EPISODE 33 - Learning self awareness through the lens of Vedanta with Mitadru Dey
Growing up in India, Mitadru Dey was never interested in spirituality. It was only when he came to the United States, he started noticing how unhappy people seemed in their day to day lives. In his own pursuit of happiness, as well as constantly looking for ways to be more productive in his day to day life, he found the practice of Vedanta.
Vedanta is one of the world’s most ancient spiritual philosophies and one of its broadest, based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India. It is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism; but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures, and all religious backgrounds.
Vedanta affirms: The oneness of existence, The divinity of the soul, The harmony of all religions. (resource link)
Vedanta helps you attain: Peace of Mind, Efficiency and Concentration, Clarity in Thinking, Stress-free Relationships, Realization of Life’s Purpose (resource link)
To get in touch with Mitadru: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitadru-dey
To learn more about Vedanta:
FULL TRANSCRIPT
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(intro) Hi, I'm Yan. Hi, I'm Evonne. Welcome to Lost & Refound Podcast. We're a podcast, discussing our personal journeys as modern Asian women and sharing, inspiring stories from within our community. We hope you enjoy this episode - now let's get started.
Evonne Lau: [00:00:27] Hi Everyone! You're listening to the Lost & Refound podcast. This is Evonne, and I have Yan here with me today.
Yan Wang: [00:00:33] Hi, Evonne!
Evonne Lau: [00:00:35] Hi Yan! I'm really excited for our guest today. We have Mitadru Dey, who was an executive from a multinational financial service firm with 15 years of experience. And he has really interesting life management strategies based on ancient Indian wisdom called Vedanta and his work has been published, so we're very excited to listen to him today and hear what he has to say about his subject. As well as how we can apply these activities and these situations to our everyday life and with our own relationships. Please help me welcome Mitadru. Hi Mitadru.
Mitadru: [00:01:08] Thank you so much, Evonne. Thank you, Yan, for inviting me. And hello listener sof the Lost & Refound podcast. I'm really excited to be part of the podcast. I have listened to all your, you know, most of your episodes, not all. And I really liked the chemistry between both of you and you talk about different things. So yes, I'm looking forward to share what I learned and also I'm going to learn from both of you as well about life.
Evonne Lau: [00:01:35] We're still definitely beginning students of life, for sure. Going through the ebbs and flows. And certainly, especially with Ayurvedic wisdom, and being a new student in that, I'm very interested to learn about your own philosophy.
Mitadru: [00:01:50] Great. And one thing I want to add, I was thinking about the name of your podcast and it is, it is so relatable to philosophy of life. Because we all are looking for that happiness, which we lost and how we can find strategies with principles to find it back. So, yeah. So it's an interesting name of your podcast, which is literally two pillars of your life.
Evonne Lau: [00:02:16] Yeah, it randomly came up because we were thinking about names. I think we were talking with another one of our friends about the podcast and just different names that came about. And I was like, I just want to "refind" myself. And so, Lost & Refound just became like this funny pun. So I'm very appreciative to hear you say that, especially because we do get that comment a lot... about just how to refine yourself. And also why, I don't know, like, why is it? Why is it that we as humans just naturally are getting lost within ourselves and in these wisdoms that we have and just need to refind. And I definitely still struggling with that for sure and looking for my own higher purpose every day.
Mitadru: [00:02:58] Right, yeah.
Yan Wang: [00:02:59] And I think this is where I'm really looking forward to our discussion today with you today, Mitadru... Because, um, I am in a point right now, I'm trying to refind myself again. Evonne knows, I had been going through a really bad depression for the past, uh, past few, couple of weeks having a really bad, but it's been awhile. I just didn't really notice it. So now I'm back in the process of refinding myself and I know your practice is going to really help me as well. So I'm really, really looking forward to it. So can you tell me a little bit about your practice? When did you start learning and why did you start learning it and how has it changed your life?
Mitadru: [00:03:35] Oh, so let me take you back to India where I grew up. And while growing up. In India when we have so many religious rituals and my own family was practicing some of the rituals. And I always have this question why, why you're doing this, why you're doing that? I never got an answer. So I used to run away from religion ritual spirituality, because to me there was no logic and reason why I should do certain things in life. And so I used to run away. So I was a black sheep in my family because I was not following rituals. And just to share one incident. I remember when I was in standard eight, it was my final exam and I did not do well in my previous exams I had in the school. And my family told me, I think you should wear a ring. That is good for you. That brings good luck. I said, okay, I can wear it, but I'll take it up as a challenge. I'm going to wear it for three exams. And if the exams are not going well, I'm going to remove it. So I literally wore for three exams. It didn't go well. And I took it off and I told my mom that, it's not working. What did you say? So I'm not going to edit for the rest of my exams, either. Irony is, when the result came out, I did score well, though. I thought I was not doing well, but I didn't score well on those three exams. But yeah, having said that, as I mentioned, I was always, you know, away from spirituality, religions, rituals, and everything.
And I worked in India for eight and a half years and I moved to New York seven years back. When I came here, one thing I really noticed that people were talking a lot more about depression, stress. They're talking about students taking drugs, which is almost unheard of because I was to go through subways and trains and there is those posters talking about all those topics. So it really made me thinking like what's going on because everyone growing up in India, I mean, it was a dream for me to come to the us and not even a dream. I never thought about I'll come to the us and here I am. And I'm seeing all those things, which I did not know when I was in India. Uh, so I, I started getting involved into various nonprofits working as a consultant, just trying to understand what's going on. What are the pain points in the communities? I was, I was doing it for a couple of years and then six years back, one day at work, I started asking myself, I'm at work for eight hours, but I'm not productive. I may be productive only for 50% of the time. Maybe sometimes 20% of the time I'm working on the report and about, I'm thinking about what I did wrong in the previous meeting, or I have to respond to that email.
That question came up, I thought, okay, one day, but it never left me. The questions became more and more like why I'm not productive? What's wrong with me? It started bothering me. And the easy way was to go to internet and search how to increase productivity. I started doing that. I read a lot of articles.
I watched YouTube videos with millions of lives. Nothing satisfied my query. And one day in one of our friends group chat, I was forwarded a video where the person talking about productivity at corporate, it was a five minute video. And he asked a question to the audience, tell me how many hours, uh, you are a product. He was the person that, so people start to saying, Oh, 50%, 20%, 30%.
I said, Oh wow. I am in that team. I'm not a hundred percent productive. So let me see what he isgoing to offer. Then he said, do you know why? And no one responded. And he said, we don't work properly, or we are not productive because either we worry about the past or get anxious about the future. So that really resonated with me. And then he said something very fascinating. He said, you need to learn productivity from a child. So everyone's like, what, I need to learn the productivity from the child. He said yes, because if you really look at a child, they don't have worries about the past and anxiety about the future. That's why they are so energetic. That's what they're jumping morning, noon and night. Though, we are stronger than them, we are not as much physical active as a child. But pre pandemic, you come back to home from office and your child says, dad, mom, I want to play with you.
And he said, relax. I had a long day at work. I need to take a break. You know, we'll play with you. And children got little disappointed that mom and dad don't want to play with me, but why? Because they don't have that worries and anxiety. So we need to learn that from a child. So it was really fascinating to me because I never heard this concept in any of the videos or articles that I was following.
The cool thing was there was no name. And I was so inspired. I used to watch that video on my way to work every day for six months. And it was agitating for me because I did not know the name of the person. One day I was almost frustrated. I said, okay, you know, I'll just go to Google and type. What is of the past anxiety of the field for the future. And then my teacher, whose name is Gautam Jain, who has the nonprofit, Vedanta Cultural Foundation. And his YouTube interview came up and I figured out he conducts classes in New York and you just see, and one of the classes were right next to the train station I was passing every day for my work. So I attended the first class. He quoted one German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, who said that it is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find anywhere in the world. So that really stuck with me. So I started, attending his class, started with one class and then it become two, three, four classes. And it's been five, six years now. So I've been now an active in the volunteer of the foundation of Vedanta. Vedanta is an ancient Indian wisdom. So it has "veda" the first part and "anta" which is second part, it's a Sanskrit word. So"veda"means knowledge and "anta" means end. So it is "end of knowledge", a culmination of knowledge of human life, which was really fascinating to me was that all these texts, which are written 5,000, 6,000 years back, I could see that it makes sense today.
There is a logic and reason and is in place. And one thing, my teacher told me that it's the hard work, so you need to study it. You need to get up every day in the morning, you need to study the knowledge. So it's not like, you know, you can get it very easily. You need to put your heart and soul. So I started putting that effort and then started seeing a lot of benefits at work, at home. My wife was originally not following that, but she must have seen some changes in me in couple of years. So she, so both of us now as students with Vedanta
Evonne Lau: [00:10:56] You'll have to also give us the link too, because that sounds like a great learning stage to really get a lot of good foundations.
Mitadru: [00:11:03] Yes. I think foundation now, for Vedanta, is to really understand who you are. Now, if you really look at who you are, primarily, we talk about your physical body and mind, but Vedanta also talks about another component, which is intellect. So intellect is part of us.
You can say it's the rational side of our personality, which makes us think or reason , or judge who stops making us taking emotional decisions. So I'll give you an example. Let's say I'm a diabetic patient and Evonne, you ask me, why don't you eat this chocolate lava cake? My mind will say, wow, you love chocolate lava cake.
So you need to eat. My intellect will say no, because if you eat this chocolate lava cake, you need to take insulin shot. So intellect is it's like an adult and mind is like the child. So the focus of Vedanta is how you can develop your ability to think and reason and judge, and then question. Right? Never take anything for granted.
And perhaps , I need to first admit that I don't know how to live my life. Because we have everything where it has a manual that we have a manual for a phone, manual for a laptop, but no one teaches us how to live our life. We think, okay, we are living. So it's taken for granted. I mean, those concepts where my teacher taught me and his teacher... his name is A. Parthasarathy. He's a world renowned philosopher. So he established an Academy in India, 30 years back. Whereas it is a three year residential course where you can only talk about how you can develop your thinking process, but I'm not allowed. So it's only people between the age of 18 and 30 are allowed when they're starting their life and can learn that knowledge.
But you know, people like me. So we have now e-learning where all those courses we teach taught by Swamiji is on this e-learning module, which I do every day, every morning.
Yan Wang: [00:12:56] Okay. So I think on this podcast, we talk about a lot about understanding your emotions and understanding your intuition. So where does intuition and emotion come into this practice of Vedanta?
Mitadru: [00:13:10] So emotion, I think plays an important role in, in all our life. So the way Vedanta looks at emotion is that, okay, you should have emotion. You should feel for others, you should have pure emotion, but you need to decide your emotion, your emotion should not drive you That's the crux. You can have all the emotions, but if emotion takes over you and then you don't know where you're going to end up, right. That's the key role of emotion. In terms of intuition. Yes. I mean, intuition has an important role to play, but again, it has to be backed by logic and reason.
For example, let's say doctor who is who's been practicing for years can look at the patient and diagnose what he or she has problem with, but that's an intuition, but that is backed by the years of study and knowledge. So it is very important to, again, have anything that you do backed by studying the knowledge and reason, like why you are doing it, how you're doing it, because otherwise we don't know that. What if we just let emotion lose? We don't know where we are going to take our life. And that's our emotion. Our mind is compared to a monkey. Because a monkey has two features. One, it moves from one branch to another branch. Because we have multiple thoughts, like maybe I'm thinking about I have to do this project on Monday, or I do something wrong in my last meeting. So that's like, we're moving from one thought to another. And within the same thought, either you can go to past, or it can go to future. So it's, so it's very important to take control of your mind.
So that's what I think one of the goals of my teachers you know, you control your mind, then you control your life, right?
Evonne Lau: [00:14:58] Because you can have a monkey mind. That those thoughts can just jump around. Um, for whatever reason are every, anything that you desire, anything that looks really shiny.
And I really want to dive into that, especially when you're talking about different teachers and different classes and between you and your own intuition, as you're trying to develop that. Because I think that that's also a hot topic in terms of false teachers. You have to be discerning yourself. What information is good for you and what information isn't good for you? Because I think that's also really difficult now that we live in an age of information. We have to be able to understand what is good research, what is a bad fact, what is not real and what is an opinion. So we do talk a lot about that as well. And I wanted to also learn from you, is that something that you recommend for your students as well?
Mitadru: [00:15:44] Yeah. Sure. Before I decided to look, there are thousands of teachers and classes we have on that subject, right on the mindfulness and spirituality.
So what I did was, I listened to some of my teacher's lectures and I also listened to some other lectures on the same topic. And I figured out that , end of the day, everyone is talking about the same thing. That's the underlying theme. It's about how you can have a higher purpose in life. And if you look at any religion, I think that the bottom line is how you can reduce your selfishness, how it can reduce your equals. That's the base of spirituality, mindfulness. And I figured, okay, the teaching of it on top of my teachers talking about the same now, what is different?
I think what I found interesting is that most of the other courses, I had never seen having a question answer session. So it was like,one sided, he was coming and telling, and people are taking notes. Um, that was one. In our class. We have one class only for Q and a where people just ask questions and my teacher answers and he always tells them, and there are some classes where we hardly read the texts because people have questions. I found very interesting that when someone is asking question and, and at our level, and I think, Oh, I can also relate to that question then reading a text and reading an explanation of the text so that I found very interesting, having a Q and A, and getting an opportunity as a student to ask us questions about life and spirituality.
Third thing I found interesting. There's a structure and system in place. There are 12 books written by my teachers, teacher who has there's a course is as good as if you want to become a doctor. First you research, okay? Which medical college you want to go to you, then new shortlist one, and then you shortlist one and then you surrender to that course.
You follow first, second, third, fourth, fifth year. And then you don't go to another college, but with what happens, I've seen with spirituality with some of my friends. I mean, they tried to read so many things. To me, that is bad in a way, because you're trying to consume different information and it becomes difficult to process it because it is very important to go deeper than you go horizontal.
Because if you go deeper and deeper, I mean, that's how we built a habit because we do something for days, months, and years, and that becomes part of us. So that's how I look at it, because if you want to transfer your knowledge to the wisdom, you need to live that, and then you need to do it. Same thing every day, almost same time, so that it becomes part of our system.
So, yeah, so that's some of the things I found very interesting, the course I am doing because I have this opportunities to ask questions. There is a structure in place where I need to study every day morning. I think it's important that, you know, if you want to choose a teacher, of course, you know, give it some time. Ask questions. And if you see that, okay. The answer, the teacher, that person is giving is satisfying you, then you should go for it. It's the same way. Like you want to go to a new restaurant, right? You ask your friends, you ask or review, you just don't go to a restaurant because you do your own research similarly for anything in spirituality also. And I think you need to spend some time because as I mentioned, no one teaches us how to live a life. So it is really important that we spend that time to decide which course you want to go and take time, but once you decided just stick to it and then just follow have faith in your teacher.
And when I say faith, I'm not talking about blind faith, which I see most of the religion I'm talking about back by logic and reason. It is the same faith where you know that who is your parents? You haven't done your DNA test. I know now this people do it, but how do you know they're the parents side?
Because it is backed by logic and reason because they're taking care of you. It's not like, you know, random event, right? Because similarly for the spiritual study, I think it's important. Not in for that matter. Anything you need to do your research, ask questions. Does it make sense? Is it applicable to your life?
Evonne Lau: [00:19:50] And that is resonating with me very well right now, especially my Renaissance soul. I'm reading a book called the Renaissance soul and it talks about this very specific thing where I have this tendency to want to do lots of things. Because they are shiny, because they are new or I think I'm good at them, or want to do them. While digging deeper in myself, I'm realizing I'm doing all those things because I'm avoiding, focusing on one thing because it's scary.
And so I'm using it as a tactic. I didn't know that before, but now I see that that I'm using as a tactic to avoid doing the hard things and I don't want, and anyone to fall that same situation. It's definitely, it took a lot of time to be able to undertake and that value and a lot of admission,right?
In terms of , what am I really good at? And what do I want to be good at now? Because I need to be good at it for a living. But because I want recognition, I want fame. I want people to be like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing that you can do that. So really being able to like dive in what my core values are, which it sounds like is a core part of this philosophy, and finding out what is your truth? And what's truly resonating and making you happy. Not other people happy, which is, I understand a difficult question in this day in life when you're always comparing and seeing influencers and they're doing great. And I was wondering if you could also talk more about your students and what are the same struggles that they have? Is it also between fantasy and their own reality?
Mitadru: [00:21:13] Sure. First of all, and I don't have any spiritual students. I mean, I do pro bono career coaching, so that's more on in the corporate and leadership. So definitely someone asked me, then I said, you know, I'm still learning. But you know, whenever I have discussions with my friends and we talk about this topic, uh, one important thing is how we can become in a self-sufficient.
So I think that's the crux of everything, because only thing you can control is yourself, right? And then we are now different than on so many other things. I mean, that's the beauty of a human right now. So only thing is that how you can relate to everyone and, and plus how you can reduce dependency on others' emotions to make yourself happy.
I think that that's important thing because once you become more and more self-sufficient, so two things happen. One. You become happy. And then when you become happy, it shows and it rubs off to everyone around you because people get inspired by you. People get motivated by you because if you are happy and then you create happiness in others as well.
To me, it's very important that how we work on ourselves. It is, as you rightly say you want, then we have influence that and people, we want to become someone, but you need to ask also ourselves, look at people who are at top of their fame. Are they happy? If you are, if you're a millionarie, you want to become a billionarie. They always find next thing for happiness. If I get that, I'll be happy.
I get that. I'll be happy. I said, I mean a goal should be how we can be happy with their present condition. And then aspire for more. Definitely. You know, Vedanta is not telling them, you don't need to do any work. No, you need to be dynamic. You need to be active, but be happy at your present condition.
Then you aspire because you want to become famous. But once you become famous, if you look at famous people, they don't want to get taking their pictures because they are running away from fame. But they are famous and we want to become in their place. I was talking to someone and he talked about this documentary on HBO.
It's called the Weight of Gold, which talks about all the Olympians who won gold. And their life is just full of depression, anxiety, and challenges, but we aspire to become them. You need to look at holistically if you want to become someone. Just focus on yourself, focus, you know, how you can develop the skill in yourself so that you are not dependent on other. And then aspire to do more. Because that's the challenge of this conflict between when you pursue something in the world versus pursue in something spiritually, because when you pursue something in the world, you get instant gratification.
Because if you take chocolate, you get it instantly. But if I say, okay, to become self sufficient, you need to put a work of a lifetime. I say, oh ok, it is a lot of hard work, right? I don't know how to do that. And I want to eat the chocolate, which gives me that pleasure.
Evonne Lau: [00:24:07] That rush! That like, Oh my gosh, like this was the right thing to do. I think a lot of the times things that I'm trying to do, I'm looking for that external validation being like, you're doing exactly the right thing. But that longer story and that longer question of, is this the right thing for me and having that quiet yes. It's a quiet yes, sometimes! (laughs) And definitely looking backwards and seeing, wow. Like I was doing my passion there. And then looking back in other situations where like, I was definitely not happy. I can't believe I pretended to be happy for so long. I'm looking back into that. And I really want to focus again on what you said before, about how much energy we're spending about being anxious and stressed. And then you rightly so just asking us to focus that energy on working on ourselves and how much that transition actually is so much more helpful and how much energy has been wasted by just stressing about the past and stressing about the future and ultimately leading us to being much more happy. And for you, do you have a daily routine that helps you, or a recommendation that could help people keep reminding ourselves? Because on certain days, I'm sure it's very easy to do. And other days it must be harder.
Mitadru: [00:25:23] In Vedanta, we talk about yogas. Obviously when I say the word yoga , most people think about the physical exercise, I'm not talking about that. So yoga, if you go to the meaning of the yoga, it means to unite. Which means that, again, going back to Lost and Refound, right, which means we are separated and that with the help of yoga, you can unite to our real personality. And everything, I think boils down to your desire because all of us have desires.
And what is stress? My teacher tells this definition of stress is nothing but a mental agitation caused by unfulfilled desires. So if you think about where you are getting stressed. Why? Because one of your desires is not fulfilled or it is interrupted by someone else?
So the root cause is a desire. So now how Vedanta deals with this, is okay... You all have desires. So it talks about how you can improve the quality of your desires.
That's the crux. Let's say if you have selfish desires, how you can make it unselfish, right? And, and then it becomes much easier for you because when you go to a higher plane, so I'll give you an example, when we were children, we played with toys, right? Then we become adult. Then we don't have any value for the toys. Because we know that, as an adult, there are much more important things, which is much higher in terms of value in terms of compared to a toy. Similarly, how, you know, we can escalate our desires. That's what it talks about.
And it talks about three yogas. So it is, the yoga of knowledge, the yoga of action and the yoga of devotion. So let's start with the yoga of knowledge. So the yoga of knowledge is ideally between five to six or five to 7:00 AM. I mean, depending on the schedule. First thing in the morning, you study a book or do a course, which talks about higher values of life, which talks about higher purpose in life. And it needs to be done every day. There needs to be system and structure so that you are reading the same book everyday, not changing it every day, or if you're following something. And you need to do it before you look at your mobile, you look at your emails. So first thing you get up in and then you read this book or this article or at least scripture for that matter. So I do e-learning everyday morning, first thing , for one hour. And also it is important that you should not overstretch it. Because if you study too much, then it takes a toll on you and that's a different problem altogether. So it is very important to study for one hour, 1 hour 10 minutes, max, then you stop.
The second thing is yoga of action. So we're talking about how you have a higher purpose in everything you do. So for example, if I'm working for an organization, so my goal could be how I can get more salary or more compensation, or it could be how I can serve this organization, how I can achieve the goals of the organization. And I've seen that I applied that when I seen that attitude, I've seen that, you know, my manager is telling me, Oh, I want to give you more responsibilities or I want to give you promotion, for example. So just thinking beyond your selfish goal and have an objective, which is like, okay, what's the company objective here. And If you work towards that, I feel company performs better, then it will take care of you as well. Um, so, so having this unselfish goal. So again, there's that family, right? Let's say your child wants to watch a show that you don't want to watch. Instead of thirsting, no, I don't want to watch these, I don't like it. Uh, you know, just, just spend one hour in watching which you don't like, but you're just doing it, you're doing a service to your child. You're doing a service to your spouse and you will, again, you'll get that in return because X time your spouse, your child said, okay, my mom or my dad did that. So I'm going to do that. Again it takes some time, but you get that back. Again, I think you don't do it because you want something from them, but you, but you do it because you genuinely feel that you want to serve, right? So the focus is more towards, you know, duties than rights. And if you, again, look at history that that's what happened with Japan and Germany after world war two, because everyone came together because those countries are devastated. It just took 20 years because everyone said, this is my duty to serve my country and we need to rebuild it and look at what happened. Right. So if you just shift your focus, focus on your duties, how you can serve, and then like what I get from someone that changes the whole complexion . It's not easy and it helps because what you're doing in the morning. Because everyday morning you are studying and gradually those higher values getting instantly your mind, then you can practice more. So throughout the day, that's the yoga of action. Just talking about how I can serve others, right? How, you know, I can put other interests first, then my own selfish interest.
And the last yoga is yoga of devotion, which talks about having an awareness that is something higher in life. Right. We forget that we have 24 hour supply of oxygen, right? There are millions of bacteria inside our body keeping us healthy. We have eyes to see. We just take these things for granted. So again, acknowledge that you have so many things... have that attitude of gratitude, um, because there are so many people what we have. And imagine like, if you lose your eyes, you may want to give everything you have, to get those eyes back, right? So having that, I think attitude and awareness there is something higher in life important. Uh, I also watch documentaries about nature. The flower gives fragrance. It doesn't ask for, Oh, there is someone to take it or not. Or I don't like this person, or I like this person, so I 'll not give fragrance...right? Those nature documentaries really inspires me. Um, and, and also I make it a point to think about how many people helped me to reach where I am. There were so many teachers, my friends who supported me while growing up or at work. And I just reach out to them and ask like how they are. Is there anything you can do? It comes to the importance of intellect because there are so many problems in the world you cannot solve each and every problem, but at least you can pick one and focus on that. I mean, that would be a huge help. Second, the yoga of devotion, which talks about having that attitude, awareness, there is something higher something bigger than our little personality.
So if you really look at, not a lot of the time that, I mean, just talking about one hour, every day that's about it. And then you have this attitude of... Service, having those calls. So I find it very useful to practice every day. And that helped me, you know, me and my wife, we did not leave our house for almost a year, except few days. And we did not go crazy because of this subject. Because it gives us so much happiness and peace and whenever we get distracted, it helps us getting back to our focus, like, because there is when you feel frustrated and agitated, et cetera, there are so many people out there fighting, and yeah,here I am at home. I have everything and now I'm complaining, Oh, why, why I don't do this? Why, you know, this has happened. And so. So, yeah, these three yogas are definitely helpful. To me, it's a, it's a lifetime commitment.
Yan Wang: [00:33:35] Yeah. I mean, obviously it seems to work and, and it makes sense, right? Because you're first thing in the morning, you're learning something philosophy-wise, you're getting your mindset right for the day. And then you spend your day in service of others. Usually we all feel better when we're serving others. So at least for me personally, and I know for Evonne as well. I feel better when I'm serving others than when I'm serving myself, because I get so much more out of it. And then lastly is always having gratitude for everything you have.
And I can see how that makes you a happier person. I feel like more people need to hear that because I feel like this country is missing a lot of that. That we need to have the spirit of being service of others instead of being service of ourselves. And I felt like that's the biggest issue I see now with capitalism is, children here many times are raised with a philosophy of serving themselves, you know, um, do everything so you can become rich and powerful.
Instead of, I feel like a lot of philosophy for me, at least I saw growing up in Asia was, is more a collective community minded. In that you are working hard in service of your country or your community of your neighbors, of your family. So you have a, I feel like you have a lot more purpose, which is, I think it's really easy to see with what's going on right now.
And you all world with the pandemic and how quickly a lot of Asian countries are able to put a handle over it because even a lot of European countries too, because they're raised in a community mindset where we're wearing masks to help each other. So you hear a lot of people in the us complaining because they're only thinking about their own comfort, right?
"I don't have it. Why should I have to wear a mask?" So it's a very different philosophy. And I feel like this is a philosophy that, or this is kind of message. I want to get out more with our podcast, because I feel like more people need to hear about this kind of philosophy and this kind of thinking. And this should become the norm over how a lot of people are being raised now in this country being all about me, me, me, me, me, me. Me, me, me -it's not going to be for the better of the entire planet, which we all should be working towards the same goal. I think that's really important. What I actually would love to hear from you also is, um, you started this podcast by talking about your journey, right? You went into looking, searching for more because you are looking for ways to be more productive through all day. So how has this, when that practice helped you with your productivity?
Mitadru: [00:35:58] I'll come to that, but I think you talked about an interesting thing and I was, I was reading today and as part of my morning study about likes and dislikes, like everyone has likes and dislikes. What I am is, I'm all about my life, likes and dislikes, which are, which are pamper throughout my childhood and adult too. And people around me like, Oh, I like to do this, do it. You don't like have to do it. Don't do it. And you talked about the mask thing, right? It doesn't matter what happened to people around me, I just don't like to wear a mask. So, you know, instead of thinking about what I ought to do. We go by what I like to do or what I don't like to do. And invariably, and there was a verse in one of the text called, Bhagavad Gita, which tells that what it likes to do. It's great, in the beginning, I says actually literally says nectar in the beginning, but poison in the end and what you don't like to do, like poison in the beginning, the nectar in the end, I'll give you an example of exercise, right? Starting, it's a pain, but once you get onto exercise, you know that it's going to help you throughout life. And look at ,we like to eat junk food. Nectar is a beginning, but poison in the end. I think it's another aspect we are taught about, don't always go by your likes and dislikes. If you think that you are getting carried away, just step back and say, is this right that I'm doing and just going by my life, is it right thing to do?
Yan Wang: [00:37:30] Step back and look at the larger picture right before just thinking about this one tiny thing,
Mitadru: [00:37:36] Right, sorry. I digress, but I just read it today about likes and dislikes. (laughs) Now, uh, coming back to at work, uh, one example I'll give is about the meetings. What I do now is that if anyone comes to me for a meeting or sends me a meeting invite, I asked several questions. I first asked, Is this necessary for me to join this meeting? Am I going to add any value or I'm just part of a hundred other people and I'll end up doing multitasking. If the answer is I'm not going to add the add value, earlier I used to accept that, and now I said, no, I'm not going to accept it. So that's the first filter. The second filter I put it, is that okay? You want me to join the meeting?
And I also ask now the subject that we are talking about. Do I have any of my team members who can join that meeting and maybe much more knowledgeable or maybe one of my peers who can add more value? Answer is yes. Then I'll say, okay, invite my team member or my peer, not me because they can add more value. If both conditions are not satisfied, then I join the meeting. So that saves me a lot of time, because earlier my calendar was full. Now, I consciously, very mindful about which meetings I'm joining. Am I adding any value if I am not, I'm not going to do that. And also, when I invite others for meeting, sometimes I do 15 minutes sometime I do forty minutes. I don't stick to half an hour, one hour, depending on the subject. So that really helping me because sometimes you don't need half an hour to talk about something, right. Um, so that's on meeting management that I've started applying. So that gives me a lot of time, which I reinvest in other projects for productivity. And also at the beginning of the week, I decided like apart from my day-to-day work, what are, what are some of the work on strategy I'm going to work on? So I block my time. Right. I said, okay, this is just to think about, as I mentioned, like what my organization is looking for, what's our organization strategy. And then I blocked time every week to work on, on those projects. Uh, that has been really, really helpful in terms of productivity. And at work, I have been involved with projects on diversity and inclusion, uh, corporate responsibilities. So in the working of this diversity and inclusion, I've been learning so much, uh, you know, I didn't learn before, you know, George Floyd incident happened about diversity and inclusion. What's happening in the countries. It's, it's an eye-opener for me. That to me, I think helps my overall personality and leadership skills, because you're not just doing your work because you have to bring different other things where you are applying your thinking and that helps you shape your career.
So that's something I work with my juniors, uh, because I have been helped by so many mentors and my managers. So, and I, we talked about gratitude. So what I do, as I mentioned, uh, you know, I'm a pro bono career coach. See if anyone reaches out to me on LinkedIn, if they need any help on their career leadership, they are facing some challenges. Then I work with those individuals, you know, helping them navigate those challenges. Because I think everyone knows what is right, what is wrong? Uh, but the problem is how to apply it.
Yan Wang: [00:40:59] Exactly. That is the biggest challenge
Mitadru: [00:41:00] Right. We all know overeating as bad, smoking is bad, right. Uh, are, you know, heavy drinking is bad or drug, drug abuse is bad. So, but how you control yourself not to do that. That's something, I work with some of my mentees who need help in their careers.
Yan Wang: [00:41:19] I love the tip about the meetings. Um, that's something definitely, I notice I do all the time. I'm in meetings all day long now. I work on e-commerce and I work with a cross category campaign. So I'll work with every single category and different departments. So I'm literally on meetings all day. And what I noticed is a lot of times I'm multitasking. So I'm not really listening in the meeting. I'm not getting the information I need so I have a lot of questions later and I had to ask people because I'm taking care of something else at the same time.
Right. And so I'm definitely challenging myself to see do I need to be in this meeting because my entire team's in this meeting, then do I need to be in there? Or can I be in this meeting? And then they don't have to be, and I'll just tell them afterwards that saves them time. And then they can be in some meetings and saves me time.
Um, and also in my husband is a CEO. So he runs the company and he's implemented a new rule that says , if you feel like you need to multitask in this meeting, then you don't need to come to this meeting. That means you don't need to get all the information. And so he says, you know, if you come to the meeting and I get an email from you or a chat from you during this meeting, I am not going to be happy with you. I'm going to have a conversation with you because when you're in a meeting, I want you to concentrate a hundred percent. And the same thing, he doesn't just hold like an hour long meeting. He's like, here's what we have to talk about. And then let's, let's get off and work on other stuff.
So that definitely does help a lot. And I can see how, when that frees up more time allows you to do other things that you might be interested in. And that makes your day, like you said, a better day, right? You're not just doing one thing all day. Now you have different things to break it up and make it more fun. And in turn you get more fulfillment and more gratitude out of it.
Mitadru: [00:42:54] Yeah. Uh, one thing, Vedanta taught me is also to say no to things. It is very important because again, we always want to do a lot, a lot of things, you want to help people, but at some point you need to say no because, because your capacity is limited, you really need to figure out how to best utilize your, your capacity or your working hours or your waking hours into other things.
And as you rightly mentioned in that, because if you're multitasking, then. A: obviously you are not in the meeting. B: it is also hampering that work that you're working on. Just stop saying that, just saying no to things that you think are not going to add value. It helps a lot because you reduce our quantity, but your quality improves.
Yan Wang: [00:43:40] I think that's really important too, in the middle of pandemic, right. Everybody's working from home. So I always see as more and more and more meetings, and this is where we need to set boundaries and say, do I have to be here? Do I have something else that's more important than, than this? And then make your decision.
Mitadru: [00:43:56] Yeah. Most of the meetings, you know, what happens is that one person say something other person may be saying the same thing in a different way. Some other say, yes, I agree with you, someone also, no, I don't agree with you .What we have achieved after one hour?
Yan Wang: [00:44:10] That's the funny thing. That's like my consistent feedback. Every single year of my boss has been, you need to talk more. You need you speak out more in meetings, but I'm literally like, I I'm comfortable speaking up if I have something to say. I don't want to sit there and just speak for the sake of speaking. So some people hear me and we can keep the meeting going longer. Like that's what frustrates me every single year. When review is this, this exact comment: "you have to speak up more".
Mitadru: [00:44:35] I think two things happening because when you speak more, you just speaking what to know. And when you listen, when you listen, I think you're, you're getting understanding well, you know, your, your knowledge just improving and, and what you just said, Yan, is that when you don't speak in every opportunity and people ask you to speak, the chances are more, they will listen to you and they will implement what you're saying.
Yan Wang: [00:44:57] Yeah. Because they know when I do speak is something important. I'm not just blabbering all day, all, all through in a meeting, just so people knows I'm speaking.
Mitadru: [00:45:06] Right. You're right. During pandemic, you would really be mindful about how you're spending our time, how many meetings we have and is it really giving, giving us anything, right.
Evonne Lau: [00:45:19] And I'm so glad that you guys have both brought that up because it was, we were laughing about that very same thing at my own workplace because. As well as like everyone wants to speak up in meetings. A lot of times they come up with solutions and problems that cannot be solved in that one hour as well. So I've definitely become more vocal about saying, Hey, let's take this offline and either, we'll do another meeting or I'll just send an email about this because it's not worth taking up everybody's time to go into this one little detail. And be conscientious. I think that's part of where being able to lead with empathy and being able to work with empathy, understanding like where other people are coming from and being able to put that through in the workplace, I think has been something I've been trying to practice more.
Mitadru: [00:46:02] Ask the question. Do you really need a meeting? Or you can just call someone and get that? I've seen that in the, Oh, you need something just let's let's set up a meeting and then we'll figure it out in the meeting. Like, what do you want to do? And that's, that's, that's the productivity killer.
Yan Wang: [00:46:17] Yeah. And it's not just that it's set, let's start a meeting by the whole team because we don't know who to talk too. You're just like, why am I here?
Mitadru: [00:46:27] These are just small little tips, just not complicated ideas, but if you apply them, implement those ideas, I mean, you can create so much space in your calendar and you can do more things and that will help you in a career, uh, to grow. One thing I wanted to talk about as you was talking about career is also, um, and I did not know when I was, I was screwing up.
So Vedanta also talks about Swadharma and Paradharma. So I'll explain ,swadharma means, your own nature. And Paradharma means your alien nature. So when a child grows up, right, I mean he or she, he or she has certain tendencies. So oftentimes what happens, you know, parents or teachers or society, they know you need to study this because this is good for you.
You need to study that because I, when I was growing up, I was told you need to study either engineering or medicine. I did neither of those two, but again, I'm not miserable, but, and a lot of people, a lot of my friends, I mean, they succumb to that because their parents told and they thought, okay, you know, I, if I, you know, become an engineer, I'll get a good job.
But question is that, is it your inherent tendency? Right. So, so that's, uh, Vedanta also talks about betterment for children. Like you need to relate it to identify your inner nature. That person has a talent, you know, that let's, uh, you know, encourage that person to pursue that. And it's about, you know, pursuing what's more profitable in know in terms of workspace. And then, yeah. And then you have Paradharma, which is like alien nature. So where you get a lot of money, but you are not happy because that's not your talent, that's not your nature.
So end of the day, you're miserable. You are stressful, but you may, you may earn a lot of money. Everyday morning when I first learned the concept, I used to write down what I'm good at what I like to do. Uh, I did that for one month. And then after one month I just looked at like, what are some of the common things I wrote most of the time? And then is there something I can do, uh, either at my job or, you know, as a side hustle. That really helped me to like really figure out like, what's my true talent. What's my, what's my nature. What I'm good at what I can do, even if I'm not getting paid and then, you know, pursuing whatever we can, you know, based on the current situation.
Yan Wang: [00:48:48] I liked that practice. I think that's a good practice too, to have people try, you know, I want to try. Just every day write down what I liked that day and what I like to do. And then over a period of time kind of looking for that commonality too. Especially with people that like, I just want, I know what I like to do, but I know a lot of people are confused and like, what's their Dharma, you know, what are they meant to do? What do they like to do? Because a lot, many of us have so many interests, but how do we get our focus?
Right. And I think this practice really will help in isolating your focus and really for you to get a better understanding of what is your Dharma, what are you meant to do on this earth and what will ultimately make you happy? Right. And another thing I'm really passionate about is what you said about, you know, being, for me personally, being a child from a Chinese family and Evonne as well, you know, all of us being Asians, we know when you're born, especially in China right now, when you're born, your entire life has been planned out by your parents. You know what school you're going to go to? What class you take? What are you going to learn? What are you going to become when you are adults? So they don't even take account into, at all, into what you like to do or what you might be good at. But it's, everything's forced into this like... You become a doctor, you become a lawyer, go in to business, or engineering. Like four options that you can go into. And recently in, uh, I read in a book called Anxious People and they had this quote that says, "we don't want our children to pursue their own dreams or walk in our footsteps. We want to walk in their footsteps while they pursue our dreams". And then when I read that, I felt like. I felt such connection with that quote, because I felt like that's exactly how I felt I was led. Right. And my parents wanted me to grow up to for this job that they had a wish that they had gone. Like when I was younger, my mom wanted me to play piano or play the flute because they wanted to learn it and they didn't have the opportunity.
So now they see it as what, a blessing that I can provide you with this opportunity without asking me, Hey, do you want to practice instrument? Do even like the flute, you know, uh, instead of forced me to practice every single weekend, eventually I stopped playing because that's not something I had any interest in myself.
So I think it's really important. For parents going forward to really recognize that we cannot force our dreams onto our children. We need to, for them to figure out what it is that they liked. Like, we need to observe very closely to see what they gravitate towards to, and still of course encouraged them and motivate them.
And sometimes you had to push them a little bit, but at least you're recognizing this is something that they're truly love to do versus something that they just have no interest. And you just literally forcing them through tears every single day.
Mitadru: [00:51:25] Genuinely, one of the challenges I've seen with parenting is that, you know, there are times where I look, parents ask their children to do things which they don't do. And children observed that in, uh, in, uh, my mom and dad telling me to do something, but they don't practice that. So then they're not going to do it. Right. So, so that's, I think it's an important, so though I'm not a parent, but then I've seen that with my friends and families where, you know, they want a child not to look at phone, but they are always looking at phone and they will always, you know, this is not going to work.
And that's what happens that children want to leave their parents because they said, okay, no one is going to tell me, do this. Don't do this, do this, don't do this right.... So I think it's very important to be set yourself as an example for your child to follow. Then it becomes naturally for the children, you know, to, to follow their parents.
Yan Wang: [00:52:24] Yeah, I'm a parent. And that that definitely happens in my household. I always tell my husband, you can't tell the kids to clean you don't clean it, or you can't tell the kids to eat vegetables, but you know, you don't eat your vegetables .
Evonne Lau: [00:52:37] And I'm just like laughing because I'm thinking about, even as I'm trying to plan for my own children, we have those same types of questions. Like, Oh, this is a school we want them to be in, this is the location. We want them to grow up in because I believe this is a great community. I never once thought about what my baby would want. I'm not even pregnant right now. And I'm already thinking and worrying about that particular aspect. And I just also want to bring out that no one knows the future, right? Like, and even now, if I had known that YouTube or even podcasting was going to be as big as it is now, I would have started way longer, but no one, you know, no one knew that no one could predict.
And so that's just like such an interesting thought to always look within yourself, to like, you can make that future. You can make that future and follow that path that was meant for you, that you always had inside. I know that we're coming up to time. I definitely would want to be conscientious of your time. Is there any way that we can find you and our listeners can look for you?
Mitadru: [00:53:31] Sure. So I definitely encourage if you want to go to Vedanta Foundation website, which is with vedantausa.org, uh, where you get to know all about the subject, about my teacher. He came here, uh, for his, uh, graduation, and then he was on the verge of getting jobs on wall street. And then he actually asked in one of his interviews, are you happy to one of the senior managers. And he said, no, because I want to become a country head. And then he said, Oh, if he's not happy and then why I'm going to waste my time 20, 30 years and get to a place. And then I'll say, Oh, I'm not happy because I want to become a country here. That was not one of the drivers but that he is telling us in one of the classes that he went back to India, where he studied for 10 years, then he came back and he teaches, you know, we have like zoom classes. Anyone wants to start from basics, Tuesdays, Tuesday, evening, 6:30 Eastern. As we have this class called the fall of the human intellect, which I mentioned earlier on, uh, on our podcast.
That it's about like how you can think, how you can, you know, take care of yourself and take care of your own life. Right. So, definitely know, visit the website called vedantausa.org. There's a section called life lessons. Which it talks about in the different desktops of life, in a relationship, stress leadership, and how Vedanta approaches those subjects.
In terms of, from me, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Facebook. Again, my name Mitadru Dey, easy to find. I'm, a Global career coach, so if anyone needs help on their career, um, definitely I am available, uh, because as I've mentioned I've been helped by so many people.
Last thing I would say, and this is, and what's happening in this society. And I know this is a lot of anxiety and stress. So I think thinking is very important and I'll share one of the quotes which my , teacher mentioned in all the classes where Hitler said that "what luck rulers have, because men can't think. What luck rulers have because men can't think".
And if you, if you look at what's happening around you, so we all need to develop our thinking so that no one can comes and tells us, tell us what to do. And. Not to follow the heart instinct because everyone is telling... Because we have it within us, we just need to develop that. And again, make yourself self sufficient so that you can control your life, uh, and control your mind. And then you'll be happy,
Evonne Lau: [00:56:16] Beautifully said Which is very profound and scary at this moment in time.
Yan Wang: [00:56:24] Yes. To be honest, when you said Hitler said, I was thinking, where's this going? And then when you said the quote, I was like, Oh my God. That is literally our times. That is quote far times right now.
Evonne Lau: [00:56:38] Yeah. And being discerning, right? Like who is saying that and why? Like there's an there's intention there and being able to sort that out and use your own intuition on whether that value and intention is for you. So thank you so much. We really appreciate your time today and we hope our listeners really appreciate this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Yan Wang: [00:56:59] Thank you.
Mitadru: [00:56:59] Thank you so much for inviting me. I had a great time and definitely it was very engaging discussion with both of you.
Yan Wang: [00:57:08] Amazing we'll link. We'll link your contact information in our, in this episode notes as well as our website as well. Sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm happy to be back on your show in feature.
Uh, yes, we'll look forward to it.
Mitadru: [00:57:26] Thank you.
