Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your
Joanne Lockwood: sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into
Joanne Lockwood: the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal
Joanne Lockwood: transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create
Joanne Lockwood: a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives?
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Joanne Lockwood: unseen, challenge the status quo, and share
Joanne Lockwood: stories that resonate deep within. We're just
Joanne Lockwood: diving. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding
Joanne Lockwood: down after a long day, let's connect, reflect,
Joanne Lockwood: and inspire action together. Don't forget,
Joanne Lockwood: you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 125
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Inner Peace, Outer Progress.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome doctor
Joanne Lockwood: Manoj Krishna. Manoj started the human wisdom
Joanne Lockwood: project and created the HappierME personal development
Joanne Lockwood: app to help reduce suffering,
Joanne Lockwood: help each person lead a happier and more successful life.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Manoj to describe his superpower, he said, he used to be
Joanne Lockwood: a spine surgeon, but less surgery to start this
Joanne Lockwood: project to create a better future for humanity.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. What an ambition. Hello, Manoj. Welcome to the show.
Manoj Krishna: Hi, Jo. Thank you so much for having me.
Joanne Lockwood: Absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. So Manoj,
Joanne Lockwood: inner peace, outer progress, I'd love to hear more about some
Joanne Lockwood: of your your life, your history, and your passion. So, you
Manoj Krishna: know, I was driving home from work one day after
Manoj Krishna: surgery, 10 hour surgery, you know, all
Manoj Krishna: day, and a hospital in the Middle East got bombed,
Manoj Krishna: but it was a children's hospital. It was about 10 years ago,
Manoj Krishna: and the kids were screaming on the radio, and I felt we
Manoj Krishna: humans I was really moved by that and I felt we humans need to
Manoj Krishna: do better. We can do better,
Manoj Krishna: and we have the wisdom in the world to do better.
Manoj Krishna: It's just not spread enough. Do you know what I mean? It's
Manoj Krishna: just not it's not part of education. It's not part of our
Manoj Krishna: lives. And the understanding that could end
Manoj Krishna: conflict and war is so simple that children as young as
Manoj Krishna: 10 get it straight away. But why don't adults have
Manoj Krishna: carry this with them? And so I transitioned out of medicine. I
Manoj Krishna: felt called, you know, to do something about it. You
Manoj Krishna: know, you keep thinking some politician or some clever person is going to step
Manoj Krishna: up and do all this, and then you realize they're they
Manoj Krishna: aren't, and it's up to you. And you think, who am I? And then
Manoj Krishna: you realize you have the ultimate power because you're
Manoj Krishna: an ordinary human being. And the biggest
Manoj Krishna: change in the world, Margaret Mead said,
Manoj Krishna: that never doubt paraphrasing, of course, that a
Manoj Krishna: small group of committed individuals can change the world.
Manoj Krishna: In fact, it's the only thing that ever has.
Manoj Krishna: And so I just started and I've
Manoj Krishna: always been one to start walking and
Manoj Krishna: with not knowing what's going to happen next. So I left
Manoj Krishna: medicine, I started working in schools talking to teachers about
Manoj Krishna: stress and anxiety, And one day the head teacher said, hey, come and
Manoj Krishna: talk to these kids. I said, but I don't know how to talk to children.
Manoj Krishna: I know what to say to them. He said, no. No. Come along with, you
Manoj Krishna: know so I sat down with them and I said, will you look after me?
Manoj Krishna: It's my first time talking to kids. I'm a little bit nervous. They said, oh,
Manoj Krishna: yes. Yes. Of course. There are only 7 or 8, you know. But I discovered
Manoj Krishna: something amazing, which is we're missing
Manoj Krishna: a trick in education because we think
Manoj Krishna: education is about stuffing their heads with what we know,
Manoj Krishna: and we think we're doing them a favor by doing that. But the root
Manoj Krishna: word of education, adusory, is to draw out.
Manoj Krishna: You see? And what we really need to do in education is
Manoj Krishna: draw out their innate intelligence or
Manoj Krishna: wisdom, whatever word you want to call it. And
Manoj Krishna: every child, in fact, every adult has this
Manoj Krishna: innate intelligence or wisdom inside them, which can be
Manoj Krishna: completely life changing. So when you sit down with kids
Manoj Krishna: as an equal and say, I might have gray hair, but we're
Manoj Krishna: the same human being, you and I. Can we explore this subject
Manoj Krishna: together, whatever it might be? And they say, oh, yeah. And they're fearless as you
Manoj Krishna: know, and they're open and beautiful. And I
Manoj Krishna: thought, oh my god. If we can bottle up their
Manoj Krishna: wisdom and share it with the world, we
Manoj Krishna: really could not only help each child
Manoj Krishna: flourish, but change the future of humanity. They have an answer to
Manoj Krishna: war, to climate change, to all the conflicts
Manoj Krishna: in the world, to relationship conflict, to stress and anxiety.
Manoj Krishna: They have solutions which are so simple, but adults have forgotten
Manoj Krishna: that. So that's been my passion. So I started out on that journey
Manoj Krishna: and then came COVID, had spoken in 50 schools and
Manoj Krishna: colleges and universities by then.
Manoj Krishna: And you see it's the question that has the power
Manoj Krishna: to open the door to wisdom. And
Manoj Krishna: I then discovered that my goodness, if we could take this to the
Manoj Krishna: world that's why I created the human wisdom project,
Manoj Krishna: and then I built this app called happier me. And
Manoj Krishna: all it does is ask you questions and helps
Manoj Krishna: you unlock your own inner intelligence.
Manoj Krishna: So I said recently it's like walking into
Manoj Krishna: a room and putting the light on, except the light goes on in your
Manoj Krishna: own mind. So you can see clearly, you can make better
Manoj Krishna: decisions, you can live without
Manoj Krishna: conflict and with meaningful deep relationships.
Manoj Krishna: You can manage your own emotions, manage your own mental
Manoj Krishna: health, live in peace with yourself and others, and you
Manoj Krishna: can contribute to making the world a more peaceful and
Manoj Krishna: more beautiful place. See our time on earth is so
Manoj Krishna: limited, it goes by a flash. But if you
Manoj Krishna: live with this deeper understanding of yourself, which doesn't
Manoj Krishna: come from a book by the way or some religion, but it just
Manoj Krishna: comes from looking and learning about your own mind. And if you can do
Manoj Krishna: that and it's so simple, you can make the most of
Manoj Krishna: your limited time on it. Wow. That is
Joanne Lockwood: so powerful. So powerful to sit here and listen to you speak there.
Joanne Lockwood: I know my mind is is absorbing it. I I feel
Joanne Lockwood: kind of drawn into the word you're using and
Joanne Lockwood: that Margaret Mead paraphrase quote around the small group of
Joanne Lockwood: committed individuals can change the world,
Joanne Lockwood: it made me reflect on again, I'll paraphrase
Joanne Lockwood: this. I don't know who the original quote was. If you we always worry about
Joanne Lockwood: time travel, being able to go back in time. And if we if we make
Joanne Lockwood: a little change, we could ruin the future, and we could change
Joanne Lockwood: irrevocably what happened.
Joanne Lockwood: But we can make that change ourselves in the present tense Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: And have a a a a a lasting effect on the
Joanne Lockwood: future that will occur, yet to occur. But we're we're scared to
Joanne Lockwood: time travel back and make a little change, and we're scared to make the change
Joanne Lockwood: today. That's a little change. And I I always reflect on
Joanne Lockwood: a a video, I think it's Accenture produced one, called Inclusion Starts
Joanne Lockwood: With the I, and I was the punchline for me is always be the
Joanne Lockwood: one. I can't change the world. I can't change
Joanne Lockwood: everything, but I can change me. I could change how I show up.
Joanne Lockwood: I could change how I take responsibility. And if I
Joanne Lockwood: can exemplify that to others, maybe they
Joanne Lockwood: will take inspiration from that change as well. So I think that really
Joanne Lockwood: that Margaret Mead was very insightful, and I think it's the root cause that
Joanne Lockwood: we can always push it off to somebody else, but we have to take personal
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility. And you know you talk to anyone about war,
Manoj Krishna: climate change, and say, oh, somebody else is gonna fix have to fix that. It's
Manoj Krishna: beyond my pay grade. But what I hope to bring up
Manoj Krishna: and show in this conversation is
Manoj Krishna: that each of us can be this light. Find our own
Manoj Krishna: light, and then we can be beacons to shine in the world.
Manoj Krishna: And this process is simple. And each person
Manoj Krishna: can do it and it can transform
Manoj Krishna: our life and the world. You see, the other thing
Manoj Krishna: people get frightened of is change. If I do this, then how
Manoj Krishna: will my life change? And the beauty of this approach is all you're doing is
Manoj Krishna: looking and learning about your your your own mind and your own so you're just
Manoj Krishna: watching and learning. And the change happens effortlessly,
Manoj Krishna: You see, without conflict, without any
Manoj Krishna: kind of resistance, it just flows. Your relationships become
Manoj Krishna: happier, you become happier. And the scale of
Manoj Krishna: the problems, Jo, that we can address with this.
Manoj Krishna: I mean, just imagine if there was just one answer or one solution
Manoj Krishna: that could help prevent the 80% of people
Manoj Krishna: who are stressed, for example, avoid stress, or the 40 to
Manoj Krishna: 60% who are anxious, or the
Manoj Krishna: 80% of relationships that are in conflict and 50%
Manoj Krishna: breakdown, you know, or the 1 in 6 people who go
Manoj Krishna: and fall into addiction, substance abuse of some kind.
Manoj Krishna: Oh, listen to this one, 17% of
Manoj Krishna: young people are self harming, Look at the amount of distress behind
Manoj Krishna: that. And then I came across one yesterday
Manoj Krishna: because we've got an event coming up on preventing suicide on the 29th
Manoj Krishna: May, and it's a free event. But
Manoj Krishna: 1,700,000 Americans in 2021
Manoj Krishna: tried to take their own. So the extent of suffering in the
Manoj Krishna: world is off the scale. And this
Manoj Krishna: deeper understanding of ourselves and how our minds work
Manoj Krishna: can help us take charge of our thinking,
Manoj Krishna: how we feel, how we behave, and it's an answer
Manoj Krishna: to our own self. That's the beauty of it. As a as a species, we've
Joanne Lockwood: been around, not not obviously since the beginning of time, but, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: a 100000 years, I guess, in, you know, in some shape or form.
Joanne Lockwood: Why haven't we solved this problem here? You know, you whatever you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: sounds so fundamentally straightforward. What what really is
Joanne Lockwood: why why is change such a barrier to people? What's the psychological
Joanne Lockwood: barrier to change that we're we're fighting back against? Well, everything
Manoj Krishna: begins with the human mind, which is very capable,
Manoj Krishna: but not wired to be intelligent. There's a difference. And we
Manoj Krishna: are never taught from day 1 how to understand
Manoj Krishna: our own mind. We're always taught about the world around us but not ourselves.
Manoj Krishna: For example, we're all conditioned by our past
Manoj Krishna: experiences and it shapes our opinions,
Manoj Krishna: our beliefs, our habits, everything. What we wear, dress,
Manoj Krishna: eat, what we think about other people. So I was
Manoj Krishna: like talking at Newcastle University once and I asked a lecturer, I
Manoj Krishna: said, where do your opinions come from and why are you
Manoj Krishna: so attached to them? And he said, Manuj, I've been in
Manoj Krishna: education 30 years, nobody's ever asked me that question.
Manoj Krishna: So we are not asking the right questions.
Manoj Krishna: You see? So shall I share a little story about how we could
Manoj Krishna: end war? Okay. And then I'll bring you little kids I'd love to hear it.
Joanne Lockwood: Alright. I'd love to hear it. Yeah. I'd love to hear it. It's so simple,
Manoj Krishna: but and of course, if you ask kids they get it in 1.
Manoj Krishna: I'll tell you 2 stories, and they're both true.
Manoj Krishna: So if say you're a Russian and I'm Ukrainian, we're
Manoj Krishna: about to kill each other. We're on a war zone or could be Palestinian,
Manoj Krishna: Israeli, or Indian and Pakistan, doesn't matter where we are.
Manoj Krishna: Shia, Sunni, and we just stop and ask
Manoj Krishna: one question. Why? Why are you and I about to
Manoj Krishna: kill each other? I've not done anything to you, Jo, and you've done
Manoj Krishna: nothing to me, but yet you and I are about to kill each
Manoj Krishna: other. Why is that? And we know that if we kill
Manoj Krishna: each other, we go back home and we'll get a medal. But if we were
Manoj Krishna: on the same side of the line and we killed each other, we'd go to
Manoj Krishna: jail. It's just you see what I mean? How human beings are capable but not
Manoj Krishna: intelligent. Right? And the more people I kill on that side of the
Manoj Krishna: line, the bigger my medal. But on this side of the line, I'll be called
Manoj Krishna: a mass murderer, go to jail, people will remember me,
Manoj Krishna: or, you know, and so on. The sea, it's the same thing but you're taking
Manoj Krishna: a human life anyway. So we stop and ask why?
Manoj Krishna: Why are we killing each other? And then we realize, because you're Russian and
Manoj Krishna: I'm Ukrainian. Okay. Why are you Russian?
Manoj Krishna: Why am I Ukrainian? Oh, because we grew up in Russia and Ukraine.
Manoj Krishna: Okay. Is that enough to make us kill each other?
Manoj Krishna: Oh, no. No. You see, the same unconscious
Manoj Krishna: process of conditioning, which is our influence,
Manoj Krishna: have shaped your identity and have shaped
Manoj Krishna: without our own awareness. See? And yet we've become
Manoj Krishna: attached to that identity, you know. And then as soon as you become
Manoj Krishna: attached to an identity, somebody else can
Manoj Krishna: manipulate your thinking. Whether it's a religious identity, a political one,
Manoj Krishna: doesn't matter what it is. Nationalistic one, but you know, like
Manoj Krishna: you're democrat, republican, whatever, doesn't matter. The moment you and I
Manoj Krishna: see the deep down where the same human being, your heart works in
Manoj Krishna: the same way as mine, we'll say this is doesn't make any sense. Why
Manoj Krishna: would we do that? And we would just put our guns down. Well, whatever, if
Manoj Krishna: we have some differences we'll talk about. So when I put this question to kids,
Manoj Krishna: 10 year old, and I've got this recorded on video, I said, how are we
Manoj Krishna: gonna end war? And they said, we need to realize we have the same ice
Manoj Krishna: cream, just different flavors. Chocolate ice cream would
Manoj Krishna: never go to war with vanilla ice cream just because it was different. See? But
Manoj Krishna: we humans do because we don't see that we're the same
Manoj Krishna: human being deep down. And if we saw that really clearly, we wouldn't
Manoj Krishna: kill each other. You know, in the last century, we
Manoj Krishna: humans killed 200,000,000 of our own. No
Manoj Krishna: other species on the world does that. And we think we're intelligent.
Manoj Krishna: See? So real intelligence comes from
Manoj Krishna: understanding our own mind and how it's functioning without our
Manoj Krishna: own awareness. And this is just one example. Does does something come down
Joanne Lockwood: to the cognitive dissonance or detachment
Joanne Lockwood: of actions, consequences, impact? If
Joanne Lockwood: I if I'm killing you, I don't kill you
Joanne Lockwood: as a human being. I kill you as a
Joanne Lockwood: a stereotype, as a as a a demon or a beast
Joanne Lockwood: or because the motivation we have is to
Joanne Lockwood: protect what I have and to defend it against somebody who wants
Joanne Lockwood: to take what I have. You know, you talked about identity. So
Joanne Lockwood: the motivation is the key is the is the understanding what
Joanne Lockwood: motivates me to want to do that. What am I trying to protect
Joanne Lockwood: that I feel a value that I think you want to take from me?
Joanne Lockwood: That's the kind of fundamental, isn't it? Is that is that is that what you're
Joanne Lockwood: trying to say? Yes. But it also comes down to understanding
Manoj Krishna: identity. Because if you and I are brothers for
Manoj Krishna: example, we might fight over the spoils, but we probably wouldn't
Manoj Krishna: kill each other, you know, over that. But if you and I have a
Manoj Krishna: different identity which we're attached to, then we lose
Manoj Krishna: control of our own thinking. See? I
Manoj Krishna: mean, take Yugoslavia when it broke up, you know, the
Manoj Krishna: Serbs and Croats and Muslims and Christians live next door to each
Manoj Krishna: other for decades and then suddenly
Manoj Krishna: they turned and started killing each other. Same happened in the partition of India
Manoj Krishna: in 1947, Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other. So
Manoj Krishna: identity can provide comfort,
Manoj Krishna: security. I'll give you an example. So again, 10 year
Manoj Krishna: old chap, I said you walk into a class
Manoj Krishna: and they're it's got black children and white children and you're a
Manoj Krishna: white boy. Where are you gonna sit? He said, I'm gonna sit with the
Manoj Krishna: white boys, white children. I said, why? He said, I feel safer.
Manoj Krishna: And I said, what else? I said he said, I think they'll understand me better,
Manoj Krishna: and I think they'll listen to me, you know, and so on. And I said,
Manoj Krishna: will you talk to the kids on the other side of the class who are
Manoj Krishna: a different skin color to you? He said, no. No. I won't talk to them
Manoj Krishna: because I'll think they're a bit strange. I said, what happens in 3 months? He
Manoj Krishna: said, oh, well, we'll start having arguments because we're not
Manoj Krishna: talking to each other, we won't understand. I said, what happens if you're a country?
Manoj Krishna: He said, we'll go to war. 10 year olds. And I said, what's the answer?
Manoj Krishna: He said, we have to mix with people who are different. And how
Manoj Krishna: often do we do that you see? You know we all want to be with
Manoj Krishna: people like us, But if we want peace in the world,
Manoj Krishna: we have to reach out and connect
Manoj Krishna: with others who are different. And it's just common sense. See?
Joanne Lockwood: It's that sounds fundamentally lazy.
Joanne Lockwood: It because affinity bias and people like us, people
Joanne Lockwood: like me, it's easier, as you say, to have a conversation, to
Joanne Lockwood: relate to each other. If we're trying to interact with people
Joanne Lockwood: who have a different lived experience, a different perspective, a different
Joanne Lockwood: identity, it takes more cognitive processing
Joanne Lockwood: to have conversations and to understand the other person's viewpoint.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. So it it does it come down to laziness and
Joanne Lockwood: and our innate sense of just
Joanne Lockwood: keeping the status quo. That's that's the challenge here. I I don't I don't want
Joanne Lockwood: to invest time in finding out about you because I also don't think you want
Joanne Lockwood: to invest time finding about me. Therefore, I just talk to my my my like
Joanne Lockwood: minded people. Is that is that what's going on? Well, we're not curious
Manoj Krishna: anymore, you see, Jo. We are as children,
Manoj Krishna: but our education system does 2 things. It kills
Manoj Krishna: our love for learning, and it kills our curiosity.
Manoj Krishna: So when you're a child, you're really curious about everything. You're
Manoj Krishna: curious about other people you meet and you want to know.
Manoj Krishna: But as adults, that suddenly been gradually taken out of us. So
Manoj Krishna: when I meet someone who's different, I meet that person
Manoj Krishna: with fear, lack of interest. But actually, if you
Manoj Krishna: think about it, if I'm curious, there's so much I can learn from
Manoj Krishna: you, you know, your everything that you're
Manoj Krishna: different about is an opportunity for me to learn to enrich my life with that.
Manoj Krishna: You know, the books you read, the poetry, the food you eat, or whatever it
Manoj Krishna: is you're thinking, we've lost that curiosity.
Manoj Krishna: So our mind is wired in a
Manoj Krishna: particular way and this the way it's wired right
Manoj Krishna: now is creating all these problems. So every problem
Manoj Krishna: we humans face for which there's no easy answer begins
Manoj Krishna: in our thinking and all the problems we talked about earlier. So
Manoj Krishna: simply logical that if we had a better understanding of this mind of
Manoj Krishna: ours, we could avoid those problems
Manoj Krishna: and overcome them much more easily. And
Manoj Krishna: because there's so many of them, I mean for example, we could talk about
Manoj Krishna: addiction if you like. You know, addiction is a problem of thinking.
Manoj Krishna: It's not a problem linked to alcohol or drugs. Obesity is a
Manoj Krishna: problem of thinking. It's not linked to food
Manoj Krishna: because we know what we need to do, but we find difficult to self
Manoj Krishna: regulate our emotions and therefore our
Manoj Krishna: habits around food, drink, all that stuff. So
Manoj Krishna: this if you begin this journey of just looking and
Manoj Krishna: learning about your own, it awakens your own inner
Manoj Krishna: intelligence. And you don't need to be educated for that, by the way.
Manoj Krishna: In fact, the more educated you are, the the more
Manoj Krishna: clever arguments you have why, you know, you're okay as you are and
Manoj Krishna: you're not interested in learning. But I believe if we could bring this to
Manoj Krishna: every child and adult in the world, we could help them
Manoj Krishna: flourish and live in peace. After all,
Manoj Krishna: happiness is peace, you see. If you ask anybody, what do you want from your
Manoj Krishna: life? They say I wanna be happy. And happiness is
Manoj Krishna: really at the core of it is living with peace. Because all our
Manoj Krishna: pleasures as you know fade, you know, you have a new car, next week it's
Manoj Krishna: an old car. You go on holiday as soon as you come back it's finished
Manoj Krishna: and so on. But peace is the thing that each human being
Manoj Krishna: wants, and no matter how much wealth and power and fame you
Manoj Krishna: accumulate, peace is the one thing that's missing in
Manoj Krishna: most human hearts. And this understanding of
Manoj Krishna: ourselves can bring us that elusive peace
Manoj Krishna: that we chase all our lives. And if I live in peace
Manoj Krishna: with myself, then I can live in peace with you. And then we can have
Manoj Krishna: peace in the world. You used the word elusive there, in search
Joanne Lockwood: of peace. It's it's the it's the challenge
Joanne Lockwood: we have. It's we don't we're not able
Joanne Lockwood: to set a bound or
Joanne Lockwood: a definition of what happiness and peace means to us.
Joanne Lockwood: So I found more joy by
Joanne Lockwood: thinking about sufficiency, whereas in my life where
Joanne Lockwood: I was looking for acquisition, for growth, for
Joanne Lockwood: more, for bigger, for faster, and newer,
Joanne Lockwood: that was like like a drug that I chased, and and
Joanne Lockwood: you could never be satisfied because it's always one more. And it's like
Joanne Lockwood: dreaming about winning the lottery. You think, well, if I won £10,000,000,
Joanne Lockwood: is that really enough? I really need 20,000,000 to have
Joanne Lockwood: every the life I want. So we we always tend to want this
Joanne Lockwood: plus 1, plus a 100, plus a1000000. And he's
Joanne Lockwood: trying to rein that back to to move that
Joanne Lockwood: elusiveness of happiness to one of sufficiency
Joanne Lockwood: and satisfaction with what we have now
Joanne Lockwood: or realistically can achieve without wanting more. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think yeah. Listen to what you're talking about there. It's the conflicts.
Joanne Lockwood: It's often about acquisition of more. I want your territory. I
Joanne Lockwood: want you to do what I want. And if if if I
Joanne Lockwood: was sufficient in my mind thinking, I'm happy for you to be
Joanne Lockwood: you and be who you are. I don't need you to be me
Joanne Lockwood: or I to be you. Yeah. And I think is that that that that's the
Joanne Lockwood: thing we're chasing is gluttony for one of a better way of describing
Joanne Lockwood: it. But you see the way our mind is wired is automatically
Manoj Krishna: driving us in that direction. So without understanding this
Manoj Krishna: hidden driver in our mind that's pushing us in that direction.
Manoj Krishna: You can try and stop it. You somebody might listen to me or you and
Manoj Krishna: say, no. No. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and be content
Manoj Krishna: with what I have. It doesn't work because the inner
Manoj Krishna: driver is so powerful, it's gonna keep on pushing you.
Manoj Krishna: So let's take a moment to explore that. What is it in
Manoj Krishna: us that drives us to accumulate more and
Manoj Krishna: more and more and never be satisfied.
Manoj Krishna: See? And maybe it's in
Manoj Krishna: us all is this deeper emptiness. Call it
Manoj Krishna: inner boredom, call it the void. And the more we get stimulated
Manoj Krishna: from the outside, the more we can cover it up, you know, call it
Manoj Krishna: loneliness. So but the nature of pleasure is
Manoj Krishna: such that I get a new car, it's an old car, new shirt, it's an
Manoj Krishna: old shirt, so I need a new one, you see. So I'm constantly
Manoj Krishna: chasing something on the outside to make me feel
Manoj Krishna: good on the inside. But if we pause and ask,
Manoj Krishna: why don't I feel good on the inside? What's going on? Because
Manoj Krishna: if I could answer that question and find the peace
Manoj Krishna: within me, right, then I don't need to
Manoj Krishna: chase all this stuff on the outside. Then I'll get what I need, you
Manoj Krishna: know, I don't whatever it is I need and
Manoj Krishna: the answer to that is first to wake up and
Manoj Krishna: realize this inner emptiness that we all have as human beings.
Manoj Krishna: We cover it up very cleverly, you know, through all our
Manoj Krishna: acquisitions and relationships and power and all of that. But the
Manoj Krishna: emptiness does never goes away. So the answer
Manoj Krishna: is to lean into it, is to stay with it and then it
Manoj Krishna: transforms to peace. But we are scared of doing
Manoj Krishna: so shall I tell you a story with children?
Manoj Krishna: Again, I love children and they're intelligent. So I'm talking to
Manoj Krishna: these kids and I said, okay. What do you what makes you happy?
Manoj Krishna: And they said, Christmas presents, holidays,
Manoj Krishna: ice cream. So I said, how long does a pleasure last? I said, not
Manoj Krishna: long. Soon as you open the Christmas present. And I said, how do you
Manoj Krishna: feel after the pleasure ends? And then a little bit of a
Manoj Krishna: pause, and then they say, I feel bored,
Manoj Krishna: empty, and restless. I said, what do you need to do
Manoj Krishna: next? Oh, I need something more. So another present, you know,
Manoj Krishna: more ice cream. But I said, how is it gonna be different this
Manoj Krishna: time or it's gotta be bigger and better?
Manoj Krishna: So I said, what impact is this having on your lives? And this is in
Manoj Krishna: the northeast, a very deprived area and the kids say well there's no food
Manoj Krishna: to eat sometimes because we've spent all the money
Manoj Krishna: on things, you know, presents and whatever,
Manoj Krishna: pub and all that. I said, okay. What else is can I do?
Manoj Krishna: He says it can cause pollution and 10 year olds have heard global
Manoj Krishna: warming, so they kind of say, okay. It can lead to global warming because all
Manoj Krishna: this pollution and consumption. So I said, what's the answer to
Manoj Krishna: global warming? And this little girl said, well, we have to find sources of
Manoj Krishna: pleasure that don't involve buying things. Right? I said,
Manoj Krishna: like, what? She said, like, going for a walk with your friends,
Manoj Krishna: playing with your friends, going for a walk in the woods. I said, what else
Manoj Krishna: can we do? So then there's a long silence, and this girl at the
Manoj Krishna: back said, if we could find an answer to our inner boredom,
Manoj Krishna: then we wouldn't need to consume so much. We wouldn't need to buy
Manoj Krishna: so much. Right? Because that's what's pushing us to buy all this stuff. So I
Manoj Krishna: said, what's the answer to the to your boredom? And she told me this. Well,
Manoj Krishna: I said to you right at the beginning, if I stay with it,
Manoj Krishna: it goes away. It's just so moving and profound, the intelligence
Manoj Krishna: of children. And when you talk to adults about climate change,
Manoj Krishna: they think it's going to be solved by electric cars or whatever, but it's not.
Manoj Krishna: It's going to be solved by us connecting
Manoj Krishna: with our own inner intelligence, waking up to realize there's
Manoj Krishna: enough in the world for everyone and this more and more that
Manoj Krishna: we're chasing as you as you said right at the beginning,
Manoj Krishna: isn't making us any happier. It's not serving us. Do you know what I
Manoj Krishna: mean? Absolutely not serving us.
Manoj Krishna: I mean, I know people who go on 8 holidays a year. It's because
Manoj Krishna: they're just not at peace with themselves, you see. Or they come
Manoj Krishna: back from one cruise and 2 days later they're off on another one,
Manoj Krishna: and so on. So the purpose of life becomes to accumulate more
Manoj Krishna: and more money so you can buy more and more pleasure. And in
Manoj Krishna: the process, we wear ourselves out and become miserable. And of
Manoj Krishna: course, all the mental health statistics are there to show what's
Manoj Krishna: happening, you know, in our lives. It's the boom and bust. It is
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, we're we're working, working, working to
Joanne Lockwood: accumulate. Then we we we offload our
Joanne Lockwood: accumulation onto holiday, so we end up with this peak and trough
Joanne Lockwood: of the brain chemicals. So we're rushing with stress, then we're de stressing,
Joanne Lockwood: having a holiday, get back. We think, oh, we need to rush, rush, rush and
Joanne Lockwood: restress to follow the next holiday. And so, yeah, we're doing this cycle.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's a bit like taking sugar in your tea, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: where you don't necessarily want the the drink for the fluid.
Joanne Lockwood: You want the drink for the sugar. So you're you're craving the sweetness.
Joanne Lockwood: And you you stop taking sugar in tea and coffee, you
Joanne Lockwood: drink it for the drink, not not for the sugar rush. And I and I
Joanne Lockwood: and I I've stopped drinking alcohol now. I haven't drunk alcohol for 800
Joanne Lockwood: 60 something days, and I've I find that has changed my whole outlook
Joanne Lockwood: on what I do for for for pleasure. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not trying to feed the alcohol monster anymore. I'm not trying to look for
Joanne Lockwood: that for the alcohol to fuel my good
Joanne Lockwood: time. I go and have a good time in in doing other things. You you
Joanne Lockwood: said that let's go for a walk around the lake. Let's go and sit in
Joanne Lockwood: the sun. Let's do let's do something that I don't need to spend money
Joanne Lockwood: on. I bought a 7 I bought a 17 year old
Joanne Lockwood: car because I got off of the the wagon of saying I had to
Joanne Lockwood: have the newest model on 3 year loans and then turn it
Joanne Lockwood: over and get another 3 year car, another 3 year car. I bought a 17
Joanne Lockwood: year old car that's now 22 years old, and I don't think I ever need
Joanne Lockwood: to replace it until I do. It'll be fine. And then one day, I'll buy
Joanne Lockwood: another 17 year old car that I'll keep for another 5 years, wanted it
Joanne Lockwood: it doesn't work anymore. If you're not, that's a different thing. In your own
Manoj Krishna: mind, Jo, and you're easily conditioned by the world
Manoj Krishna: around you, then before you know it, you would have bought the new
Manoj Krishna: car on a 3 year lease. By the way, we're not saying
Manoj Krishna: holidays buying things is wrong. We're just saying at the
Manoj Krishna: moment, it's happening without your own intelligence operate.
Manoj Krishna: And all we're saying is when you wake up and your
Manoj Krishna: intelligence is operating, then you will make the right choices for
Manoj Krishna: you that serve you. We're not trying to
Manoj Krishna: dictate what people should and shouldn't do. We're just saying wake up and
Manoj Krishna: connect with your own inner light intelligence, whatever word you wanna
Manoj Krishna: use. But that's play play into the scarcity mindset, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: Where if you believe a resource is scared, you'll try and hold
Joanne Lockwood: it, because you wanna make sure you've got that resource if it
Joanne Lockwood: ever becomes, you know, unavailable. And other people you know, we saw in
Joanne Lockwood: COVID toilet rolls, rice, bread, flour. People
Joanne Lockwood: were holding stuff for this scarcity mindset. They had to have it, then
Joanne Lockwood: nobody else could have it. And I guess that's the basis of war, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: You know, we can we just had to speak about shooting and killing each other
Joanne Lockwood: because people are worried that they're gonna take something of theirs. People
Joanne Lockwood: those those very primeval instincts were coming out in
Joanne Lockwood: COVID around, I want, I want, I have to accumulate. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't need 10,000 toilet rolls, but I've got them just in case. Yes. And
Manoj Krishna: you're driven to do that without even being able to stop yourself, you
Manoj Krishna: see. And the reason is that we don't understand the
Manoj Krishna: nature of fear. See, there are 2 drivers for human beings. Pleasure,
Manoj Krishna: we've talked about, but the other big one is fear because
Manoj Krishna: and fear is really interesting to understand.
Manoj Krishna: And when I talk to the kids, the explanation I offer them which they
Manoj Krishna: really love is like you're sitting in a cinema theater and you're watching a
Manoj Krishna: movie and on the screen are all these scary images and you believe
Manoj Krishna: them to be true and you get frightened and that fear then
Manoj Krishna: changes your thinking and your behavior. You don't see
Manoj Krishna: the projector is your own mind. See,
Manoj Krishna: it's projecting all these images onto the screen which you
Manoj Krishna: believe to be true. So in a scary movie, if you wake up and realize,
Manoj Krishna: this is just a scary it's a movie. It's fine. Your fear goes away.
Manoj Krishna: But we don't have that illusion continues in our in
Manoj Krishna: our own life. So once you understand that your mind exaggerates
Manoj Krishna: the fears of the future and it catastrophizes. In a way to try
Manoj Krishna: and protect you, but quite often it doesn't serve you. And
Manoj Krishna: then of course fear turns to anxiety and we did a survey recently,
Manoj Krishna: 60% of people said I've got moderate to severe anxiety,
Manoj Krishna: and you can imagine how crippling that is. So once you
Manoj Krishna: wake up and realize your anxiety is not caused by your lack of
Manoj Krishna: money or your worry about your health or your kids or
Manoj Krishna: whatever, It's caused by your own mind creating
Manoj Krishna: your own suffering. So the work you need to do is on the inside. And
Manoj Krishna: as soon as you wake up and realize that, then you
Manoj Krishna: begin your own journey of learning and you're free. You know, or it's a bit
Manoj Krishna: like you wake up from a scary dream,
Manoj Krishna: And in the dream you're really frightened, you're in a sweat, but as
Manoj Krishna: soon as you wake up and realize, oh, that's just a dream, your fear vanishes.
Manoj Krishna: Similarly, when you wake up and realize your fear and
Manoj Krishna: anxiety has been created by your thinking and it may
Manoj Krishna: not be real, but it's shaping your life in ways that doesn't serve
Manoj Krishna: you. See? Then you're free. So I
Manoj Krishna: gave this talk once and I said, okay, from
Manoj Krishna: tomorrow we're all going to stop eating because this half
Manoj Krishna: of the room is frightened of being attacked by that half of the
Manoj Krishna: room. So we're gonna use that money and buy guns instead.
Manoj Krishna: They all started laughing. But I said that's what countries are doing. That's what
Manoj Krishna: we human beings are doing, you know. We spend, I don't know, $1,600,000,000,000
Manoj Krishna: on arms every year and a 1000000000 people go hungry every day and
Manoj Krishna: several in this country, and the richest countries in the world. So and it's all
Manoj Krishna: been And we have a major a major country in the world
Joanne Lockwood: advocating more guns makes you safer.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. If I if I if I have a gun, I'm more at risk. And
Joanne Lockwood: what I need to do is buy a bigger gun so I'm less at risk.
Joanne Lockwood: And I need to buy more guns, so I'm less at risk. And that that's
Joanne Lockwood: an inherent societal belief Yes. In
Joanne Lockwood: certain countries that we we can all think about. Yeah. Yeah. But it's all
Manoj Krishna: based on fear and conditioning. Yeah. What I mean is
Manoj Krishna: that there's a hidden mind operating in the background without our
Manoj Krishna: own awareness. We think we're in charge of our life, but actually we're
Manoj Krishna: not. This hidden mind of ours is running our life for
Manoj Krishna: us. And when we wake up and can see clearly
Manoj Krishna: what it's doing, putting the light on, shining a light inside,
Manoj Krishna: we can then be in charge of our own life and
Manoj Krishna: make more intelligent choices for
Manoj Krishna: ourselves. So we can live in peace with
Manoj Krishna: ourselves, with others, be happier, have relationships
Manoj Krishna: with meaning depth without conflict. Do you know
Manoj Krishna: 60% of people in the world feel alone, 30% of
Manoj Krishna: them are in relationships. And this is because
Manoj Krishna: we haven't learned the art of relationship, Or we
Manoj Krishna: think love is what you are making going to help me make me
Manoj Krishna: feel. Do you know what I mean? So if
Manoj Krishna: you make me feel good, I'll say I love you, but I'll do things for
Manoj Krishna: you. But the moment you stop making me feel good,
Manoj Krishna: Jo, I stopped loving you. I said I don't love you anymore.
Manoj Krishna: And I genuinely convinced my brain convinces me I'm loving you
Manoj Krishna: but actually I don't see. I'm just it's I'm just loving me.
Manoj Krishna: Do you see what I mean? So It's a codependency
Joanne Lockwood: thing, isn't it? Where we're trying to secure ourselves by by
Joanne Lockwood: the word love, creates a commitment and an
Joanne Lockwood: ownership maybe. And
Joanne Lockwood: I need you to make me feel good, sort of thing. So, therefore, I I
Joanne Lockwood: use those words back. I see what you're saying there. It's it's creating that codependency
Joanne Lockwood: and commitment. If people are doing that, I'm looking to you to
Manoj Krishna: get my needs met, you're looking to me. And if for by any
Manoj Krishna: chance we do do that, then of course we have a happy relationship.
Manoj Krishna: But if we're not aware of this process in the background,
Manoj Krishna: then you can easily see how conflict happened.
Manoj Krishna: And our loneliness comes not because we don't have people in our
Manoj Krishna: lives, but because we don't have depth of connection with them.
Manoj Krishna: So I spoke at this I was talking to these, kids in a
Manoj Krishna: university, I was talking about loneliness and this boy
Manoj Krishna: said, I don't know how to have a deeper
Manoj Krishna: relationship with anyone. I've never been taught. Nobody's ever ever
Manoj Krishna: told me how to do that. So this is what my passion is to bring
Manoj Krishna: this understanding of understanding our own mind into
Manoj Krishna: education. So we can have relationships with meaning, depth, you know,
Manoj Krishna: so our lives can be richer overall. Right? Because after
Manoj Krishna: all, our our relationships are the foundation
Manoj Krishna: of our own long term happiness. Right? You're talking away.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm I'm thinking about, you know, going back to the happiness side, the relationship
Joanne Lockwood: side, the human mind, the psyche. And I was I was just
Joanne Lockwood: my wife was wondering thinking around behaviors. And
Joanne Lockwood: I and I was thinking about flying aircraft,
Joanne Lockwood: scheduled flights as an indicator of human behavior
Joanne Lockwood: that that I'm simplifying this data to 2 types of
Joanne Lockwood: people. One type of person wants to get on the
Joanne Lockwood: aircraft as quick as possible to be first to
Joanne Lockwood: to fight the rest of the front of the queue. And there's the other sort
Joanne Lockwood: of person, which I put myself into the category of, I wanna be
Joanne Lockwood: last on that plane. I I I don't wanna inconvenience
Joanne Lockwood: everybody, but I wanna just literally walk up, walk on the plane, sit
Joanne Lockwood: down, strap myself in, and then we go. I wanna make
Joanne Lockwood: maximize that. And I also I'm one of the people that wants to be last
Joanne Lockwood: off the plane. I wanna if you wanna fight for it, you wanna stand up
Joanne Lockwood: and queue, you wanna get all upset around this and and be all
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable. That's fine. I'll just sit down, fold my
Joanne Lockwood: arms, go back to sleep, and wait for the plane to be empty and go,
Joanne Lockwood: right, unbuckle, stand up, grab case, walk off. The
Joanne Lockwood: keypad passport's gone. The the bags have already arrived at the on the carousel,
Joanne Lockwood: and I walked straight out. But you see some people get really,
Joanne Lockwood: really, I don't know, anxious,
Joanne Lockwood: aggressive, demanding, tense,
Joanne Lockwood: whatever it may be. And despite focusing
Joanne Lockwood: on the plane doesn't get there any quicker, whether you're at the front or the
Joanne Lockwood: back. It's it's a it's a I always probably book a seat
Joanne Lockwood: as far to the back as possible because I don't care. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: need to be past the melee of of people fighting
Joanne Lockwood: with each other. And it's it's just again, it's that
Joanne Lockwood: thinking about the mindset and what you're trying to achieve,
Joanne Lockwood: but people don't. They're so busier and you take your practice
Joanne Lockwood: conflict and killing each other. We're so busy, worried that someone's gonna
Joanne Lockwood: take something that's ours. And we don't we have to defend
Joanne Lockwood: ourselves all the time. So you see the
Manoj Krishna: door to intelligence opens with a simple question. Why am
Manoj Krishna: I thinking this way? Why am I feeling
Manoj Krishna: this? Why am I behaving in this way? For example, jumping
Manoj Krishna: on, you know, all the plain story you said, Russian. Does
Manoj Krishna: it matter? So asking ourselves the
Manoj Krishna: question is what helps us pause
Manoj Krishna: and then our intelligence can kick in. But if we
Manoj Krishna: have never been taught, Jo, to question our own thinking
Manoj Krishna: and our own behavior and what we feel.
Manoj Krishna: Because you see right now, our mind is wired to convince us that
Manoj Krishna: what we think is true, what we feel is true,
Manoj Krishna: what we see is true, you know. And we never
Manoj Krishna: we justify everything. If I'm smoking, I'll justify
Manoj Krishna: it. If I'm about to kill somebody, I'll just it doesn't matter what I'm doing.
Manoj Krishna: Even Hitler, you know, justified the killing of all the people he
Manoj Krishna: did and so on. So everybody justifies their
Manoj Krishna: own actions. That's how our mind is wired. Intelligence comes
Manoj Krishna: when you can pause and ask why. What am I
Manoj Krishna: doing? See? And then that opens the door to a
Manoj Krishna: deeper experience of life. And, you know, it's
Manoj Krishna: a really enriching experience. So right now,
Manoj Krishna: our minds are wired to look on the outside for
Manoj Krishna: things to make us feel good on the inside. But if you live with this
Manoj Krishna: inner intelligence or wisdom or whatever you want to call it, you're
Manoj Krishna: nourished from the inside. And as you say, then you can relax, sit on the
Manoj Krishna: back of the plane and wait for everyone to take off because you know it's
Manoj Krishna: a smart thing to do. Or you might
Manoj Krishna: learn you're both chasing money all the time, where you've gotta
Manoj Krishna: actually pause and enjoy your life because we spend every day working for
Manoj Krishna: tomorrow. Right? Or so many people do, you
Manoj Krishna: know. So we're we're we're enlightened. We're we're we're living in the
Joanne Lockwood: echo chamber of of kinda getting some of this stuff that you're
Joanne Lockwood: talking about. I I'm I'm not I'm you've got no resistance for me here at
Joanne Lockwood: all. I'm I'm with you on everything you're you're saying.
Joanne Lockwood: But we recognize that the facts don't change people. You know, we
Joanne Lockwood: we we can tell people to a blue in the face that doing this,
Joanne Lockwood: cause and effect, do this, that will happen. And people will ignore
Joanne Lockwood: that. They'll they'll they'll they'll risk take. They'll they'll drive too
Joanne Lockwood: fast. They'll drink too much. They'll stand on the edge of the
Joanne Lockwood: platform. Don't fall where they should be standing back. They'll rush to the front of
Joanne Lockwood: the the baggage carousel. When standing back and waiting for your
Joanne Lockwood: bag to appear is obviously the best solution, but now we have to be at
Joanne Lockwood: the front. So what how can someone who's
Joanne Lockwood: listening to this podcast maybe reflect on what we've been talking
Joanne Lockwood: about? And what's that first step they can take
Joanne Lockwood: to enlightenment, to change, or that nugget
Joanne Lockwood: that's gonna nudge them into a slightly different orbit of thinking? What can
Joanne Lockwood: they do? Yeah. I think the first thing is to want it.
Manoj Krishna: See. Say, the other day I was doing a event and a
Manoj Krishna: lady gave this beautiful example. She said,
Manoj Krishna: it's like learning a new language. First, you have to want to learn
Manoj Krishna: the language. So what is it that's going to make you want to,
Manoj Krishna: you know, understand your own mind? You might want to be less
Manoj Krishna: stressed or less anxious or less lonely or have a
Manoj Krishna: happier relationship or deal with an addiction
Manoj Krishna: problem or you might want to be happier. You might
Manoj Krishna: want actually to be emotionally intelligent, which will help
Manoj Krishna: you be successful in the world. You know, if you can manage your emotions, you're
Manoj Krishna: emotionally intelligent. And they say our success comes from emotional
Manoj Krishna: intelligence more than whatever skills we may have picked up.
Manoj Krishna: So you have to decide what's important for
Manoj Krishna: you. And once you decide, then as you're saying, then
Manoj Krishna: there's a knowledge part. Okay. The, you know, the learning the
Manoj Krishna: language has some grammar and basics. And we've got we've
Manoj Krishna: developed an app we'll talk about which helps with all of that called
Manoj Krishna: Happier Me. And then you have to practice. Right?
Manoj Krishna: Then you have to actually, it's gotta be a living thing in your life. You
Manoj Krishna: practice the language and unless you practice it, it won't stay
Manoj Krishna: alive. So similarly, you've got to then notice what's
Manoj Krishna: happening in your thinking. Ask yourself, why am I
Manoj Krishna: thinking that way? What's going on? And then you
Manoj Krishna: go deeper and explore. And you see, it's like again, if you have
Manoj Krishna: that curiosity, then you think, oh,
Manoj Krishna: well, I didn't know that about myself. So it becomes a
Manoj Krishna: process of self discovery. And that self discovery brings
Manoj Krishna: joy, brings change, and enriches your
Manoj Krishna: life in a 100 ways. Yeah. Anyone can do this. Everyone
Manoj Krishna: can do this. There's no stereotype for this. It's
Joanne Lockwood: it's as you say, it's the the fundamental is the
Joanne Lockwood: the epiphany, the wake up, the the thing that's
Joanne Lockwood: gonna nudge you, the the drive to change.
Joanne Lockwood: But the the reality is most people will never ever find
Joanne Lockwood: that drive. And the ones who do
Joanne Lockwood: are halfway on the on the road to enlightenment anyway. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's what yeah. There'd be people listening to this podcast going, what are they
Joanne Lockwood: on about? What are they on about? Why do I need to do this? I'm
Joanne Lockwood: perfectly fine. I'm perfectly happy. It's
Joanne Lockwood: what's what's the trigger? How do we say we wanna try and find
Joanne Lockwood: something within us that are gonna go, Now I get it. What's that
Joanne Lockwood: what's that thing that's gonna trigger me? I've just been writing a blog, Jo, on
Manoj Krishna: the 5 barriers to overcoming stress.
Manoj Krishna: The number 1 is, I may not even know I'm stressed. By the
Manoj Krishna: way, when I use the word stress, it could easily be anxiety or conflict. It
Manoj Krishna: doesn't matter what it is. So firstly, I may not be aware
Manoj Krishna: that this is what this is what's happening to me. Secondly,
Manoj Krishna: I may think, oh, this I'm bigger than that.
Manoj Krishna: I'm a man or whatever. I I'm I don't I never get stressed, you know.
Manoj Krishna: I'm I have a perfect relationship, so you're in
Manoj Krishna: denial basically. You're just not aware. Or it could
Manoj Krishna: be that you just don't think it's possible
Manoj Krishna: to be anything other than how you are. You don't think it's possible to
Manoj Krishna: not be stressed, or you don't think it's possible to
Manoj Krishna: not be anxious, or have a happier relationship. See?
Manoj Krishna: Because you've just grown up thinking that's the norm. Or
Manoj Krishna: then you might think, well, it's somebody else's bloody fault, you
Manoj Krishna: know. Why should I have to change? Somebody else needs to change,
Manoj Krishna: or my job needs to change, or I I I need to have
Manoj Krishna: more money to be less anxious or whatever. So the change has got to come
Manoj Krishna: from the arts, so therefore it's got nothing to do with me. And even
Manoj Krishna: if they listen to us and said, okay, I agree
Manoj Krishna: I need to change, they don't know how to, or they're frightened of looking at
Manoj Krishna: themselves. So there are a few barriers, but each of
Manoj Krishna: them can be overcome quite simply, I think, and
Manoj Krishna: we've created a toolkit to help people do that if they're really interested.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay. Yeah. That's interesting. That's as I think
Joanne Lockwood: what I'm kind of hearing is that there's an external
Joanne Lockwood: factor that's gonna cause that trigger. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So you say a burnout, an illness,
Joanne Lockwood: being made redundant, car crash, something that something that's gonna hit
Joanne Lockwood: you in your life that that's gonna jolt you involuntarily
Joanne Lockwood: out of your orbit for it long enough for
Joanne Lockwood: you to see a different path. If it's a minor bump, you probably
Joanne Lockwood: won't, but if it's a significant bump. And that's that's the
Joanne Lockwood: challenge we face is we need something really, really fundamentally
Joanne Lockwood: knocking on our door to make us wake up and go and
Joanne Lockwood: reevaluate. I mean, I've been through this. I've been through something that knocked
Joanne Lockwood: my life several lanes to the left. And I
Joanne Lockwood: know people who have had a very similar wake up call for various
Joanne Lockwood: reasons, which is provoked life changing
Joanne Lockwood: thinking and activity. But most of us who would benefit from
Joanne Lockwood: this will wait until that point in their life
Joanne Lockwood: where they just keep heading they they arrive at
Joanne Lockwood: 60 miles an hour towards a brick wall, and and it's only the brick wall
Joanne Lockwood: that's gonna make them stop, not not their power on the brake pedal.
Manoj Krishna: So interesting, Jo. Let me ask you a question. Knowing what you know
Manoj Krishna: now, do you think it would have been smarter for you
Manoj Krishna: to have avoided all those challenges in your life? Right? So
Manoj Krishna: someone listening to this conversation, I'll ask them, I do you think
Manoj Krishna: you're intelligent? Do you think you're smart? Everyone says yes.
Manoj Krishna: If you are, you're a thinking person.
Manoj Krishna: You've got a beautiful brain, the most capable in the universe. Use
Manoj Krishna: it to reflect on your own life. Why wait
Manoj Krishna: for disaster, trauma, self harm, you
Manoj Krishna: know, all of that stuff. You can change your life
Manoj Krishna: today. Just take the first simple step of
Manoj Krishna: looking and learning, asking why. What's going on? Just be curious.
Manoj Krishna: See? You don't want to be in a
Manoj Krishna: car crash in your life, metaphorically or literally. You want
Manoj Krishna: to avoid car crashes in your life. Right? So many
Manoj Krishna: people end up with burnout, depression, and if I said
Manoj Krishna: 70% of the people in the world are gonna burn out and you're in the
Manoj Krishna: 30%, if you're really smart, you won't wait till
Manoj Krishna: that happens. You'll say, right, I'm gonna make sure I don't burn out.
Manoj Krishna: I'm gonna find out what's going on. If I learn I'm getting
Manoj Krishna: married and I learn 50% of marriages end in
Manoj Krishna: divorce. I'm not gonna sleep walk into that. I'm gonna wake up
Manoj Krishna: and do something about it. So I'm not that statistic.
Manoj Krishna: And of course, the wisdom is there if you want. Or if I wake up
Manoj Krishna: and realize 60% of people are anxious in the world, and then someone
Manoj Krishna: comes along and says you don't have to be, something can be done about. So
Manoj Krishna: we have that capacity for intelligence. It's
Manoj Krishna: just we need to, a, wake up, b, realize it's
Manoj Krishna: possible to change, and, c, it's not that difficult.
Manoj Krishna: Children as young as 10 get it like that. See?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Even though I know what I know, I'm still not convinced
Joanne Lockwood: that I will take preemptive enough action
Joanne Lockwood: without something becoming a problem next time. So I
Joanne Lockwood: I've I've I've gone through a period of change. I've gone through a period of
Joanne Lockwood: reflection. I've got I've gone through a period where I completely relate to what you're
Joanne Lockwood: saying is, but I can foresee myself being in another
Joanne Lockwood: plateau. Mhmm. Well, again, I'm blissfully unaware until
Joanne Lockwood: something else happens to cause me to reset again. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's almost like a step to its waveform. I'm I'm flattering,
Joanne Lockwood: staying steady, plateauing, staying steady, and going from this, like,
Joanne Lockwood: sequence of of epiphanies. Yes. Hopefully, in
Manoj Krishna: time, maybe I'm more. Problems will be repeated until the
Manoj Krishna: lessons are learned. You know? Yeah.
Manoj Krishna: So yeah. But it's, of course, it's I'm probably more open.
Manoj Krishna: Yes. I'm I'm more open to be aware sooner. So
Joanne Lockwood: the resistance to change will it likely be
Joanne Lockwood: less than it ever was. And every time that I'm
Joanne Lockwood: realizing the change is necessary, I'm more willing to
Joanne Lockwood: embrace it. But there's still a lag on that curve, isn't it? There's still gonna
Joanne Lockwood: be a a slight delay while I reevaluate,
Joanne Lockwood: reincorporate, and then adapt. And I guess what we're trying to do here
Joanne Lockwood: is we're trying to minimize that curve of acknowledgment
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. To take action. Think about why people learn another language.
Manoj Krishna: It's not there's no pain point they're trying to solve. They're doing something for the
Manoj Krishna: love of it because they want to get something out of it. So
Manoj Krishna: similarly, learn about the most important
Manoj Krishna: person in your life. You learn about
Manoj Krishna: how to be at peace and happy, which is
Manoj Krishna: the number one thing you're chasing in your life. Learn
Manoj Krishna: not to waste your life so that you don't want to be,
Manoj Krishna: you know, on your deathbed and think, oh my god, I just wasted my life
Manoj Krishna: soft with suffering when I could have lived with joy,
Manoj Krishna: you know. I could have had really happier relationships.
Manoj Krishna: So why didn't I? What happened? So here is
Manoj Krishna: the jewel of understanding. It doesn't come from a book or
Manoj Krishna: religion, don't worry. Nobody's telling you what to do. But here is
Manoj Krishna: a jewel that can completely transform your life and make it
Manoj Krishna: richer, more beautiful. Why would you not look at that
Manoj Krishna: and just be curious? You don't have to believe anything anyone's saying,
Manoj Krishna: least of all me, but you could just be
Manoj Krishna: curious. Maybe there's something there. Let me let me have a
Manoj Krishna: look. There's no harm done looking. See what I mean that way? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think going second right back to something you said right at the beginning,
Joanne Lockwood: education or educate derives from was it the
Joanne Lockwood: Greek or the Latin? It's Greek. Yeah. To draw out. Yeah. To draw
Joanne Lockwood: out. And I think that's the key here is trying
Joanne Lockwood: to draw out what we think and feel
Joanne Lockwood: ourselves, expose that draw out of others of what they're thinking
Joanne Lockwood: and feeling, and then be able to make better decisions
Joanne Lockwood: that don't involve conflict or gluttony, I guess. Yes. All of
Manoj Krishna: that. And and and my passion is that
Manoj Krishna: this subject of learning about yourself, call it what you like, self
Manoj Krishna: understanding, should become part of education. So
Manoj Krishna: as much a part of the curriculum as maths and
Manoj Krishna: science because it could save us from all
Manoj Krishna: that conflict and suffering, number 1. It could help
Manoj Krishna: everyone live in peace no matter what you're doing in society. You
Manoj Krishna: know, you're the barista in the coffee shop, you're cleaning the streets, you're the the
Manoj Krishna: prime minister, doesn't matter. You live a rich fulfilled
Manoj Krishna: life on the inside. Your inner life is rich, and
Manoj Krishna: we could create together a better future for our children and
Manoj Krishna: for humanity as a whole. And it's not that far off, you see.
Manoj Krishna: We have all this wisdom in our hands to make this a
Manoj Krishna: reality today. Manoj, thank you. This has been fascinating. I've really
Joanne Lockwood: enjoyed diving into this with you. How can our listeners get hold of you? How
Joanne Lockwood: can how can you, start more conversations? So people can find me on
Manoj Krishna: LinkedIn, Manoj Krishna. You can visit our
Manoj Krishna: website. It's happier me, one word, dot app. You can
Manoj Krishna: download the happier me app from all the
Manoj Krishna: all the stores and begin a
Manoj Krishna: conversation. Reach out. It's manuj@happierme.app
Manoj Krishna: is my email. If this resonates and you'd like to be
Manoj Krishna: part of our mission to help
Manoj Krishna: reduce suffering, to help people lead happier
Manoj Krishna: and more successful and to create a better future
Manoj Krishna: for our children and for humanity, then get in touch. I think we have it
Joanne Lockwood: Just on the edge. To do something really beautiful in the world
Manoj Krishna: and leave a legacy for our children who look back
Manoj Krishna: at our generation and think, okay. They messed it up, but
Manoj Krishna: then, okay, they try to do something about it. Or at least equip
Manoj Krishna: the next generation with the wisdom to be able to address
Manoj Krishna: these challenges we face. Yeah. As I've just found the the app
Joanne Lockwood: on Apple. And, yeah, I'll go and take a look at that. It's Please try
Manoj Krishna: out. It's no obligation to buy anything. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and have
Manoj Krishna: a look. Yeah. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: thank you so much. It's been a fabulous conversation. I've really enjoyed it, and
Joanne Lockwood: good luck with the app and good luck with, spreading
Joanne Lockwood: Happier Me to everybody in the world. Jo, it's been my pleasure.
Manoj Krishna: Thank you so much. As we bring this
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your
Joanne Lockwood: ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: If today's discussion struck a chord, Consider subscribing to
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing
Joanne Lockwood: community, driving real change. Share this journey with
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Joanne Lockwood: that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a
Joanne Lockwood: vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: And let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world,
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.