Author: Anurag Bansal

Confucius says you have two lives, and the second begins when you realize you only have one. 

The world lost so many people in 2022. When I learned about the sad demise of the soccer icon of the 20^th century, Pelé, I could not stop thinking about how mortal we all are. Pelé played an instrumental role in popularizing soccer. He played for 21 years and scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 professional matches, including 77 for the Brazilian national team. However, the list of achievements doesn’t bail you out.  Pelé leaves a legacy not many would ever do, but he must leave in the end. This is the ultimate truth! No one overrides this.

But why am I talking about death when we are getting ready to welcome the new year? Most of us need to pay attention to the fact that our time on the planet is limited. Every moment, we are closer to our grave. Indian mystic, Sadhguru says in his book, Death, “The greatest calamity of the human mind is that it is against death. The moment you reject death, you also reject life. Don’t be dead serious. Life is a brief sparkle, but you shall be dead for a very long time.”

If we understand and embrace this ultimate truth, would we waste any time not living to our most profound capacity?  I don’t think we will procrastinate or have grudges for anyone. We will all want to live joyfully.  There was a dialogue in a Bollywood movie Anand, which stuck with me. I loosely translate it to “Life doesn’t need to be long. It should be big.” The essence is that why be afraid of death? It will inevitably come. Live like every moment is last and make it memorable.

Naval Ravikant says, “our lives are a blink of a firefly in the night. You’re just barely here. You have to make the most of every minute, which doesn’t mean you chase some stupid desire for your entire life. What it means is that every second you have on this planet is precious, and it’s your responsibility to ensure you’re happy and interpret everything in the best possible way.”

We all make resolutions at the end of the year, thinking we will all do something in the new year that will change our life for the better. It is a good exercise, but the resolutions are usually broken within the first few weeks because they lack action, and in our subconscious mind, we believe there is enough time left, and we will have another chance.

How about the resolution to live every moment joyfully and not make our happiness dependent on the outcome of whatever our goals are? Strive to become the best version of yourself, become boundless to do more, and celebrate life. I realized today that the quest to be always right makes the surroundings unhappy. I chose to be joyful, not just for myself, but for the ones who matter and make life worth living.

Rumi says, Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

This is my new year’s resolution. What is yours?

Happy New year to you and your loved ones! May this be the best year so far!

I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. In the comments section, let me know your experience and perspective on the subject. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.

I discussed in my earlier blog that a creative, conscious, and growth mindset would set us up to realize our “true self.” However, to achieve this stage, we must understand why being like water is so profound in our path to expansion. #neverarrive

Lao Tzu, the famous Chinese philosopher, says in the nearly 2,000-year-old scripture, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8, “The best quality/character is like water. The water’s goodness is that it benefits myriad things but does not quarrel, and it willingly goes to where others hate; thus, it is almost like the Dao.”

However, Bruce Lee developed the philosophy of “be like water.” It gave the world a more relatable yet the MOST IMPORTANT wisdom to progress in the direction of your TRUE SELF, the one cosmos intended to create.

Earth is three-fourths water, and so are we. Is it possible that nature intended this because of a specific reason?

Two years ago, I accidentally stumbled upon a YouTube video of a Bruce lee interview, which had an intense impact on my thought process. Bruce Lee summarizes (must watch) in the famous “The Lost Interview” on Pierre Berton Show in 1971:

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, and it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash! Be water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee inadvertently discovered the magic of being like water while on a sailing trip. His coach Yip Man once punished him for his short temper and asked him not to practice Kung Fu for a week. Lee, out of frustration on the boat, punched the water hard. This was when Lee realized his master’s teaching, where he asked him to be calm and detached.

Bruce Lee later mentioned that however hard he would hit water or try squeezing or kicking it, water would instantly turn back to its shape. Water was formless and shapeless. It takes the form of any object you put it into or even gives a reflection of anything looking at it. However, it doesn’t get attached.

He also explains that while the water is calm, it is not weak. Even a continuous water drip on a solid rock can crack it open. Water can be ferocious and destroy the most challenging thing ever seen by humanity.

The lessons are imperative, and when applied to our being, we are on the way to joyful yet limitless emotional, mental, and spiritual expansion.

Adaptability – A formless mind can push the horizon of human potential. Water’s formless and shapeless characteristic helps it flow around obstacles, remain flexible, nourish life, and take any form it desires or needs. The water can also make its way through anything by forcing itself. Water turns to ice when cold and vapors when hot.

Remember when we were kids? We could be anything because we were unconditioned and had limitless potential ready to be unleashed. However, as life progressed, we got identified with just a handful of beliefs, which created a delusion, a self-isolating barrier, preventing us from accepting new sets of knowledge and often opportunities.

Therefore, a mind not identified with one pre-determined identity, including but not limited to religion, profession, nationality, relationship, career, etc., will be flexible, open-minded, and prepared to take on life as it is thrown to him. More importantly, this will allow the being to give direction to its life for continuous expansion.

Involved, not attached – Water combines with everything and takes on the color and some characteristics. Water keeps moving and finds its way. Water stored with a boundary often gets dirty. Similarly, we are just pieces of this infinite game called life. However, we get entwined almost every time with many things stalling our emotional, physical, financial, mental, and spiritual evolution.

Bruce Lee gives an example from his sailing trip enlightening experience. A bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Bird, when it flew far, the water did not have the shadow anymore. Lee says, “should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water?” The lesson is not to let go of any emotion, action, or involvement but to not let these become sticky or attached unless you want to adopt them consciously as part of yourself.

As I discussed above, we become too attached to what others think of us and even with others to the extent that it starts hurting us. The mental arrest is such that we don’t want to let go of these notions, which become detrimental to our well-being. That’s where be like water comes in – involved but not attached. We need to enjoy life with social interactions, but how many imprints they leave on us should be defined by our consciousness.

Ancient Hindu scripture, Bhagwad Gita, says, “You have the right to action, but not to the fruits. Each of us is obligated to act rightly but has no power to dictate what is to come of what we do.”

Water’s nature reflects the same as it does what it needs to do selflessly. It merges with other things to become them. You drink water, and it becomes you. Similarly, add water to any drink, and it becomes that drink. No one then says it is water anymore. This teaches us to do what we can do best in a situation with our full involvement but not get attached to the outcome.

Remaining strong yet malleable like flowing waters will not only allow you to reach goals but also give rise to new ones along the way – making sure there’s always something new challenge waiting on the horizon while maintaining a balance between inner peace & outer success!

In conclusion, taking inspiration from nature–specifically from the water helps us accelerate toward reaching our highest potential. Not only does this provide clarity during times of uncertainty, but it also serves reminder stay centered & focused even amidst the most brutal storms.

Come along, and let’s make a difference by spreading the word.

P.S.: Remember, there is no sky. Those who say the sky is the limit don’t know there is no such thing. No one knows where the cosmos starts or ends. This implies that our potential is limitless. Similarly, don’t think outside the box; think as if there is no box.

But keep your feet grounded. Being humble is paramount!

#neverarrive #limitlesspotential.

I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. In the comments section, let me know your experience and perspective on the subject. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.

PS: This blog is inspired by a discussion with one of my colleagues who views technology as a primary impediment to human intelligence.

I’m a disruption analyst and have been studying the implications of the convergence of exponential technologies at a time when it is most relevant. My research for over ten years has made me trust that technological advances are the most determining factor in human evolution.

The world has transformed significantly in the last one-two decade. We are all hyperconnected to the world in a never-before way. We are innovating novel solutions to the world’s most significant challenges, such as water scarcity, climate change, and many others. We are not only improving the products we use every day and bringing down the cost but are stretching the limits of imagination and possibilities.

The pace of the disruption is entering a genuinely exponential phase. Innovations are resulting in new business models and disrupting old ones. In just a few years, in a country like India, where still two-thirds of people live in villages without access to proper amenities, the digitization rate is outperforming the developed countries.

Picture this: a tea vendor in front of a business park or a cart selling vegetables and fruits in a residential complex only accepts digital payments. They reason that it takes time to collect the payment, provide change and keep track of physical money.

Technology is pervasive and touching every aspect and every corner of the world. Massive socio-economic development is happening not only in technologically advanced countries, but innovations are enabling the global south to leapfrog the wealthy world at an unprecedented pace.

Technology is a tool. We use tools when needed and put them aside when the job is done. We should also view technology as a tool to connect with friends and family, use the internet to learn about new things and entertainment, and connect with others. We use artificial intelligence as a tool to get through the enormous data, which is humanly impossible, and provide insights.

My colleague is concerned that children in school are so dependent on technology that they are not using their intelligence and becoming less analytical. The common concern these days is that we are constantly glued to our phones, and social interaction has moved from the physical to the virtual world.

I don’t think so. In short, this is not a technological problem but our compulsive nature and consciousness issue. Think about using technology as a tool consciously and efficiently, meaning knowing when to use it and when to put it aside.

When I was growing up, I could do all my math and could remember several phone numbers. Now, I can’t. However, I think I’m better off with a smartphone to do all this because the volume of material I must calculate now and remember is beyond human capacity. So, using a smartphone is like using a tool.

Technology is profoundly transforming education. You can learn whatever you want whenever you want. That’s the way it should be. We need our children to understand life and not just the set curriculum, which in many cases has not changed for ages, while the world they live in has completely transformed.

Similarly, problems of our compulsiveness to look at our phone is not a technological problem. We need to decide when we use it, how much we use it, and when to put it down.

Historically, technology led to human development and continues to expand our horizons. Not to forget, harmful elements have also used technology to cause destruction. The products in information technology are also being used by cybercriminals for hacking and stealing information and money. Similarly, the weapons designed for national security are used by terrorists against the countries.

The right and the wrong people are using technology as a tool to meet their objectives; it is just that their consciousness is of a different kind. It will always be like this. But do you think we should not make technological progress to improve our lives? Or, more importantly, we decide which side we are.

For the first time, advancing innovations are freeing up our time to think creatively and do tasks that require perception — which is the only faculty of our mind that is not available to data-based algorithms.

We live in a world with immense possibilities that every person can contribute to the development of society. Unlike previous generations, when only a handful of capitalists and national leaders could move the needle for collective action, technology provides us with tools to contribute.

I have chosen to “consciously” and creatively use technology to reach as many of you as possible and share my learnings on how we can use incredible innovations to realize our true potential.

“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” — Rumi

Trust is a profound human emotion, which unfortunately is a loosely used word in our everyday life, especially in personal and business relationships. But what is TRUST?

To understand trust, we must first look at two other commonly used emotions — belief and faith. Belief is derived from our perception of certain situations or a person under specific circumstances. You may have noticed yourself saying I believe in myself. Similarly, the new hire fits well into the role, or I believe in a particular person’s capabilities. Whereas faith generally ignores the rationality of a belief. This is commonly the case when it comes to the rituals and rules of a community, God, and certain other aspects flowing through generations. In other words, faith is believing without questioning.

Trust is like graduating from faith and belief. Trust is EXPERIENTIAL. You start with a belief or faith and start questioning, observing the responses you get until you are convinced. Imagine when you meet someone, you believe he/she could be your life partner, a great employee, or a business partner. However, you validate your belief and gain trust when you live and work with them. Similarly, you sit on a plane not because of faith or belief in the airline but the trust you gain from the airline’s record of successful flying.

Consider another example — You may have often heard someone say that their life partner broke their trust. However, most often what they are talking about is their belief or faith that the other person is loyal. The same is the case with business partners. It is easy to believe but trust is very hard to come by and is an everyday effort to keep it.

Trust builds with emancipation and accepting vulnerability. The first step to developing trust in yourself or within your team is to empower with responsibility, independence, and acceptance of failure. When you take responsibility for your actions, you are most often building the character that will thrive in adversity and become trustworthy. Similarly, in intimate relationships, empowering responsibility, love, and freedom is the most proven way to build trust.

Trust begins with yourself and is central to becoming “unstoppable”. We always begin with the belief in ourselves and the experience from our failures and successes develops trust in our instincts, decision-making, and abilities. Trust in yourself is of paramount significance for the success of any relationship you develop and in the continued quest to stretch your limitless potential.

When you trust yourself, instinctively you become fearless and relentless in pursuit of your goals. In this journey of trusting yourself and generating results, you first trust your instincts, but over time when you become so good at what you do, your instincts will inevitably start trusting you. That is when you become UNSTOPPABLE.

Trust is integral in building a team — an extension of yourself. When the goals are big, you inevitably need a larger group of people, a mastermind alliance in achieving them. A major part of success means recognizing the people who can help you get where you want to go, meaning, putting all the best pieces in place. However, a common trait of an “unstoppable” person is that he will not put anyone “in place” unless he has full trust. The job is not easy, and so is the goal.

My life experiences have made me trust religiously in Rumi’s “what you seek is seeking you”. When you trust yourself, you will inevitably attract trustworthy people who will share the same burning desire as yourself to stretch beyond limitations. Without trust, getting anywhere would be challenging. You must have seen this in sports quite often how a team trusts each other’s instincts and abilities to pull together a very well-coordinated effort on the field. Similarly, in a business, the team with complete trust in each other will most likely be the best performing.

Trust is the basis of our existence, the joy of our life, and the pathway to becoming unstoppable. Look for what you trust, nurture it, and let the magic unfold!

I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. Let me know your experience and perspective about the subject in the comments section. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.

P.S. This blog is inspired by watching the sunrise for four days on my trip to the Island of Kauai. The rising sun cleared so many clouds not just in the sky but in my mind too…its magical.

For the first time in my life, I was privileged enough to witness the sunrise off the coast in Kauai, Hawaii, and to be precise, Poipu beach. I woke up very early, trying to adjust to the time difference. It was still very dark, and I went out to sit on the patio breathing the aromatic tropical air and listening to the sound of waves crashing on the shore of the Poipu beach (Poipu in the Hawaiian language means crashing waves). A few minutes later, the sky started to turn a little brighter (picture below), getting me excited and curious to look at the navigation app on my phone and figure out which direction I’m looking at. To my surprise, I was in for a sunrise.

Here it comes! At first, it was just a light bulb shining bright on the water. The sky turned orange near it and had so many different shades overpowering the color of the clouds. The silver lining around them was so vividly visible. I kept looking at the sun and the brightness increased forcing me to move my eyes away. Now, the brightness completely overpowered the darkness. You could still see clouds sprinkled around but their significance was reduced by the sunlight.

As I watched it for four-straight days, certain thoughts struck my mind on how the sunrise relates to our life. We have all heard from our parents that every night is followed by a beautiful morning. However, I think the sunrise teaches us much more than that.

Here are some of the insights I gathered:

Life is cyclical — what goes up must come down and what has been suppressed will bounce back. The entire solar system circles around the sun. We come from the earth, use it, and go back to it. The tiny little amoeba, small insects and worms, millions of them, which we don’t know are fundamental to our lives and when we die, we become food for them. Meaning, bad times will certainly be followed by good times and vice versa. Our actions and mindset will determine how big the circle is.

No one can stop the idea of whose time has come — I thought of this famous quote from Victor Hugo looking at the sunrise. Up until a few minutes ago, it was an unending cosmos where there was no beginning, or end, full of darkness and no idea where to go. The sunrise, synonymous with the idea in the above quote comes at its time and eliminates all doubts, brings clarity of thought, and unending source of energy to perform an action and find your path to achieve your full potential.

Growth is glaring– If you think of the rising sun as synonymous with growth, in the beginning, it is subtle and soothing to the ones around it. Many people will not notice it, unlike me and others looking for this auspicious moment. However, once the sun starts to grow in the sky, it is difficult to keep staring at it. Even the clouds, which were overpowering once have a silver lining and are lit up. Similarly, when you start your path to achieve your full potential, the naysayers have difficulty looking into your eyes, and the brightness of your achievements pushes them to look elsewhere.

Also, the quest to achieve your potential is infectious. Like the sun, which fills joy and energy into everyone, when your growth inspires people along the way to do more, think, and act differently to make a difference. I also believe it’s all about pulling everyone along. I tell my wife often; it doesn’t matter how successful we are if we do not have people whom we love to celebrate with us.

Be humble — No one better than the sun teaches us to be polite, kind, and respectful. Sun is the single source of life on and below the earth. It provides energy to all living things, but is polite to the clouds (doubts, lack of clarity, rough phases in life), respects the night for its importance, and gives a message of courage that if used in the right way, the energy could be used to overcome the challenges. Similarly, we shouldn’t take defeat to our hearts. It is just a lesson, not a declaration.

Life is an infinite game — many believe that we are born and then become entangled with relationships, careers, and money among other things that one defeat means the end of life. A finite game is when there are a limited number of players with a set of rules to play and defined outcomes. However, think of it in a way that life is an infinite game where you are playing your role, and people would join you in play in support or against. Some will leave in between, and some will stay longer.

That is how the sun is. It is always enlightening people somewhere in the universe playing an infinite game where millions of objects including stars, planets, and the moon play role at different times, but the sun doesn’t get knotted with them.

The significance of obstacles is underrated — Everything in the world is relative, and nothing is absolute, except for our existence. We value right because of the wrong and light due to darkness. In this context, night and clouds compared to doubts and obstacles in our life are very important. They are the medium through which we realize our true potential and appreciate the growth we achieve.

That is how life should be. We should be able to dance with the obstacles of life, still inspire people and keep evolving to be what we want to be.

I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. Let me know your experience and perspective about the subject in the comments section. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.

A discussion with my 12-year son, while driving back from his school, about food, play, and learning turned a little philosophical. 🙂 This blog is inspired by that conversation.

You are not your mind. You may have heard yourself saying, my mind…my brain… Similarly, we also say my body…This implies that my mind and body are mine. Then the question arises who am I? Honestly, I’m yet to find out.

Nevertheless, one concept is straightforward: You own your mind, not the other way around. This implies that our mind should be in our control and do what we want it to do. But don’t you think we are somehow always finding ourselves doing or at least thinking that our mind drives us? I have felt this way almost always…until I realized there is a way out of it.

Many brilliant brains from different walks of life have put being conscious to own our mind as a fundamental to living a joyful and successful life by reaching our true potential. However, not many people realize the true potential of becoming conscious and taking control of their minds.

The key to owning your mind is to do what is right and needed to be done — conscious choices not compulsive. Most of our everyday behavior is a reaction, not a response to life situations. Most of our decisions and what we do is compulsive, not conscious. For example, we talked about my son’s compulsive nature to order more than he can eat at a restaurant that serves good seafood even when he knows that it would be difficult to finish the entire plate. Similarly, did it ever happen to you that you went to buy a piece of apparel and because there was a good discount on the next purchase, you bought the second one as well, even though you did not need it? It happens to all of us. Our mind wants us to walk the least difficult path.

We need to become conscious of what we need and what is right for us and then challenge the mind to do the right things. Our mind will always trigger us to follow the easy way out but consciously challenging it repeatedly will condition it for a NEWER YOU.

The key to training the mind is to set challenging yet realizable goals. For example, my son and I talked about his need to start practicing running to become fit. Like many other kids, he doesn’t like it at all. My advice, start with a minute and challenge yourself to do an extra five seconds. The mind will somehow want you to break down at one minute mark but those five seconds and an increase every time you increase the time will train the brain that he is not going to give up and demand more, so better get in sync and adapt to his new conscious self.

Another very important faculty of being human is creativity. All of what we have achieved as the human tribe is because of creative imagination and desire for the growth of oneself and humanity. We have heard that need is the basis of the invention. But look around you, do we need all the things being created now?

Human creativity and the power of imagination have helped us stretch the boundaries of our yearning — made possible by a positive and elevated mindset. We once thought of traveling from one place to another. The cartwheel was a huge invention and probably helped humanity leapfrog into a new era of mobility. We did not stop there. Now we wanted to move fast. We then decided to fly and now our desire to make space our second home. I do not doubt our capabilities and I’m sure that it will soon become common to travel to space.

This is the power of synergy created by a conscious, creative, and growth mindset. When this mindset combines with a planned action, it stretches human possibilities beyond imagination and not only prepares us for difficult life situations but has the potential to favorably change them.

It is never too late. Are you ready to take the first step in your journey of evolution?