[music]

0:00:00.4 Wayne Brown: Hello and welcome to the penultimate episode of this quarter. It’s the first quarter of 2023, but the third quarter of our podcast journey. And more importantly, it’s an opportunity to bring another interesting guest onto the show who shares his perspectives about life and leadership. And this, of course, means an opportunity for you, team ET, to broaden your insights and your knowledge. I’m Wayne Brown, and welcome to the ET Project. We’re delighted to be delivering this podcast for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as team ET. Our guest today is Mr. Sanjib Nandi. Sanjib hails originally from India and lived in London for a period before settling in Berlin, Wisconsin, in the States. His journey so far means that he’s able to bring a unique perspective to the table, a blend of both eastern and western cultures and medicines. Sanjib combines his knowledge of psychology, physiology, pharmacology, and the mind-body connection to produce a vibrant and practical approach to healing and human vitality.

0:01:11.9 WB: During our conversation today, we turn our focus to wellness as an approach for leadership. We’ll be discussing connections between the brain and the body and how meditation impacts. We’ll also touch on other important wellbeing factors to perform in parallel to meditation and how these can be combined to benefit leaders. Sanjib’s created an app called Luvo, L-U-V-O. This is an interesting development that brings a unique design to help people improve every area of their lives by adopting healthier habits. Luvo has an integrative approach to meditation and connects it with other powerful habits like water intake, exercise, cold showers, sleep hygiene, mindset and energy flow. Luvo leverages the growing research about electric and magnetic fields in the body that suggest changes in vibrational frequencies may affect ourselves in ways that potentially benefit our health. In addition to being a father, working as a pharmacist and developing apps, Sanjib is also an author and music composer. He wrote a book in 2021 called The Man with Zero Talent and the lyrics for an album called Rise From the Ashes. Both of these speak to his philosophy and zest for life. Sanjib’s passion is to share his journey and help others live a healthy, fulfilling life. So with that, let’s get started with this conversation titled, Bridging East and West for the Wellness of Leaders.

0:02:46.5 Speaker 2: Welcome to the ET Project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.

0:03:03.3 WB: All right, well, team ET, welcome again to another fantastic week. It’s been a hectic week as usual, but I’m really happy to introduce our guest to the show today. We share some common interests and we’ll unpack those as we get into the show, but today we’re traveling all the way over to Berlin, Wisconsin, in the United States, to meet with our guest, Sanjib Nandi. So Sanjib, welcome to the show.

0:03:32.2 Sanjib Nandi: Thank you, Wayne, for inviting me in your show. I hope your audience will be able to benefit from our conversation.

0:03:39.5 WB: I have little doubt that that will be the case. And as you may have picked up team, just by listening to Sanjib’s accent and maybe by his name, Sanjib hails from a country that’s also very dear to my heart, which is India. For those of you that know me, know that I have a special passion for the country, I’ve spent many years and worked there with a lot of fantastic people. So I’m really happy to be able to connect with Sanjib. You’ve been in the United States, I believe Sanjib, for about 14 or so years. What are you doing over there at the moment?

0:04:17.3 SN: I came to United States in 2008 and I had to convert my pharmacy degree from India to the pharmacist license, which is valid in United States. So it took me one and a half years and after finishing, you know, all the degrees to the equivalent of the United States, I’ve been working here as a pharmacist for the past 12 years.

0:04:44.9 WB: Wow. I can only imagine the challenges that this presented. I’m thinking that we’re gonna get into this topic sooner or later, but I might as well introduce it at this stage. We’re gonna be talking about wellness in general. We’ll touch on areas of meditation, we’ll touch on brain science. We’ll touch on a number of things around the connection between brain and body. And you are also in the process where you have an app that you’ve created, which is really a wellness app, but it’s not your typical wellness app, I would like to say, it’s not only focused on meditation practices, it’s focused on the whole gamut of wellness. So I’d like, if you don’t mind, just for you to introduce that and we’ll come back to that in more detail later, but if you could just talk a little bit about what the app does and the purpose, please.

0:05:43.0 SN: The name of the app is Luvo. It’s a free app and anybody can download in Google or Apple play store. And basically it’s about overall health and wellness. Like you can see so many app which says, you know, only about meditation or only about exercise. We have implemented, you know, meditation as one section of Luvo. Then we have implemented exercise. So it will count the number of steps you take, distance traveled and the calories burned, and you can have a graphical representation like every day, weekly basis, monthly basis and yearly basis so that you can track it, like you know, how many steps you have taken the previous month and how many you’re taking, you know, this month or the previous day. And the same thing with water intake, as you know that, you know, our body and brain is made up of 70% of water. And, you know, as we live in cold countries, especially me where I’m living in Wisconsin which, you know…

0:06:52.8 SN: Right now, the time is, most of it, it snows, so we forget to drink water. So, if we have a reminder in our app which tells us, okay, we have to drink water every two or three hours, it becomes a habit then. So that app will remind you, okay, you have to drink water every two or three hours, and you can log in that app, you know how much water you are drinking. And again, you can have a graphical representation about daily, monthly, yearly wise. Then we have a sleep section which analyzes your sleep. As you know that, you know, sleep is a very important component of your life. If you’re not able to sleep well, it changes our life drastically because everything is related to how well we are able to sleep because all the toxins, all the waste, all the bad things has to come out of the brain once you are sleeping.

0:07:58.1 SN: So that app will analyze your sleep, like how well you are rested, like light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep. And then the app has motivational quotes to inspire you every single day because we need some kind of motivation every single day. Then we have gratitude, which is again, a very important part in every day, happy and healthy living. Because unless and until we are grateful for something, we cannot be truly happy. To make ourself truly happy, we have to be conscious of the little, grateful things which we are having every single day. Like having a conversation with you is something which we never thought 15 or 20 years back, it was not possible. Now you can sit any part of the world and you can communicate with any person face to face, which is something, we should cherish it.

0:09:02.5 SN: So gratitude is one section. Then we have mood checks like, how well we are doing on that particular day, whether we are happy, we are grateful, we are sad, we are anxious, and then we have breathing exercises as we know that, you know, breathing is control of our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. So one is the fight or flight system, and the second one is the rest and recovery. So if you can breathe in a way which can calm our brain and our body, then it helps to be in a calmer state. And the last section which we have is our blogs to give you knowledge and information because knowledge is what is needed right now in this today’s world. I know there is lot of information which is available, but the right knowledge that, you know, this is the thing why we are doing these kind of changes. So if we can provide you a better explanation why we have these kind of features in the app and how it is beneficial to you, then it becomes easier for you to connect with the Luvo app.

0:10:17.4 SN: And eventually we’ll be starting live meditation and yoga, and we have five section there. We have live meditation, we have yoga session, we have healthy eating, because again, what we eat defines how our body and how our brain is going to work. And then we have meditation, music, and a section about gratitude. So these will be five live sessions, which we’ll be implementing the next year.

0:10:49.4 WB: Well, it’s certainly a complete package, right? Just listening to all of the bits that are a part of this app, and I was trying to think of some of the apps that I’ve used in this space. And I can’t think of any of that is so comprehensive. So, well done to the whole thought process of putting this together. And I look forward to using it myself. I’ve just signed up with it. Listening to what you’re talking about there, there’s obviously a lot of knowledge that you have to have to be able to bring this to the table in the first place. And I know in our conversation previously and in the lead up to going live on this recording, you’ve done studies in brain and body. I wonder if we can just talk a little bit to that at the moment. So where did that interest come from? What started this whole journey for you?

0:11:53.2 SN: Well, it’s a very interesting story. I did not start anything because I wanted to start anything. Like I started it because I did not have any choice left. So from 2013 to 2016, I was struggling in my life because of circumstances beyond my control. I was restless. I was in pain, fear, anger, resentment. And my life was going downhill. And I realized at one point that I have to do something because I was in that state on and off for two or three years, and I was thinking, somebody or my friends or God is going to help me. But after waiting for two or three years, when you see that nothing is going to change anything, you are the only person who have to do something to change your circumstances…

0:13:02.4 SN: So in 2016, when I was thinking deeper and deeper, I thought, what should I do today so that it’ll control my restless mind? Because we all live in this three pound jelly of mass, which is called our brain. And you might have heard that it is called the monkey mind because it is very restless, but very powerful at the same time. And when you are dealing with negative thoughts or emotions, you kind of keep thinking the same thought over and over again. And sometimes it becomes harder to come out of that negativity. And the same thing was happening with me. So to control this restless mind, I took a decision that I have to do something, and I started my self-transformation journey in 2017. So as I am from India and the meditation has started in Eastern culture, so I thought of doing meditation for five or 10 minutes and see that whether it will be helpful to me or not. So it was a hit and trial method, and after doing it for six to eight weeks, I see changes inside me, that I was not overeating, because what used to happen when I was in a stressful state, I used to overeat to compensate that stress, because the energy has to go somewhere. And when we overeat, all the energy goes to digest the food. So I was not overeating more, my drinking habits was less. I was a little bit less… I was more calmer than I used to be before.

0:14:54.7 SN: And once I saw these changes, I started reading a lot about meditation and how it scientifically changes our brain. And once I got all these information that, you know, how it is changing your brain and how it is doing other things in your body at the same time, because our brain and body is all interrelated, which is called the body-mind connection. And when we are going through a stressful state, our body gets affected at the same time. And there is a direct connection between the brain and the gland in the body, which is called adrenal medulla, which releases stress hormone at the time of stress. So in simple terms, the brain tells the body to release stress hormones. And when you are in a stressful state, your body immunity goes down. Once your immunity goes down, you’re prone to more diseases. Your cholesterol level goes high, your blood pressure goes high, and your blood sugar level also increases. So because of this stress, so many changes happen in the body. And again, chronic stress is bad. Like, you know, when you are in a negative situation for a long period of time.

0:16:32.9 SN: We all have to deal with stressful situation nowadays. It is not possible not to be with stress because it’s a part and parcel of our life, but when it has become so chronic that you’re not able to think beyond your circumstances, then it becomes chronic, and to deal with that situation, I started meditating. So after doing it for eight weeks, I see so many changes. And then to give you a scientific explanation what meditation does, first let me clarify the myth about meditation. People say that it is related to Hinduism or Buddhism. It has nothing to do with any religion. Meditation is basically a deep mindful concentration on an object, place, thing or on your breath. And why breath? Because that is the thing which is readily available to you. You don’t have to go searching for it.

0:17:41.3 SN: So in simple terms, it’s a form of mental exercise tailored specifically for your brain. And if you can train your brain to work for you, then you can reach to your higher potential, because once I’m able to come out of negativity, my goal was, how I can reach my higher potential, and slowly I have seen changes. And to give you a brief explanation, I will not go in too much details, the three things which scientifically proven that meditation decreases the size of amygdala, which is the fear or the flight response in our brain. And it’s a scientist by the name of Sara Lazar who found out that eight weeks of meditation decreases the electrical activity in the amygdala, which is correlated to your worries, fear and anxiety.

0:18:45.1 SN: The second point which I wanted to mention is about, either we are left brainers or right brainers. The persons who are left brainers are more logical, analytical and rational. And the persons who are right brainers, they are more about creating new things and intuitive. They are more good at philosophy. And what meditation does, it increases the thickness between the left brain and the right brain, which means you can have better focus and clearer thinking. And the third part which I wanted to tell is about, it increases the thickness and volume of the hippocampus, which is the learning and the memory center. So these are the benefits of meditation. There are so many other benefits, but these has been scientifically proven.

0:19:45.0 WB: I know we spoke at one stage about mindfulness versus meditation, and you have a perspective about the difference or the similarities between the two.

0:19:57.1 SN: So in Eastern culture, the word meditation is used more widely. And in Western culture, the mindfulness word is used more widely, but it’s one and the same thing. There is nothing much difference because it’s all about focus and concentration. Our intention is not to become monks. Our intention is to live a life which is happy and healthy, and to live a happy and healthy life, we have to have a control of this mind, and to have a better focus and concentration so that it can take us to different level of our happy life.

0:20:40.6 WB: The whole premise of using meditation for helping your brain and your body to be in a fitter state is something that I think is extremely useful for all people. If I bring that now back to leadership and the leaders that are part of… They’re our listener base, what is your suggestion for leaders to start this practice if they’re not doing it already?

0:21:09.5 SN: For the leaders, as they are the role models, it can be a leader or it can be the CEO or it can be any teachers, we all need concentration and focus to function well in our life. It’s a part of our life. If we can focus and concentrate, then only we can become great leaders. And to become a great leader, you have to have clear focus and concentration. If you are not able to concentrate your thoughts, you will never be able to become a great leader. So that is the first part, that it’ll increase the focus and concentration. As I have mentioned, that once you start doing meditation, six to eight weeks will make you a whole brainer.

0:22:08.4 SN: It might take a little bit more time, but you have to keep the practice of meditation to get the actual benefit. If you think that, “I will do it for six to eight weeks, then I will stop it,” then it is not going to benefit you. It’s a practice which you have to do it on a consistent basis. So once you’re able to increase your focus and concentration, you can have better clarity of your thoughts and you can become more intuitive because when you are dealing with so many situation in this world, we don’t know what is the right decision, because having a clear vision and having a clear thought only will make a better leader in spite of all the negativity, all the doubts which is going through.

0:23:02.4 SN: And the second thing which I wanted to mention is fear. Fear is the number one reason which is stopping us from doing bigger things in our life. It may be a leader or it may be the CEO of a company. If we have less fear, we are able to take control of the situation in a more positive way. And as you know, that fear paralyzes the thinking and the reasoning part of the brain, which is the neocortex, and it hijacks the amygdala which is the emotional part of the brain. It not only causes habit in the mind, but also in the body. And when your mind is in stress, your body will act and behave in the same way. So to become a good leader, you have to have your fear in control because if you’re less fearful, you’re able to take better decisions.

0:24:00.4 SN: And the third thing which I wanted to mention is about emotions. As Dale Carnegie told that human beings are not the creatures of logic. We are creatures of emotions. And as a leader, if you’re able to control your emotions and you can regulate your emotions in a well-channeled manner, then you are able to understand the emotions of the other human being. If as a leader I can understand that I am getting agitated or I’m getting angry, if you’re able to control that emotions, you will be able to speak with your colleagues in a better way. And once you’re able to speak in a better way, you will be able to understand their emotions, and you can give suggestion that how we can work as a leader and how we can work as a team, because the role of the leader is to move maybe 10 people or 50 people or 100 people in an organization in a way which is helpful for that team. And that is a skill which has to be learned, and it takes a little bit time to manage a big team.

0:25:22.0 SN: And this has been learned by so many people at the same time. Like if you see Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, they were not great leaders initially, but they learned the skill through emotional intelligence that rather than having a heated conversation with somebody else, it’s better to resolve the issue in a friendly manner so that it is good for the team. And how you can develop this emotional intelligence is through meditation because meditation is going to calm your mind, it is going to give you a gap between your emotional brain and the thinking brain. Because if somebody is making you angry or if somebody is not happy with the response you are giving, they will be saying some of the things which you are not happy explaining it. You becomes agitated. Rather than becomes agitated, you take control of the thinking and the logical brain and respond in a way which is helpful for the team.

0:26:32.3 WB: I was visualizing as you were talking that a number of leaders will be thinking, “Oh yeah, sure. Now I have to go and find a corner where I can sit down and I can put the meditation posture in place and play the nice music.” Is that the case or is there a simpler way we can approach meditation during the day? What’s your recommendation for when to do meditation?

0:27:00.0 SN: Again, there is no hard and fast rule when to do it. The best time to do is in the morning and in the evening, but that should not stop you from doing it at any time. And why in the morning? When we wake up, that is the time when we have to take control of our brain frequency. We have four kind of brain waves. When we are sleeping, we have delta brain waves. Just when we wake up, we have beta brain waves. After 10 minutes of waking, it’s alpha brain waves and when we are working, we have beta brain waves. So that is the period just from waking up till 10 minutes if we can implement meditation so that you will be knowing how to change your brain waves at your will. So suppose when you are working, you are at beta waves, if you wanted to switch it to calm and relax mode, you will be able to change it at your will if you started early in the day and your whole day will progress the way you want it to do it, if you do it in the morning.

0:28:16.1 SN: But it should not stop you from not doing it anytime you’re trying to do it. You can do it sitting in a chair. You don’t have to sit in a lotus position. You can take a place in your office at the same time, as long as there is no noise, it’s a quiet place. You can sit in the chair and you can just close your eyes and you can just concentrate on your inhale or exhale. Some of the people, it becomes harder to concentrate on the breath. Then you can concentrate on any object. Like you can imagine a beautiful beach and you can concentrate on that beach, or you can concentrate on any object. Or you can concentrate on any mantra. Whatever is helping you, whatever suits you, that is the thing you have to pick it up. There is no hard and fast rule because we are trying to do meditation or mindfulness to have a better control of this mind.

0:29:22.6 WB: And of course, the app, the Luvo app would be a great companion for all leaders as they find themselves in a stressful situation at work to be able to get themselves somewhere into a quiet location where they could take five minutes just to regroup and allow their brain to calm down and get into that right state. So I think the actual practice of mindfulness meditation is something that once you learn it, you can then start to apply it very simply regardless of where you are. That’s my experience at least. And there’s a lot of different techniques you can use. I remember at one program that we did, we focused on the food that we were tasting, that we were eating, and I think there’s a very famous example around that, right? Channeling your thought process while you’re relaxed and breathing. And so there’s many things you can do to help you regroup as a leader when you’re feeling this overwhelm, which I guess is the whole point of leadership and wellness in general. So it’s a very important part of your toolkit, is what I would like to add.

0:30:51.9 WB: So as a leader, we talk about leadership skills and leadership capacity and ability. Now we need to also think about the wellness of the leader, but not only the leader, of course. We also need to think about the wellness of those that we’re leading. The whole environment around work at the moment is very focused on this topic. So I think it’s very timely to have this conversation. So this is not only for those leaders. This is for everybody that finds themself in any way under stress and needing a channel to be able to relieve that, and meditation or mindfulness is a great practice. And of course, coupled with Sanjib’s app, L-U-V-O, I think it’s a great companion. We all have smartphones today and it sits very nicely on the smartphone and very easy to access. So it’s a great companion in this regard. I normally ask at the beginning, is there any fun facts that you’d like to share with the audience?

0:32:00.7 SN: So the fun fact, when I came in United States in 2008, I have very less hair at my back, and when I went to a barber, he told me he will charge me $15. So I have one-fourth of the hairs, and I thought, $15? And I came from India where they used to charge maybe 20 cents or 30 cents, and paying $15 was kind of a very big amount at that time. I was not happy, but I still had a haircut, but after that, I bought my own hair clippers, and I have been using that for the past 15 years. I have never went to a barber after that.

[chuckle]

0:32:46.4 WB: I can imagine. The audience can’t see us, of course, but you have no hair right at the moment, so I guess you’ve become very proficient with your clippers.

0:33:00.8 SN: Yes, yes. So it’s a easy thing. I spent $15 buying it, and I’m using it for the past 15 years, which is definitely much cheaper than paying the barber $15 every time.

0:33:10.3 WB: It’s very…

0:33:12.8 SN: And that was 14 years back.

[chuckle]

0:33:14.8 WB: It’s a very sound return on investment. Apart from the Luvo app, which I know you’re putting a lot of time and energy into, and will continue to, anything that you’re doing at the moment that’s exciting you, or anything in the world that’s happening that’s got you excited?

0:33:35.1 SN: I am always into creating new things. I have 15 songs in Spotify, so I write the lyrics of these songs, and then I find peoples who will sing it for me. That is the one part of my creativity which gives me happiness. I like to create different things. So a part of my energy is diverted to creating music, because as you know, that music can change our state of mind. And I like to create music which is inspirational and which is motivational because that is my field of expertise. I don’t make music which is kind of hip-hop or those kind of things. The lyrics has to be something which has to be inspiring, which should motivate you, which should give positivity in your life.

0:34:33.0 SN: So that is one of the things which I’m working on. I do have a YouTube channel where I put all these songs. I try to have motivational talks maybe five or 10 minutes. Every couple of weeks I will take a particular topic. Like I will talk about fear or I will talk about passion. So I try to put something in my YouTube channel so that people can learn about what I’m trying to do is. It’s all about connecting with the right audience. And I know that so many people are struggling in this today’s world maybe because of fear, maybe because of anxiety, and I have gone through that phase, and I know how hard it is to come out of that negativity. So my passion or my journey or my motto is to help other people take that journey in a shorter period of time because I struggled for three years, then it took me three years to again self-transformation myself. So if I can give you a tool map, okay, do these things, which will give you a clear path and you can change yourself in eight to 10 weeks which is more beneficial than you investing your three years trying to find what is or how you can change your life.

0:36:02.1 WB: And you’ve also written a book a couple of years back I recall, “The Man with Zero Talent.” What’s the book’s theme around?

0:36:13.1 SN: So again, the book theme is about self-help and self-transformation. And it deals with life at the same time. I started my first book as… First chapter as life is messy. As you all know that we all have to go through pain and suffering. And when we go through this pain and suffering, we think about, okay, what is the meaning of this life? When everything is going around fine, nobody checks, okay, what is the meaning of my life? But when everything is crumbling down, then that is the right question, what is the meaning of my life and this pain and suffering? So I started my first chapter as life is messy and everybody’s life is hard. We cannot say that my life is easy or your life is easy.

0:37:10.5 SN: Everybody has to face difficulties in life. That is the fact of life. It may not be today. It might be after five years or 10 years, you will be faced with a difficult situation. So rather than dealing with that situation later, how can you prepare yourself in your life so that you can live a happy and healthy life? And slowly I have progressed the book about how to come out of negativity to positivity. And once you are able to come out of positivity, how you can become a better version of yourself. So it’s a overall book, which is going to self-transform your life in eight to 10 weeks. It’s about overall health. I have written about healthy eating, I’ve written about emotional intelligence, I’ve written about exercise, because as you know, that if meditation is for your brain, exercise is for your body. We have to take care of both brain and the body. We cannot just take care of one part and neglect the other part. It’s definitely interconnected, but if we are approaching life in both the ways, it’s more helpful and you can become a better version of yourself.

0:38:36.3 WB: I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll make sure that it’s on my reading list going forward. As we wrap up today’s conversation, which has been excellent, is there any, let’s say, words of wisdom that you would like to leave with our audience around the whole wellness topic?

0:38:56.3 SN: If I have to leave just one point, even if to myself, I will always say invest your time in wisely in improving yourself. It can be your physical health, it can be your mental health, because we all need our physical and mental health in the best shape. And being a leader, that is the most important thing because if you cannot keep yourself mentally healthy and physically fit, you will be not able to lead a bigger team. So invest your time in doing something which is going to take care of your physical and mental health. You can choose meditation, you can choose yoga, you can choose any kind of different activities. It’s up to you to choose it, but take something which is going to be helpful down the lane, but keep working on yourself. Even if you are at age of 50 or 55 or 60, you always have to keep working on your skill, on your mental and physical health. That is the key. Once we leave that thing, it becomes harder to regain that. So that is the key point which I wanted to tell.

0:40:16.9 WB: Sanjib Nandi, it’s been a excellent conversation, very insightful, and I’m sure our listeners will get a lot from it. Thank you for being on the ET Project. It’s been a delight.

0:40:29.5 SN: Thank you very much, Wayne. And I hope your audience will be able to get some of the tips… Some of the tools which we have talked about and they can live a happy and successful life.

[music]

0:40:42.4 Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on the ET Project, a show for executive talent development. Until next time, check out our site for free videos, ebooks, webinars and blogs at coaching4companies.com.