Episode 144
The great balancing act: finding joy in doing good
Ever felt like there was more that you could do but didn’t know what to commit to?
You're not alone.
When it comes to thinking about meaning, Laurence and Carlos found the book The Map of Meaning by Lani Morris and Marjolein Lips-Wiersma really helpful.
They talk about working with meaning as working with the tension between being and doing, and self and others.
The work is to be aware when we’re off balance and to know what to do to redress it.
Understanding how to do good whilst staying happy is all part of leading a meaningful life.
When it comes to doing good you might ponder
- What does impact actually mean to me?
- How much impact do I want to make?
- And what’s my story of impact?
And when it comes to being happy:
- How do I want to feel when making an impact?
- Which needs are being met by making an impact?
- Where do these needs come from?
On this episode, Laurence and Carlos explore their own perspectives on these questions, and through their own reflections and answers to questions from the live virtual audience, you’ll hopefully find your own insights.
What if we all made a positive impact in the way that matched our energies and motivations?What would that mean for the world? Hopefully a lot of good and happiness.
Transcript
Today we're gonna be talking about the great balancing act, uh, finding joy in doing good.
Carlos:Uh, and we're gonna explore this topic together.
Carlos:We're hoping that our own reflections, uh, will help you, um, either raise your own questions or maybe your own epiphanies about what it means to make an impact while still keeping the energy going.
Carlos:There are some of us, and I will call myself included, that for being selfless is the way we must be selfless.
Carlos:And, and my version of that I think is a very much influence from my Catholic upbringing of it.
Carlos:We should be of service to others is about sacrifice.
Carlos:But in that, not necessarily able to do good because I don't know exactly what doing good means.
Carlos:So I'm gonna propose, let's, let's take us on a journey of the satir change model.
Carlos:You know, current status quo to where we wanna be and the challenge in between.
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:So for those of you who don't know, it is essentially, I'm here, I wanna be there, which feels a bit more effective, powerful, aligned, and there's a messy middle.
Carlos:So let's start off with the starting point, being a self sacrificer in your eyes, what does that mean, Laurence?
Laurence:well, on one end I would think you would have, a good example would be an activist or maybe a social entrepreneur or someone who starts a charity.
Laurence:Someone who's like really thinking about others.
Laurence:Like it's all.
Laurence:What can I do to help them or what can I do to fix the world?
Laurence:Um, or it could be on a smaller level, maybe it's just you see problems around you.
Laurence:You don't need to start a charity or start a social enterprise or join a movement.
Laurence:It might just be you're just always helping others, like at the cost of your own.
Laurence:I think wellbeing over time.
Laurence:So it might be at the beginning it's all good.
Laurence:You're a giver, you just keep giving.
Laurence:but I've seen, and I'm sure we've all seen examples or even felt it ourselves, when if you take on that sort of persona then it can eventually catch up with you.
Laurence:I think, and I'm sure there are exceptions and um, and they one or two, but I think generally for most people, um, it's hard to maintain that sustainably over time, I believe.
Laurence:And it's easy then to need to, on the other scale, burnout, if you just keep putting other people before yourselves over months and years, I think self sacrifice for me is really just about.
Laurence:not really having your own needs in, in full view, and eventually getting to the point where you're not really sure what you need or what you are about, you just end up giving to others all the time.
Carlos:So I'm, um, I'm gonna link this as well.
Carlos:There's the things that we do, uh, and I think we're primarily, we looked at people who help people, you know, people who see either injustice or difficulty in the world, and they would like to address it and fix it.
Carlos:so there's the, the act of being of service, the act of helping, which is, is I think in a sense it's kind of neutral.
Carlos:It's about the energy you put into it or the energy you bring to it.
Carlos:Because I think you could even also be someone who runs a company that isn't necessarily purpose driven.
Carlos:Uh, you could be in a family and helping others and, but the energy you bring to it.
Carlos:I would also volunteers is your own, where, how do you, I mean, use the, the phrase, what's your reference point?
Carlos:Is it self-referencing or other Referencing something I've learned over the past year or so that when you are not self-referential, when you, you don't have your own inner guidance around what to do because you're always looking out with as to how it makes other people feel.
Carlos:What's the right thing to do?
Carlos:What is perceived as good?
Carlos:Then that can start to get draining because you're not a hundred percent sure what, what's in it for you.
Carlos:Not from a necessarily a selfish point of view of like, what am I gonna get from it, but why am I actually motivated to do this other than because it makes other people happy.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:And I would say in all aspects of our lives, whether it is in a family, in a business, in a social enterprise, in a charity, whether I'm volunteering in community.
Carlos:If I have lost my own direction or motivation or internal intrinsic motivation because I'm only guided by the external one.
Carlos:I think that can be a challenge, uh, both energetically and also when it comes to knowing what to do next.
Laurence:I'm actually sharing a quote, and I can't remember if it's Mother Teresa, but I know our friend Krenn shared this at summer camp a few years ago.
Laurence:Um, but I like this, this quote stuck with me when it's like when meeting someone or trying to help someone else, don't ask when you meet someone?
Laurence:What's in it?
Laurence:What's in it for me?
Laurence:So just thinking about this thing of like, when can I, how can I meaningfully contribute here?
Laurence:Or where is my place to contribute?
Laurence:so rather than just thinking about your own needs, selfishly is thinking about like, what can you offer them that feels energizing for you because it feels maybe effortless to you, and it's something that's maybe in your zone of genius or your natural flow state.
Laurence:And I think that for me is key to this, that it's something that in some ways you are not doing it because you should do it or doing it because you feel like you have to do it, but because you feel like, oh, it's my responsibility here because I'm the one with these skills or this gift that I can give to people.
Laurence:And it feels in some ways not too difficult for me to do that.
Carlos:I see Terry as a raise.
Carlos:Raise their hand.
Carlos:Let's see.
Carlos:All right, here we go.
Carlos:I've never met Terry before.
Carlos:So Welcome Terry.
Terry:is a great, this is a great, subject, I work with a lot of community volunteers and community leaders and, uh, it's interesting to see the arc of passion to obligation to correct.
Carlos:Ooh mm-Hmm,
Terry:ouch.
Terry:And, uh, I end up trying to catch people on that curve because if you're not every now and again stopping and asking that very important question, why am I doing this?
Terry:Or can I continue to do this?
Terry:it really brings up some great conversations about why isn't any of the work being delegated or is there any way that um.
Terry:it kind of ties into, you put so much of yourself in, like it feels easy for you.
Terry:But then it becomes your life and you start to lose family and friends and the things that made you who you are that made you have that passion.
Terry:So it gets really deep with identity, validation, passion, and how do you then not fear leaving or moving to the next bigger project you can do.
Terry:so by having confidence that there's people under you that you have taught along the way.
Carlos:Hmm.
Terry:There's a lot.
Terry:Rich.
Carlos:Very rich.
Carlos:Uh, before we continue, I'd let's, I'd love for people to know who you are, Terry,
Terry:based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the us.
Terry:I've had a very long nonprofit career that led me to form, uh, consulting.
Terry:Um, I've had the opportunity to be a verified burnout once or twice, uh, passionate.
Terry:So I've been there, done it.
Terry:and yeah, I kind of try to, part of what I'm trying to build is passing on that.
Terry:If you can find awareness, you can change the course, but you have to be present in your activities and present in your giving because if you're not present in your giving, things will be taken from you.
Carlos:Wonderful.
Carlos:I just wanted to, at the beginning, you, you mentioned these three stages.
Carlos:Could you reiterate those again?
Carlos:I'd be curious.
Terry:So you have the passion Mm-Hmm.
Terry:Of when you start the project.
Terry:And then, as the, as the project, the initiative, the community, the followers grow, there's then obligation and that's not near as validating.
Terry:You're becoming the admin of your dream and not the dreamer.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Terry:And then on the regret side, it's like, well, why am I staying late and they're going home and damnit I have to do it because I'm the only one that can do it.
Terry:Right?
Terry:Mm.
Terry:Uh, and then that's where the nonprofit leaders and community leaders burn out and fall away.
Terry:And those unscheduled burnouts, are horrifically impactful for the people underneath and the people being served.
Terry:Um, because there's no, continuation of knowledge, um, institutional.
Terry:Process anything going along with it.
Terry:So I've really become a fan of, in the process of evolving from a, a self sacrificer, which martyrdom can be an escape if you're overburdened as well.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Terry:Um, having co-leadership models because if there's no room for anyone else to come up in the path behind you, they'll go somewhere else.
Terry:And also, uh, scheduling what I call the truck day or the bus day.
Terry:And it's like if you were to get hit by a bus, who knows what to do the next day.
Terry:Everyone ends up with a blank sheet of paper when I try that one.
Carlos:Uh, and it's quite interesting you talk about the truck day or the bus day.
Carlos:I remember this being told to us many years ago when we were running an agency, and relating to kind of just putting down on paper.
Carlos:What they, I think call standing standard operating procedures, even like password.
Carlos:It just from a pure business sense, even from a business perspective, if you are the gatekeeper of all the intricate knowledge of how the business works, single point of
Laurence:failure.
Carlos:Single point of failure, so that, that makes sense across the board for any kind of initiative.
Terry:and sometimes if you're coming up from a community of scarcity or the thing you're doing hasn't existed and you're making it happen, that validation is empowering.
Terry:And if you don't have that in any other part of your life, you gonna hold onto it.
Carlos:And this is, I think where I was going towards actually this, what I heard before, is this idea of self-awareness.
Carlos:This awareness of what is driving the behaviors.
Terry:Yeah, it's like being, being aware and not being afraid to look inside.
Terry:and, uh, you know, I think Laurence, when you brought up, uh, that's why I referenced the President Kennedy quote, um, as well, you know, his quote was, uh, ask, ask, not, uh, ask not what you can do.
Terry:It's
Carlos:what the country can do for you.
Carlos:Ask what you can do for your country.
Carlos:Yeah.
Terry:See, I see my cup is defective.
Laurence:No, it's early for you.
Laurence:We'll, we'll give you some slack,
Terry:but it's also like the aspect of allowing yourself to be available for what's next.
Terry:Because as you grow while you're exploring these passions, if you don't allow yourself that room to be aware that I'm ready for the next step, you'll stagnate.
Terry:And then that regret will come in again and the other things will happen that aren't good.
Carlos:I got shivers just then.
Carlos:When you talked about allowing yourself to be available for what's next,
Terry:it's hard for people.
Terry:Change is difficult and it's a whole identity shift.
Terry:The imposter syndrome keeps up real hard.
Carlos:It reminds me of a talk at summer camp, a couple of years ago about creative destruction, a friend of our Ben Johnson, and there was something about letting go, stopping in order to create space for newness and new things.
Carlos:And Lana Yev, who is a fellow coach, as many of you know her on our Vision 2020 program, she talked about last year, rerouting this, you know, when we can't grow anymore in a particular location, what does it take to transplant this tree?
Carlos:This, this, whatever's grown to somewhere new and without the awareness.
Carlos:A, this is our time, but also BI think what is next?
Carlos:What's possible?
Carlos:What can I take away?
Carlos:What do I need to do behind?
Carlos:That's what I'm hearing is connected to this idea of allowing what could be next.
Terry:And there, there's awareness is a wide level in that, in that growth, growth, um, you're leaving behind your old support network to go to the new thing.
Terry:And that pioneering spirit is not easy because you're gonna be out there on your own in a way until you develop that new support network again.
Terry:And a lot of times I've run into leaders who start the next thing.
Terry:It's scary, it's hard, it's challenging.
Terry:And some self-sabotage can come into place so that they can go back to where it's comfortable.
Carlos:Uh, thank you.
Carlos:This is helping.
Carlos:I think for me, just set the scene of the initial status quo.
Carlos:This feeling of like holding on to identity, a behavior, a mission, this thing of like, this is me, this is how I who I am, and then not allowing what's next.
Carlos:Maybe it'd be interesting as, um, to hear from you as well.
Carlos:What is possible.
Carlos:Let's think about the other side of this.
Carlos:Let's, we'll forget the messy middle for now, but the potential, if everything went well, for want of a better term,
Terry:I think it's perceptions also, um, perceptions and permissions.
Terry:What will you allow yourself to have and how can you view yourself?
Terry:Um, do you feel that you've earned it or do you feel that you, you're standing on the shoulders of the other volunteers or the other people that helped you get where you are?
Terry:and that, that's the whole aspect of the identity of taking that quiet time, taking that time, you know, sitting by a lake or on a tree.
Terry:Uh, that, and going to that scary place of internal reflection to say, it's okay to be the expert.
Terry:It's okay for me to write the book.
Terry:You know what, if I try, I'll have one less regret.
Carlos:Mm.
Carlos:And,
Terry:uh, it's an interesting ability to be able to give yourself some of those per permissions, but you're, you have to do a really deep in, uh, internal assessment to be able to hit that point.
Laurence:For me there's something about, like you said, just being comfortable about, with that new version of you or certainly new version of you through other people's eyes.
Laurence:If you were traditionally before you would step in or be there, they want to fix the problem or, um, yeah.
Laurence:Help out.
Laurence:So shedding that people pleaser identity in some ways feels like a, well, it's, it's a journey for other people as well as, like you said, that internal journey.
Terry:Part of this is also that no is not a four letter word.
Laurence:unless you put a four letter word before it
Carlos:you were talking about perceptions, Terry, and what I remember from a few things I've read and listened to, we perceive what we believe.
Carlos:That's the premise.
Carlos:Our beliefs actually dictate.
Carlos:Our conscious reality, and this is based on neuroscience as well as some other, what I've heard neuroscientists talk about.
Carlos:in terms of the neuroscience because, um, there's a lot of information out there because in order for us to survive, we couldn't just take information, decide what to do, and then do it.
Carlos:We had to actually react.
Carlos:We had to develop these kind of instinctive reactions, whether that's run away from dark, things run away from crawly things, you know, eat something that looks kind of colorful.
Carlos:There's, rather than decide is that the good thing to do.
Carlos:Our evolution allowed us to just essentially project.
Carlos:Based on learning over time that this is what's gonna happen.
Carlos:Then we do it.
Carlos:Then we check actually, was that the right thing to do?
Carlos:So we believe that, that's the reality.
Carlos:We get some input, we try and do the thing, and then it, we learn from that process of like, oh, actually I shouldn't have eaten that piece of fruit.
Carlos:That's a bad thing to do.
Carlos:I shouldn't have run away from that squiggly thing.
Carlos:It wasn't a snake, it was a stick.
Carlos:So we build up these kind of, heuristics, they're called, they're like really shorthand things that we use to make a decision.
Carlos:So we, we don't necessarily see what's reality.
Carlos:We just per, we kind of our brain assume stuff and then it tests against reality.
Carlos:So that's the first premise.
Carlos:Then you take that up another level.
Carlos:Our conditioning in terms of school, in terms of family, in terms of life experiences, creates these heuristics, these kind of things, these beliefs, and then start to dictate the reality that we perceive.
Carlos:So the example they said in terms of just a simple example of these, these like rules is like looking outside of your house at a tree through a window and the not realizing that you are looking through a window and, and there isn't a tree that you're seeing.
Carlos:You're seeing the window through the tree through a window.
Carlos:And this whole idea of uh, understanding your beliefs, awareness perception and why I'm understanding meditation is getting into a space where you start to see hy, there is a window between me and the tree and the window kind of representing all the thoughts, the beliefs, the uh, you know, things that come into your head when you just sit and not do anything and just listen.
Carlos:You start to see, oh shit, I've got that limiting belief.
Carlos:I've got that, you know, that fear, I've got that motivation, you know, and doing that without judgment then allows us to have this awareness.
Carlos:Also to a certain extent, you can't get rid of some of these things because they've been baked into us.
Carlos:You know, I'm 50, there's a lot of shit baked into me at the moment
Carlos:I'm not gonna get rid of.
Carlos:But now that I'm more aware of it, it doesn't, I can start seeing what's real and what's me just projecting a load of stuff to
Terry:when a, when a lot of people start small businesses, um, pricing, you know, you've had some great conversations about pricing and uh, you know, how do I get paid for being me as well?
Terry:Um, I'll sit down with them and I'll look at what they're charging and it'll be like, why?
Terry:Like, this is what the rest of the market charges.
Terry:Why do you charge this?
Terry:And it'll turn out that they go into business and they charge exactly what they were paid at their last job because someone else placed that value upon them from the outside.
Terry:Uh, we have a lot of things like that, you know, a lot of times, uh, body language within the family, there's a lot of training that happens by things that aren't said and things that aren't done.
Terry:And, uh, that really with you as well.
Terry:So getting out of your pond, breaking your cycles and your patterns, uh, it's really helpful because you get all these different, little different things start popping in your head.
Carlos:Yeah, and I think this, speaking to that messy middle now for me is like what's in the way from us being dictated by whatever these limiting beliefs, this situations, this feeling that, okay, I, I must do things for others and, and I can't do things for myself to this other place of, I think more freedom,
Carlos:more choice to act in the way, getting through that, you know, what are the places, the spaces, the things that we need to, that would help us get to a place of.
Carlos:What did you say?
Carlos:Permission and perceptions that, uh, or working on the permissions and the perceptions that we have around life.
Terry:I think it's thinking about how many choices are available to you.
Terry:If you are in a very limiting place, you have very few choices and it also limits how you can help other people.
Terry:and it's interesting if you shift that perception outside of yourself.
Terry:Uh, I saw, uh, there's a woman that makes these wonderful sandwiches in her community with these really healthy ingredients.
Terry:And I asked her, I said, well, what happens if the freezer breaks?
Terry:And she was like, done.
Terry:So I said, well, if you raise the price of 50 cents, and she pointed at me, if you 50 cents and you money and.
Terry:Target of the of, of it was shifted.
Terry:Things just opened up incredibly.
Terry:So it's interesting if you can, the more that's in your bucket, the more that's in your cup, the more you can fill other cups and, you know, that can, that's a different kind of validation.
Terry:Uh, it's a different flavor.
Terry:Uh, the what you've been used to receiving that can really be, um, part of that growth process.
Terry:That changing the perception is, you know, part of that planning, that heuristic review.
Terry:If I want this goal, how do I change where I am now to get there?
Terry:And, uh, baby stepping it.
Terry:okay, there are 52 weeks in the year.
Terry:What can I do each week that builds to the big goal, but everything I do has to build on what I did before.
Terry:That helps the filtering process and the focus process so that all the tangents don't pull us everywhere.
Laurence:well yeah, I think this goes back to the idea of something that's sustainable really energetically over time.
Laurence:Um, because I think we can all be givers and, uh, altruistic to the point of not taking ourselves, or placing ourselves importance on ourselves if we, um, do it in the short term.
Laurence:But I think having something consistent over time is, I think, key to this conversation really.
Laurence:It's like how do we do something that's naturally in our flow state?
Laurence:I wonder if you get Kumaran on, 'cause Krenn joined us and I mentioned him earlier and uh, Kumaran.
Laurence:So maybe if he does join us, he can tell us.
Laurence:But he ran a foundation, didn't he?
Laurence:I dunno if he still runs it and Kuma runs a.
Laurence:I was just gonna say, yeah, he, he ran a big IT company.
Laurence:And then
Laurence:So Kumaran came on our fir very first online cohort of our homeschool Happy Startup Homeschool, which has to be 10 years ago, I'm saying.
Laurence:Yep,
Carlos:yep.
Carlos:It was,
Laurence:which is making me feel old.
Laurence:and there was up to a, there was a lot of people on that cohort.
Laurence:It was a four week course.
Carlos:A hundred people.
Laurence:Yeah, I'm pretty sure none of the others.
Laurence:Ran a big IT company.
Laurence:Most of them were startups.
Laurence:They didn't know what they were doing.
Laurence:Um, but Krenn came on board, I think, a bit of serendipity from my understanding of seeing our, our idea with a Happy Startup School.
Laurence:It was very early stage.
Laurence:And anyway, fast forward, I think a year later, he joined us in the Alps for our very first altitude, and him and his wife came and Kuran said to us, you have to do this in India.
Laurence:And we were like, um, as far as I'm aware, apart from the north, then this will be difficult.
Laurence:There's no mountains in Chenai where Kuan is from.
Laurence:Anyway, a year later, what do we do?
Laurence:We went to India and ran our first retreat with, uh, Kumaran and his amazing, community out there, but also some of our community here.
Laurence:And we did it again in Goa, two years running after that.
Laurence:And so, yeah, we've stayed in touch ever since.
Laurence:So Kumaran is our, our, our man in India and a lot more.
Carlos:I would say Krenn is the reason why I first experienced India, and I'm eternally grateful for the memory.
Carlos:I have very visceral memories of coming off the plane, being driven down to the beach.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:Where the sea was like at least a mile away
Laurence:from six in the morning,
Carlos:six in the morning, and then going to have breakfast for my first ever doer in my life.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:And I don't think I can go back as an ama.
Carlos:Even that first two hours of being in India with Krenn was an experience I'll never forget.
Carlos:Not withstanding everything else that happened after that, which was a whole, I think as a whole podcast in itself, we.
Laurence:Welcome,
Carlos:I'm, I'm so grateful to have you.
Carlos:Would you just, again, we, we, we talked about how we got to know you.
Carlos:Do you wanna share a little bit about yourself, and however you wanna describe what you do?
Kumaran:Well, first of all, good evening.
Kumaran:Thank you.
Kumaran:I'm happy to be on the stage and, uh, always happy to see you guys listen to the videos, listen to all the activities.
Kumaran:I get lot of inspiration and love from the whole community, the happy Startup.
Kumaran:Uh, you know, so I remember very clearly, uh, the altitude was a big breakthrough for me.
Kumaran:I, whether it was Jack
Kumaran:and, uh, it was, kind.
Kumaran:Because the nature was bigger than all of us.
Kumaran:And I said, man, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be nothing, you know, so let's just what I do, no matter, let's just doing what we're doing.
Kumaran:And then you Startup, I still believe that it's gonna happen on a basis every year.
Kumaran:one day gonna start and it's never gonna after that much.
Kumaran:so Startup is, is what I do for years now.
Kumaran:You know, running a very small IT company, IT company in open source, and, uh, contributing as much as we can for not, not-for-profits, for the young job seekers.
Kumaran:And also, you know, now we have extended it to government.
Kumaran:Uh, so there's a lot of things you can do for the government, which directly or indirectly imports, uh, to the citizens.
Kumaran:But I don't know the topic today.
Kumaran:I found the title so nice.
Kumaran:You know, the social media trick worked?
Kumaran:I think if there is no question, my, uh, little bit of listening to Terry.
Kumaran:I think input were, uh, excellent.
Kumaran:My thinking of doing impact was always big.
Kumaran:Uh, you know, creating a big impact, achieving a big number.
Kumaran:Even with that impact, it was a goal oriented karma in my head.
Kumaran:Right.
Kumaran:And, uh, now I have shifted to small things.
Kumaran:on a daily basis, I continue to do small things that I can do, which kind of compound interest and growth.
Kumaran:Uh, what,
Laurence:what was that quote you shared along that line of small things or maybe sharing it?
Laurence:Summer camp.
Kumaran:You can do small things beautifully, like Teresa said, right?
Kumaran:You don't do great.
Kumaran:All the, and I, it's when do small deeds and you back, let's say today I have this habit now in my head or, or in my life.
Kumaran:So today some, you know, you get some stranger who was trying to move a cart and too overloaded.
Kumaran:You just go and hand over a small helping hand that you can do and give dollar and smile on that person's face.
Kumaran:I, I take that home and, and it drives me.
Kumaran:This is my now.
Kumaran:So it used to be, it used to be like, can I impart the knowledge on open source to thousand people a year?
Kumaran:Can I just do one hour of to somebody for free?
Kumaran:I can do that just becomes my habit.
Laurence:So small acts of kindness regularly feel energizing for you.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:I feel that there should be a book called The Small Impact Habit.
Carlos:how can we find, because I think this is part of the question that I was curious about, is how, how we choose what impact means to us.
Carlos:and then how we choose to make impact and, and, uh, where I feel impact a lot of the time is with the big eye, you know, impact is, is systemic impact, is global impact is world changing.
Carlos:Um, as opposed to impact could also be going to your next door neighbor and offering to help them.
Carlos:Put up their garden fence or there's an elderly person down your road that needs to have the shopping done.
Carlos:Um, and that's well within our means.
Laurence:And I wonder if Krenn story, it ties in with my relationship to impact too, and I'm sure others, and even Googled, he, we had on the fireside before Christmas, this idea of going from wanting to change the world and have impact with a big eye to actually just influencing what's around you and, and coming, the energy coming from a different place.
Laurence:I'm curious about that.
Laurence:'cause I feel the same.
Laurence:I feel much more at peace with impacting the people around me and not that, not that I don't care about the other problems in the world, but I don't think, I don't feel like I can sustainably or even do anything about them.
Laurence:You know, on an individual level.
Carlos:there's something, an element here of, Not necessarily being hijacked by a savior mentality, feeling like I am the person who must fix things.
Carlos:I'm the person who must change things.
Carlos:It's up to me if it's not.
Carlos:And at the same time, I think balancing this with the need for people who are change makers, who are firelight, fire starters, who are beacons, who can mobilize people.
Carlos:kind of reflecting back on the work that Nikki was doing this morning around the GC Index, there is a, an aspect of a category of personality that she calls the playmaker.
Carlos:And the PLAYMAKER isn't the person who does the stuff necessarily.
Carlos:The playmaker is the person who makes sure everyone is in the right place, you know, is doing the thing.
Carlos:So there's something, an element of where you work best.
Carlos:I think.
Carlos:and also what impact the, the phrase that's coming to my head is like, impact isn't a destination, it's a journey.
Carlos:How does that feel?
Carlos:That what impact do you need?
Carlos:What do you need to feel when you're making impact as opposed to also what needs to happen in the world?
Laurence:the interesting thing, the story, uh, thing about Krenn story today is there's an immediate feedback loop, isn't there?
Laurence:You're getting feedback from that person to know that that smile is something that will live with you today.
Laurence:And I think that's important.
Laurence:I think for a lot of people, if we don't get that feedback loop, um, it's really hard to know if we are making an impact.
Laurence:And I personally feel that I enjoy working with small groups more so than I do with big groups or even in the past.
Laurence:I think when we started out, we wanted to impact millions of people, grow the Happy, Startup, School to every country in the world.
Laurence:And that is just, it's a really, um, well, I think a lot of that comes from ego number one, but also two, I think it's just, you know, it's recipe for burnout versus actually I think what both of us like is actually seeing the eyes of people light up or seeing people's ideas suddenly
Laurence:become clearer or seeing people connect with one another on a personal level and make friends and collaborators and supporters around them.
Laurence:So I think that feedback loop for me is key to what I feel is impact for me.
Carlos:Well, um, what's coming up for me now is also this, uh, the impact we wanna create in the world and our own needs.
Carlos:And what energizes us
Kumaran:and this small thing, what I kind of realize, uh, slowly is I don't have too many gifts to give.
Kumaran:I know what I know, which is very little, which is little bit of it.
Kumaran:And, and, uh, I need to find ways to give this effortlessly.
Kumaran:And to me, that's a learning about us.
Kumaran:I think, you know, so the dollar I gave to this guy today, I don't know if he's gonna go and drink.
Kumaran:If I start thinking through that, my mind goes crazy, So then I create a counterproductive thought for myself.
Kumaran:So my discovery is when you do what you know best with this, which is for me, little bit of it and open source.
Kumaran:And today, morning for example, every day there's somebody looking for a job and they call you.
Kumaran:I spend about 15 minutes to talk to that person to say what is his background?
Kumaran:And he doesn't have a father.
Kumaran:And he's saying, I dunno how to learn this skill.
Kumaran:And I used to, before many years, I used to say, okay, why don't you come for a free training?
Kumaran:You can be here, blah, blah, blah.
Kumaran:But there is so many challenges for them to come here.
Kumaran:I that 15 minutes to tell you can do this.
Kumaran:You can hire a one laptop for rupees, whatever.
Kumaran:You can do the work.
Kumaran:Spend two hours a Saturday and I'm here.
Kumaran:Help.
Kumaran:Phone number 15, small thing small that is in my affordability.
Kumaran:If I can, you know, call it that creates an impact.
Kumaran:Now, I wouldn't even remember that guy's name.
Kumaran:Doesn't matter.
Kumaran:There are so many calls like this, but this is the drug.
Kumaran:The drug.
Kumaran:How come to you is amazing when you do this.
Kumaran:I.
Kumaran:It just happens.
Kumaran:I believe in this that day, and I believe today also,
Carlos:I would say it's a bit of both.
Carlos:I would, my understanding that I think you, you manifest your own reality to an extent.
Carlos:And also you are, we surrender to wider, bigger, more influential forces around us that, that push us in different directions.
Carlos:I think one of the things I love about you, Krenn, is your humility around this, uh, and your self-awareness around the way you act, the way you work, even just the, um, and there's apologies.
Carlos:I don't mean in a bad way.
Carlos:This kind of naive optimism of to the world, which I think is so important.
Carlos:I think I say childlike much.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:It's, we're not, not clouded by cynicism.
Laurence:And that's, and that radiates, you know, Kuman.
Laurence:Lighthouse, I think when we've spent time with him and he just seems to attract people and connect people.
Laurence:And it just feels like you said, it feels effortless, feels like you're in your natural state rather than something that's forced or coming from, uh, the wrong energy.
Laurence:Um, and I think this feels key to this is like you said, what feels effortless to you but can have a massive impact on other people, but just maybe within a window that doesn't then become burdening for you over time.
Carlos:and there's something here from me about an awareness of, well, I heard was a growing awareness of boundaries as well.
Carlos:Not being able to say no or to be able to stop at a certain point rather than trying to give too much.
Carlos:Did I hear that correctly?
Carlos:Is that something
Carlos:worked with.
Carlos:Uh, ask it again, please.
Carlos:Boundaries.
Carlos:I was thinking there's a, on one level, there's this real generosity I sense from you, and there's always been this generosity, wanting to give.
Carlos:It was related to the one, the need to create more impact and this increasing, I, I'm gonna call them boundaries.
Carlos:The way of saying, you know, I can only do so much.
Carlos:There's only so much that I am able, I am personally able to do, but also I personally want to do.
Carlos:Because otherwise it will just turn, it will spiral into something that I can't control.
Carlos:Is that fair?
Kumaran:It's fair.
Kumaran:Uh, how I break it down in my head is now there is a dream to give big.
Kumaran:That's a dream, right?
Kumaran:That's a dream state.
Kumaran:Now I have small goals for it, but then I don't have habits.
Kumaran:That's what I realized the goals are so.
Kumaran:Keep you.
Kumaran:I'm not done yet.
Kumaran:I'm not done yet.
Kumaran:I'm not there yet.
Kumaran:And then the small become big and there's a goals, you know, which becomes a,
Kumaran:so I just switch habits.
Kumaran:I don't even have a goal.
Kumaran:Habits are possible for me.
Kumaran:And the compound interest of that, you know, if I can use that for the joy, you know, joy is also compound multiplier and it gets you there, it pushes you there.
Kumaran:People come it like, but I can tell you from my, you know, so you just go crazy places.
Kumaran:I mean, you, I think it.
Kumaran:Balance sheet is so in my control.
Kumaran:I understand.
Kumaran:So,
Kumaran:right.
Kumaran:So
Kumaran:give, if you put that as a challenge, not only to help people who are sick, but even during, can you do it training remotely?
Kumaran:So if you are, I think what I wanna say is if you create a habit of small deeds that you can do, the dreams become real and the goals achieve themselves, I.
Kumaran:You fuel that you have put for me.
Laurence:Likewise, likewise and weird.
Laurence:Weirdly, I got, I got a text from our friend Apu Aper this morning saying, can we do as, can we do ASRA in 2025?
Laurence:And then you show up today.
Laurence:So this is the, uh,
Carlos:the universe talking to you?
Carlos:Yes, yes.
Laurence:Or, or what?
Laurence:I think Ray uh, Ray Martin, our friend, said in the podcast, a confirmation signal.
Kumaran:let's meet again in altitude.
Kumaran:Happy startups.
Kumaran:Keep doing what you're doing.
Kumaran:We all love you.
Kumaran:So that's the energy you share for us.
Laurence:I would come just for kumaran and doses.
Laurence:Anything else as a bonus.
Carlos:Thank you very much, Krenn.
Carlos:You take care.
Carlos:Wow.
Laurence:Nice.
Carlos:That was a, a lovely trip down memory lane.
Carlos:And, uh,
Laurence:exactly.
Laurence:We could probably have a fill a whole hour, well, more than an hour.
Laurence:Some of the, uh, the tales and story of stories in, uh, in India with Kuran and his, uh, incredible, well, a
Carlos:shot of nostalgia, definitely.
Laurence:Yes.
Carlos:Um, I wanted to end maybe a little discussion because Terry at the beginning talked about, you know, the goal and then breaking that down and working towards the goal.
Carlos:I heard Krenn just talk about small habits, small impact that then takes you towards something so that there's two avenues here.
Carlos:There's one path.
Carlos:I know the goal.
Carlos:I choose the goal and I build the habits towards that goal.
Carlos:And the other path is, I'm not a hundred percent sure if I can achieve that, where that is, but I'm doing stuff along the way that then takes me somewhere I trust will take me somewhere.
Carlos:And so.
Carlos:you know, bringing it back to this topic of finding joy in doing good, essentially making impact by, at the same time, balancing our own wellbeing, coming from a place of abundance with it.
Carlos:do we choose the goals or do we let the month unfold?
Carlos:Do we need some level of intention?
Carlos:Uh, you know, for you, how would you, you know, you talked about at the beginning of the Happy, Startup, School, yeah.
Carlos:A million people, billion people, you know, just getting this out to the world.
Carlos:What is your perspective on, if someone was saying, I, I dunno what to, oh, because I think what I'm gonna come to commitment when we commit to something We will make it happen.
Laurence:Personally for me, goals I find anxiety inducing, um, well certainly goals that have a metric attached to them.
Laurence:Uh, so if you try and think of big numbers like let's reach a million people, or, um, we wanna scale to 20 countries, or all of this stuff, or we want to change the whole, I dunno, behavior within the whole culture.
Laurence:But these are things that I find well, a, I think are hard to reach, so you feel shit when you don't reach them.
Laurence:Um, but BI lose sight of the day to day.
Laurence:So I, I find myself being less present and being present is a need of mine.
Laurence:And so personally I found that when we're chasing a goal, it's all about the destination, not so much about the journey.
Laurence:And I find, I think the commitment for me was like with us committing to this work, so committing to the happy start of school, committing to.
Laurence:Living this life of, you know, uh, aligning our work with our values, trying to check in with our needs individually, collectively, uh, evolving this work to keep it interesting and keeping it, um, fresh.
Laurence:Not doing it for the wrong reasons.
Laurence:Those are things we are committed to, I feel.
Laurence:Um, and so for me it is about needs.
Laurence:It is about this compass of what is it I love?
Laurence:What is it I get energy from and how can I feed more of that into my day to day?
Laurence:And if I can do that and find the sweet spot with that, also helping other people, then that, for me is sustainable.
Laurence:And it's where I find joy and hopefully it's where I can do good without it sounding like I'm a do gooder.
Laurence:It's, um, it is this tension or this merry dance between the two.
Laurence:So, for example, I love connecting people.
Laurence:I love building community.
Laurence:I love gathering people.
Laurence:I love organizing gatherings, whether it's a party or a festival.
Laurence:And so for me.
Laurence:Creating those spaces gives me energy.
Laurence:Being in those spaces gives me energy.
Laurence:And I know being in those spaces gives other people energy and also can be hugely transformational.
Laurence:but it's not coming a place of pure altruism.
Laurence:It's coming from a place of this is my gift, this is what I can offer the world, and this is what I believe the world needs, and therefore I know with confidence that then that will help other people.
Laurence:and there's other examples of that, but that's a small example I think of what's in me for them, what's in me for the world and what's my work to do.
Laurence:And yeah, there are lots of other problems in the world that I would love that was solved, but I don't feel like I'm the person to solve them.
Laurence:If I can impact the people around me and the community around me, then that, for me is, is success.
Carlos:I wanted to acknowledge something that Catherine just shared, uh, about channeling, emergence.
Carlos:My own journey with this, I would say is for the, I think a good eight years, I was definitely, um, channeling or trying to channel emergence while trying to grab hold onto a goal because I needed to know what the goal was.
Carlos:I needed to know what, what was the purpose, more about purpose, what, why spend all this time and energy on something where, where is it going for me more than anything else?
Carlos:Uh, and I think now I'm, I kind of feel like I've come full circle in my own journey.
Carlos:'cause I'm a place, and I'll explain that a bit more.
Carlos:I feel a lot more grounded and clear about the goals myself personally.
Carlos:I, I have a stronger belief in terms of the work that I do because hearing what Terry is talking about, hearing about Kumaran, I have a real strong belief that the more we have self-awareness in business and in social enterprise or in any initiative and project.
Carlos:The more knowledge we have, the more likely we'll do something that will benefit ourselves and others.
Carlos:That's why I'm a coach.
Carlos:I'm happy to call myself a coach.
Carlos:That's why I do work that I feel is so much around exploring what drives us, what's, what motivates us, as well as how do I actually get that done?
Carlos:How do I take that first step, not just from a, a belief and courage point of view, but from a tangible, how do I create my first landing page?
Carlos:How do I create a mini course?
Carlos:How do I write a newsletter?
Carlos:These, these kind of small things that everyone else does, but from a place of actually this is helping me find the goal that I want to pursue or what I wanna commit to.
Carlos:And I say full circle because that's always something I wanted to do.
Carlos:It was this, uh, serve others.
Carlos:Not from a place of, oh, I need them to make, validate me, but actually there's a joy in serving others when you see them this epiphany moments like, shit, this is what I need to do.
Carlos:This is how it works.
Carlos:Now I can go off and do it.
Carlos:That feels to me very aligned.
Carlos:And I think the more of us that do that stuff, that find our lane, find our work to do, don't feel like we have to do other stuff that isn't even ours.
Carlos:I the better impact we all make together, rather than just being one person trying to save the world.
Carlos:And, and it could be some massive, you know, it could be one day you and me, Laurence, we write a book that does change the world and it will reach a million people and it will have happy startups called in every single country.
Carlos:But for the moment we do a coaching program.
Carlos:We take people to the mountains, we gather 150 people, and the feeling and the joy and the impact that creates lights us up, lights them up.
Carlos:And that's good for now.
Laurence:Mm.
Carlos:Amen.
