Praschant Kotecha

Full transcript: Praschant Kotecha on London Real

1:06 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Praschant Kotecha, recent graduate of the Broadcast Yourself accelerator. Welcome. Thank you, Brian, glad to be here. Tell me about you. Where are you from and what do you do? So I am proudly of Indian heritage, but I have spent the last four decades in the gangster’s paradise known as London, England.

1:40 I came from East Africa in the early 70s with the African exodus and have spent the rest of my life living right here in London. My name is Praschant in full, Prash for short, and Praschant is actually a Sanskrit word, oldest language in the world, about 8,000 years old, and it means always peaceful, which probably for three-quarters of my life I didn’t live, and I’m kind of finally trying to embody that over the recent years. Nice.

1:57 And what made you want to go and Broadcast Yourself? What was the calling to you to go out and start your own podcast? Yeah, that’s a really good question, and I can tell you exactly what it was. I feel, in the words of Marianne Williamson, I was playing small. I’ve set up something, and kind of talk about this, Mantra Therapy, and I’m reaching out to an audience of professionals here in London and over Facebook now, getting advantage of social media, but I’m not taking full advantage of that.

2:29 And I felt that there’s a message, there’s wisdom that has to cross borders, and so looking at podcasting as a vehicle to actually get a powerful message, bring powerful guests together and actually take them on a journey beyond borders, was just a natural thing. And so podcasting started to float in my mind, and it did so for a little while.

2:54 And then randomly, I gotta tell you the truth, I didn’t watch any single video of yours, I hadn’t known what London Real was, but I was thinking about it, I was thinking about it, two weeks pass and bang, message pops in my inbox: London Real podcasting course. I thought, okay, synchronicity right there. So you didn’t know about us before? I actually didn’t know about you.

3:11 I was listening to podcasts from Rogan and Jay Fujiya all the time; that was my food, podcast food, and that was enough to inspire me. And when I saw the London Real thing come through, who’s London Real? Looked at it, started watching some videos, and actually one video, just even one video, I saw done the Piney, and I thought, wow, this is gold dust. Here’s somebody who’s extracting diamonds from glass, somebody who’s pulling out wisdom in a way that I think is really authentic, London Real, and it’s actually relatable, and I thought, yeah, I should be doing that.

3:43 Okay, and what about your life? Why was this the moment for you to go ahead and do this? What was going on around you personally or professional-wise? Personally, I mean professionally, I have an alter ego. I think I’m some sort of crazy Caped Crusader, because I have a day job that hustles and pays my bills, and then the journey to taking this spiritual message beyond borders has always been a compelling move for me.

4:15 It’s always been something that’s been on my mind and in my heart: how can we raise the consciousness of this planet, how can we help people, how can we contribute in front of contributing with dying. So the desire to contribute and do something good, broadcast it out to people, has always been a compelling thing, and I thought, well, podcasting is gonna be a great vehicle to do that, where we can reach anybody anywhere in the world.

4:39 We are to take a message that’s powerful, impactful, without fuss and botheration, and really penetrate people’s hearts right where they are, in any medium, and that’s the power of this consumption. I think this particular medium gives us beyond anything else. All right, so you pull the trigger and I throw you in that first week with 150 people from around the world.

4:55 I’m asking you to upload video, you got me twice a week on these live calls, you have the accountability doc, I’m watching what you do. What’s that first week like? Oh man, I just wanted to finish. I was like, this is too much. You know what it was? It was excitement on the one hand: 150 people, I’m a fairly extrovert guy, so I thought this is great, 150 random people, I got this guy Brian, I’m here and I’m getting all excited.

5:18 And then there was like, oh, in it there’s a lot of work here. We got day jobs, we got all these other things, so the immediate thing, as you say, the big resistance just came up, saying, I don’t want to do this, I’m time, this is too much, why do I need to rush this? And I think that’s the irony: once you get pushed to the edge, you actually think, now you know what, I better… you know, that flight-or-fight comes out.

5:41 And I think that trigger pulling paid off, because after the first week, I think the team helped a lot as well, the people who were part of the course. Really, there was a camaraderie that really actually helped, not just myself, I think I speak for so many. It started to push us and say, yeah, let’s get this, let’s do this, let’s take it out.

5:57 Okay, and tell me, what did you struggle with the most on this course? What was the hardest thing for you? Honestly, man, it was the time. It was time, and two things. Time, because I was struggling, man, you know, got the day job thing, running this thing called Mantra Therapy, and it’s on top of my day job, and then the time to do this podcasting course and get it, it was too much.

6:20 The second thing, it’s uncomfortable, because when you’re looking at your values and you’re having to question… you’ve made us do this. I was thinking, damn, Brian, do you really have to do this whole mission statement, value thing? You know what, there’s a revelation. It’s an eye-opening, because it forces you to get uncomfortable and look inside yourself. Demons come out, you have to weed out your ego and look at your heart and see why you’re really doing this.

6:43 And I think that’s what happened, so it was uncomfortable. Those might as my two resistances, but they faded over time. Tell me about the community. What are these people like? What’s it like interacting with these people digitally before you met them this weekend? Well, you know what, it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I’m used to WebExes and conference calls in my career, and I’ve done this for years.

7:14 So I think I felt it was a very natural transition to go and meet a bunch of people who I don’t know, just meet them over a camera, and I think the Zoom tech worked just right. I think the tools that you introduced us to were actually good hacks; they’re the right kind of things for people to get immersed in, and the communication I think was more natural than I would have expected it to be.

7:30 So it was good, actually worked, and the teams that you set up, I think the teams that the Academy has here, that the Broadcast Yourself course brings, in themselves are good vehicles to help people to nourish. You always lift somebody up; it’s the whole Saving Private Ryan thing, you don’t leave no one behind.

7:46 Tell me about your podcast. What is it, and what were some of the big highlights of the course? So my podcast is Urban Spirituality. I came up with that name after so much soul-searching, but it’s Urban Spirituality, the show that’s all about making spirituality work in an imperfect world. And it’s an imperfect world, and I was just kind of growing sick and tired of people either labeling spirituality with the dirty word or a taboo, or associating it only with religion, and then people were not really grasping them.

8:17 And I thought, wait a minute, we all have a spirit. Our true nature is pure consciousness, we’re all pure consciousness, therefore spirituality is our essence. We just need to take the spiritual word, spirituality, and allow that to help us connect with our essence, because that’s where we’re about. If we’re not happy and connected to our true essence, then how can we align ourselves with happiness? People chase happiness; they should be chasing peace, which comes from alignment with our spirit.

8:41 Urban Spirituality is the birth child, therefore something that takes authentic dialogue, unfiltered conversation with real people who’ve been on journeys, and just allows them to express spiritual tools that give you spiritual tools, traits and ability to inject this into people’s daily lives, and I wanted to be practical. So that’s what Urban Spirituality is. It’s an opportunity to get professionals to start taking bite-size chunks of spiritual wisdom, embracing it, feeling it, living it and sharing it with other people.

9:13 And what’s something you’re most proud of, maybe a recording or a connection with someone or a comment? What was a big moment for you over the course? It has been a number of the interviews that I did. Actually, people really did open up, and you were right about that one. You sit them in the chair, and I had a few in the chair, and there’s nothing around but the four walls, and stuff starts to come up, stuff that you don’t expect.

9:38 And I think the authenticity that comes out in that conversation, because there’s no cellphone, there’s no distraction, you have to be present to that guest, and I think that is the tragedy of this so-called modern age; we’re missing that. So the authenticity that comes out in people’s true feelings and realizations for me was the big observation during this journey: that people really can open up, they can share wisdom, you just need to create a space for them to be able to do that.

10:11 A platform, and that’s what podcasting is, that’s what Urban Spirituality is, that’s what London Real is doing: creating that platform to allow people to express beyond what they normally do. What’s it like meeting these people in person here in London, all these people you kind of got to know maybe very well, but they’ve just been a two-dimensional image before?

10:27 It was a great joy. I think a few people said it, man, you meet people you haven’t seen, you’re seeing them remotely, and they’re like long-lost friends. You just give them a big hug and say, where have you been all my life? Right here. And there’s a camaraderie. I think it’s that feeling that we’ve been through trenches, and you put us through trenches. They were good trenches, and the resistance that you put us through was healthy for us, and that built that camaraderie.

10:52 And I think that people’s true spirits over a period of time naturally come through, and people’s egos dwindle, their real self comes out, and when you meet that person face to face, the connection’s already there. It’s been created right there, and it comes out. Beautiful. Beautiful, really good.

11:16 What’s kind of happening over the next 12 months here? You’re still gonna be with your group, you’re accountable, you’re gonna have these monthly calls, but what are your plans for this podcast? Good question. So my plans are, the monthly calls are gonna go on, we’re gonna keep people accountable, as you say. My plans are to now take what I started, this independent spiritual-driven community, Mantra Therapy, which I started eight years ago, ten thousand people now experienced it, which couples live events, workshops, retreats.

11:47 And now bolt that on, to take it beyond borders from London, where it’s based, where most of our people come, and where we take people to retreats in Europe. Now is the chance to take a podcast, spread that message beyond borders and see that message grow, so that the podcast grows, the quality and the quantity, our guests who have powerful and diverse spiritual messages also grows.

12:12 We see that journey over the coming year, which will hopefully turn into podcast future events, special events or retreats with some of the guests, and an opportunity and a platform for people to share their talents and skills much wider than the UK. And what about Prash? How is he different if we walked out on the street and bumped into the guy that didn’t take this course?

12:28 I’m less of an… I’m still an… in some way, for sure. I’m sometimes my own worst, and, you know, in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says, for one who has learned to control the mind, it is the best of friends, but for one who hasn’t, it’s the worst enemy. So sometimes my mind, my worst enemy. But allowing myself to get beyond my comfort zone, and that’s what this podcasting was, make no mistake.

13:00 For me, the Indian inside me doesn’t want to spend money, sorry guys, Indians out there, and to my personal resistance on time and so forth, just to overcome those two things and be coached by somebody who’s been through the trenches has been such a liberating experience that our ego gets nicely kicked and the negative aspects of our personality start to shed, and I think that you can’t put a price on that.

13:29 What you are doing right here, you can’t put a price on that, because it is shaping souls and it’s curing hearts and cutting ego, slicing them up, dissecting them, so you get the true essence of somebody. It’s very well played. Dude, it’s the truth. To someone who’s watching, who’s on the fence, not sure whether they should go in on a course like this or try to do it on their own, what would you tell them?

13:53 Well, actually, you know what the funny thing is? When I was on the pre-sales calls with you, and I was touring with the IDS book, some of your guys, and I remember having a conversation with you, yeah, and I remember we were having a chat, it was 11 o’clock at night, whatever, and I said, what about this course, what about that course? And you actually came back and said, hey, there’s some free courses on Udemy, they’re not bad, you could do that.

14:17 And I thought, here’s a guy who’s just being honest; he didn’t even try and do the hard sell, and I think that was golden, man. There was no hard sell. People offered it and they showed something that could really change, like I said. So I say to people who are thinking about this and are on the fence, I’d say overcome your doubt, take a chance. There’s a money-back guarantee, people have got coming, you’ve given them cushion diving.

14:41 And be ready and be open to the magic that happens after you get through the first seven days. Get through that first seven days, just like in the gym, right? Nobody wants to go. Get through that first seven days or eight days and then watch the magic unfold, and you’ll start to see a side of yourself that you didn’t recognize.

14:56 I’m sure I speak for most of the people, most of my fantastic comrades on this course and every other course that you run: people’s consciousness shifts and uplifts from doing it. What price can you put on that? Well, you made it happen, so it was amazing watching your progress. You’re one of the most accomplished people on this course, and so thank you for going all in, and welcome to the family.

15:19 We’re just getting started. The next 12 months are gonna be big, we’re gonna be watching you, I’m expecting big things. More resistance to be conquered, more egos to be sliced, sliced. But again, I appreciate your energy, and obviously you need to share that energy with the world. You got a great vibe, so let’s just go make this world a better place. All right, we’re good to do that, one podcast at a time, one authentic soul at a time.

15:44 And we’ll take this message and create a tribe that together can make a transformation on this whole world. Amen, man. Thank you so much, let’s do this. Yeah, thank you so much, man. All right.