Sadhguru: If you want to maintain a status quo, nothing new will ever happen.
A leader means you are a madman who is always wanting to step into something new. Your life is an adventure.
When everybody is looking up to you, in case you fall, it's very bad.
So, it's very, very important you upgrade the machine.
Sadhguru: To really build a DNA of success,
these are the three things you need: insight, definitely,
integrity, and inspiration.
If you want to be inspired,
first thing is, you must find something larger than yourself to do.
Something which is bigger than yourself to do.
If you choose things which are safe and nice and easy, which will make you some money,
you may make some money, I'm not against it – that's the goal, it's fine. But you will not be inspired.
Living an inspired life, and living a...
for lack of vocabulary, I'm using this not as an insult to any profession, a clerical kind of life.
When I say clerical, it is all set.
You do this, this, this, you'll get your salary, that's it. No risk!
Last generation of people in this country would always say, first thing is, get a government employment.
That was the aspiration, always. Why? No risk.
Whether you are capable, not capable, you have a...
forty – forty-five year work span.
It doesn't matter whether you deliver, you don't deliver, you can even get there every day, or not.
Still you got a job, you will never be fired.
No risk!
If there has to be inspiration within you,
there has to be an element of uncertainty.
Without uncertainty, there is no inspiration, or a risk, or danger.
Where there is no danger, there is no adventure.
Where there is no adventure, nobody will be inspired by you.
If people don't see that you are willing to step into something that they are not willing to step into,
you cannot inspire anybody.
People should see what they're afraid of stepping into, you're willing to step into.
Well, when you take a risk, you may get burnt. Yes? It can happen.
That's what danger means, that there is a risk.
That's what risk means, sometimes it can go dead wrong.
Yes, of course we calculate the risks.
We're not going to blindly walk into something, but there is a risk.
Where there is no danger, there is no adventure.
Maybe you're risking your money, maybe you're risking your reputation, maybe you're risking a loss of time in your life.
Ten years of your life may go without any product. Possible... hello?
When you start a venture, it is possible ten, fifteen, twenty years of your life went into nothing.
That risk is there, you may not get killed like jumping off a mountain, but...
loss of life is there in many different ways.
So, inspiration, if it has to come, one basic element is integrity.
Where there is no integrity, you cannot inspire.
Integrity means just this: don't think integrity is a bundle of morals, values, ethics... No.
Integrity means, your commitment is larger than yourself.
Maybe it's your business, maybe it's your community, maybe it's your nation, maybe it's the world.
We don't know what, but something larger than yourself, you're committed to that.
Then people see, you have integrity.
People experience integrity, because you are committed to something beyond your own self-interest.
If they don't see that, then you cannot inspire anybody.
And if you do not inspire people around you, if they drag their feet... (Laughs)
if they drag their feet, your life is finished, just know this.
And these dragging feet people will make your life miserable in every possible way.
Hello? You've seen them?
So now, the only way is, "If you drag your feet, I'll fire you; if you drag your feet, I'll fire you."
That you can do to some extent.
With that, you're not going to produce the best in people.
It is not just they're not dragging their feet, it is just that they're going beyond their limits and doing something.
Only then, something wonderful is happening around you.
Only then, you being there in that activity,
it's worth getting up tomorrow morning, full on.
Otherwise, after being successful for five, ten years,
you will ask, "To be or not to be?"
You may not articulate it, but it will show in the length of your face.
Yes! That shows.
There is a question mark, whether "What is the purpose of my existence?" question mark has come.
Maybe it's not entered your head and become words, but the question mark is there in people's faces.
A face, if we had seen you when you were five, six years of age, it was like this. (Gestures)
Now slowly... (Gestures). This means, the question has risen somewhere.
Not yet articulated maybe, but question has come.
Why the question has come is, there is no inspiration.
Inspiration is not just all yours, the atmosphere around you should be inspired.
For that, without a very extreme sense of integrity, it won't happen.
If your integrity is just of morality and ethics, people will feel sick of you,
because it's very hard to live under a moral shadow. Very hard. It is life taking.
But your integrity is because your commitment is larger than your personal well-being.
That is when everything around you is inspired.
Coming to insight, this is the tricky part.
Insight means, you are able to see something that others could not see.
You're able to see things ahead of other people, that's an important thing.
Everybody sees everything at some point, but the thing is, you saw it before them.
That makes a world of difference.
If you were in a battle, it would decide whether you live or die.
If you're in a business, it decides whether you're really successful, or just about making it.
If you're in a spiritual process (Laughs), it's worse than battle.
If you have no insight of any kind, or if there's nobody around you with any insight,
then it's lifetimes of drudgery.
If you're not able to grasp any insight, or if there is nobody around you with deep insight,
you're just doing the spiritual process. Now, you are for lifetimes of slavery.
Yes. That is why they become the most serious kind everywhere in the world.
So, if insight has to come, one important dimension is…
The reason why there is no insight is,
people are largely trying to function with their intellect.
This is an unfortunate consequence of the type of education that's been imparted everywhere,
where your intellect is seen as a prime value.
To understand the mechanics of how your intellect functions,
your intellect is in function only with the data that has been fed into it.
Data means memory, somebody's memory or your memory.
Memory means, things that have already happened.
So, if you function from the data that you have,
you can do permutations and combinations of this data, and make it look like magic for some time.
But one thing is very clear, nothing new will ever happen,
because you've gotten enmeshed in your own data.
So, insight means that you do not
get identified with something limited.
Your identities with limitations essentially comes from the data that you gather.
Right now, you are identified with, let us say, your own personal qualifications.
Now, what you identified with, that's what you become.
Or, let us say, you're identified with your community, or with your nation, and that's what you become.
What you identify with, you become that.
In that sense, you are not able to look at life just the way it is.
If you're not able to look at things just the way it is,
this is simply because, you have given more significance to memory,
than to human attention and intelligence.
Human attention and intelligence is of a far more significance than your memory.
You know, you heard of Andrew Carnegie?
An Andrew Carnegie started making lots of money in United States.
Those were not the days of these Bezos, and Musks, and...
whatever all these other people. Nobody was making billions.
People always made money in incremental way.
But this guy started making enormous amount of money.
So naturally, there was a suspicion – where is it coming from?
Because these 20's, 30's, there were lots of ponzi schemes in America.
So they thought he's doing something.
So, a group of congressmen were formed
to investigate Carnegie.
This investigation went on for some time, and they found nothing wrong.
Then they called him, and in the investigation they asked him,
"We don't find anything wrong. There must be something wrong, because you're making so much money in such a short time.
There has to be a crime somewhere here. Where is it?" They're asking him.
So he said, "See... I can pay absolute attention
to anything that I see, for up to five minutes. Can any of you do that?"
They thought, "Rubbish, what five minutes, can't we pay attention? Tell us what is it?"
So he set up an experiment, five minutes.
Nobody could pay attention for more than few seconds – their attention all over the place.
Then they realized, they're not able to pay attention for five minutes.
Then he said, "You should not be running United States. It's not going to go anywhere, if you guys run this country." (Laughs)
Because human attention can open up doors in the existence,
human memory will just recycle the past.
Unfortunately, right now, data, data, data is becoming very big.
But anyway, data people will sink once the more... artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent.
My phone has more data than all of you put together. Hello? Yes or no?
It is capable of earning a PhD a day. Yes, it has enough information.
So, do not mistake information and data as intelligence.
Intelligence is sharpened only by attention, not by thinking.
Thinking means recycling data. I'm not saying data is completely irrelevant, it is.
If you want to maintain a status quo, data is important.
But if you want to be a leader… A leader means you are a madman who is always wanting to step into something new.
Something new means, you want to get into unfamiliar terrain all the time.
Unfamiliar terrain means, you are consciously stepping into danger.
So, your life is an adventure. Because it's an adventure, everybody is looking up to you.
When everybody is looking up to you, in case you fall, it's very bad.
So, it's very, very important you upgrade the machine, before you upgrade the activity.