What If I’m Not Fulfilled At Work?

This is an automated transcript and may contain minor errors.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Upbuilding the Self. I am Michael Sloyer and I am here with my friends and partners, Hari Prasada and Vipin. So for our topic today, we are going to be speaking about something which is not only a feeling that the vast majority of our coaching clients deal with, but it's also something I think that the vast majority of the world feels.

And that is a feeling like my job, the thing that is my profession. It's not really aligned with my sense of purpose

This is a feeling that I had dealt with a lot during my years at Goldman Sachs. I was a trader on Wall Street for 11 years, and even though if you had asked me at the time, do you like this job, I would have said absolutely. I love this job. It's intense.

It's exciting. You have to think quick on your feet. You get to be in the center of the action. At the same time, I would have told you, yeah, I know I'm not doing anything that's good for the world. I know that this is not really what I am supposed to be doing. And there was a suffering that came with that.

But for a very long time, it was not something that I could change. And I think this is, again, a very, very common experience in life.

So, Vipin, it would be great if we could get us started by sharing your own experience.

Vipin: Yeah, thank you. I think what you said about how you viewed your job at Goldman Sachs while you were there, probably not that different than I experienced all of my jobs previously as well.

I wouldn't use the same words about intensity and center of the action, but I use different words that describe why I liked what I was doing. But if you were to ask me Examples of when I felt my job was not fully aligned with my purpose or my values, I would say pretty much every job I've had prior to this one would fall into that category.

And it's really because my motivations With all of those jobs was to be valued by others, not to align with my own values. So it makes sense that that's not what I got.

And I never really dove. That deeply into what was important to me. I've had many conversations with younger people who are in their twenties and navigating or even earlier in school and college and grad school. And the thing that I share with them that I. never did myself that I wish I'd done is spend time thinking about what's important to you, which seems like a luxury because you're like, I just need a job.

I need a job that will pay me. But I would say I never really dove deeply into what was important to me, or maybe I did, but I, I just didn't know that much about what was important to me then. So I was. Much more oriented around how other people will see me and based on what it is that I'm doing and I would say it felt fine.

I mean I did that for 20 years and It felt pretty good I felt pretty good about the places that I worked and the people that I met and with the work that I was doing but I can see how it also felt incomplete and They all felt like jobs And not a calling of any type, and that's a big word to use the word calling and a big expectation to find a calling, but I think it's, that's possible to access more of that when one thinks more deeply about one's values, purpose, service, a mission, I want to be part of, if you're looking for a job that feels aligned with it.

My values, you have to spend a lot of time understanding what those values are, and most of us don't do that. I certainly didn't do that myself. I appreciate

Michael: you calling out this, what feels like a fallacy of wanting a job that feels aligned with my values, but I haven't actually done the work of thinking about what my values actually are.

And it seems like you and I had slightly different experiences. Well, maybe the commonality was that we both knew that something was missing. I think I felt the suffering more acutely of not doing something that was good for the world.

In the finance industry, you hear a lot of people talk about it. And I experienced this as a defense mechanism where people say, well, I know I'm not doing something for the world, but, and then whatever comes after the but, but I'm just trying to feed my family, or this is the best I can do, or. I'm here and I'm contributing to this organization.

So that's good enough. You hear people settling a lot. But you can also hear the shame of, I'm not doing something that's good for the world. So, Hari, I'm sure you have a lot of reflections on both what Vipin and I said. And we're purposely not asking you this question of when did you not feel fulfilled in your working life because you have been so aligned with your sense of purpose and more clear about your mission in the world.

So, please take us away. Well, thank you.

Hari Prasada: I've been very blessed in that regard, because at a very young age, I followed a calling into a monastery and spent five years, six years total, one doing monastic training while working outside and exploring my career opportunities, and then five years of being a full time monk, and that really helped me, to Vipin's point, get very clear about what are my values, what is my mission, and What it means to follow a calling.

I mean, I wouldn't have ever had the tools or the ability. To do that without this window in my life that was exclusively for that purpose. So now that can't be imitated. That can't be replicated, but the desire has to be so strong for that. And when the desire is so strong, then we'll find a way of doing the reflection and we'll find a way of getting the guidance that we need, because without facilitation from somebody who's further along, it's very theoretical and it will take you down what the.

Okay, but Gita talks about as the chariot of the mind, it will take you down the road of the chariot of the mind, which just goes in different directions. Oh, yes. Now I like this. Now this is my purpose. These are my real values. Yes, my values are all of these great things. How to put them into practice?

Well, I'm doing it because I'm great, aren't I? It's not grounded. It's not substantial. Without somebody who's really further along who's done this kind of reflective work and is acting on true values and following a real calling, it becomes sort of a solipsistic exercise that means that it's like a circular thing where we're caught in the loop of our own mind.

Vipin: So let's set up the problem a little bit more here. Why do people stay in jobs? where they don't feel fulfilled,I think the biggest thing is that we have so much financial insecurity in this world that we live in, that, that to me is the biggest one. We feel fearful of Giving up something that we have and feeling like I need enough income for myself, for my dependents, for all the financial obligations for this.

Way in the future retirement that could last longer and longer given what's happening to durations of life. And so there are all these things that are unknown, but I think financial security and then there's so many other things that there's just fear in general of the unknown.

I think that there's the ego comes in as I was sharing, how will people see me if I do this? I'm doing this right now and people see me a certain way. If I choose to do something else.

How will they see me? I think there can be pessimism generally about will another job really be any different? Is it really worth going through all of that? Or am I going to, it's just going to be the same. There are many self limiting beliefs that come in. I better keep what I have because who else will hire me?

It's related to having imposter syndrome. I already feel like I've tricked somebody into Having this job and so am I going to be able to trick somebody else and then I think there's also there can be a lack of vision lack of willingness to explore and even take risks.

So I don't even know what I want. So why would I leave this thing? Even if it's somewhat unfulfilling because this conversation that we've been having about what is important to me, I haven't dove into. And even if I have, I'm still not coming up with any answers. So it's just a big black box. So I don't, there's, I mean, I just shared a bunch, but there's so many reasons why we stay in jobs that are not fulfilling us and I think it's often a combination

Michael: of those things.

You mentioned the ego is one of the things. It sounds like the ego is pretty much related to all of the things.

Vipin: Yes, the ego is related to all of them. Absolutely. Some are more directly related, like, there's nothing else but the ego that's there. And then every, all the other ones, the ego is sort of really lurking underneath.

Michael: Thank you for laying it out like that.

And as you were sharing each of the things, I was thinking, Oh man, this is hard. This is going to be difficult to untangle because Each of those things can be so deep and really have its hold on us. And so to get out of that is going to take a lot of work. It's going to certainly take doing things very differently from how one might have been doing it before.

Vipin: Yeah. And I was also just thinking about that first point around financial insecurity. And I mean, we live in a world where there's not this communal experience where. We support each other and one person can do one thing. And, uh, I mean, a bartering systems where we each have different roles to play and we work together.

I mean, right now every unit is responsible, financially responsible for themselves. And so there's a lot of insecurity around that. Like it's all up to me to provide financially in a way that. I think puts, I mean, there's no going back from here, but that it puts a lot of pressure in a way that's quite different from what the world used to look like a long time ago.

So, I think, yeah, it's hard. People talk about this with children. I can't have children are very expensive. Can't have too many children these days. I mean, it's so, so crazy to think about what we associate with bringing life. Into the world. It's a financial decision and that's related to feeling so much financial insecurity that I'm accounting now.

Well, what is the kind of job I need if I'm going to have one child, what to speak of multiple children. And so this is really weighing on it's the heaviest weight on our consciousness. I mean, so many people dream about retirement when I don't need to work anymore, because. I will feel enough financial security.

So this is just an interim solution to manage the financial insecurity and weight that I feel. And then on top of it, I'm trying to say, well, can I still find some fulfillment and meaning and satisfaction out of that thing that is weighing on me so much? So maybe it'll make me a little bit happier because I'm quite dissatisfied right now.

Basically, what that means is I'm very insecure. I'm going to act on that insecurity and I'm going to hope it brings me fulfillment. Yeah, that was nice. Concise way of summarizing that sounds good. Is that possible? Have you ever known that to be the case when you are insecure and you act on the insecurity?

It brings you tremendous fulfillment.

Michael: I appreciate you. Identifying the financial piece. Concise. The heaviest weight here because that often is the thing that people feel is the either I could do something that's going to support me financially and move me towards my financial goals, or I could contribute to the world, or I could find a job that I love.

And that's the choice that a lot of people think that they're making.

Hari Prasada: Yeah, it feels very binary. I think you also get people more and more today who are pretty cavalier about, Yeah, I've aligned those things. There's a lot of talk about Meaning and purpose at work and people, you know, writing linkedin posts, I just got my new position.

I'm so stoked. I'm so happy. Like, congratulate me and the underlying premise of that is like, this is meaningful. This is wonderful. I'm so happy. I'm so proud of myself and. Yeah, this deserves to be celebrated, not that like, okay, I'm going to be able to feed my child, thank God, or I'm going to be able to survive in the world.

It's like, hey, this is great. Aren't you so happy? I'm so happy. So the problem with that, I mean, there are many problems, but one of the problems with that is It's a story that overlays all of these insecurities and tries to force fit solving for these different pieces. So 1 approaches. Well, I can only have 1, 2 or 3.

I can't have them all. The other is. Of course, I'm going to have it all winner takes all, but am I really winning or am I telling myself a story and one that sounds really good to the public and gets me more adulation and sense of, yeah, I'm okay. See, I'm okay.

Michael: Right? I'm okay. I'm happy. So I'm either giving up on fulfillment.

Or I'm projecting fulfillment.

Hari Prasada: Yes, exactly. How many people are really experiencing the depth of fulfillment? I mean, those people are not saying, Hey, I just got this new position. I'm amazing. This is awesome. Like, here, you can line up to congratulate me. The people who are experiencing that depth of fulfillment, they just, they have a very different way of carrying themselves.

It's not one that's very suitable for kind of way that our society is conditioned towards. It's representative of a consciousness that is inherent and that is also being shaped further. I want to hear more about this point from you, Hari Prasad, on this, like, one who is truly, inherently fulfilled. It's reminding me of these verses in the Gita about a self realized soul.

How do they walk? How do they look? How do they dress? How do they show up? You just teased us a little bit with this notion that, that they're not Doing what people are doing when they're projecting their fulfillment, but maybe, I don't know. Could you say a little bit more about what you see them doing versus not doing when someone is deeply fulfilled.

They don't have an insecurity to compensate for. So, therefore, they don't have such a loud voice. To try to overpower the insecurity. There's no need to modulate the volume of the voice to drown out the insecurity. So there's a self assuredness that is genuine and that doesn't need to have a loud voice.

There's a way in which. If I'm actually fulfilled, I'm not trying to prove, and I don't need to be heard, I'm happy doing what I'm doing. And it speaks for itself. Now, when somebody asks me about it, am I enthusiastic? Of course. But I don't have to go out there and assert myself, and I don't think, as I'm speaking about myself, look at me, I think, I'm so lucky, I'm so fortunate, not that I deserve this, and of course many people will say, I'm so fortunate, I'm humbled, I'm this, I'm that, but do you feel that?

Do you genuinely feel that? Do you take the time to feel, period, what you're saying? So, someone who is truly fulfilled, I'm humbled. They're feeling a lot, and they take the time to feel it, and what they express is genuine, it's deep, it's beneficial for them, it's beneficial for others, it's always in service, and the emphasis is not on me, me, me, but on service, and not like, look, I'm doing all of these things, I'm having all of this impact, I'm serving, I'm serving, I just wanna serve you, I just wanna serve you, it doesn't have to be spoken like that, it speaks for itself,

Thank you for that. So maybe the fact that I have stopped sharing so much on Facebook and LinkedIn over the last five years is a good, it's good, it's directionally moving. I mean, it's different when you're crusading for a cause and you're trying to rally the troops and you're using social media as a platform for that purpose.

But it's very easy to conflate that with what I'm doing when it's actually my ego. And that's the norm. It's like, yeah, everybody has to have their justification, their rationalization. I'm using this for this reason. It's really for everybody's good. As we talk about in our Enneagram workshops, the personality typology, where we also really examine consciousness very deeply, we talk about the controlling consciousness or the average consciousness where the ego is in control of us.

And therefore, we're trying to control our circumstances to get validation and feel secure. That controlling consciousness that characterizes our whole society and practically every single individual in it, except those who are really, really dedicating their lives to going beyond that, that controlling consciousness.

Is all about. I'm just controlling you for you. See, I'm doing this for your good. I'm providing such valuable service to you to society. I'm doing all of these things. I'm not addicted to social media. I'm just using it now. Somebody who's actually using social media for a good purpose. We'll also say the same thing, but the consciousness is different.

We have to become so attuned to what is the consciousness behind something. It's easy to say

Michael: the right thing. So one of the things I'm taking away from this first part of our conversation is about being grounded in reality. So if I am not experiencing fulfillment at work and I'm clear that I'm not experiencing fulfillment at work, I really want to look at what might be the root causes of that and how has my own consciousness or what I've been motivated for in terms of a career, how has that contributed to where I've ended up?

And then similarly for people who feel like. I am experiencing a ton of fulfillment at work, and this is amazing. How can we ground that? What's really going on? Are you really experiencing fulfillment? And where might there be a projection of that?

Hari Prasada: Very good. And I gotta say, when somebody is deeply fulfilled, and they're in touch with that fulfillment, there is a lot of skepticism and a lot of self work that has brought them there of peeling the layers of ego and seeing how, in my past, I was not acting like that.

It's not like, I was just born amazing. You know? I've done a lot of work to peel these layers of ego and see, whoa, I was completely governed by ego and I have to change a lot. Here's how I changed specifically. And frankly, Michael Vipin, you guys are sterling examples of that. Even just what you shared in this podcast is so highly indicative.

Of that kind of transformative approach, which is so trustworthy and such a wonderful role model.

So let's go back to this question, which we were starting to unpack before we were recording, which is why do we even desire meaning in the first place from our professional lives? Yeah, I mean, it's a great sign that we're trending towards. All this talk about meaning and purpose, and that's become so buzzy now. It's a great sign. It's coming from the self, the real self. It's coming from the soul. So wonderful. And people are recognizing, my God, we're spending all of our time at work.

That's where we spend the majority of our time. So if our work. Is not carrying that meaning, that fulfillment, that purpose. What the heck are we doing with our lives? This is a very sad statement about reality and I'm putting it mildly. It's actually like throwing your life down the drain. So people are waking up to that, which is a good thing.

And that talk is healthy to the extent that it is pointing to a hunger deep within. However. If you examine the consciousness of the work world, which is made up of individuals of different levels of consciousness, and frankly, mostly the same overarching level of controlling consciousness that we just spoke about.

And you take, especially the leaders who shaped the culture and what does it take to be a leader and what kind of insatiable drive and ego proving is behind that and conditioning. You'll see the workplace is not just doling out meaning in spades. It's not like a giving tree for purpose and fulfillment.

It's available at the water cooler if you show up at 3 p. m. So there's an incredible mismatch going on here. This is the however. It's wonderful that we've decided to examine the workplace and say let's not throw our lives away without meaning. It's very. Startling alarming that we're looking at the workplace to provide us with meaning when this is the situation.

That's like, I will speak very strongly again in most cases, perhaps not in all cases. But in the vast majority of cases, as we've been speaking about, it's like trying to squeeze juice out of a stone. Is that really what we want to be doing? That's another way of just beating our heads against the wall.

It's now the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. This is what humanity does. We swing the pendulum back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So, first there was no meaning at work, and we're giving our lives to it. That's not very palatable. Now it's, we're going to get meaning out of our work.

It's going to be awesome. But it's not happening.

Michael: Good, so we close the podcast here, and none of you have any We have our headline.

Hari Prasada: We have our headline. Finding meaning in work is like squeezing juice from a stone.

Michael: I have no idea how long this is going to last, but I assume there's A decent amount of time left on this episode, so people know that we're not closing the episode right here, right now, but yeah, there's a point in every drama where you get to the dramatic point.

I think we've, we've just gotten it because I'm feeling the hopelessness as a result of what you just shared.

Hari Prasada: I think what I take away from what Hari Prasada, that you just shared, is that there's a spectrum of our experience with work, and we want to keep Striving for more alignment with what's important to me.

That's a no brainer to do that. And it will lead to more meaning and satisfaction undoubtedly. And at the same time, you're acknowledging that if we orient to all, all of my meaning is going to come or even not at all, but I will get so much meaning out of work. And I set a an expectation that that will be 1 of the big drivers of my meeting.

We're likely setting ourselves up for disappointment.

Yeah, let me be very plain in my own observation. I don't see a lot of people happy at work. I don't see it. And when I see it, I see it as very flickering and very surface. And most people who are happy at their jobs, they either will convince themselves, no, it's really great.

Or they'll say, yeah, you know what? It's not that great, but it's good enough. It's fine. I'm happy with it. And neither one is truly fulfilling. Neither one is really giving meaning and purpose and certainly not in the way that we're longing for it. So I see most people are struggling very intensely with work.

All my coaching clients practically are just trading one struggle for another. Whether they're at the same job, whether they're at the same organization and growing at the organization, or whether they're jumping to different jobs, different industries, different walks of life completely. I've seen all of this over and over and over and over again.

And I've seen it with friends. I've seen it with family. I've seen it with my wife up close in a very intense way.

So this is the landscape around us, And there is some solace in knowing 1st of all, you're not alone.

2nd of all, you're not crazy. And then the question is, well, what do we do with all of this?

Michael: So. We are coming to the point now where We'd like to move into a practical direction where we actually can answer this question, Hari, that you've just posed of what are we going to do about it. And it seems like there are two paths that we've been alluding to.

One is how to find as much fulfillment as we can at the work that we're already doing. How can we squeeze as much juice from the stone as possible? And then how can we find meaning and fulfillment outside of work? Because there's a limitation. As a result of the consciousness of our world, our society, our organizations, and our leaders,

So, let's start with the first one, with getting as much fulfillment as possible from the jobs that we're already in, what do you suggest people start to do in order to move in that direction? I think it comes

Hari Prasada: back to the same point that we started with. It starts with understanding what's important to you.

And it starts with our values. What kind of relationships do I want to build? What kind of contribution do I want to make? And then there are always opportunities. In any job, in any organization to start to orient more towards what matters and I think that that might be within the boundaries of the main work that I'm doing, or it might be a little bit extracurricular.

There are other opportunities. To serve and support people that might not be directly what's part of my job description. And actually the thing that's really helpful about this, there are two things. One is we may have a notion that, Oh, this is what's important to me.

And I would love to have that in my job, but I'm starting to do some of that and trying to get a taste of it. And I realized that it's. I'm not getting any more from that and maybe that's because of the environment I'm in, the people, but you can start to see. experiment with some of the ideas we have about what's important to me.

Sometimes someone will say, this is really important to me, but I don't even feel motivated to do that's outside of my job. So I don't even feel motivated to do that. Well, how important is it to you then

And then. The second thing that I had in my mind is that if you're getting a certain amount of satisfaction in your job and you identify what matters a lot to you and you can orient a bit more in that direction, you should see an increase in satisfaction because you're aligning more with what matters to you.

And it can give you then a little more confidence that if I were to dedicate more of my time and efforts to those things that matter, whether within this job or even potentially outside of that, how could I experience more of that? So.

Michael: I love the first question that you asked, and it was sort of in passing, but it really struck a chord with me, which is what relationships do I want to build?

How often do we actually think about the answer to that question? And we often think that this is so outside of me. I'm just a victim to my circumstances, even if we're not thinking in that direct language. But really, what kind of relationships do I want to build, including with the people? at work, and maybe especially with the people at work, because I spend so much time with them, and giving that question a lot of thought and then being willing to do something about it.

How can I be a cause in the matter of creating the The type of work life that I want,

Hari Prasada: That's great. I often think about and what is an organization? It's simply a collection of people that are working on a shared purpose, a shared mission and.

A collection of people who have to work together is all relationships. That's all. That's what it is. And so I really appreciate you just highlighting this point that we take a lot of things for granted. Well, this these are the relationships I've been thrown into and it feels more transactional, but we have an opportunity to be much more intentional about.

What are those kinds of relationships and a lot of fulfillment, frankly, and meaning comes exactly from that. It's almost independent of the context in which I'm operating. I'm sure you can think about your experience at the bank and I can think of all of my experiences. What do I remember about them?

It's all specific relationships and exchanges that we've had. So I think you're really honing in on something very important.

Michael: And then the second thing that I'm taking away from what you shared. It was, you said about service and support and this whole work of defining your values. It might feel like, wow, that's, that's a big task.

And it is a big task. It's certainly worth worth doing, but also all of us have a value of service and being supportive of other people. That's, that's what we're made of and what we're created for. And so if we take that as sort of a, a universal value that we all have. And we know that that is what gives us fulfillment at the end of the day, then how can I start to bring that even if it's in a small way into my work environment where I look around and I think, what are the opportunities to serve here

Hari Prasada: It's the idea that Who receives more satisfaction, the gift receiver or the gift giver?

Michael: how should we think about our own nature and What we bring to this world and the gifts that we have in terms of finding fulfillment at work,

Hari Prasada: there's so much to this subject to the subject of how to find more meaning within the context of work itself.

The 1st thing I just wanted to address was, and then I'll come to the point about nature that our relationships are so transactional and they're so circumstantial. We are friends of convenience. We're friends with people at work because they're at our work and then. Maybe we stay in touch, maybe we don't, but we treat people in that way of, well, it's convenient for my life.

but the mentality has to shift.

It's a shift in consciousness. It's seeing people as subjects and not objects.

We have to change our own consciousness to change the consciousness of the workplace. And if more of us were doing that, and more of us grew to leadership positions, or could affect at least our own sphere. Then the workplace would not be so devoid of meaning

And I experienced this in a small, but significant way when I was working as a freelance writer for a television and marketing research group. while I was living in the monastery.

and it was so deadening. It was a night job. And nobody wanted to be there for everybody was a stepping stone to something better It was just so mind numbing. And I remember, feeling the atmosphere and dreading it every day.

And every moment I was there, everybody's waiting to just go home. But I remember saying, I cannot live like this. I have to do something here.

And the constraints were heavy. And I'm just like a number in this system. I mean, nobody really cared about what I had to say. I had no influence. But I decided to bring Sacred food from the monastery where sometimes I would cook it myself and bring it and share it with people and the kind of energetic shift that took place was remarkable and the kinds of conversations and the way that I tried to serve people and connect with them.

and it's not that I didn't want to get out of there. I did want to get out of there and I have to leave that, but for the time that I knew that I needed to be there, and I think many people relate to this, that I know I'm got to do this.

I got to pay my dues, whether it's for a year or for a decade or multiple decades. I have to kind of stay with something that is less than ideal to put it mildly. So what am I going to do to shift? That experience and not just selfishly because I will feel more fulfillment if I affect other people's fulfillment instead of me, me, me and my fulfillment, my fulfillment, my fulfillment, which there is a place for.

Of course, we need to be fulfilled and we need to look after that. But. It is really as you described in giving that we receive as it's attributed to St. Francis. Sometimes it's in giving that we receive. So if you really want fulfillment, how are you going to offer that to other people? What are you going to do in service?

As you were saying, Michael, that's universal. So that's really what it comes down to, and we're not going to be able to do that if we're not aligned with our natures. So coming back to that point, and there's so much we can do to try to identify what is my nature. How do I want to engage it in service?

The Bhagavad Gita talks about Dharma and on many levels, there's Dharma or a sense of it. Mission calling duty responsibility, which has to be in accordance with my nature and we should have a glowing. Yes. We should feel like if I were not paid to do this, I would still want to do it anyway. Ideally.

There's some way even if it's not perfect. And even if it's difficult, there's a way in which I have a talent that I've been given and I've developed it and I want to offer it back. And it's very simple. So what is it that I feel enthusiastic to offer back in a way that's beneficial?

The last thing I will say is that the more we seek meaning out of work, the more we set ourselves up for disappointment. If we're not doing our homework, if we're not doing all the things that we're talking about, and I have seen some of the Biggest pain points being in the health and helping professions or in the nonprofit world because the expectations are so high that I'm going to do something good.

This is going to be meaningful and fulfilling. And I'm making such a sacrifice here. And then the reality on the ground is so absolutely different. It's so absolutely different. And then it's like, oh, so there's no substitute for doing our homework and just a few last comments on the back of what are you shared?

The 1st is what you were talking about with transactional relationships. And I think the reflection I had is the, I don't know if it's the only way I want to say the only way, but at least the primary way. to be able to shift our own relationships and our consciousness around it is to experience a relationship that where someone is pouring into you in a non transactional way.

So I think about, I would myself experience many relationships, especially working relationships transactionally, not because the other person was transactional, but I was just this transactional thinking about myself. And what do I need and how will I get from here to there? And it's essentially an objectification of those relationships.

But after experiencing something completely different here at UpBuild, that has now extended to all of my relationships because I have received a different experience and so then I can give a different one. So I just want to I think the idea of like, Hey, you have to change your consciousness around relationships.

To me, the best way to do that is you need to find, you need to associate with people. And that's probably outside of work to begin with who will give you an entirely different experience of pouring into a love that is rare and uncommon that you Can then is your resource and your model to be able to offer that to others.

The second thing is when you're stuck in something and you're thinking about I need to make a change.

One of the things that I've shared with multiple coaching clients is to start, it's very hard to make this huge leap of faith, like I'm dissatisfied. I'm just going to scorch the earth and go for something completely different. And I think that a wise approach is to get involved. You start by figuring out what's, what matters to me and see how do I get involved?

How do I experiment with maybe one hour a week? Maybe it's five, ten hours a week. It's a side hustle. something I'm volunteering with. But test your hypothesis about what's important to you. If you think that something's really important to you and you're not willing to make the sacrifice to do it, that's probably a sign it's not that important to you.

And I think that it's very helpful to plant some seeds. Because, you know, Sachinandan Swami, Hari Prasad, your guru, and our guide at UpBuild would say, with respect to spiritual philosophy and principles, it's so important to move from belief to knowing. And I think that same idea, what do you now know that it's no longer just a belief, the same idea really applies to Finding more meaning and satisfaction at work.

If I start to experiment and get involved and I'm seeing, I mean, that happened for both Michael and I at upbuild, we've spent hours and hours working on workshops or writing, and we were really involved and engaged. So when we stepped into full time, we had a knowing that's different from, okay, I'm just going to jump out of the plane.

I hope this works. And so I think that. That's really important and frankly if you're really looking for that meaning and satisfaction you should be willing to sacrifice quite a bit for it

The last thing that I wanted to share is that I think that we talked in the very beginning about the financial insecurity. That's there is a feeling. Well, if I, I could do what something that's really more satisfying. But if I do that. I'm going to have to trade off a lot of income and is that worth it and I think when there is a knowing as we're talking about when you start to experience something that might bring you not complete fulfillment but in that directionally more then you may be able and willing to trade off more it's hard to know without actually stepping in it's a very theoretical idea but for example when I joined up build the conversation that My partner and I had was exactly this and I were not able to generate a certain amount of income that we decided collectively in our family.

We may need to manage things. Then I can always make a change, but it's also possible that once I do this and I will find so much. Meeting and satisfaction and alignment that then I would want to have a conversation about what might we change to enable that. And that's not disempowering. That's very empowering.

I would say the greatest riches you could possibly have is not needing much. And so then if you had work. That meant I'm willing to give up a lot of other things because I'm finding more alignment, then that's wealth.

It's not poverty.

Michael: I love that last piece. I recently read a quote that the highest form of wealth is deciding you have enough. That was from a man named Kevin Kelly, and you commonly see things like that. And it's, you know, it can't just be like, oh, yeah, I'm convincing myself that I have enough, so now I have enough.

But when you've gone through the steps that you're talking about here, Vipin, of actually deciding what's truly important to me, what really will move the needle on my fulfillment. And then I'm making a choice in service of that. It actually doesn't feel like scarcity anymore. I'm not doing something that is a sacrifice.

I'm coming from a place of inspiration.

Vipin: There are a few things that I would love to drive home as we come to a close here and the first thing is that when we are thinking about our nature and we're thinking about how to maximize the experience at work, which also applies to outside of work, that other dimension, the tool of the Enneagram, which I mentioned earlier is extraordinarily beneficial because the way you get to know yourself and you get to know your insecurities, you get to know your gifts, you get to know what is satisfying, what is fulfilling, what your essence is like uniquely.

It's just so powerful. And it's very, very personal. So I really think diving into the Enneagram gives tremendous advantages to both making the most of meaning at work and outside of work and figuring out that, oh, it's the same thing that's driving me in both places.

The other thing I would share is why we have This paradigm where now it's starting to open up to meaning, meaning, meaning purpose. I've got to find my purpose. I'm all about purpose. It's coming from a place of being so starved for that. So I alluded to this before, but the starvation is so critical to understand.

We're coming from a place where we've not had this,

because we've been so displaced from ourselves. We're so disconnected and our workplaces are a function of our own personal disconnect. So that starvation is. A hunger that needs to be filled. But when it is filled, it looks so different from the way we're pursuing it currently.

If you take, for example, the culture of the Bhagavad Gita, which is a culture based on the real self, That actually takes all the ego out of the equation.

It was not one where people were obsessed with what is their dream job and how do they get the most meaning out of their work.

That was not the consideration. It wasn't like, yeah, oh my god, I'm going to do this. I'm going to have this career. It's going to be amazing, or I hope, I wish, I hope, I wish, I hope, I wish. It was not like that at all. It was a culture of everybody being responsible, doing their prescribed duties. And doing it in a heartfelt, humble, service oriented way, according to the unique talents and nature that they had.

And wanting to give back with that. And it's understated. It's not trumpeted to the world. It's understated. And there was no talk about, oh, meaning, meaning, meaning. It was inherent. You were experiencing the meaning.

So where does that then leave us? Well, how do we go back? How do we go back to who we are? And that is the ticket to the spiritual realm. That is where we actually start to say, aha, how much meaning am I going to make out of the material world

And yes, we have to make the most of it and work within the constraints. And there's some fulfillment that comes from that. But the real fulfillment is so much bigger. Why are we settling? Why are we settling? When we take the spiritual journey, when we go to the core of who we are, to the real self, the soul, all of this looks so different.

And the way we approach in the mood of humble service and really seeking our fulfillment again, in work, but also outside of work, doing things that we don't get paid for, or. We can't afford to make a living off of even if we do get paid for or just things that we do because we're super inspired to do them as we know the inherent value of them.

That is a world that is like full of meaning and doesn't require talking so much about it.

Michael: Thank you, Hari Prasada. And one of the things that I'm really appreciating about this conversation, and also so many of our conversations, Is that there's both an emphasis on what feels like very practical and can be right in front of us, and then also what can feel more like the ideal, but not an ideal.

That's not possible. Just an ideal of what we're shooting for,

Hari Prasada: I also just want to put the challenge out there. There are sort of 2 poles here with respect to work. 1 is it's just a job.

And the other is, you know, it's got to be my dream job, And one of them is settling in a way that is inhuman. It's just a job. Nobody wants to work just a job.

And then on the other hand, to put the pressure of expectation on your work like that, that's inhuman in a different way. Right. That is such a false equation. So why can't we be in some way balanced? And the more we find our meaning internally, the more we will bring that meaning with us to our work will be oriented to find more meaningful work.

And we'll bring that outside of work and not put all the pressure on our work. So, instead of demanding that work deliver meaning, why don't we take up the call to find that meaning for ourselves and bring that with us wherever we go and let that guide us to wherever we go.

Michael: Beautiful. Well, that feels like a really nice place to end and I just want to tell you both how grateful I am for how much you both have poured into me over the years and given me that association, which makes me feel very inspired and motivated to offer it in the small, very little ways that I can to other people.

Hari Prasada: Mutual. So grateful. So grateful. Thank you. Thank you.