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This episode is a bit unusual for us in that we interviewed our guest, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani, in February, but she asked that, if possible, we didn’t publish the episode until much later. So, here it is July 11 and the episode is finally going live. Why? Because just this week Kristina’s book, "Becoming Flawesome" is published and available for purchase. Being a NY Times Bestselling author myself I understand and agreed to wait on giving you this episode until you also could find her book. Seems fair to me.
Kristina is from Estonia originally where she held government jobs and advanced far beyond what people there would ever expect from a woman. However, Kristina did not let that stop her as you will hear.
Kristina brings us an interesting discussion about making choices. As you will hear, in her native country after the Soviet Union fell, suddenly people were confronted with the fact that no one was making choices for them anymore. Before the fall, people really, according to Kristina, did not need to choose much. They were controlled. After the fall all that changed.
Another discussion we have is about happiness. Kristina offers a great deal of insight into how we view the concept of happiness including what it really means to attain happiness.
I hope you enjoy and get some good knowledge and advice from Kristina’s observations. She indeed does offer a number of life lessons that can help anyone. Please let me know what you think by emailing me at michaelhi@accessibe.com.
About the Guest:
Kristina Mand-Lakhiani is an international speaker, entrepreneur, artist, philanthropist, and mother of 2 kids. As a co-founder of Mindvalley, a leading publisher in the personal growth industry, Kristina dedicated the last 17 years of her career from teachers like Michael Beckwith, Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, and many more.
She started her career in a government office in her native Estonia and, by her mid-20s, achieved a level of success mostly known to male politicians at the end of their careers. It was shortly after that Kristina and her husband Vishen founded Mindvalley. From a small meditation business operating out of the couple’s apartment in New York, the company quickly grew into a global educational organization offering top training for peak human performance to hundreds of thousands of students all around the world.
Kristina believes life is too important to be taken seriously and makes sure to bring fun into every one of her roles: as a teacher, mother, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and world traveller. Kristina helps her students to virtually hack happiness by taking them through her unique framework - “Hacking happiness” - a unique framework of balancing your life, taking in every moment, and paying close attention to the small daily choices. Kristina is also the author of three transformational quests - "7 Days To Happiness", "Live By Your Own Rules.” and "The Art of Being Flawesome". Kristina talks about personal transformation, authenticity, understanding and accepting oneself, and a path to happiness.
In June 2023, with the help of Hay House Publishing, Kristina releases her very first book - "Becoming Flawesome". In her book, Kristina shares her own journey from being on top of a personal growth empire like Mindvalley to stepping aside, conscious uncoupling from her husband, and walking her path towards being more honest with herself.
Ways to connect with Kristina:
https://www.instagram.com/kristinamand/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-mand-lakhiani-73168414/ https://www.facebook.com/kristinamand/ https://kristinamand.com/ https://kristinamand.com/book/
About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi, once again, and welcome to unstoppable mindset, we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And you know what I say unexpected comes up more often than not. And that's what makes it so much fun. Today, we get to chat with an upcoming author, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani. And Kristina has been working on a book. And it will be in his out by the time that you get to hear this, which is great, but we're recording it prior to it coming out. So that we're all prepared when she gets done with all the edits. And she was just telling me that she's gone through and hopefully edited it for the last time. We'll see about that, Kristina. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 02:05 I actually think for this for this print, it's for the last time, but who knows, hopefully it will go well, and I'll go for a second print. But Michael, thank you for having me. And I appreciate it a lot. Michael Hingson ** 02:16 Well, it's my pleasure. And we're really grateful for you being here and talking with us. I'd like to start by learning a little bit more about you maybe growing up. I know you come from Estonia, and we'd love to learn about kind of the younger Kristina and all that stuff. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 02:33 You know, it's it's funny, because as we were just chatting that I had to go through my book once again, and I noticed suddenly that actually, quite a lot of the book is influenced by the fact that I was born in Soviet Union, because I refer to that I remember even somebody from our audience once saying, why can't you just let go of that past that? It's such an interesting idea? Do we have to let go of our past? Or can we just appreciate it for what it is and for making us what we are? So I am not like I don't consider myself traumatized by the Soviet past. But some of the things that I share do sound a little bit funny. And not funny, actually a little bit odd, probably. But yeah, so I was born in Soviet Union, I was raised in Soviet Union grew up in that country, I was 14 when it collapsed. So I have very conscious memories of of how it was to be in that very restrictive environment. Nowadays, of course, people have hard times imagining it, but I guess the closest comparison would be North Korea, if you can imagine that. Only much, much bigger. And it was it was a human life in any in every sense of the word. But of course, it was a very restrictive society, it was very idealistic. And some things which are normal nowadays, were not, were not part of my reality, for example, being intrapreneur there was no business it was illegal, or personal growth, even for that matter. I believe I'm very skeptical, and a little bit of a nerd because of my upbringing, upbringing. So these things are probably what what influenced me? Michael Hingson ** 04:08 Well, and in reality, I, I really find it interesting what you said before, and it is so unfortunate, forget your past. That's part of what makes us who we are, no matter what our past is. And I love to tell people, when I think about my life, and so on, I can trace back to a great degree, the choices I made and how those choices have made a difference or made me do the things that I do today. So forgetting about what your past was, as long as you keep it in perspective is never something that we should do, it seems to me. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 04:46 Yeah, agree and we can talk about pasts or we can talk about certain aspects of us as human beings. And you know, we always have a choice what we do with what is given to us. I think I'm partially paraphrasing Right now, Gan, Gandalf who who replied to fraud us complaint that, why was it my lot to bring, you know, to take care of that ring to roll them all. And Gandalf said to that you, you don't get to pick the times when you are born. But you always get to pick what to do with those times or get to choose, of course, I'm paraphrasing this quote, I think that's that's the case about your past. That's a case about you as a human being and everything that has happened to you or where you were born. You never get to choose a lot of those things. But you always get to choose how you how you treat, treat what you have been given. Michael Hingson ** 05:35 Sure. And the other part about it is that we stress so much about so many things. In reality, one of the lessons I learned from being in the World Trade Center and escaping on September 11, is we didn't have control over the World Trade Center happening. And I'm not convinced, I suppose somebody will prove me wrong someday, perhaps. But I'm not convinced. We really could have figured it out. The people who did it kept it a pretty well guarded secret. And they succeeded. We can't worry about the things that we can't control what we can worry about, or what we should focus on, are the things that we can and let the rest go because it's not going to do us any good to fret about them. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 06:16 Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And it's not like in the case of September 11. Of course, there may be different opinions about could it have been prevented or not. But there are a lot of things that could not have been prevented, you know, when I don't know, maybe volcano, volcano erupting is not anymore. A good enough excuse, but things happen which are completely out of human control. And and I like quoting fictional characters. So there's another fictional character from one of my favorite novels Master and Margarita. And he's, he's like, he's the devil, in essence, and he says, she says human human is mortal. And that would have been half the problem. The real problem is that the human is mortal unexpectedly. I know it's a little bit of a morbid, morbid quote. But it also has a little bit of a human it. That's the essence of life, that it's unexpected and unpredictable. So what's the point of fretting about what you don't know? Right? Michael Hingson ** 07:17 Exactly. And, you know, the reality is, life being somewhat unpredictable is a lot of fun. And if we can't approach life from a fun standpoint, if we take ourselves and life so seriously, that we can't find relief or just plain joy in the unpredictability then what good are we Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 07:40 I know that humor for example, is one of the one of the well coping strategies which is considered healthy for you. And coping strategies are those things that we do when we are faced with the reality which we don't want or we didn't expect. So humor is definitely one of those things which is very healthy for you and helps to deal with adversity. Michael Hingson ** 08:07 Yeah, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with with humor. I think again, it's like anything else it's how we do it and what we do with it if we if we use it in a in a positive way to uplift us and uplift others that's great if we do it to abuse or pick on someone necessarily a good thing. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 08:28 But that's not necessarily humor that might be Michael Hingson ** 08:32 might be bullying. You're absolutely right. You know, I love to talk sometimes about Don Rickles Are you familiar with him? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 08:40 I've heard but no, I am not familiar with so used to be known Michael Hingson ** 08:43 before. Well, he passed but he used to be known as Mr. warmth. And what he did is he came out on the stage. And he loved to pick on people. And and he was was pretty hard on people and brutal. But I saw an interview with him once on the Phil Donahue show back in. Oh gosh, it must have been in the ad some time. And one of the things that he said was that he always watched his audience in if he felt that somebody was getting truly offended by him picking on them, he'd stopped he would not pick on them. Because it was all supposed to be in fun. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 09:25 You know, I I'm, I'm thinking that he must have been very confident in his ability to read people's emotions. But with that said, my favorite type of humor is when people laugh at themselves. I think it's the healthiest kind. Michael Hingson ** 09:41 Yeah. And he was very capable of doing that. No question about it. And he he also had so many other comedians pick on him as well in fun ways. And so I think that he was a person Who could truly read the emotions of people, I think probably in that kind of a setting, it would have been relatively easy to do based on expressions of people and how they're reacting if he's looking at them, or picking on them, and so on. But still, he had to be good at what he did. And as far as I know, everybody who really stepped back and looked at him, felt that he did a good job. I know there are a lot of people who say, Oh, he just abused people, and he picked on people, but I don't think they looked at him. And they don't think they really analyzed what they were seeing. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 10:30 I can't comment on that, because I haven't seen it. So it does. It does sound like a slippery slope, honestly, because some all could be. It's, some people assume that they understand the effect of worldwide their words on other people. But we don't always, we don't always know what other people feel. And people don't always show what they feel. So Michael Hingson ** 10:54 Well, I think if people go to his show, they went because they expected to, to mostly be picked on because that's what his reputation was. But when I went, I listened to a couple of his albums. And so when I've never, never did get a chance to go to one of his shows, but it seemed to me that he really did try to keep on the right side of that slope. And I know that if I had ever had a chance to meet him in person, if I'd ever had a chance to go to one of his shows and and he started to pick on me, I would just get up and say Yeah, well, I took one look at you and haven't been able to see since so what do you think of that? Yeah. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 11:32 never got the chance. You see, you're laughing at yourself. That's much better. Michael Hingson ** 11:36 Absolutely. It's all. Where's the fun without doing that? Yeah. Well, so the Soviet Union collapsed. And then what did you do what what happened with your life, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 11:46 I was a teenager when the Soviet collapse. So I just went on with with whatever it was doing. But things around me started changing dramatically. And it was a hard time for a lot of people who actually didn't like uncertainty. And that was a lot of uncertainty and all the things. But there was one thing about your way to Union, which was, in a way, a lot of people regret losing it was the freedom to not have to choose. Because choices were done for you. And and I do actually wonder how many choices people enjoy doing that. I think there's statistics, there's research that says that we are only comfortable with about like two and a half choices. But there was there was some kind of lightness in the knowing that everything had been decided for you. And you just just go with the flow. I like comparing it to a life of a pet. You kind of have a good life, but But you belong to someone that changed. So there is certainty in somebody else making decisions for you. And suddenly that certainty was taken away. So a lot of people I know suffered. I was a teenager, of course, it was easier for me to adjust. But it wasn't the case for everyone. And yeah, people don't like uncertainty, it's, I think a very understandable analogy for contemporary people would be why so many people prefer working for someone else or like in a big corporation rather than doing their own business. Because if you look into the essence of things, you're as vulnerable to, let's say economic crisis or things happening on not being in your under your control, but you have the illusion of not having to make decisions not being responsible when you work for someone else. So that was literally the comparison you Soviet Union was the country which removed the necessity to make any decisions. Michael Hingson ** 13:54 Right. Which could be a good thing, but it could be a bad thing based on the fact that then everything changed, and people did D to start to make more decisions for themselves. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 14:07 I think it was a really bad thing, as you know. It's sometimes we like to be safe and comfortable. But if your executive functioning drops because of that, then what's that? Michael Hingson ** 14:22 Well, exactly right. And the reality is that, I think as humans, we were born to have the capacity to make choice. And I think in the end, probably enough people felt that way that that was part of what would would have caused the Soviet Union to fall. They didn't like the fact that they didn't have any control over their lives and other people wanted to have full control over their lives and that dichotomy is always going to be a problem. I agree. Yeah. So I I can pray She ate that. But it is interesting that so many people, as you point out, felt very uncomfortable after the Soviet Union fell that now they had to make decisions and didn't know how. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 15:14 I think in contemporary Western society, there is still a lot of it decisiveness even though we're given the choice, but yeah, decision seems like a hard thing. Michael Hingson ** 15:25 Yeah. Well, we, we see it here. There, there are so many times that people won't make choice and choices. And as is always also pointed out, by not making a choice, you're making a choice and and then when you don't like the choice that somebody else made, because you didn't, who do you have to blame only yourself? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 15:46 Yeah, I actually agree that the Indecision is a choice in itself very often. It's just a very comfortable, comfortable excuse. I am trying to make a choice. Choice is so important. And very often behind that. That story is just fear, fear of change, because Indecision is the choice to leave things the way they are not to change. Michael Hingson ** 16:11 Yeah, it. It's something that we all need to learn to do. And the fact is, I think that ultimately, we are responsible for our lives. We can collaborate, we can seek advice, but if we don't make choices, and we allow someone to make them for us, then we only have ourselves to blame. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 16:32 That's true. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 16:34 So you, but you went on as a teenager, you finished school? And then what did you do you go to college? Or? Or did you just make other choices? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 16:44 No, my choice was predetermined, because I was a teenager when Soviet Union collapsed. So I was still on the same track for a while, I went to university a good a good, good degree, and I started my work in the government, that decision had been made. In Soviet days, I wanted to be a diplomat, because it was the only way I could imagine seeing the world and having some freedom and, you know, having a little bit more exciting life. But of course, by the time when I went to university, it wasn't already the only way to do to do what I wanted to do. So that I guess there were several reasons why I went into government and I started my career there, I made a career pretty fast. Also, partially due to our history, because in Estonia, then when when the, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the people who came to power were very decided that you cannot allow people who had been in the power during Soviet times to stay. So the change happened. And, and everybody who had been in, let's say, in the Middle Ages, they had been in the Soviet government. So literally, very young people came to power. And I was 25, and made a very spectacular career in the government. But then, I got married and moved to New York. And I had to start everything from scratch. Michael Hingson ** 18:11 So you were 25, when you move to New York, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 18:15 when I married and moved to New York, and I didn't have a visa to I mean, I had a visa to stay but not to work. So it was a huge trial for me because being a perfectionist straight A student all my life, you know, very ambitious, having made a career very early, coming to New York and not having even the right to work. And my education was alien to American companies. They would ask at the interview, do you speak English, which was really ironic because we'd be speaking English. And yeah, that was quite clever Michael Hingson ** 18:51 when people are observant. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 18:55 But yeah, it was a blow to everything. I imagined that the life would be like it was until 25. Then I had to reinvent things. Michael Hingson ** 19:06 What did you study in university? Politics? international study part. Okay, great. So what caused you you got married and moved to New York? What caused that to happen? Especially the move. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 19:17 I married I married the son, who is the famous founder of Mindvalley. I'm the less famous co founder of Mindvalley. And he lived in New York at that time. So when we got married, I just moved to live with my husband. That was the reason. Michael Hingson ** 19:35 Well, has that has that marriage gone? Well? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 19:40 Our relationship has gone well, but marriage is no more we separated four years ago, but we are in good relations and we still we're still a family. Michael Hingson ** 19:52 It's good. You have children. Yes, we have two Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 19:55 children and the third big babies Mindvalley so we have business together. That's. Michael Hingson ** 20:02 And that's the demanding baby, isn't it? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 20:07 Yes. Yeah. I would say that. They're all. They're all good source of education and self discovery. They're all very important and unique, but I think human babies more enjoyable. Michael Hingson ** 20:26 Well, yeah. And that's in part because as, as they grow up and get more mature, they get to be unpredictable, too. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 20:37 Oh, yes, they are unpredictable. Yes, they are. Michael Hingson ** 20:42 How old? Are they? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 20:43 So mine, a nine and 15. good moment to remember. Michael Hingson ** 20:49 Good ages for unpredictability by any standard? Yes. Well, so what did you do about work once you moved here? Did you go into Mindvalley? Or do other things? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 21:03 Yeah, New York. Since I was not allowed to work, legally, the best thing I could do was to help the vision of Mindvalley. So usually, when people ask me how I ended up in Mindvalley, I say it's by accident, and reluctantly in a way, because I wanted to make my own career work for you and or something like that. But it wasn't on the cards for a while. But I was searching myself for for quite a few years, it was, it was in my early 30s, when I decided to try just doing Mindvalley work. Until then I was I was doing a little bit of charity, working for different un branches, getting another degree. So searching myself, and I believe that all this dedication went for, for good cause but but sometimes when something is meant for you, you are going to end up doing that sooner or later. Michael Hingson ** 22:02 Well tell us about Mindvalley. Since we've dropped that name a number of times now, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 22:07 it's well it is it is my main job for the past 20 years. So I was bound to drop the name a few times. Perfect. It is one of the world's biggest platforms for education, personal growth and transformation. And we've been, we've been around for quite a lot of years, we work with the world, probably leading world authors and teachers in our industry. But it's also maybe a little simplistic to explain it in these terms. Because I mean, in 20 years, of course, we've grown and evolved and our mission is to help people to live happy, fulfilled extraordinary lives. Michael Hingson ** 22:51 How do you do that? What what is my Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 22:53 by sharing about finding the teachers? Well, first of all, we find the gaps in, in our knowledge as humanity. What what humanity lacks what humanity needs to understand. Because you know, academic education gives you the academic knowledge and other knowledge about life. Like if we take simple everyday things such as parenting or building relationships, even health, we don't learn that in school, it's usually up to you to figure it out when you when you adult. So we see we see what humanity needs, we find teachers who are the best in their field to explain to teach to coach to, to lead the way. And then we just help help those ideas spread. Michael Hingson ** 23:37 Do you do among other things, publish. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 23:41 We do our own our own format of publishing, we have online courses on our own platform. And we publish this way. And we also have events. And we have a big community. So yeah, as I said, it's it's a little unfair to explain Mindvalley through into sentences. Michael Hingson ** 24:04 Well, that's okay. We we have time for whatever you want to explain, but I appreciate what you're saying. You know, if I start to think about different areas where humanity sometimes does things and sometimes does strange things, or we have interesting conceptions and misconceptions, kind of, for me, the first one that comes to mind is happiness. And you know, everybody wants to be happy. They talked about being happy. But yet, if you ask people what their goals are, happiness doesn't tend to be one of the first things they mentioned, which Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 24:41 I absolutely agree because it's not even not one of the first things to mention, I have seen a lot of people's goals, and I almost never have seen personal happiness as being a goal for the year See 2023 And I think there is an explanation to that we, if you listen to the contemporary discourse about happiness, we are blasted the idea that you can't pursue happiness. You can't, you can't go after it. Like even if you check out TED talks about happiness is often something, something like, you know, don't go for happiness go for meaning don't go for happiness, go for that. So we are told that happiness is unattainable. And no, no wonder no wonder, or that's one one reason why people might not consider happiness is important. The other reason is we, I've noticed that a lot of people feel guilty, wanting to be happy. I guess that comes from this idea that you have to sacrifice your own well being for something bigger, and I know it very well, coming from Soviet Union. That was the mentality of the whole country, that human individual human being doesn't matter, because matters. But that kind of martyrdom complex is actually quite characteristic to a lot of people, especially people who are interested in personal growth and transformation, people come to help the world become a better place. They want to give the one to you know, to leave a mark. And that somehow, in a lot of people's minds contradicts with the idea that you might want to be personally happy. And that's that I find so ironic. And also unfortunate, because people actually give up the idea that they could pursue their own happiness because they think it's selfish. It's not correct. It's not right. It's not noble enough. So these are the two reasons that I see why people don't value happiness enough or don't talk about it seriously enough. Michael Hingson ** 26:48 Well, let's take it in a slightly different way. Do people know what happiness is? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 26:54 We mostly think that we do because it's such a trite word. But if you were to look beyond the surface of the word, then I guarantee you that if five people talk about happiness, discuss happiness. There are five different understandings of happiness. In that conversation. I guess the most common way we explain happiness it as an emotion or a feeling, which, which is, in my opinion, a huge mistake, because emotions by nature are transient and volatile, and they don't stick so if you equate happiness to an emotion or a feeling, then of course, it's not going to be a sustainable thing. Michael Hingson ** 27:36 Well, what how would you define happiness or if you were to try to help somebody understand it, what would it be, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 27:42 I would like people to or society to shift shift happiness from the domain of emotions to the domain of states. So for example, if you look at classical psychology, there is no research of happiness by the way, but there are things which are very, very close to that, like, you know, positive and negative activity are very similar to happiness or the theory of you know, how the theory of explanation how you explain events, there are different different patterns, thought patterns that are characteristic to people who are optimists and pessimists. Of course, I'm using common language. So there are there are theories, that kind of touch upon the idea of happiness. But what I found really interesting about psychology is that when we talk about stress, we talk about chronic stress, for example, or anxiety or depression, these are recognized as states, states which are there to stay obviously, and we treat them as such, but then we don't have a state for the opposite. Somehow, there is no research which would equate happiness to a state and state as a much more stable thing. Although maybe I'm a little bit unfair because the theory of hedonistic I think hedonic adaptation or hedonic treadmill, I might butcher the words a little bit. That is probably the the only field of science which, which is attempting to equate happiness to a state rather than an emotion. Michael Hingson ** 29:26 It seems to me that if we're going to talk about being happy, one of the things that's important is that we have some sort of positive view of ourselves, we must have some level of competence or for feeling or thought that what we're doing is okay. But still, that's only one small dimension of it, because ultimately, if we're going to be happy, then it seems to me that we must believe If that something is going right for us in the world, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 30:05 it's, you know, I think this this, this comment, invites philosophical view your view on the things because how can we, I think that it's a mistake to imagine happiness as some kind of, you know, some kind of blissful state without, without anything painful in it, it's, it's a mystic state which doesn't exist and very often our well meaning parents actually kind of induced that idea on us. Because parents loving parents, they try to make the environment for their children. Without pain without discomfort, they they solve all the problems for their children, or at least they try to go and sort of save the day. So when we grew up, we grew up with an idea that happiness is absence of pain. Because, you know, if the child is crying, the parent goes crazy and thinks, how do I make the child happy, when they're a little bit more grown up, reaction is slightly different. But the idea stays the same, that happiness is this eternal bliss. And, you know, my favorite thing to say, that would be half the problem. The real problem is, because of that aspiration to solve all the problems for our beloved children, we also deprive them of any functional skills to deal with the pain, which is an inevitable, so kids grow up thinking that happiness is the state of bliss, where nothing and pain unpleasant happens with that, we also don't have the skills to deal with the unpleasantness of life, which which is inevitable. Since I love quotes, you know, here I'd like to quote Susan David, she's, she has a PhD in psychology. And he's she says, discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. So, you know, on one side, Happiness has to be a more stable condition than just an emotion. But on the other side, what happened is definitely isn't, it's not a perfect state of perfection and bliss and absence of pain. Michael Hingson ** 32:16 as I as I think about some of what you're saying, and I like and appreciate what you're saying, it seems to me that, that one of the things that could make us happier, is knowing that we can deal with, say, when pain comes along, or something unexpected comes along, that we have found some ways to, at least start to deal with it. Or that we can be open to figuring out ways to address whatever issues are negative in our lives. And just by learning to do that, and by addressing them, even if it's just internally, that's part of what it seems to me makes a person happier, because I can sit and go, I was able to deal with it. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 33:04 Also, I think very often the unpleasant experiences are an invitation to discover something new. And and if we, as society encouraged actually curiosity in our everyday life, I think it would make a lot of suffering much lighter. I actually would encourage people who are listening to, to approach everything with curiosity, I was just now thinking of an analogy I remember on as a kid, I used to like to do very bizarre things like you would roll down a hill and get up and the whole world is spinning. And it's such an exciting state. Now as a grown up, if I were to do that, I'd probably be very uncomfortable because I don't like discomfort. I wouldn't do that just because I wouldn't enjoy the the you know, the this to say the pukey feelings. But but that's that's the difference between approaching your life with wonder and not being too judgmental. You know, something is good, something it was bad. Can you just ask yourself a question? You know, what, what does this experience say? What does it carry? What kind of information does it carry? What can I learn about myself about the world about people in the world? And I think once you approach things with curiosity, it removes quite a lot of suffering. Michael Hingson ** 34:30 Well, I, I think we so much discourage curiosity. Don't Don't touch that you tell a child or don't do this or adults tell each other don't do that. That's not an appropriate thing. That's not the way to act. We or that's not the way to explore this and we so greatly discouraged curiosity, and I love to be curious, and I've been in places I went once was at the The Museum of Modern Art in New York at MoMA and I was there with my wife. And I think it was just the two of us. We were next to a statue and I reached up and I just touched the foot of the statue that was on a pedestal, and immediately a guard came over, you can't touch it, you can't do this, you can't do that. You know, in reality, there are statistics that show that if you allow people who can't see the same things that you can see the opportunity to at least interact with the by touching them, you're not going to damage the artistic piece. But they were so locked into one mindset, that there was no way even to touch the foot of this statue, which wasn't going to be damaged by my hands doing it. Or they could have had a mechanism so that I could have touched the statue by first maybe using a Talat and making sure that with an oil, I know oil on my fingers. But there wasn't the opportunity to observe, which is extremely unfortunate. Yeah, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 36:06 and not very fair. Michael Hingson ** 36:10 And not very friendly. But I will say, I've never been back to MOMA since Oh, well, I wouldn't get anything out of it. So you know, it's not the same people can sit and describe or standard describe things. But it's not the same as interacting. And you get to interact, because you could see it, and I don't look at things, using the same techniques that you do. But I should be allowed to have that opportunity. And it's something that just tends not to happen. And again, so we discourage curiosity. People ask me all the time, how can you be happy? Because you can't see. And my response a couple of times has been How can you be happy when you can there's so much that goes on in the world that, that you talk about the horrible things, you watch all the horrible things on the news? And I can hear about them, too. But why is it that eyesight needs to be a requirement for happiness? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 37:10 Well, I believe, I believe a lot of things are not a requirement for happiness. You know, I had a friend Unfortunately, he's gone by now. But he had a very unusual genetic condition. So he had brittle bones. And his mom once told him, of course, I can never do justice to the story. But I just love the the sentence that his mom told him, she said, Oh, you're going to make it your curse or your blessing. And that's an interesting thing. In your case, your while your condition is very extreme, maybe, and Michael Hingson ** 37:44 also is yours. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 37:46 And I was leading to that, but very often, you know, we maybe have have conditions like yeah, being born in a, in a crazy country, it's probably also a little bit of an extreme condition. But I agree and you know, it's your choice. Can you be happy or not? After all there, there is research about happiness and, and the happiest countries in the world. The happiest countries in the world, surprisingly, are not the richest countries. And so the our understanding of what makes us happy is just in children's shoes. And when you were talking about how people say, How can you be happy if you can't be can't see, I was reading a book, I unfortunately, don't remember which of them about happiness. But there was this interesting, interesting philosophical discussion about people who maybe don't have all the physical abilities of a healthy person, and how can they be happy? Well, the thing is that we feel emotions in very different ways. And my happiness and your happiness may be different, my fear and your fear may be different. And it doesn't mean that you know somebody's happiness or fear or pleasure or pain of any better quality. You know, when when one of the wonderful writers, Viktor Frankl, he's discovered his driving life in, in concentration camps and you know, in our contemporary society, we have this, this idea that oh, first of all problems like why why do you? Why do you complain? Why do you whine if there are people who suffer more than you, but who can tell? The I mean, the difference between suffering and suffering? You know, our psychology is built in a way that some people may suffer from what another person might deem not a big deal more acutely than another person would suffer from, for example, not having an eyesight or not having a limb or not having I do not know hearing, so we can't really judge other people's feelings and I think we shouldn't honestly we should let people choose for themselves. Michael Hingson ** 39:53 Well, and I think you really just hit the nail on the head, if you will. It's still all about choice. And I think happiness in part is also all about choice. And we may define happiness somewhat in different ways, based on our specific involve or environments and our feelings, but we can choose on any given day or with any situation to be happy or not. I mean, we joked earlier about you're working on editing your book, and you're, you're glad you got through that. But that editing job can be something that makes you happy. Or it can make you extremely frustrated. And that's a choice. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 40:39 It is, it is yeah. Although sometimes some, some events are objectively painful. But then as we, we come back to the same conversation that we started, we can't always, we can't always avoid things, unpleasant things happen to us. But a lot of the times, we get to choose how we how we treat those events. And what do we get out of them? Michael Hingson ** 41:08 Right. So we do have a lot of control. And even in the Soviet Union, probably, this is a guess. But you could choose to accept your circumstances until you could change it. Or you could just accept them and not worry about changing it. Or you could be more unhappy and say it just has to change and work toward change. And all of those are different choices that one could make, I would think, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 41:40 well change, change was a little questionable in the height of the Soviet Union, but a lot of people actually found a way to express themselves to stay true to the values to not have to sell their soul to the devil. So there were there's always, in fact, that same Viktor Frankl writes about people, I mean, in concentration camps, there's you are as against the wall as can be, and even writing about a choice. Michael Hingson ** 42:07 Um, Michael J, Fox has come down with Parkinson's disease, or however you want to call it, but I remember early on, if I recall, right, he went to a place in France where people constantly laugh, and it's part of their choice and as part of their environment. And he went there because he wanted to learn how to be happier and more content with what was occurring in his life. And I guess he came back and felt that he had learned a great deal. Because it's also about introspection, and thinking about yourself and learning to teach yourself things to. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 42:48 I do believe that people in Europe enjoy life more, I'm not sure if we are happier. But we do. We place a huge value on on the process of living, just working. And here, maybe I'm a little bit unfair, but I have the impression that in America, people are very much obsessed with work way too Michael Hingson ** 43:09 focused on work sometimes. And they, as a result, don't see the fun part. And haven't learned to figure out the fun part. So I think you're probably right, we focus so much on work that we leave the rest of life out, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 43:26 which would be actually quite okay, if you love what you do. Michael Hingson ** 43:30 Yeah. Well, so you, you speak a lot, and you teach a lot. And you talk all about happiness and self love and self acceptance. How did you decide that that was what you really wanted to do with your life? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 43:48 Well, I as I had started to tell my story, that wasn't my choice I chose was, was first government and then I thought I'd be more helpful to humanity if I went into charity and nonprofit, and then ended up in Mindvalley. And I was in on the business side of, of the company for for many years. So helping other authors publish, I was never going to become a teacher. And also it was never, never my plan. In fact, I never thought I had anything to share. You know, in my industry, everybody writes a book so that that idea of writing a book was always in the air. But for me somewhere, it's somewhere thought, I know, but I don't have anything to see. I also I just just for the context, in school, we had a huge emphasis on literature and I was brought up on classical literature from different countries, just just to understand how intense it was. We learned literature in the original language. So we were supposed to learn Greek and Latin to retain ancient literature, which I didn't do, by the way, but for me writing books was something I something otherworldly. But I think by the time I was 14, I had gone through my own discoveries and realizations and understandings and, and of course, working with all those wonderful teachers and authors, it all rubs off and you start creating your own theories in your head. So it wasn't a quick conscious decision that this is what I want to do. It's just that at some point, the message was so right that I just couldn't hold it in, you know, like, like, if you're pregnant with a baby, the baby has to come out when the baby's ready. So in my case, I just, I just had to had to start speaking and teaching and writing a book. Michael Hingson ** 45:43 Yeah, it just became what you had to do. And that makes sense. But it it became your passion. And probably everything that happened before then built to that time. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 45:55 Probably, yeah, we'll see. I still have a lot of hopefully, a lot of years to go, maybe. Maybe I'll discover that that was also built up to something. Michael Hingson ** 46:04 Well, that's what makes life fun and perhaps unpredictable. But still, what makes it fun? I agree. I agree. Nothing wrong with discovery. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 46:13 Yes, I think our life mission a little too seriously. Michael Hingson ** 46:19 Yeah, yes. Well, and I love that you not only quote, people who are alive and real people, but that you do read fiction as well. But I think some of the best imagination is come from fiction writing, and there's nothing wrong with fiction. Again, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 46:37 I can't believe somebody would imagine that something is wrong. But it not only imagination, you know, a lot of the fiction is the forerunner of personal growth and transformation. Because if you look at the things which have stayed on the surface, of, you know, of human attention, there have been always a lot of books written, what we have right now is the best of the best. So if you look at some of the old works, authors have been asking themselves the question, how to be a better human for centuries. After all, even even contemporary personal growth, teachers refer to Stoics, who are like 1000s of years old works, but even they were philosophers. Of course, philosophy and personal growth are quite close enough areas. But for example, one of my favorite authors, Dostoyevsky, his Russian novelist, considered himself a philosopher as much as a writer. And, and he was very much concerned with the evolution of human, you know, human character, and human spirit. But take almost any classic, they all ask themselves the question, What makes someone a good human being? Michael Hingson ** 47:52 Sure. Well, even today, when you look at some of the more modern things like the the Harry Potter series, everybody talks about Harry Potter, making children read more, and so on. But when you look at it, at the most basic level, it is all about what makes a person a good human being and the fact that we can learn and we can discover more about ourselves than we ever thought we would we would be able to do. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 48:16 Yeah, I agree. And there are a few gems in, in almost any work of fiction that you take. Of course, we have to recognize that there is fiction, which is written just for pure entertainment. But in a way, it's like movies as well, you know, how many wonderful deep wisdoms do we find in some of the movies? And then there are movies, which are pure entertainment? And do you feel ashamed that you have seen it occasionally? Michael Hingson ** 48:45 Until you realize that maybe there was a lesson there after? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 48:48 Maybe? So So yes, I am, I think, and that's, that's the idea that I hold very dear that, that there is learning in almost any experience that you have in your life, if you have the curiosity, the courage, and the presence of mind to just be aware to notice to ask yourself the questions. You really can learn from almost any interaction that's happening in your life, learn about yourself, learn about world, learn about other people. Michael Hingson ** 49:21 And that's where it gets back to curiosity and making choices and really paying attention to self discovery. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 49:29 Yes, you, you know, the best way to for self discovery is to actually be locked up with yourself for a long enough time. Michael Hingson ** 49:40 One of my favorite quotes is from the original Muppet Movie. I can't remember if it was Fozzie Bear, or, or somebody who said, I am just beside myself and the person whoever it was immediately shout back. Yeah. Can the two of you live together? or something like that was really cute. That's Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 50:02 genius. When genius codes come from very unlikely characters, I think it's always very invigorating. Like, wow, that Michael Hingson ** 50:15 just came up so fast. And I actually was the second or third time I saw the movie that I heard it, it was just so clever. I'm going oh my gosh. Or one of my favorite quotes, which isn't a fear, quote, you were we were talking about that. But is still it's a Star Wars quote from Yoda. Do or do not? There is no try, which I think is absolutely true. You either do it and it gets back to choice again. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 50:40 Yeah, yada. Yada is a source of wisdom. Yeah. So yeah, I agree. And Gandalf as well with Gandalf. So yeah, there's a lot of wisdom if you if you open to see it, and notice it and, and I've actually learned a lot reading, reading novels, and sometimes unexpected things. For example, talking about being stuck with yourself, there's a quote by of all people, Agatha Christie, who is the crime queen, when she has a one of one of her characters, she says, a wonderful thing, if you were to actually almost go to that person, if you were to spend a lot of time with yourself, what would you discover about yourself? And that was that novel was actually very brilliant from the psychological point of view. So yeah, you never know where you find the lesson. Michael Hingson ** 51:37 Which book was that? Which novel was it? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 51:42 It's called Lost in the spring. And it's nowadays, it's published under Agatha Christie. But you know, she's she started and she wrote, not just crime Nice. So that's, that's her non crime novel. She used to write under a different pseudonym, it was Mary Westmacott. Michael Hingson ** 52:02 You, you, you certainly prioritize in your life, a relationship with yourself, and you want to have a positive relationship. And I think that's important. It seems to me that we all ought to do more introspection than we do. And one of the things as I mentioned earlier to you, we're writing a new book. And we're going to talk a lot of that about introspection. Because I think we never look enough at ourselves. To really figure out what we're teaching ourselves. I used to say, I'm my own worst critic. And I've learned that's a horrible thing to say that it's much more appropriate to say, I'm my own best teacher, because ultimately, people can give me information they can advise me, but they can't teach me I have to decide to teach myself and to truly learn it. And it still all comes from within. But when you're dealing with the relationship with you, how do you compare that and prioritize that in terms of relationships with other people, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 53:03 we are just touching upon a very deep topic. So if we, if we were to talk about relationship with with the self, there is so much to cover, but I believe that your relationship with the world is a reflection, mirror reflection of your relationship with yourself. That's what I have experienced. I don't have research to back me up. But what I have experienced that, if you learn to, to be tolerant of your imperfections, it's much easier to be tolerant of other people's imperfections. If you learn to be forgiving towards yourself, it's much easier to forgive other people. And it goes into anything you you touch, you know, kindness, compassion, love. And so I believe that you have to sort out your relationship with yourself. Because if you are at peace with yourself, it's much easier to be at peace with the world around you. Michael Hingson ** 54:01 And if you if you truly do that, you also discover not to be as judgmental as we tend to like to be because we think it's so comfortable and comforting to say how much better we are than other people. And we got to get away from that. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 54:19 Well, yeah, Judge judgment is an interesting thing. I think if we replace judgment with curiosity, the world would be a much better place. But with that said, I also can appreciate a good whining session once and I think we all need to express you know, the other day I got very upset with a series of events, you know, sometimes a bad thing happened to you and you you, you're patient, and you hold it in and then the next thing happened, and the next thing happened, and at some point, it's, it can snap and actually it does snap and it's good if it does so, last week, I had I had an episode and I was just lucky because it was going to my kickboxing class but Oh, I still needed to drive there. And I was already on on the verge. So what I did, thank God, I was alone at home, I just made a roll. I was so angry. And there you go. But you know what's interesting, I was sharing it with my kickboxing teacher that day, that I actually felt physical pleasure in expressing that feeling. And in roaring, because you know, the roar has this vibration. And it makes your heart vibrate as well, and what I was talking about, but I guess I was leading to the ideas that, you know, we can't judge our life experience, we can't judge ourselves too hard. It's just not healthy. And it is it is healthy, to sometimes let yourself be imperfect. And sometimes let yourself be wrong. And sometimes let yourself be angry. Or all these things that we think that we deem are horrible. Because expressing it is much healthier for you and for your environment and holding it in. You know, in psychology, there's such a phenomenon as emotional leakage. Just because you don't accept or allow certain unpleasant, painful or unsavory emotions, doesn't make them disappear. It's like hiding your head in the sand, they will stay. And the thing with our, with our emotions is that if you if you don't live through them in a healthy way, they will start poisoning you. And at some point, they will explode, or leak, which is the root of passive aggression, aggressive behavior, which so many of us exhibit. So yeah, it's sometimes a good writing session is also good. The question is, what's your default regime? And if your default regime is judging, whining and complaining, then that's a very definite red flag. Michael Hingson ** 56:59 Yeah, there's probably some things to deal with when that happens. But the other side of that is, as we've talked about a lot today, if you go back and look at what happened, and you do express your feelings about it, then it ultimately comes down to now, what do I learn from it? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 57:21 And what do I do with it? Michael Hingson ** 57:23 And what do I do with it? Right, exactly. Well, speaking of doing, you are writing a book, why don't you if you would tell us about becoming blossom? Yeah, becoming Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 57:33 Folsom is exactly, exactly about recognizing your imperfections. And rather than demonizing them and, and trying to fix yourself, recognizing that, you know, if you will try to fix yourself, you imply that you're broken, very often, humans are not broken, they're wounded. And, and that requires healing, not fixing. And when I talk about being floor, some I talk about recognizing your imperfections, your dragons, your scratches, your dance your wounds, whatever it is, or maybe your bad past, or whatever it is, recognizing that it's part of you, and choosing for it to become your blessing rather than your curse. Michael Hingson ** 58:19 How do you teach people or what can you teach people about self assessment and doing a better job of helping people assess themselves? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 58:32 Well, I would I would have to answer that in two parts. First, I don't teach people. Michael Hingson ** 58:37 I don't believe in i Yeah, that's probably the wrong way to. But Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 58:40 no, no, I guess it's, it's because I am officially a teacher. But I don't believe in teaching. Because I think and we were talking about that. Michael Hingson ** 58:48 How do you help people discover, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 58:51 I can share ideas and people will hear when they're ready. And they when they want I am rather an a companion to people on their path to transformation than their teacher. Now, I also am not sure about self assessment, per se, because assessment sounds a little bit academic, in my opinion, I more believe in just dancing with your life going with the flow and taking your life in the moment. So of course, there are techniques and I mean, I've been wrestling growth for 20 years. So a lot of the teachers start with sitting you down and making you assess whatever area of your life that you want to improve, including probably yourself. Sorry, but I don't believe in recipes in life. Yeah, I think I think that what works for you today might not work for you tomorrow and might not have been what you needed. 10 years ago, what works for you might not work for another person. So I don't believe in recipes in life. I don't believe in tutorials and to do list and not to do lists. I believe that life is literally a dog Dance, a dance. And the dance means that you have to feel your partner, you have to feel the music, you have to be aware of your environment. And, and yes, we drill the steps and we practice. But ultimately you, you know, you can't prepare yourself for life in the sense that it keeps happening to you all the time. It's not that you, you do your personal growth and transformation, and then you can live happily ever after, it doesn't work like that you keep doing it all your life. So because of that I am not a huge fan of assessing. I know there is a lot of there are a lot of tools for assessment. And there are a lot of, you know, systems which put you in boxes and tell you what you are. I believe in, in curiosity, you know, I'm translating and quoting one wonderful teacher that I interviewed years ago, he had this interesting expression in Russian, though, that you have to touch life with your bare hand. And it might be a little bit odd. But that's exactly what I believe in life is happening in this very present moment. Can you feel it? Can you live it? And can you enjoy it to the maximum? Whatever it gives you? Can you can you squeeze it, squeeze the juice out of it. And that's why what I share with people is the system of staying honest, and kind to yourself, and being curious, and brave, courageous, and just, just not shying away from life. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:35 Well, and self assessment using that word is probably not the best word to have used. But I'm a firm believer in even at the end of the day, and maybe even at the beginning of the day, looking at what goes on let's take at the end of the day and and say, gee, how did that go? How was that? What can I do to even make it better? Or something didn't go? Well? What can I do with it? And and so assessment isn't really right, because you're right, it puts in boxes, but there's nothing wrong with us, looking at the things that we do, and looking for that internal Spirit in us to teach us how to make life even better or live life more to the fullest? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:02:22 Well, the first question should be I guess, am I enjoying it? Is that what I want? Or do I want to change anything about it, but I do recommend to? Well, I would say three practices. One of them is absolutely fundamental for any kind of transformation is obviously the well the habit or the skill of being aware of what's going on. Because everything starts with awareness. Unless you're aware, you can't change things. But I keep it as a separate, separate concept. Because it's not a practice, per se, it's more like a mod that you switch on and then you can't switch it off anymore. Excuse me, my throat is giving, it's giving me a little bit about the two practices that I strongly recommend is the practice of journaling and introspection. In fact, combined. Because journaling allows you to put vague sensations into words. And it really helps to crystallize and to bring clarity to what what's going on. Sometimes we rush through life without putting our finger on the pulse. So when you journal, you're kind of forced to, to, to be a little bit more clear about what's what's going on. And introspection, of course, because introspection for me is one of the favorite. Yeah. Everything Everything in my life is. So what does it say about me? Michael Hingson ** 1:03:51 Or what does it say about what I should do the next time it happens again. But yeah, intersection is exactly, I think the right term to use, and we just don't do enough of it. In our lives. We're too busy. As you said, like with work and so on. We worry so much about all of that, that we never enjoy life and we never enjoy the absolute thrill of introspection in our in our own minds. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:04:17 I would only want against being very critical and judgment. Michael Hingson ** 1:04:22 Exactly. Exactly that and that you've got to stay away from that. That's, I think, totally different than introspection. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:04:30 And yeah, there are so many questions you can ask yourself about anything that's happening in your life. And actually, if you do turn experiences inward and see your interaction with your life's events, then then you do learn a lot about yourself. It's It's inevitable. Michael Hingson ** 1:04:48 If you had one piece of practical advice that you could give to everyone listening, what would it be? I know is that is that an open ended question or what? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:04:59 No I couldn't give so many so much. And that's that's probably a very thankless thing to do. But I will quote, I will quote again from a movie from Cinderella in the production of 2005. And there's this quote by Cinderella's mother because says, have courage and be kind. And I think that's one of the best advices Michael Hingson ** 1:05:22 I think that absolutely makes sense. And there's no better piece of advice than we could ever give in in life, have courage and be kind period. There's never anything wrong with doing that. Well, I've really enjoyed doing this. And I wasn't sure how we were going to get through a whole hour and look at us, we're we're getting your throat to be thirsty. And it's been almost 70 minutes. And this has absolutely been fun. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:05:51 Thank you so much. Thank you for for this one. Wonderful and very engaged conversation. I enjoyed real life conversations. Michael Hingson ** 1:05:59 How can people learn more about you maybe reach out to you, and learn about courses and so on from Mindvalley, but just reach out to you in general? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:06:09 So my biggest project of this year, of course, is the launch of my book. So the best thing to know about me is to get my book, of course, and you will find me on Mindvalley. Of course, I'm a co founder of Mindvalley. Some there, Michael Hingson ** 1:06:20 along with a lot of wonderful mindvalley.com, right? Yes, it's 1:06:24 mindvalley.com. And if you want to get my book, then I would recommend getting it from mindvalley.com/book/flawesome. 1:06:32 Is Mindvalley publishing the book? 1:06:35 No, no, no, we don't publish traditional books. Mindvalley has published my courses, of course. But we don't publish traditional books. It's a different, somewhat different business model. So I am being published by Hay House. 1:06:52 Okay. Well, when people hear this, please go out and get Kristina's book will appreciate it. And she certainly will appreciate it. Being a poor starving author. I always like to say that I asked people to go by thunder dog all the time, because we're poor, starving authors. And we need people to buy our books. And besides my guide, dog Alamo needs kibbles. And so people need to go buy the books so that we have kibbles for Alamo. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:07:17 I appreciate the invitation. Thank you. 1:07:21 Well, thank you for being here. And I thank you for listening, we'd love to hear from you. I would really appreciate you reaching out and letting me know what you think about today's podcast. We hope that you loved it. And then you'll give us a five star review on iTunes or wherever you're listening and observing the podcast. We appreciate that very much. If you'd like to reach out to me, please do so. You can reach me at Michaelhi at accessiBe A C C E S S I B E.com Or go to Michael hingson.com/podcast. hingson is h i n g s o n. But again, we really appreciate you being here. And Kristina, I really am very happy that we had a chance to do this. And hopefully we can do it some more. Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:08:05 Thank you, Michael for having me. I truly appreciate it. And yes. Hopefully that's not the last conversation. Michael Hingson ** 1:08:12 No, let's let's have more, don't you think? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:08:16 Yes. Maybe I should have you on my podcast, by the way. Michael Hingson ** 1:08:20 We could do that. Yeah. Tell me about your podcast? Kristina Mand-Lakhiani ** 1:08:24 Well, I have I have my interviews about twice a week. And I interview wonderful people. And I like to talk about the things that we talked about. So I would of course need to need to talk about your topics more than anything. And by the way, I would be very happy to talk about courage and facing fear because and that's what your your book is about. Right. So that will be very interesting. Yeah. Michael Hingson 1:08:50 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. 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