others. And to that degree, I'm so grateful for my Indian heritage, you know. I'm so proud of what we teach our children, right? Right from our early days, you know, we are surrounded by these traditions, rituals, and so on. Growing up as a child, for me, church was a non-negotiable. You can't say, Oh, I had a tough week, I don't want to, I want to skip church. No, my parents would just say that's not a negotiable, boss. So, so for me, even today as an immigrant living in in the United States, two things are non-negotiable during the week. 7 p.m. Eastern, we get a program called Jeopardy, which is a quiz kind of a program where you're tested for your knowledge. And Sunday, 10 o'clock, we are at church. So our schedule is almost again, mental, Jeopardy tests your knowledge and spiritual. On Sunday, you go back to recharge and refresh yourself, right? Um, of course, physical fitness, everybody um yeah, my when I ran marathons, I ensured my older boy ran a couple of half marathons. My wife ran a marathon after delivering our second baby half marathon. So physical fitness depends on different seasons of life, but the ability to have that deep-rooted anchors, your faith is a major part of it. Because someday, see, one of the reasons that uh I'm so conscious of giving back to the world is not to be this goody-goody guy that gets appreciation and all that. No. My way of measuring my life is I don't just want to be successful, but I want to be faithful. Faithful ka matlab kya, what is what does the word faithful mean? You are doing it whether people are watching or not. For example, going back to that car salesman example that I said, I could have just treated that as another just a business professional transaction. But I took time to just speak words of courage into his life, my wife and I, because when we stand in the presence of God when we die, God will ask us look, I sent you one guy in your path who was grieving after his lost son, and you just walked casually by. I need to account for such opportunities where maybe God is wanting to spend, send encouragement his way using me and my wife. It was not a chance encounter, no, it's God's plan that we are supposed to have met. So I I try to, I put aside my own petty, pity parties. Sometimes I'm not in the best of moods, sometimes I'm irritated, sometimes I'm annoyed. But I will never let go of an opportunity to see Rikisika. And one of the reasons uh I I pick up on these things is as I'm spending more time, you know, as people we are always drawn to fun activities, right? But fun activities, after a while, they fatigue you, they tire you. You see somebody sitting quietly in a corner, they have something going on in their life. You go to them and say, Hey, is there anything bothering you? Do you want to talk about it? That costs for a sensitive spirit. You only feel it in your heart first and then you you discover it later. So, to me, the ability for to be faithful to all the people I meet, to all the opportunities I get to lift up people is a function of my faith. Because someday I don't want to stand in the presence of God and say, I'm sorry I messed up because I was too busy dancing, I was too busy missing out on other things. Oh so so that that's where my orientation to serve others comes, Dr. Ash.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

That is so important to give to others, and that comes ultimately comes back to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Yeah. Because as we say, in the Western Hemisphere, what can I give to anyone, right? I mean, other than somebody is in financial need, some charity you'll do. But a kind word, an encouraging word, it might just change their day, change their mood, change their trajectory, who knows? So I'm always saying, um, even in New Jersey, New Jersey is one of the few states where there are others to pump our gas. In many of the other 48 states, um, other than Portland, there people have to pump their own gas. So anytime somebody comes and just in that chance encounter, I try to ask their name. If they are a student, I tell them to be faithful in their education, stay strong. You never know what battles they are fighting. And just for that short encouragement, it's not gonna cost me much except just being not absorbed in my own problems. As an EAK, I don't have problems, right? Every one of us we are fighting some mountain or the other. But in the process, let's egg each other, let's cheer each other, let's lift each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

That's like when you are doing like when you're doing the marathon, we are we are all we are in this together. So that that feeling of that camaraderie and helping and inspiring and lifting each other is really very important.

unknown 1:05:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

See, the word humility comes to my mind now. You might say, what has humility got to do with this? The root word for humility is hummus. Hamas means from the earth. You and I are dug from the earth, we are made from mud, dust to dust, they say, right? We we go back into the earth. If you have that orientation key, boss, no matter how wealthy you are, no matter how super successful you are, I'm also banawa, we are all going to be in the same common destiny. But in the meantime, let's make life easy for each other. In fact, there's a very nice quote by I think Mary Oliver, I'm not certain, who says, Ah, what is life meant to be except to make life easier for the other?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

It's so true.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

But what do we end up doing? We may Life is hard for each other, right? So, so to have that kind of a perspective and say, you know what, just be humble about it. In fact, I I really this is a struggle for me because I by nature would like to push myself and stretch myself, but to back down and be humble is not natural. But many life experiences have made me so humble that I don't take anything for granted. I don't take tomorrow for granted. Because who's seen tomorrow? So, with that orientation, I go and walk around saying any day six feet above the ground is a great day. And I was very, very philosophical.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:44

Every day you wake up, every day you wake up, we have to feel that gratitude that we have got another day of life.

unknown 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

So uh Sunil, uh, your uh story, really uh an inspiring and a humbling story, is uh story today of millions of people around the world. You know, one of the Gallups studies showed that the burnout at work is up to 70 to 80 percent in all countries, all continents around the world. So it's not just one person going through it, the negative and toxic emotions. And your st your journey, I would say the ultimate story of the boiling frog journey when people are so depleted that they don't see uh uh a way through. So do you have a framework where people who are in their rock bottom, which you could share? I know you are called as a come back, come back guru, and I I would love for you to share with the listeners that if they are at their that simply the rock bottom, what is what is the journey they should do and what is the starting point?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

Great question, great question, and and and thankful because this is one topic that I've really studied and reflected uh in the light of my own experiences. Uh by no means I'm a guru the way the world sees it, but you know, if you failed so many times, you have some experience in in uh in coming coming back. So for me, there is a there's a threefold um framework, so to speak, that I personally applied and it really worked well for me. The first one is movement. You know, in your physical world, in your world of physiology and in the world of medicine, you talk about movement being medicine. Movement is medicine. And I think it's absolutely accurate. Borrowing from the medical world, I try to say to people look, if you're stuck in this blaise kind of a feeling where you are not able to move out from the morass of helplessness, depletion, rock bottom kind of a feeling, the first thing you need to try and do is physical movement. Walk, change of location, change of scenery. Just get out of that place. If need be, get out of the college for some time, get out of that town for some time. Movement allows you a shift in perspective. And for me, that happened when I took a six-month sabbatical and went to Chennai, another city from where I lived, and and re-evaluated my life. And in those six months, change of location, change of perspective, brand new set of people, different voices speaking into my life, my life turned. So first element is movement shift in location. That's why sabbaticals are important. That's why you need to refill the lamp that is burning within you so that you can burn brighter. You can't light up others if you're running on fumes and empty. And so for me, that refilling comes partly from my family, partly from my faith, partly from the community, and revisiting my own life's mission, right? So that's the first principle. Your physical change of location, physical movement is your medicine. The second one is that gives you momentum to make those first choices. Again, assuming that you are not able to move, what are some small wins that you can aim for to get momentum? Right? The first is movement, second is momentum. What are some things that I can do to just get that little bit of spark, little bit of momentum in my fight to come back, right? Um when you run a marathon, when you train for something big, you know, I must share a story. Amsterdam Marathon 2016. At mile six, I made a rookie mistake of trying to keep up with a colleague who's 15 years younger than me. And as a runner, you will know that is disaster. Mile six, I had a hamstring injury. Mile six. So one option was pull out, report that your DNF injury limping. But I told myself, I didn't travel all the way from New York, New Jersey to Amsterdam to quit at mile six. I cannot. So movement shift in location happened when I went to the medical tent. They said, quit, we can call your cab, you can go back to the stadium, pick your stuff and go. I said, No, I didn't come this far to quit. I said, let me see how long I can go to walk. I removed my pullover, the wind sheeter, tied it tight around my thigh, and started limping. Movement, momentum, movement, momentum, movement, momentum. Do you know it took an extra hour for me to finish? People, even spectators who were applauding, were saying, Why don't you quit? If you're if you're in so much in pain, why don't you quit? I said, No, I'm not quitting. I finished the Amsterdam Marathon, 20 miles of pain. All because I took small steps in the direction for momentum. And then the final one is first is movement, second one is momentum, the third one is memories. Recall past victories, recall, relook at your past trophies, celebrate your past wins, and those memories fuel your momentum and movement. So these three are essential for any comeback. There are there could be more, but these three are basic starting for any comeback. You know, if you are feeling completely dried up and empty, the best place to stay is remember first of all that you're six feet above the ground, great place to be in. That's the bonus. From there, look back at how far you've come. If you're very early in your life and you're you're high schooler, you're in college, look at all the battles you fought in the past. And maybe it's one of your first major battles, but you have overcome certain things to get here. So look at all the memories, collect all those memories. If you have a great family, think of that memory, think of all the family support. So if you start looking at your setback with a grateful attitude and say, look, there are some people, my situation is bad enough. It's the worst diagnosis, worst prognosis. I know it is bad. You know, um, on Wednesday, two days ago, today we are in Friday, two days ago, my wife and I met a young man, 22-year-old. His father is diagnosed with fourth-stage cancer. He's got two more months to live. Our heart sank. But we have nothing but positive affirmations, faith affirmations to give that young young child to say, I mean, 22 is even younger than my son. So our my heart just went out to that child. We just said, hang in there, relish every moment, speak words of strength to your father, make sure you absorb as much of quality time with him, whatever else, right? And that boy, that young man, will be so much stronger if he's able to handle this loss, this impending uh time bomb that they are sitting on. But think of it. The flip side could be the dad is coming home, a truck rams into it, overnight their life's changed. As opposed to a two-month preparation period where you're slowly going through the stages of grief, grappling with it, and saying, Why? Why is such a young man? Is just about 60. It's unfair. Unfair it is. That's why death is called the great equalizer, disease is called the great equalizer, it respects no one. Accidents happen all the time, that's why they are called accidents, they turn our life upside down. So when you hit those moments, these three things are essential: movement, momentum, and memories. They those three give you enough spark. In fact, I have a full-length uh abbreviation for the word spark. The the the the S in it stands for stimulation. What keeps you stimulated? Go back to that source. For me, even if I'm in the worst situation, if I know somebody else is in need, I get stimulated. I'd love to just offer whatever I could. If nothing else, just give them the gift of my presence. You know, sometimes we forget how our presence itself can be a gift, right? Some people think I don't have anything to gift. I'm an introvert, I can't speak, I can't speak eloquently, I don't have the right words, I feel awkward in these situations. Yes, these situations are awkward, but just you being there is the greatest gift. That you cared enough to be there to see that person in that point of need is a gift to that person. That's why I tell young people give the gift of your attention when I'm teaching you. Because when you pay attention to me, you're actually giving me a gift. So back to the topic of what are the what is the framework?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

It's can we just can we just complete the can we just complete the spark? Yeah, can we just complete the spark?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

It'll take uh take forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

We will have the spark for the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

Um the the each of that letter is stimulation p for uh performance of how do you go back into performance mode? A is for what has been your aspiration all along. So you go along uh into multiple things. But what I piece together for my podcasts, and uh I'm I'm doing is uh a full-on coaching program on resilience, is how do you come back when the odds seem to be stacked against you, right? You go back to this ability to to your core calling. What what is it that you were naturally gravitating to as a child, right? You know, in India, in South Asian cultures, in some Asian cultures, the child's interest might be something, but the parents might just push us in a different direction because of employability, high performance opportunities, high revenue opportunities, right? But when you were a child, nobody said, no, no, you only play Lego because Lego will give you STEM engineering mindset. You play Lego because they're fascinating, right? So, what gives you those aspirations as a child? What were the roots behind those aspirations? Why did we give up? You know, we all grew up wanting to be train drivers and bus conductors and firefighters and stuff. Where did those dreams go, right? So now when you're in this mid-peak career, when I encourage people to go back, many of them actually do. Many of them start volunteering as EMS volunteers. In in the United States, we have the ability for us to go and serve as volunteers as EMS volunteers. So you go with the medical um you know, first responders team as a volunteer and support them. Uh, I go into the prison uh because, again, you know, I want to see them for who they are, for their inherent wealth. Now, uh many of my corporate colleagues found it very difficult, almost puzzling to understand why I spent time on a good Friday evening or on a good Wednesday evening inside a prison. When I go through a prison, you get all these, you know, massive mission impossible kind of a movie set kind of a feeling, right? In fact, one of the prisons that I go to in Rave, New Jersey, is actually where the Ocean 11 scenario was filmed, real-life uh uh factoid for you. So why do I go through these difficult and dark places? I could easily be just avoiding those areas, but no, as someone who's championing the cause of the underdog, asking people to look within and find their potential, these people deserve second chances as much as others do. One friend of mine actually got into a bitter argument saying, I don't need, I think you guys are overdoing it. Those people were caught doing something wrong, they're paying the price, you don't have to show any tenderness or compassion to them. You're a good person, but I, in my view, they are serving their time, they got what they deserved. Actually, they're right too, right? I mean, if you're serving time, it's not unfairly you are convicted, right? You did something wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

But person has a chance to read the future when he gets out.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:35

You're talking about how life will be when he comes out. Yes, imagine a 16-year-old, 17-year-old caught on drug trafficking or drug peddling or something, doing a crime of passion in a heat fit of rage, 30 years gone, at 47, 48, they're coming back into the world. They have no clue what has changed in the last 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

Do you know when your setting of prison reminds me of the movie Shawshank Redemption? A remarkable movie uh for resilience. Now, Sunil, we are coming to the top of the hour, and uh we will uh it's been a really inspiring conversation with you. I I could really go on and on, and we will complete the we will complete the spark in the next episode. But what I would just like to ask one final question before we go. You have had a remarkable exceptional journey of resilience, I would say beyond resilience, what in the world of psychology we call as post-traumatic growth. Now, if Sunil today was so accomplished, who's helped thousands and tens of thousands of people around the world, like the most beautiful and inspiring experiences you were sharing, how you help any person you meet. Now, if the sunil today was to go back and meet the sunil of 1989, what message are you going to give to that sunil? What would you tell him?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

Great question. Thank you for that question. I've never been asked this question. I I I would probably say, don't measure your life on an annual basis, measure your life in decades. Don't measure your life on an annual basis, measure your life in decades. Meaning at that time I was still in my teens, and so I was too harsh on myself, too harsh on my parents, too harsh on um on circumstances around me. But if I'd waited 10 more years, by the time I came to 28, 29, my life had turned around. And a decade is a good way of looking at life. In fact, uh, I'm uh in my mid-60s, uh mid-50s, and when I do an analysis of my past and going back to the 3M framework of movement medicine and memories, these memories allow you to look back and say, how far you've come.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

How far you've come.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:26

And if only I could just give myself the gift of patience and said, don't judge yourself so harshly because nothing good came your way at up until that time. Give yourself a few more years. In fact, in fact, if I had got that advice, then somebody said, just hang in there for three more years. My life would have turned because actually in three years it turned. I I became a salesman for a sales engineer for an engineering firm that was selling mechanical equipment. And on company's dime, I would travel all over India. And I was 20, 21 years old carrying this engineering equipment and traveling all over this beautiful country called India. And I'm telling you, most Indians wouldn't have traveled as much as I've traveled in India.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:18

Travel is something which really deepens, strippens you, fills you. So imagine one final question. One final question. Uh when you talked about um your journey, have you the three people who saved your life, were you in touch with them? And did you go back and thank them?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:41

For uh couple of years, I went back to that engineering college and and and I was able to one I particularly remember one guy. I was always grateful to him, but they were all people from the hostel. So as soon as the engineering program got over, they went back to their native places and uh you know they are unknown to me now. But uh one particular guy, his name is Vinod Singh, I remember his name. He he was the guy who really let me go back to the engineering college hostel, uh, play table tennis with them and and just be around. Uh you know, it's that you know how hostels are, they don't let strangers come in. But here was this guy who would let me come in as his friend and just be around as I was still a young kid. I mean, they were a few years older than me, but they would let me come, go, and yes, I was grateful to them. And uh subsequently I shared with them that I'm struggling in polytechnic, and then they said, stay the course, you'll do well, and that kind of thing. Yes, I was grateful to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

Sunil, um, it is uh like sometimes even the strangers, the remotest of the strangers, can make such a profound difference in our lives, and sometimes it's just a kind word, a hug, and it can transform the trajectory of the life. Well, Sunil, it's been a really honor and a privilege to have you on this show. And if the listeners want to find out more about your book and the work, what would be the best portal if you don't mind sharing?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:21

Sure. I have two ways of being um followed. Uh, www.sumilrobert.com is my website home. But more importantly, in the last six months, we've been building a YouTube channel called Comeback Stories with Sunil Robert. As you can see, I love comeback stories. I'm interviewing different folks like uh Dr. Ashmar, um, people who have made comeback a or resilience as a theme of their lives. I interviewed some achievers, I interviewed uh some um uh folks who are really uh accomplished in life, and what lessons do they have to offer to the world around them? So it's great uh that um uh you can follow. It'll be great if you can spread the word to young people. I love young people. I feel if we give them the benefit of our experience, they may or they may not change it, but at least this it's there as a resource for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:18

So I'd love for I will I will share the link here. And um again, Sunil, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and it's been a real joy to have your transforming stress, and hopefully our paths are going to cross again soon in the future.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:33

Certainly. I want to come back and talk about my Spark framework and uh certainly and thank you for all that you do, and I want to thank uh Ashisha uh uh Akash as well for connecting us.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:45

Absolutely, guys. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:47

Much much blessings on you. Thank you for all your work, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:50

Thank you, Sunil.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

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