John Purkiss: The Power of Letting Go

What happens when a headhunter stops chasing career success and questions everything only to find even bigger success?

In this episode, I sit down with John Purkiss, author of The Power of Letting Go and Brand You. After a career spanning investment banking, executive search and leadership advisory, John found himself asking a different question: what if success isn't about striving harder, but about seeing more clearly?

We explore the experiences that shaped his thinking, from overcoming depression to discovering mindfulness, intuition and a different approach to leadership. Along the way, John shares why authenticity matters more than image, why many successful people still feel stuck, and how letting go can open the door to better decisions, stronger relationships and more meaningful work.

This is a conversation about identity, honesty, and how loosening control can lead to growth as a leader.

You can find more of John’s work at johnpurkiss.com
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Transcript

my guest today is John Purkis
whose spiritual name is Sri Nitya Banahastananda
his early career followed a recognised path of success
and high performance studying economics at Cambridge
and completing an MBA at INSEAD
where he won first prize he worked in banking
strategy consulting and then executive search
where he spent years working
side by side with top executives and board members
in parallel with his conventional career
he has followed a spiritual path
which provides deep insights
into what drives decision making
and causes leaders to fail or succeed
John is the author of Brand New
and the power of Letting Go
a best seller available in five languages his
new book The Power of Moving On
will be published in the US and the UK in January
in this conversation we explore his career
the ideas behind his books
and the experiences that have informed his thinking
his perspective
and his work welcome John
thank you for having me nice to be here
did I get your spiritual name
yes pretty close
yes thank you
excellent without a
without rehearsal pretty good
well I do my best
um now I have read the
the background to that name
before we move on because that will have certainly um
created some interest for those listening
are you able to give a quick um uh
insight into yes
certainly translation of that
yes certainly
so um
in the Vedic tradition
the guru gives the spiritual name to the disciple
to show them their path to enlightenment
because everyone has their own path right
and and that name means um
eternally blissful form of Shiva
who holds arrows to destroy the ego of oneself
and other others
so when I got when I was a bit apprehensive
but when I got the name I thought
well that fits me perfectly
you know cause my ego needs destroying
and
there are plenty of other people who needs their egos
destroying so let's get going
well it sounds like a very useful skill to have
and that's also what the books are about
I mean ultimately you
you need to destroy your ego to do extraordinary things
and to become enlightened
cause people with ego
basically not very good at doing things
gets in the way of their success
yeah well
and and that's the um
that's gonna be the theme of today
I think and I'm looking forward to talking to you more
about your books and about your insights
where I'd love to start if that's OK John is um
is by taking you back um
you had sort of a remarkable early career really um
first of all you
you succeeded in sort of getting into and going through
um you know
an academically selective school
um and then you studied at Cambridge and then uh
and then at INSEAD where as I mentioned
you won sort of first prize there
so you were pursuing success in the classic sense
um yeah
perhaps you could talk to
talk to me about you know
what sparked your drive for all of that to begin with
okay well
the context is uh
so my guru whose name is Sri
um
Sri Nithyananda Paramashivan
we call him Swami Ji um
what he says is that even your success is based on
he calls it incompletion
but it's even your success is based on pain
so if you look at anybody
who's been successful at anything
in nearly all cases it's based on
it's rooted in pain
right so in my case
I just I've been here
just give my example so
we moved to Leicester
when I was just coming up to four
and as you can tell this is
this is um
my accent is a southern middle class accent
you know the one that BBC export around the world right
so we arrived in Leicester
where the vowels are different
and the vocabulary is a bit different
and my first day at school uh
people laughed at my accent and said
I was a bloody nutter um
and so that was an obvious initial source of pain
and I discovered pretty early on
that
the way to get love and appreciation was to work hard
and do well in exams and
and I wasn't in the football team
I was indoors
writing poetry and drawing and doing extra maths okay
and so
when I started learning French and German and all this
so if you look at my early life it
it looks successful and shiny on the outside
but it's rooted in pain
and you can see that in just about every life and
and at that time
before you maybe had those realizations
yeah yeah
um who would have been your role models
that were driving you because of course
you know uh
that is
the setting in which you would have made your decision
if I work hard I'll get praise
and it worked it worked
it worked really well until I was 25
yeah it worked
and and when I meet people
the initial success formula
for some people it works well into their 50s right
but at some point the wheels come off
absolutely
um yeah
you've had insight subsequent when you
when you when you
when you've been through those experiences
when you've been through um
school and Cambridge and insyaab yeah
um to
through that stage in your life
I imagine you had role models
yeah my role model for a long time was our headmaster
who's extraordinary um
so he he
as we say in Hinduism he left the body a few years ago
but he um
he was he was unbelievable
he he did a PhD in chemistry at Oxford
right and he was a headmaster and he
refused to be promoted
they were trying to promote him into administration
but he just carried on being a headmaster and
and he could he this
this was a selective grammar school
a free grammar school
he could teach a lot of the subjects really
yeah and he uh
he encouraged us to learn Russian
so I did Russian for two years in sixth form
he spoke pretty good Russian
and then when we had athletics
so he must have been in his 40s
he used to run the 800 meters with everybody else
goodness me
so a long time for a long time
he was my hero which is amazing and
and at that time you were getting a certain view
I suppose let's use him as your example
of what good leadership was
I suppose yeah
he was a great he was a great leader
I remember um
there was some parents evening
for some reason I was there and
and he was putting out the chairs
and cleaning the floor but before the parents really
the parent teacher's association meeting
and at some points someone said
how are you and he said um
what do you say he said
underworked and overpaid or something
so he was he had great humility
you know with a sense of humor
yeah um
but yeah I mean
it's extraordinary and
and that background drove you on and you
and you achieved um
an awful
an awful lot in the kind of conventional sense there um
but as you've alluded to already
um at some point
um during your 20s
I suppose shortly after that education process yeah
life became more difficult for you
well it
I had this uneasy feeling
so our school it was a grammar school uh
in Leicester and
um at
at one point
at the peak about
I think 18 people went to Oxbridge in one year
which is very high for for the state sector and
but I noticed that there were also suicides
amongst the Oxbridge crowd
sometime after graduation
I just heard about it is that right
yeah yeah
and you and
and and so I
I was aware of this on the one hand
I was you know
steaming along it was the
you know the formula was be intelligent and work hard
but there was this thing happening in the background
and then and then
you know when I was 26
I was so
you know I basically
I won first prize and was
within three months
I was diagnosed with clinical depression
cause I was suicidal so then it dawned on me okay
we're assuming this is what happened to the other guys
goodness me poor you and
and and at any point on that journey
do you perceive that it sounds like
some sort of conflict between the academic success
and the drive
and some sort of inner feeling that was happening
I think what happened was
I mean I see it
so and this is
if in a way the theme of the new book is uh
I would
in the new book I've made the distinction between
individual intelligence and what I call
cosmic intelligence
so individual intelligence is based on our brains
essentially so most people who are western educated
and that includes a whole load of
Indians and Chinese people now
um
most of us have been conditioned to do things
using our individual intelligence
so you're born with a
a brain hope if it's a good brain
you then start developing it and
and the basis of western thought will
where it's
how
as it's developed is the underlying Assumption is that
uh we are all separate
that's one Assumption
and the second Assumption is the world is governed by
by a Newtonian physics
uh which is
what is it it's 300 years old
yes it is and
and um
mechanistic and systems based in a way that
say quantum mechanics is exactly
is exactly what you're making
but most people in that I meet in business
are still
operating on the basis that they are separate
what what ecclesiastic
it's a separate body mind
like I'm a mind in a body
well some people call it a meat suit
I've never heard that before
but um
I understand when you when people uh
talk about you know
my hand or my foot as though it's
it's a belonging to something
yeah so Swami Ji says
you know the
the mine the me and mine comes before the eye
so even your small child at some point
they start saying it's mine
yeah and then this whole ego develops right
so most of us have been conditioned that way
and if you look at things like economics
you know economics is based on
the profit maximizing entrepreneur
or the utility maximizing individual consumer
a whole thing and psychology is based on that
you know law is based on the separate person
so
most academic disciplines are based on this separation
and and so
um you were starting to become aware at this point
as you were going through this very difficult stage
that yeah
that that um
separation maybe
I'm reading between the lines as to what you're saying
you talked about um
how you know the mind inside
the body
that mind's been put to work and to good purpose
with all of the learning and all of the academics
but at some point the body said
hang on I don't
I'm not uh
well what actually happened
I only understood with hindsight
uh so when I was suicidally depressed
which is by the way
a really common condition unfortunately
um I felt
I didn't know anything about the eastern traditions
because I
I went to church and Sunday school for 10 years
and so
I didn't know anything about Buddhism and Hinduism
and I
I but I remember being
the thing about being really ill was
I felt completely separate
and people wanted to help
but frankly didn't know how to help
but there was this huge feeling of separation
which I only understood later
when I started learning about the eastern traditions
because they they talk about this
this artificial separation between ourselves
and the rest of the cosmos
and it's ego basically
and there's something you mentioned earlier that um
you said a lot of of
of very interesting things already
but you talked about how the western society
thinks in a very individualistic way
yeah I would say there are elements where intuitively
we all know that there's more to it than that
yeah
and I'm gonna give examples that may not relate to you
or to me
but um
you know if you think of
a sport like
a crowd of people watching game of football together
feel a common kind of energy
if you go to a music concert
it's the same so that kind of connectedness is there
but that's in a participating kind of form
whereas that very academic process is actually
you know um
it's it's
it's much more abstracted and it's yeah
it's it's very propositional just in our minds
which is yeah
separate you're in your mind
and also I mean
it's changed now but um
at that time
everything was based on individual examinations right
well true
and when I got to business school
then you were starting to be graded on participation
or teamwork but certainly
mainstream academia at that time was all individual
and then if that flows through
as you say into things like economics and
and a very fragmented view of
of how everything works rather than
you know more as a whole
more as a system then yeah um
then I can see how
your worldview is quite profoundly changed
when some of these things started to be realized
well it just
I mean to answer your
question what happened was I
I'd I had a little go at um
at management consulting
and I'd had a little go at investment banking
and was clear I didn't want to do either
mainly because I didn't want the lifestyle
and then
and I looked at things I did want to do
so I thought well I
I'm quite interested in fund management
I'm quite interested in recruitment
executive search and then I realized
to my horror
both of these things require tremendous intuition
and what I discovered after all this analysis and
and also learning languages
all this you might call left brain type activity
I realized my intuition had practically died hmm
I was not intuitive and and
and I thought
you know I joined um
Europe's leading fund management firm
it was the biggest
independent fund management firm
with some superstars working there
and I realized they
they were doing pretty basic accounting
but they had fantastic intuition lots of leading today
um you know
if you if you read the
the blogs or yeah the the the
the the media on it yeah is
the leaders are encouraged to focus on the data
the analytics yeah
understanding those quantitative answers
which of course are a very important part of progress
and the part of every but they're not
they're not everything and in their own right and so
yeah um
it's interesting that you
that you point to intuition yeah
being central to those uh yeah
to those areas of work that you were
that you were exploring yeah
I mean I think data is really important
analysis is really important
I would just say it's
it's necessary but not sufficient um
and in fact
it wasn't until I got into executive search
for the first I mean he's also left the body but um
for the first time in my life when I was 35
I met the chairman of one of the large
executive search firms
and he was the first person I met
who was highly analytical and highly intuitive
and it's the first time actually
I met someone who I wanted to emulate in
in business and and the person you've
you've described there was at the top of their game
they were oh yeah the basic
the leading firm in the top job
and they had that balance of both
well he did
he had he had that balance
so suppose that kind of leads us
leads us neatly onto what was happening in your career
yeah um
how did that
how did that feel as you got into that work
cause you were
you were trying to seek out the kind of the
the true captains of industry
yeah yeah
uh in
in that firm and um
you have maybe
a slightly
different perspective on what you're looking for
versus other people so could you talk to me about that
well the
the way I got into Executive Search is I
I learnt mindfulness by accident while reading a novel
right so suddenly when I was 35
my intuition switched back on and I realized
I can now do executive search and um
I let I let go and asked to be guided
and six months later I was working
a failing business in Paris
to one of the best firms in London
in 6 months bang
by following your intuition and yeah
and also asking to be guided yeah
so the so the other side of the new book is
is cosmic intelligence
the way I would describe cosmic intelligence is
cosmic intelligence is running everything right
and most people don't tune into it
if you do tune into it so in
in Sanskrit
it's called paramashiva like supreme consciousness
if you do tune into it
magical things happen quite quickly
so in my case I went from you know
down and out in Paris to best search firm in London and
and working with him was extraordinary
um
and so
he would sometimes ask me a question about a candidate
and I would formulate some answer
he yeah his key question if I was presenting
I used to recruit CFO's all day long right
if I was presenting
talking about the CFO and he knew the chief executive
and he'd introduce me to the chief executive
for example the chairman
and he would say can you see them together
and I would come up with some rational explanation
and he would just say no
can you see them together
so it's like a purely intuitive question yeah
looking for the chemistry really
and how how it would work beyond
beyond the yeah
personality type I mean
it could be chemistry but to me
that's the ultimate intuitive
I mean this guy had a PhD in astrophysics right
yeah so very extremely bright but he
would
you know for me
that is a very intuitive question
you could yeah
you could be chemistry but it could be
you know essentially what is your intuition telling you
yes or no
and um
and the pair of you were obviously doing something
right because you were placing some important roles in
yeah some of the world's biggest films
and it was it was extraordinary cause when I was 35
I was working at board level 35
36 I was working at board level in the Footsie 100
you know having
and that was like my first job in recruitment
that's a huge responsibility
isn't it cause these are the
these are the businesses that drive the economies
that sort of that run the world
and you're placing the people
making the most influential decisions
and he he also um
I I was come some of these
some of these assignments
he didn't really get involved
he didn't meet the candidates
so I was just doing them on my own
well you'd obviously demonstrated
you'd obviously demonstrated your ability
through your intuition through everything else to
to make those assessments
um well
he seemed happy yeah
and one of them to be fair
one of them um
I got promoted to from CFO to CEO of a 40
100 company and I was I was 37 somewhere
so and you'd placed him yeah
yeah he
our glorious chairman didn't meet him
yeah well
maybe you could talk to us about um
what you Learned
about the differences between the truly capable
leaders that you that you came across
and maybe the ones that were less capable
um I would say
um in fact the
the I
one what
the way I got into writing books was
the chairman wrote books and I edited some of them
and he had a really interesting model
which was which you can
you can
it fits very neatly with neoclassical microeconomics
so we use the same diagrams
but basically you don't need to explain what that is
so neo sorry
neoclassical microeconomics is the basis of
most finance up to behavioural economics
so basically uh it
it it
let's take this example let's take three axes
so one axis is leadership
another one is management
and a third one is entrepreneurship
and he wrote a book about this
and I think it's a very good model um
and so if you take those three axes
um some people are very good at management
so you would expect someone with an MBA
or someone who has been um
uh maybe being a management consultant or being
you know is somewhere working in middle management
you know there are some very
very people very competent at management
yes you know
and they would be
that would include project managers and HR managers
and they're very good at managing a process
and doing all that
task and process oriented
and they're very good at that and
and so that's one dimension right
um another dimension would be entrepreneur
ship which should be
you know intuition
risk taking
spotting gaps in the market
yep all of that
and obviously
there's some people extraordinarily strong at that
and terrible at management
yes and then the third dimension would be leadership
which is much more about having the vision
defining where we're going
keeping people on board
possibly even attracting the right people
and scaring off the wrong people
right but
but and then you can apply this model
the business obviously
you can also apply it to you can apply to politics
mmm hmm or
or or non profit you know
I I see those as three different dimensions and
and and very few
it's actually
there are people who are really strong at all three
it's very rare and the people that you were looking for
for those for those very senior roles
you were looking for that third dimension of leadership
in the UK in the corporate sector
so not just UK but everywhere
I mean in
in the corporate sector you'd be
typically looking
for someone who's great at leadership
um
yes and then
what's really striking about it is that there are lots
very competent people who
who just aren't good leaders
they're very good managers
and unfortunately you know
some people get promoted into jobs that they can't do
sure because if they're operating in a Footsie
100 leadership role there's an expectation that they uh
there's a necessity
that they'll operate in a certain way
and through your own experiences from um
how you'd evolved in your approach to life
and your perspective over that time
how did that broader perspective that you bring
influence your headhunting
uh well
well hugely
um so
so as I mentioned
I Learned mindfulness while reading a novel
not knowing what it was
I basically Learned to bring my attention to my breath
and to my senses and then be present
and this was through reading um
through a novel through
through through a story as opposed to some sort of self
book or anything but it was a no
it was basically a a self
it's I'm not recommending the book
but I tell you what it's called
it's called Rich Man's Secret
mm hmm uh
and it's written by an American guy and um
it he basically is
so The Power of now
by Eckhart Toli was published the following year
but he's basically describing mindfulness
but he does it in the form of a novel
so he the
the character in the novel is completely stuck
and then he meets this man who says
well he keeps saying now knows
return to now and the very simple exercise is
just keep returning to the present moment
keep bringing your attention to your breath
keep bringing your attention to your senses
and then you'll find yourself in the present moment
mm hmm and I just kept doing this thing
and then suddenly
I realized my thoughts were dying down
and suddenly my intuition was switching back on
just by being present I mean
nowadays
a lot of people learn to do this through mindfulness
but there are other techniques
I mean some people learn it through yoga
yes there's certainly huge demand for
you know mindfulness and yoga
and people looking for alternatives to the kind of busy
busy yeah
rushed sort of yeah
short short term uh
bypasses in in
in in
in life and
and hopefully when we get onto talking about your books
we can bring out some more of these themes
um and so you were
when you were when you were placing your candidates yes
um and looking for the best of them
that actually what you were looking for
were people that could step outside of um
the concerns and thought processes
and anxieties of what might happen
into what
what the situations they were experiencing were
so they could be more mindful about it
I wouldn't say that I mean
also the you know
the I believe consciousness is evolving
and people are changing right
the whole of humanity is changing right
but no
but to answer your question
there were two things one was
I I learnt to be present
and observe my own emotions and thoughts
and you can imagine in any organisation
there are people who completely lose it
from time to time mm hmm
and especially if you're in a professional partnership
right yes
and so the first thing was when people went
completely nuts
I would stay completely calm until they'd finished
so you get promoted to partner
because you haven't had a fight with anybody
in addition to meeting the numbers right
so that's the first thing
OK and second thing was
um in terms of actually doing the work is I would
you know
read someone's CV look at the annual report
look at the financial performance of the companies
they run all of that right
thinking like a shareholder
mm hmm and then just sit and listen to them
and back to my colleague's question
can you see them together
if I know the chairman or the chief executive
if I've met them
then if I meet the candidate
who is a CFO or a chief executive
my intuition will tell me whether they'll fit or not
I just know and I've
I spoke I spoke to quite a few colleagues about this
it's embarrassing
because they may articulate it in a different way
but they know within two or three minutes
if someone's a no
and then they have to make polite conversation right
because they're very tuned into what their client needs
they just know this person
you know my client's gonna hate this guy
or this isn't gonna work but they know
they know within a very short space of time
right
ha ha and
and these skills
these sort of superpowers have served you
really well
because you then went on to start your own uh
your own headhunting yeah firm
well that history is written by the victors
there are various ways of writing history right
absolutely in
in reality what happened was um I
I I made the
I made the numbers
I actually resisted becoming a partner
cause I couldn't see the point
but they said no
you have to become a partner
so I became a partner and a year later
there was this massive downturn
and they fired half of us
I do at least I mean
loads of partners got fired and um
and so I sat at home diligently um
completing one of my assignments
because I wanted to get it finished
and uh oh
by the way
they fired me just after clients started coming to me
saying can you recruit a chief executive for us right
so your reputation had started to get out there
well what happens in executive search is you start off
you know doing your own research
and then you start doing searches for other people
yeah at some point
you have reputation clients come to you
so they fired me
just at the point
where clients have started coming to me
so I was sitting at home
and then I get this phone call saying oh
I'm being promoted uh
can you please recruit a CFO for us
and this was a mid cap quite a big mid cap company hmm
hmm it was the perfect
it was the perfect um assignment
so to answer your question I
the business started itself
I didn't even write a business plan
so if I take another perspective on this
from trying to interpret something you said earlier
where you kind of sat back
and allowed the opportunities to present themselves
is this another example well
the way I would say it now
you know with hindsight
is it it
if you if you tune
tune into what I would call the cosmic intelligence
amazing things will happen
and and it
and it's not
and it happens when you stop analyzing and agonizing
yeah
I I had an old sport
coach who's once said something like
if you can't do it easily
then don't do it at all and it was
the the intent behind it was
you know even in a game
if you can kind of switch off and let things happen
yes which
you know to be slightly challenging
people would accept that far more
if you're watching a great tennis player on a court yes
yeah they're
they're really in the zone doing it
but if you start talking to someone about cosmic
consciousness they'll
they'll they'll say well
I'm a bit cynical about that
no I understand that
I mean I just use that word because I was
I was looking for a way to express this thing
so for example
if we look out the window right
birds are flying trees are growing
growing um miraculously
you know most people aren't concentrating
while they're driving cars
amazingly they
most of them don't crash into each other right
you know our bodies heal
yeah so
is the way I see it something's doing all of this
yes
but it it
it it's evidently is yeah um
but it's not something that's easy to calculate
and I and it's
and it's and it's very cultural
as you say western culture
and I'm I'm no expert on this field
but you can go back to sort of Descartes and Cartesian
yeah uh
thinking
Cartesian thinking and philosophy
which is you know
I think therefore I am and yeah
and everything has its rational structure and
and then the things you just said don't fit into that
so that's possibly why we have a blind spot
well that's I
I mean I'm no expert on it
but as I understand it what happened in
around the 17th century was that there was
this split between science and religion happened
and obviously you know
I did my MBA in France
and I've lived in France for four
five years so the
the you know
they call it L'esprit Cartesian
the you know
the Descartes view of the world
yes yeah
it kind of split in the 17th century
and then so then we had
religion is separate from science
mm hmm right
and then what happened a bit later on is
all kinds of things happened
including the Holocaust
and then lots of people became atheists when
also communism so the Holocaust
communism etcetera etcetera
so then so then
now then we're really stuffed cause we
you know we think we're separate
there's no god
ha ha
and we have to figure out everything for ourselves
and we don't believe in anything
yes it's sort of uh
you get into uh
nature and nihilism at that
yeah no wonder so many people depressed
yeah yeah
and when you put it like that
you know you can
you can start to see how um
in a modern society where there's
you know
however you might want to dream up what meaning is
there's lots of things that are um
that don't hold a lot of meaning
beyond the kind of
instant moment of
the gratification of something on social media
or going to the shops and buying something
yeah and then people get a bit lost
yeah well I
I am I've experienced it yeah
I mean I
when I was um
23 I had a
I was living with my girlfriend
we had a flat in South Kensington
I had a job in a bank
I I was
my mum said you're being paid more than your headmaster
who I really admired and just thought is this it
what because you've been told this
this uh
this this story from the beginning
which is you know
if you if you go to school and get your exams
and do these things then
then you'll progress and actually
you're saying that
when you progress to being a founder and doing things
for uh
these 40 100 companies
that was less because you were kind of choosing that
that yeah
exact project plan that you were gonna implement
and more because um
circumstances arose for that to happen yeah
so what so the transition
I mean there are other words for cosmic consciousness
one is um
supreme consciousness but for example
anybody who excuse me
so you and I both meditate right
so that's right anybody who met who experiences silence
silent meditation so in
you know transcendental meditation
possibly Zen possibly mindfulness
if you do it really deeply yeah
is you experience
and I would imagine a lot of people listening to this
have experienced being conscious with no thoughts
mm hmm right
so
uh and you might have had that
standing on top of a mountain
or snip or scuba diving or something
I think even if I think so
I do meditate you're right um
and the sorts of experience you just
I I can relate to hmm um
I could also relate to that
before I was doing meditation
as you say a beautiful sunset or
you know yeah
walk in the woods or something like that
where everything just calms down yeah
so there is this consciousness and what happens in
it's happening in the west
is a lot of people have learnt mindfulness
or transcendental meditation
whatever and they experience this
what we call pure consciousness
but the key thing for me is they assume it's passive
right so that
and it's not passive it's the source of everything
right so this consciousness is running everything
and then we intervene with our little brains
and think that we're in charge
and then maybe um
I don't want to put words in your mouth
but coming back to the earlier part of the story
where you were talking about um
a gradual
I suppose
split between the hard work that you were doing in the
yeah in
in in your academic sense
and how you felt about that
and how that left you feeling yeah
was because you were not um
you know
you're not leaving yourself open to a more like
holistic choice around the things that you did
yeah I would say there are two things one
one is and it's
I think it's still happening is
I could see that in in business
there were very intelligent people
working in
what I thought was a highly unintelligent way
mm hmm
like working very long hours in a very mechanistic way
and even when I was in my early twenties
I could see well
certainly when I go into executive search
I could see a lot of these guys who are dying around
sixty hmm
in a country where the life expectancy is eighty
yes and lots of divorce
lots of cancer
lots of heart attacks and all kinds of medical problems
so you know
from my 20s onwards I could see look
something's not working here
very clever people working in a not very clever way
there must be a better way than this right
and then I was
that's when I really started looking for it
um
and yeah and then I found it right
so that's a nice neat point
I think for us to talk about um
the work you've been doing with your
with your writing so
you've got a different perspective
from the one that you'd have before
and that many people have um
around you know
a good life and what leadership looks like
and then um
the first book that I'd like to talk about is brand new
because seems to me that that's
that's really talking about capturing authenticity
which is where yes
which is where all parts of you come together
and you're authentic yeah
could we could we talk about that
yeah definitely
what what
what what
sort of
brought you to write that book in the first place
yeah so
so just to fill in the gap
um the first book was called how to be headhunted
and that was because I kept lots of people
I kept meeting people who wanted to be headhunted
who didn't understand how headhunting worked right
so basically in 10 days wrote down
this is how it works
this is how you get a job through a headhunter
yep but then I realized most people are not headhunted
most people get a job through networking
or they meet somebody or
they start their own business or yes whatever
so a relatively small number of people are headhunted
and so I met David Royston Lee
and he's a business psychologist
and we wrote this book together and um
he really opened my eyes to some very useful things
uh one of which was um
the archetypes which were developed by
I mean they're much older than Yung
but Yung really developed them
and he was talking about um
authenticity and purpose
and values and talents and all this and
and we
and we did of course develop a three dimensional model
yes
that's how people want to consume this
well yeah
with my economics and MBA background
I said to him well
near David all this
all this talking and listening is great
but people want a three dimensional model
so so we develop one and um
and the authenticity part
and by the way he's now produced another edition
but what it boils down to is okay
what are my talents what comes to me naturally
you know what are my values
what do I think is important
and then what's my purpose
what's my mission and then
and the really good thing about the archetypes
and there are these days
there are 12 used in personal branding
how those archetypes will express what you're doing
and in business they are super useful
is it gonna be helpful for our listeners
maybe to give
maybe just one or two examples of these archetypes
if they're not familiar oh
definitely so
so there are 12 archetypes
let's take
um let's take in the corporate world
let's take Nike so Nike is just do it they evoke
it's the hero hmm
so when you look at their
their advertising
they're talking about heroic achievements by athletes
yes it's clearly the hero archetype
yeah right
um if you talk about uh
so that's a corporate example
mm hmm uh
if you talk about um
oh and then if a
you know
innocent smoothies evoke the innocent archetype
it's about purity right
yes so
but then if you apply that to executives right
whether they know it or not executives
and non executives evoke archetypes
and the way I say it is
we have like one primary archetype
but then we we evoke some but not others
and you I suppose
had personal insight into what your archetype might be
through your experiences through your
uh through your 20s
there are many people that would get
let's say
far further in their career without really knowing
where um
what they value or what their archetype might be yeah
I mean most people don't understand archetypes
but it's it's a very useful vocabulary
yeah and I
what I started doing was writing on
on our database
I was started writing down people's archetypes
cause it was such a useful shorthand
really so
so you started to to
to you'd
you'd you'd meet a candidate
and then make a hero next to them
or something like that and then
I mean I didn't talk to clients in that way
cause they'd think you know
you're speaking something but
but if you take an example
let's take um
actually the the
there was a book written before
so
we wrote the book to apply this to the corporate world
but
but just to make it easy for listeners to understand um
it the
there was a previous book called
The Hero and the outlaw
which was written by two ladies in advertising
and they used examples from Hollywood
and from the corporate world
so if you take Hollywood
Jack Nicholson always evokes the outlaw right
yes right
so and
and if you take well
I would say um
what's his name Mr O'leary
who runs Ryanair mm hmm
he evokes the outlaw right
that's right but he's
so you know what you're gonna get right
yes ha ha ha and um
actually we we once ran a presentation in New York uh
David and I and we
you know in Britain apparently also
you know we talk about you someone is Marmite
he's a Marmite kind of personality yes
you know in Australia it's Vegemite
but you know Donald Trump right
a lot of people hate him
but tens of millions of people love him yes
and they know what he stands for
they know exactly what he stands for
they hate him yeah
yeah and if you back to the topic of leadership um
you know a lot of people on LinkedIn
you can't tell what they stand for
you know
whereas I would say the top leaders is very clear
what they stand for you've
you've used a couple of social media references there
how important do you think that personal branding is
in a very noisy busy
um sort of society and yeah
working world I think it's super important because
I mean I don't
I mean I use LinkedIn
by the way my biggest following is on LinkedIn
I love LinkedIn but
but I think most people play it really safe
mm hmm and you don't know what they stand for
and they just
I just call it LinkedIn Man or LinkedIn Woman
you look at the profile
and it says all kind of worthy things
but you have no idea what they stand for
or where they're going or
and
and it's just generic in your kind of executive search
uh uh
situation that's not really gonna help
is it it doesn't help me spot a great leader
no and
and so one of the things I Learned
actually I Learned it from the chairman of
you know that I was working with is I
I thought at the time
why is he so successful when lots of people hate him
and then I realized was
that's kind of why he's successful because
you know if
if you just carry on playing it safe
no one will hate you and no one will love you right
right if you put your head above the parapet
and stand for something mm hmm
some people will love you
and some
people will hate you and you will build a following
right at least people will know where they stand
they know where they stand
and it's a bit like um
you know um
silly bang right
I remember it yeah
silly bang the cleaning product
it you
you know it you
you you know what it's
what it's for yeah
absolutely bang
and the dirt is gone that's it
it's not well
it's kind of quite good
and I can't really say what it does
and you know yeah
they they don't want to offend anyone
went from nothing to having a
a huge brand by
by being kind of very in your face and saying
this is what our product is
and who is Barry and why does he shout all the time
yeah yeah
I'd like to move on now and talk about um
about about your best selling book
The Power of Letting Go
perhaps
you could tell us about how that book came about
because you've told me um
off air a little bit about that before
and it yes
and um
its circumstances were interesting
as much as its success yeah
so what happened was I so I came back from France
I was working in the UK and um
I was working in executive search
and I still felt stuck in some ways
and I realized that a lot of people are stuck
in fact most people are stuck
so if you look at health wealth and relationships
so I was meeting all these super successful people
some of whom were billionaires
but they're all stuck I mean in
in some way
like some of them were on their nth marriage
some of them kept getting cancer or some illness
so they was stuck in their particular way
and then when I met other people who meditated
some of them were like you know
blissful relationships and perfectly healthy
and no money
so what I realized was just about
everybody's stuck in some way
yes something that they're wrestling with
yes um
the other thing rather very sadly is I realized
I mean one day someone should do a PhD on this
the life expectancy of billionaires is quite
of their children is quite low
if if you look at what happens to the children of
super wealthy people
you know they have their own set of problems
um so I realized okay
so everybody's stuck in a particular way so
so what can we do about this
and I got deeper and deeper into so
you know I'd learnt mindfulness
as I mentioned
and then I started going to classes in the UK about
which were based on the Vedic tradition
so Veda meaning some listeners may
may know you know
the Latin root of the word science means knowledge
the Latin root of the word Veda means knowledge
so the Vedic tradition is
is closely associated with Hinduism
Buddhism Jainism and even Daoism
I would say Daoism is very close to the Vedic tradition
and it's a knowledge tradition that um
that comes from the Himalayas
is it uh yeah
I mean it's possibly 10,000 years old
I would say Hinduism is the modern form
it's become Hinduism um
but but
the assumptions behind it are massively different
from the western tradition
so I would say the western tradition is
has become and it wasn't necessarily
you know 2,000 years ago
but what it's become is what it's become is um
this whole thing about separation
you know I'm
I'm a separate body mind
if I believe in God God is separate
you know so if you look at Judaism
Christianity and Islam God is separate
yes right
and quite possibly sitting in judgement or
mm hmm not approving of what I do whatever
where is the Vedic tradition is
well my guru
um Swami Ji
first time I met him he said to us
I'm not here to convince you that I am God
I'm here to convince you that you are God
so a completely different take on it
and both challenging and
and very alluring at the same time
yeah he's constantly saying you are god in very
I mean in a thousand different ways
he's telling you you're god
and that's not from egoic point of view
it's from the point of view if
of you are manifesting everything all the time
I'm I'm back to your
your term um
about the cosmos yeah
and everything
being connected intelligently through that yeah
um
and you'd obviously
gain these insights
and then decided when you came back from France
that you wanted to take that
and put that into something well
what happened was so I came back from France
all I need all I knew was how to do mindfulness
and I didn't even know it was called that
and then I started attending these classes
and learning more and more
and then I Learned transcendental meditation
and started to experience pure consciousness
twice a day and thought
and then and
and I realized this is amazing um
well one thing happened was
you know
animals would start walking up to me in the street
like there was clearly some shift
there was more of a connection happening well
something was happening you know
animals don't normally didn't walk up to me before
now they were walking up to me and um
and things like I would
I just gone downloads happened this morning
you know I'm sitting here silently meditating
and suddenly an idea just appears out of nowhere
hmm um
and so that happened that was a big jump as I
I suddenly realized this this
this pure consciousness is super creative
and I read about it I mean
if you read them and Steve Jobs did Zen meditation
and had all these amazing ideas
and as I understand it he attributed it to meditation
he could just see further than anybody else
that's right and then
and then I went further down that track
and then I felt stuck again
and then I got
I was introduced to my guru and this was 11 years ago
and I realized
he actually had the solution to all this
being stuck business
and so I read half of his book and then
then I went to India and sat on his
sat in his ashram for three weeks and and
and then I realized
I know this is what I was looking for
and maybe for our listeners
you can um
tell us a little more about
about letting go and explain the sort of
maybe you then structured that in your book yeah yeah
so tell us more about that yeah
so the main thing this is long time ago now
but the the the
what I realized was in the west
we have this belief
that we need to acquire all this knowledge
and skills
and all of that right
so from the age of about five onwards
let's say we're really intuitive until we're about five
and from five onwards
we start acquiring knowledge and skills and
and then at some point
many of us realize that that's not enough right
and somewhere or other there was some guru in India
I just read it he said
that the spiritual journey is not about acquiring
it's about letting go
it's about letting go of all kinds of stuff and
and I realized as I went on this journey and
and by the way I explored Buddhism Kabala
Sufism
all these traditions and you were thorough about it
yeah well
I was seeking right and and I realized that okay
there's a lot of knowledge in there
but there's also a process of letting go and
and there's and the common
the common denominator in all of these things
you know the
the common denominator in this spiritual journey is
is letting go letting go seems quite counterintuitive
it is particularly if we're talking about leadership
yes where you you know
you want visibility
and control over the things you're doing
you're saying let go which for some people may that
you know their response may be actually well
this isn't what I've been taught
and it's not most people are taught
but leadership is a fantastic example so let's take
let's take an example of someone who is
successfully managing
ten people mm hmm
and then they get promoted and promoted and promoted
and now they're managing a thousand people yes
so let's say when you were when you got 10 people
you can
you can micromanage you can check up on everybody
you can
so all of these things and also
you can manage using what Swami Ji
calls fear and greed
fear and greed he yeah
he talks about fear and greed so
you know
greed is you think that's a common a common approach
widespread right
nearly everybody is motivated
unless they've made some
unless they've gone a fair way down the spiritual path
nearly everybody's motivated by fear and greed yes
so fear of what well
fear of could be fear of being promoted sorry
fear of being fired uh huh uh
fear of losing their reputation
uh huh
fear of not having enough money
fear of their spouse leaving them if they work too hard
fear of having heart attack
fear of not fulfilling their potential
fear of taking the wrong turn
you know
fear of moving job just when the economy collapses
and I can see certainly on the on
on some of those uh
some of those fears yeah
the fear of not achieving your potential
having made the the
the considerable investment
you know of yeah
getting the exam results doing the studies
going through the
the junior roles to get to the bigger ones yeah
or or fear
you know and then later on
fear of running out of money in retirement
fear of OK OK
so so those are fear
and then you've got greed right
your greed is um
you know I want to get promoted
I want to be famous I want to be prime minister
I want to be I want to be the
the boss you know
uh I want to have lots of money so I'm gonna feel safe
so are you
are you saying people shouldn't have aspiration
no I'm not saying they shouldn't have aspiration
what I'm saying is it's
it's coming from fear and greed in most cases right
okay
so it's about having aspiration and wanting to progress
and you know um
make a success without
but doing it from a different place well
there is a different way of doing it
so I'm just I'm just caricaturing yeah
most of us are absolutely
and I'm
and I'm exploring so that I can kind of get the whole
yeah yeah
so so most of us are in fear and greed and and and and
you you know
you can you know
I've met a few billionaires or whatever
they also have fear and greed
mmm hmm right
cause imagine you've now got 10 billion
10 billion dollars in the bank
your next thing is your family getting kidnapped right
right so
so there's a different set of
it's endless right yeah
so um
so that's fear and greed right
so the alternative is and
and
and back to our person who's worked their way up from
from managing 10 people to managing a thousand yeah
is if if you try to lead a thousand people
in the same way that you LED 10 people
it's not gonna work right
but I mean
your life is gonna get worse and worse and worse right
because you've got more and more people
who you're basically trying to manipulate yeah
so so the
so the micromanagement and they're telling people how
to do their job
or telling people how to do their job or
or even um
let's say or you know that you
some people are leading 100,000 people right
yeah of course
so you've got you know
someone you don't know
doing something crazy in the Australian subsidiary yes
that's gonna affect the share price yeah
there's just so many things
right you
so what I'm saying is if you're trying to function
using your individual intelligence
and regarding yourself as separate
life is gonna get worse and worse and worse well
certainly you're gonna get to a point where
there's an explosion of um
of a a
combinations of things that you
would need to be on top of yeah
and being on top of that much
yeah is not possible well
I've written about it in the new book is um
is uh
you imagine if you try if you persist with the
individual intelligence approach
you know treating yourself as a body mind and saying
you know I
I'm yeah
I'm running this company right
think of all you've got to create multiple scenarios
in multiple jurisdictions yes
weigh up the probability
then work out what you're gonna do about it I mean
it's just you need a super computer to handle it
my experience of working with um uh
this example was with some very experienced
sophisticated people from the private equity world yeah
clearly they were interested in the numbers
but the primary interest
actually was how do we get this asset
these assets these companies
um to function
you know in a high performing way
and they went straight to culture and values yeah
and so maybe culture and values is a um
accepted normal
a modern way of thinking through how do you create yeah
something that's more than the individual yeah
I mean I would say that's definitely
step in the right direction
so for example
some of the most successful companies uh
I mean there are some companies
that are purely focused on shareholder value
yeah and lose sight of the customer right
obviously some of the most successful companies are
even very big ones
are highly focused on the customer experience
mm mm and um
I really like that approach
you know if you're very
very focused on the customer experience and
and your staff are as well
that really helps yes
it's a reality check isn't it
yeah you know
why are we doing it like what problem
you know like it when I meet people from a startup
it's like you know
what problem do you solve
how do you solve it who you solving it for
but you know
you can apply that to a very big company as well
because if you if you
if you carry on
doing a fantastic job for your customers
then other things do tend to fall into place yeah
and we're back to talking about
you know the
the brand again you know
we were talking about individual brands
and we talked about a few people
but we talked about
the companies that have got the right
authentic brand for the things they wanna do
for the consumer yeah
Nike was your example that's funny
and they know what they want to be for their customer
yeah or apple
you know yeah
I think none of these companies are perfect
but yeah
apple are extremely good at the customer experience
whether it's using the product
or standing in one of their stores
hmm and they're probably
another example of a company that's so big that
back to your um
sort of uh
your your worked example of a person who gets promoted
and promoted
to the point where you've got lots and lots of people
and
the combination of things that you could be managing
is impossible yeah
um so you're talking about in leadership
accepting that and surrendering to that situation
oh it's beyond that
so what I'm saying is what
when these private equity
people are talking about cultural values I
I do think that's a step in the right direction right
uh but you can go a lot further right
right and this may sound
well probably will sound weird to people listening
but that's why we're here uh
the where
where I'll just tell where
where I've got to right personally is
and it's been a a process and
and before you you explain that
the counter to maybe it's a bit weird is
this is an international best selling
best selling book we're talking about
so some people are interested
some people are interested well
but also some this is so the new book
which is coming out in January
is called The Power of Moving On
so it's moving on from individual intelligence
to cosmic intelligence right
and the bit that I've just been
so I'm just writing the last 500 words okay
is is very topical which is well
where does artificial intelligence fit into all this
and and
and the way I see it is
that artificial intelligence will make us move right
because you've got a whole lot so when I
when I am when I graduated
half of the economic students
in Cambridge went into accounting
so accounting can be very sophisticated
you know it you can be a tax advisor
you can be in corporate finance
etcetera but but basically
there are a lot of things in accounting which
which are being automated by artificial intelligence
right yes
and if you look at the law
or insurance or private equity
actually there are so many
what I would call routine intellectual tasks
which are being automated yes right
so what I'm saying is is if you wind back a few decades
you could have a good life
by being intellectually competent
mm hmm that's not gonna be enough anymore right
cause AI is gonna take it away yeah
well and um
the jobs that people are gonna do
in 10 years time are gonna
need to look very different
aren't they yeah
and so some people are afraid of that
which I understand yeah
but the reason I mention it is I
as I said
the whole of humanity is going through a transition
it's a bit like the industrial revolution so we had
you know
people used to go down to the river
to wash their clothes yes
well they used to
you know
plow and make bread and mm hmm right
and then the Industrial Revolution came along
and a lot of those tasks got mechanized yes
we're going through the same thing
we have people doing intellectually routine tasks
those are gonna are getting mechanized
hmm so humanity has to move on right
I wonder what Descartes would say about this
I think therefore I am I mean
you've got we actually the thinking part
not the intuition you talked about earlier
but a lot of the thinking part
which is
how do I structure this data to get to the answer from
the research I need can be done by a computer in
you know an ano second
exactly so let's not rely on Deckard um
so so where
so where where we're going is
as I said where we're going is
is AI will push humanity towards cosmic intelligence
because the individual intelligence won't be rewarded
in the same way
we wouldn't be doing this podcast
if I didn't have a you know
a an
an affinity with the sort of term you're using
like cosmic intelligence if we can use a different term
well what I'm wondering for our listeners
what other terms you can use
like accessible terms that um
that that people might yeah
I've only used that term because in
in the new book
we've had to say what you're moving from and to yes
and most people who read these books are intelligent
but they've been conditioned to believe that
their intelligence is individual
so that's why I'm calling it
and by cosmic I mean
the intelligence which is running
the collective intelligence no
it's not even collective
it's more than a other words for it would be uh
supreme consciousness
so not the individual consciousness
but the consciousness which is in everything
so for example actually the
the consciousness that makes a Rugby team successful
is not individual right
it is a collective it's collective
people call it a vibe or a yeah
you know or a team spirit
I was once I mean
I rode very badly in a
in a very lowly boat at Cambridge for one term
but I once
ran alongside the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race in barns
and I was astonished by how fast they go yeah
and so
that's an example of this collective intelligence
when eight people really connect yes
yes yeah
on on a
on a level that
that people wouldn't really put into words well
you don't know until you try to run alongside it yeah
and and so that's
but then it goes even beyond that right
yup so you could call it collective intelligence
but it's more than that
cause it's not just everybody's connected it's it's
it's
I would say it's the intelligence or the consciousness
which is which is in everything and how things can flow
if they're sort of well
in the west
we use words like flow to try to articulate it and
and I suppose it's best if you experience it um
I mean for example
if we if we don't do stupid things
our bodies heal
and they run pretty well for several decades right
yeah yeah um
if you know
the way that plants grow
the way that the climate maintains itself
if we don't do silly things to the climate
you know there is an underlying intelligence
I mean I know there have been academic attempts to say
it's all random I
well look
I think it's generally accepted now that
even if you're taking a systems view
which is a fragmented separate view
that all of these systems add up to super systems
the kind of Gaia theory and stuff yeah
so so yes
I think um
that's helpful to explore topically what what what
what uh
cosmic intelligence means a little more
but hopefully we've we've
we've covered that now for our listeners yeah
so with all of those kind of interconnected
the power of the interconnected systems that are
that are running
kind of bringing more to this than one individual can
the cost
no there's actually this is the big shift right yeah
there's a big shift beyond that
so one is
so you know
stage one you might say
so I'm on my own MHM
you know if it is to be
it's up to me that kind of thing right
MHM very in individuals
the next one next stage might be okay
I've figured out how to work as a team collectively
but I'm still treating other people as separate
yeah and probably trying to manipulate them in some way
you know maybe some reward whatever yeah
the the big jump is
is realising that you are this
that you are not this separate body mind you are this
what you you could call it super consciousness
Supreme Consciousness cosmic intelligence
in Sanskrit it's called Paramashiva you
and this is where you know
Swami just saying you are god is basically
you are the intelligence that's running everything
and for most people this is an enormous leap
but but
a lot of the top performers in history
have already experienced it
so if you think about
I don't know if you've read much about you
like big scientific breakthroughs
a lot of them just come out of nowhere
hmm hmm
you know they don't come the Eureka moment yeah
exactly yeah
so where does that come
and you know if you meditate you
you and I mean we've experienced it
but a lot of the really the massive breakthroughs
they happen when people are not thinking and
and certainly composers artists
they tap into this intelligence
which is not I mean
to take an absurd creative process
but it's maybe not uniquely their creative process
it's well it's not there
it's the creative process
I mean I spoke to somebody
I spoke to somebody uh
recently who um
is um
building um
an online movement that that develops creativity
yeah and they were talking about co creating
with the universe yeah exactly
I mean you could call it co creating
yeah definitely
I mean for example
you know Malcolm Gladwell in all these books
and he wrote this book about
you know is it 10,000 hours
you need 10,000 hours yeah
I went did the sums doesn't work for Mozart
right wasn't old enough
yeah
and these and these prodigy sports players
the footballers
that make the national team when they're 16 years old
you know
yeah I mean
I didn't maybe they had but
but certainly
Mozart didn't have enough time to clock up
10,000 hours yeah
so so the co creating is
I think very close to it
because you're saying you're still thinking
you still think you're separate
but you're co creating with the cosmos you know
as I understand it
the destination is you are the cosmic intelligence and
and hence you know
you are God and then
and then you start manifesting extraordinary things
and in a corporate sense what happens is
you start to lead very large numbers of people
with very little stress
because it's not
you constantly trying to figure everything out
you don't need to putting some trust into um
what is beyond you as an individual well
beyond your body mind yeah
in a practical way
one of the things I talk with my team about is um
lots of the opportunities that we're looking for
will present themselves
if we're present and there to notice them
rather than caught up elsewhere and missed well
well here's a practical example right
so a lot of people are terrified of letting go
right because they're trying to control everything
out of fear and we're afraid if we let go
everything will fall apart
hmm if you let go in the correct way
everything falls into place
hmm
the right things start to
start to happen and you can see things show up
what's needed things things show up
but even
even in a practical way that people will understand
if you if you're
less stressed
and anxious about the things that might happen
than the things that uh
that then you've got more space for um
realization of yeah
good creative ideas
like you talked about when you're meditating
you know that
that unexpected email in your inbox
which you wouldn't have had
time to look at otherwise
you notice it and realise the relevance
in a way that maybe you wouldn't otherwise
here's an example
which I'm I'm probably gonna put in the book
but I love the example you know
you know compare the market yes
the insurance right the Miller cap 1 yeah
do you know how it happened
no idea I I I I've read it and I've it's great story
so what compare the for those who don't not familiar
so compare the market is an online business
where you can compare different insurance providers
and buy your insurance policy
so it's comparing the market
and apparently what happened is the
the one of the creative team in the advertising agency
you know by the way insurance is quite hard to market
I think yeah
so apparently he was cycling through Battersea Park
and he went past the zoo
and there was a sign that said
come in and see the meerkats right
so he and as you say
he was open to what was around him
and apparently what happened is
he started experimenting with the word meerkat
in different accents mm hmm
and he got and then he came up with compel the meerkat
really right
and this took this took
compare the market from
not doing very well to a market leader yeah
and loads of spin offs yeah and yeah
just extraordinary yeah but you imagine if that cyclist
if he'd been with his headphones on
thinking about his mortgage
hmm and it's the Eureka moment again
it's allowing that kind of creativity and um to
to to flow in
and you were talking about that in regard to your book
that you're writing at the moment and um
maybe you can um
maybe you can tell us are you
are you OK to tell us any more about your book
yes sir
yeah yeah
well so the title is The Power of Moving On
and the question is what are we moving from
and to rather obviously
so what we're moving from is
is relying on individual intelligence right
which is with all the hard work and stress involved
and what we're moving to is
is tapping into the intelligence
which is running everything
mm hmm all the time anyway right
sounds exciting
and a lot of people are very interested in manifesting
right how do I make things happen
how do I create what I want in my life
if you spend 10 minutes on YouTube
you'll get a video
telling you to learn how to manifest what you want
yeah it's all come back
there was a big boom around 2,008
it's all come back and so most people
well everyone's manifesting all the time
they're manifesting all kinds of things they don't want
and they're failing to manifest some things
they do want and then
when they try and do it
through intelligence and hard work
it becomes very stressful
and so where the book takes us to
which is where the way I live now is
some people scared of this word
is I surrender I bet
what I do is I ask we use the word paramahamsa
but you can use cosmic I basically
ask that intelligence to manifest through me
and it's extraordinary what happens
and I give examples in the book
um actually
travel is a is a great way to experience it is
I'm sure you've had this experience
you're trying to get from a to B
but you also need to do C
d and E mm hmm
right and it's all terribly complicated
and it's involves different time zones
and you can't solve it with your brain
it's not possible right
yeah um
and and I've experienced this many times
is I just say alright
Paramahamsa please manifest through me
and I surrender I just let go
and and it all it
it all falls into place
so the things that need to happen
begin to happen with less stress
there's only stress if I start trying to analyze it
yeah but basically
and I'm and I do I
it's not I still do things
I still you know
book tickets I still look on websites
I still you still need to manage
I do but
but I'm following my intuition
yes my intuition tells me what to do
yes right now call Fred
now do this now do that right
so basically I'm following the intuition
and it's it's
it's basically
it's spooky the way things fall into place
but what I'm saying is the point of the podcast is
you can run an organization that way
because your intuition will tell you constantly
what to do and certainly
you know good leaders
particularly when they've got quite a lot of experience
will say you know
this was gut instinct or I'm doing something
because it feels like the right thing to do
well they'll sort of know
know which of their dashboards to navigate to that day
and and
and dip into it without without asking the question
why did I have that realisation
I need to go and look at that today
yeah but just one caveat
you have to be careful
there's a thing called false intuition
which comes from pain
so you do have to get rid of the pain from the past
because otherwise
your intuition will start telling you to do things
which are unhelpful right
and that's what the power of letting go is mainly about
that is getting rid of the pain
and releasing those kind of
unwanted experiences that you don't want to repeat
yeah cause if you look
if you look in politics right now
there are
there are people invading countries based on pain
which is from their childhood
mm hmm so if you get rid of that pain
you won't carry out any very painful invasions
ha ha ha yeah
we well
we do get to the point of talking very much about uh
you know geopolitics from the point of view of what
you know nations and alliances are thinking
but it does come back to what certain individuals
yeah are driving at and
and it
it makes perfect sense that those certain individuals
yeah will be bringing their own experiences to bear
but also those people were elected
by people who've got their own pain
and what Swami Ji says is
every country's got its own pain patterns yes
so you know
a country of
tens of millions of people
will produce a leader who reflects their pain patterns
and then they'll go off and attack somebody else
so we need to get rid of that pain
and that brings us back to uh
that brings us back to
to young and the collective and how you can have um
you know whole groups of people with certain uh
psychological profiles that are yeah
that are aligned and they get together yeah
yeah yeah
so I could keep talking to you all day
this has been a fascinating conversation
so I really enjoyed our conversation
thank you thank you
so yeah
John Banahaster thank you very much for coming on
the whole leader podcast
and spending some time with us today
I'm sure our listeners would have found that
fascinating and given them lots of
lots of things to reflect on
so thank you very much thank you