Shawn Vij - Moral Fiber

Full transcript: Shawn Vij on London Real

3:47 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Shawn Bidge, an author and accomplished business leader with over 25 years of industry and consulting experience for Intel, Microsoft, Ford Motor Company, and Visa. Your book, Moral Fiber, Awakening Corporate Consciousness, is described by John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, as a beautiful journey of how capitalism and compassion must coexist to improve our human condition. It has a forward by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who’s become a good friend of yours in the past three years. But most importantly, I’m featured on pages 178 and 179, the story of London Real. So grab a copy. Shawn, you’ve been one of my best friends since we met in 1990 as summer interns for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. Welcome to London Real.

5:07 Shawn Vij: Thanks, Brian.

5:08 Brian Rose: It’s great to have you here. It’s great. I can remember, like it was yesterday, the two of us hanging out in that cubicle in Dearborn, Michigan, wearing bad khaki pants, cheap ties, white shirts. We were driving around in those cars they would give us to go from like one plant to the next plant. We were kind of bright-eyed working at this company that had probably been our dreams because we were both mechanical engineers, our engineers. And I still remember hanging out with you. And you were Shawn Vidge, a kid that was born in India but acted like a jock from the football team. You always had this cool energy about you. You were serious and yet

6:14 A lot of fun. And I could even sense a little bit of compassion in there. And that’s how I remember you, you know. And I was wondering what you remember about those days.

6:24 Shawn Vij: Oh, well, I remember all that. I remember I dressed well and I got a lot of suspenders and you had those khakis. But no, I remember back then it was different. I remember that was the first time I actually tried coffee because the job got really boring. It got to a point it got boring, right? At some points, right? So let’s be honest with that. And it was a summer internship and they were courting us at the time. So I remember that. There was a lot of courting and it was a lot of fun. We got to do some really cool things. I remember the racetrack. We were racing cars and that was fun. I remember working on the plant floor, working in the plant, working with folks.

7:05 But what was good or great about it was there was such a divide between Union and what I would call the white-collar work person and blue-collar. And my first internship was kind of in between working those two environments. So I remember that there was that divisiveness there. And just being the intern there was listening to both sides. And so I remember a lot of that and trying to be a, I don’t want to call it a negotiator, but like an arbitrator in some way.

7:37 Brian Rose: Yeah. And you talk about that in the book. I like bringing them Indian food from your mom and stuff like that. But for people that don’t know, and I’m sure it’s probably maybe like that still, but maybe not as much. But when you get to the plant where they, this is real talk. They manufacture cars, they manufacture engine blocks. Like the guys that do that are kind of the blue-collar workers. And they’re in unions and they hang out with each other and they work repetitive jobs a lot of time. Hard work, sometimes it’s creative. But then you got the engineers, which are the college graduates, which are in the other buildings. And I dealt a little bit with it, but you dealt a lot more.

8:09 Shawn Vij: Yeah, I think so. I think you were more on the, I can’t remember which area you were in, but we had the same offices in the same area. But I was more going to the plant floor a lot on the manufacturing side. And you were more on the design, product design. And I think the next summer I came, it was so exciting, I came the next summer and I worked in more a product design. And actually that was more exciting. So my first role was kind of, it was boring in the sense of, when I say boring, it wasn’t as challenging initially, right? The challenging part was more people-oriented than actual work-oriented.

8:37 And then the next summer was more challenging in the sense of, I started doing what they called calibration. So electronic engine control in the cars. Yeah. So I got into that space.

8:47 Brian Rose: I think both of us realized early on, maybe we took you a few years more, that this was great and this was a dream, but we didn’t want to be like the guys that were the 40 years old and they were the career forward guys, right? And so you saw that early, and I saw that early, and I went kind of the Wall Street way. You ended up going to get an MBA and kind of ended up in time going out West. Yeah, it’s interesting. Talk about that, you know, the path and the journey. I noticed you went more into financial, well, one, it’s interesting because we’ll talk about it hopefully.

9:18 Shawn Vij: But one, we were both, I wouldn’t call it greedy, but we were going after monetary things at the time, right? Yeah. And you were going toward Wall Street. We were greedy. You were going toward Wall Street and I went toward consulting. And I went, I mean, whatever I could, you know, cap out at, right? And most MBA students do that, right? You’ll see most of them go into consulting and financial services or investment banking. And I went that path, I went to Ernst & Young in Chicago and I worked with a lot of folks there.

9:50 And so that was, you know, that was good. And then I moved out West and then I got a flavor of high-tech. And that’s where I got really excited, right? So living in the Bay Area, it’s just an incubator of all kinds of new things and great things happening. And so I just got, I just fell into that whole world.

10:07 Brian Rose: And that was in 2000, right? That was right when, or 99, yeah. Right when.

10:12 Shawn Vij: Getting back to earlier, what you were talking about in, we got to remember back when we were at Ford, right? It was also hard times. It was the 80s, right?

10:21 And market share for Ford was at like 35 some percent, right? And then it was just on a decline. The Japanese were coming in hard. I mean, it was, so you’ve got a lot of that dynamic playing out too. And so that’s why getting back to the blue collar, white collar, it got a little bit more divisive. And that’s, that’s what I started in the plant floor. I started noticing that rub even more and I was feeling it. Right.

10:43 Brian Rose: And even then you started making some, some ways of identifying with those people, right? And you became good friends with some of those guys.

10:50 Shawn Vij: Well, yeah, I was, it was interesting. I mean, when I first took that, the job, my manager at the time said, look, you know, I need you to, I need to go monitor machinery. And I’m like, you want me to go out there with those guys, these union guys who’ve, you know, who’ve worked, you know, and like, yeah, that’s why aren’t you guys doing that? Right? So I had to figure out a way to collaborate, right? And we had it, there was a thing called at the time, SPC, it was a big quality one, right? Statistical process control. And so I had to go out there and monitor machinery, bring it back. But you know, I got to know the people and I had to figure out ways of how do I get to know these people because they were not my, I was 19. They’re not, they’re not my friend, right? They weren’t my friend at first. And so I was just really, it was, it was a great experience because it really challenged me on how do I,

11:37 How do I start collaborating with these people? How do I start working with, you know, with guys who are, you know, in their 40s and 50s at the time, right? Yeah.

11:46 Brian Rose: There’s a point in the book when you talk about you kind of go from making 30 grand to getting that offer for, you know, six figures. And you’re like, wait a second, I go from a place where my walls don’t have anything on them to now I can go to the big time. And you know, I remember that same moment for me when I was like, oh my gosh, now I’m making the bunny, the big time. And you know, it changes us as kind of individuals, you know, is that a right of passage? Is that something that all young men are going to go to when they’re out there trying to grab the most out of life? I mean, if you could do it over again, would you do it differently? Because you reflect on those moments in the book as, you know, learning moments for you, right?

12:26 Shawn Vij: Yeah, they’re learning moments. It was a moment, I mean, I don’t regret any of that. I totally enjoyed it. But a lot of it comes from our influences and how we were raised and what we value. The book is, you know, it’s moral fiber. It’s knowing and acting on your values. So knowing what our values are and what do we value depends on the environment we’re in and who we’re with, right? And you’ve said it a lot too, right? I mean, we are what we consume. And so if I’m consuming Kim Kardashian or whatever that is, you know, 24 hours, nothing wrong with that,

12:56 Right? But you start thinking in a certain way, right? So the diversity of thought is so critical. And so in the book, I talked about, okay, so forget all those influences. I call them cultural hinges and societal strings. These are all influences. But there’s one thing that we all share together. We all share this.

13:14 And His Holiness, the Dalai Lama talks about it. And there’s a lot of research around it. John Haidt from New York. There’s Mary Gentile, who’s also in the book from Darden School of Business, who’s written a lot of books on values. But they’ve done a lot of studies and they’ve identified, you know, four or five key core values, fairness, respect, compassion, honesty, trust. I mean, these are things I mean, His Holiness, his number one thing, if you go to the website, is promoting values, human values. And he talks about tolerance. He talks about forgiveness. He talks about compassion. And so to me, that’s I just feel like a vessel in this book. Like I felt like it was something that just had to be written, especially in this having spent 25 years, right? So it was I feel like just a vessel, like, that’s one thing that could help us. And that’s what I did. You go back to the story, you know, on the plant floor, right? How did I get along with these guys? There was this guy, Gino, he was a welder. He just never wanted to talk to me, right? And so I just went to the core common thing, right? Of just respect. And I had food from, you know, Indian food.

14:21 And he’s an Italian guy. And I thought, hey, you know, he might like some different foods. And I’d leave, I’d give him food every day, you know, for like, you know, every day I drop food, and he’d be like, you know, prick, you know, and like, it was just and then finally, the sixth seventh day, I think it was a week later, he started talking, we opened up and he told me his son was dying, right? And that that hit me, right? And but that was where the hurt was, right? That vulnerability came out. And but the thing that opened that door, the thing that opened that door was compassion. Right, right. And so that anyways, yeah, and the Dali Lama always talks about as humans, the thing we have in common is, is we have suffering, and we’re trying to minimize that suffering. And so you’re looking at as a base human level, how are we all the same? And you’re trying to go in at that angle.

15:07 Brian Rose: And you seem like you always had that in you something.

15:10 Shawn Vij: Yeah, and I lost that, right? Because you started listening to kind of the other the Kardashian way or the other things that were influenced. I mean, like you, Brian, I mean, like, I mean, reflect, I mean, why did you go to Wall Street?

15:22 Brian Rose: Yeah, things that drove you, you know, I wanted to compete with the best. And like, that’s where the action was, quite honestly. And I think if it had been in the 80s, it would have been the oil business. And if it would have been now, it might have been in tech or 10 years ago. So I think that’s where I was like, that’s where it’s gonna be. So definitely, the money was something that was always important for me. Yeah, definitely. Because I think the American mainstream, or at least the one that I grew up in, it was all about that. And so I figured if I could get that, I would then have my happiness. And that’s maybe your story, and maybe so many people’s story. And like, it’s funny, I got a barbershop around here, I go to this Turkish barbershop, and he’s always playing MTV when I get my haircut. And I never watch MTV anymore. And I’m always like, dude, you’re watching this all day long, because it’s the bling and the cars, and it’s all this stuff repeated, repeated, repeated. And I’m like, I guess that’s what I grew up on, that it’s all about this, without questioning why. And then I think we both got to a point in our lives, in our maybe late 30s or mid 30s, where some of this doesn’t feel right. Maybe I’m making decisions in a

16:26 Corporate world that doesn’t feel right, yet my compass says, get more money, so you got to do it. And then at some point, I think we have this dilemma where it’s like, wait a second, that’s not what I want to do anymore.

16:39 Shawn Vij: Right. And it’s what I call your inner voice, your conscious, right. And what causes for me, at least, I can talk about myself, what causes me, I mean, suffering is a strength. And that’s how his holiness looks at it. He practices suffering, right? He practices it. When he doesn’t suffer, he takes the suffering of others onto him.

17:00 Brian Rose: I remember reading his book. Yeah, yeah, he says when he meditates, he tries to take the suffering of the world on. Is that right?

17:07 Shawn Vij: Yeah, so a lot of Buddhist monks do that. That’s, that’s their, I mean, well, we won’t get into monks and the rebirth of monks, but that his holiness is yes, he practices that and I start practicing that. And I and I meditate every day now. And it’s, try to take on the suffering. I mean, I’m not going to invite everybody and let me suffer for everybody. But I try to take on as much as I can, because it builds tolerance, it builds compassion. And it builds, you’re able to, at least slowly, I’ve been able to navigate better. I’m more mindful about things. I’m more aware about things. I bring different vantage points. When I think when I when I when I look at other suffering, there’s an empathy. And that’s what I you know, I get into, I don’t really talk about in

17:54 The book, but it’s an overarching theme is compassionate leadership. And that’s something, you know, mindfulness was a big buzzword. And, you know, all these new compassionate leadership is the next big thing. Right. And so when you think of that, you know, you can be you could compassionate leadership is not about, oh, let me give you a hug. It’s about Yeah, I’m gonna Yeah, if you don’t do your job, you’re accountable. And if you don’t do it, you’re fired. You’re let go. I’m a strong believer in that. But you, you need to give you need to let’s not be ignorant about it, right? You need to be open about it. And I talk about that in the book also, you know, about the 40s. And I talk about, you know, anger, greed and ignorance. And, and I it’s a blend of things that I bring in that. And that’s what Buddhists really believe that there it’s the poisonous cocktail, anger, greed, and ignorance, those are the three things. And there’s derivatives of that, right? So and you mix up, they play off of each other, right? And they lead and they exist in all of us. Right. And the degree depends. I mean, I was a very, you talk about how I got back to myself, I mean, these influences and all of these things, right? They can lead to greater anger, they can lead to greater greed, your self interest takes over. And that’s where the rub comes in, when you start conflicting with your own conscience. And you’re like, and then I talk about in

19:13 The book again, is it ethical fading, right? It’s this psychic numbing that Professor 10 Brazil in Notre Dame talks about. And there’s lots of studies on this, right? So there’s, there’s no one to blame, right? We have to take an introspective view, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.

19:30 Brian Rose: And those three kind of toxic things, do we just need to always be aware of them? Is that?

19:36 Shawn Vij: That’s the key, we should be aware of them. You know, and I there’s, there’s a process I use, right? And, you know, tell me, it’s, so I kind of put it in the book, but it’s I wanted to make it simple, just a framework, right? And so people can, because one of the things about the book is, is it’s not, there’s nothing preachy about it. I’m not here to preach anything. It was my experiences and other corporate executives and leaders. And I interviewed everybody from the janitor all the way up, right? I everybody’s in the book professors. But I talk about, I wanted a book where I’m not complaining. And I wanted a book that’s helpful, right? Like somebody who can read this and like, somebody on a plane, a businessman can read go, Yeah, I do that. Oh, wow. Right. It opens, starts opening windows and doors for them. Right. And so the framework I have is, I mean, I go into just two frameworks, but the simplest one is what I call accepting the emotion. Right, accept your emotion. The Dalai Lama says this, he in fact, he says he was the angriest. He was a very growing up, he was very, you know, things would, you know, he would snap, right, especially his territory where he grew up in China, right. So, so the accepting accepting the emotion is key, right, because that drives greater awareness that you’re aware of the anger coming in, right. And then it’s about not letting it not letting it build, right. So cloister the emotion, right. So take that emotion,

21:07 And then get surgical with it, try to identify what was the cause of that. And so what’s required there is self awareness, and being aware and understanding all the different vantage points of what could have caused that. Maybe it was me, right, maybe it was somebody else, you know, what caused that anger, or maybe it was, you know, maybe it was my child who was sick the night before, and that they caused me to be angry, and I was deflecting, right, though. And then the third part is tempering that emotion. It’s funny, because, and this was the aha moment for me on tempering the emotion was, most of us when we’re angry, most of us when we’re angry, we would the last thing we would think of is using compassion to temper that emotion, right, right. But it actually works. Even when you’re angry, even when you’re angry, it’s hard to believe, but it actually works. Practice that have compassion for the person you’re angry at. Okay, yes.

22:01 Brian Rose: And just so give me an example of that. So you get mad at someone and you’re thinking, well, how is it how are they receiving this, they might not understand, they might not be aware that they’re making me angry, that kind of thing.

22:14 Shawn Vij: So an example would be, you know, like I just mentioned, but there’s, you know, at work, I was in a situation where I would I just snapped at somebody. And my daughter was, you know, she had, you know, she kept me up, you know, this was way back when when she was younger, but she was sick. And you know, I just I just got angry at the individual, right. And, you know, I took a moment, I stepped away from it. And I started realizing I just did this kind of process, if you will, I kind of accepted that emotion. But the anger had built so much, I was getting mad at everybody. It wasn’t just him. After I got mad at him, I just started getting mad at everybody and everything at work that day. Right. So it was just it’s a simple thing. But it’s the practice. It’s in that practice.

22:53 Brian Rose: Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of observing yourself, observing yourself is kind of a lot what meditation does. And you know, Buddhism says, like, observe yourself and think about the others. And yeah, it’s just not many people really put it into practical business terms, which is what it seems to me you’re trying to do with this book and give examples of you. I know you’re trying not to preach.

23:13 You’re saying, Look, I went through this, I went through this place where there was this strange situation at work, I didn’t like it. I was going to partnership with these guys, I didn’t like the way they partied. And that told me a lot about what their character was and difficult situations that everybody faces in the corporate world. And unfortunately, a lot of times we don’t make the quote unquote right decision because sometimes it’s unpopular. And that’s tricky sometimes.

23:34 Shawn Vij: And we don’t know, like you talked about, you know, the partying, you know, I was we were in, we were in Southern California at the time closing one of the biggest deals. And when the guy pulled out a bunch of cocaine next to me, I’m like, you know, and I drink a lot, but I don’t, you know, I’m gonna have a good time. But I, when I that one just didn’t go with me. Right. And so I didn’t know what to do at that point. And so I talked about it in the book.

23:53 Yeah, I won’t tell you here.

23:54 Brian Rose: But but like, it was interesting, because one, you could have it’s just them partying. It’s one night, let them celebrate the deal. But then you’re like, are you watching how they behave? And you’re like, well, these guys we want to be in business with. And it’s, you know, you start asking some hard questions. But it sounds like good questions. And in the long run, it sounds like you guys made the right call. So, you know, but again, like, again, you kind of have to really come back to your own values. And you have to be disciplined about enforcing your own values, right? Which is hard.

24:24 Shawn Vij: It’s hard. It’s hard. And you know, yeah, and I see it a lot. I mean, there was there’s times, you know, I’ve been asked, you know, look, I started like right there, right? And now and then I was able to progress in my career, which was nice. And and I and I continue that. But the real question I asked myself as I was gone on this journey, was I really happy you talk about it earlier, you know, like, you want these things, right? I don’t get me wrong, I like staying at the Savoy, right? I enjoy these things. Okay, I’m gonna lie, right? But the difference is, is how I got there is very different than how I got there before. That’s the difference. It makes me want to enjoy the Savoy even more. I want other people to enjoy. I believe in capitalism and free trade and, but how we go about it when, you know, I got it in the epigraph in the book, I talk about that. If I’m taking happiness away from somebody else, and I’m exploiting that, because my self interest takes over somebody else’s, and I do something unethical, right, or against the core values, we’ve gone in a long direction.

25:33 Brian Rose: Yeah. The Dalai Lama is a big figure in this book. So can you talk to me about how this relationship started? Because, you know, it kicks off February 24, 2014, 732am. You’re at a hotel in downtown San Jose. What’s about to happen?

25:50 Shawn Vij: Yeah. So it’s interesting, I was, I talked about it in the book in the end, how I met the Dalai Lama. And what was about to happen at that moment was, I was going to take a cargo elevator up to the 15th floor and meet with his Holiness for 15 minutes, which I did. A business guy who happened to get there. And it was one of these where the night before I was having dinner, and well, let me roll it back a little bit. So it was end of January. You talked about it, like it was a moment of pivotal moment for you when you were in Richard Branson’s. It’s very similar. I was actually in the bonus room of our house. And I’m sitting there. And it was a Friday evening. And I’m eating a cold sandwich. And mind you, I live in a 3,500 square foot home.

26:55 I got all these things. I got cars, two car garage, all this stuff, right? Suits, all these things. And I’m sitting there all alone. Wife’s gone, daughter’s gone. And I’ve got this huge big screen TV. And I just started feeling like the loneliest person ever. And I didn’t want to look at myself. There was like a mirror in my head. And I didn’t want to look at myself. And I don’t know, it’s just something came over me. And it was one of these where I started feeling I was at the worst condition in my health. My marriage was suffering. I lost a lot of my friends. You and I didn’t really converse until after I met the Dalai Lama. So I lost even my closest family, like my parents and you know, my brother, I was very distant. My job was very toxic. It was I had a boss that was coming after me all the time. How do everybody’s watching this?

28:00 They’re I guarantee you, they’re not happy. A lot of people in their jobs. It got so toxic. And so all of these things, right, just imploded. And I, I just started getting really like I literally physically then started getting like hives and kind of like, so I started walking around looking for an answer, right. And I walked around the house and I literally I went into the guest bedroom and I opened up a little drawer. And I opened the drawer and there’s this little pocketbook on the Dalai Lama. And in it, I never opened that book. I didn’t even know I the irony is I got that book, like maybe eight years ago on a whim, I just kind of bought it and I never read it never opened it didn’t even know. So I opened the book. And I mean, I was like literally like not feeling I mean, I was just at the lowest point, right? depressed is, you know, and I opened the book, and I turned to a page. And the page was about suffering, and how suffering can be your strength. And that just kind of like an awakening happened at that moment. And I started reading more. And I couldn’t stop reading. So I read the whole pocketbook. And then the next day, I went to Barnes and Nobles. And I started reading. I started reading all about the Dalai Lama. And it just it was just kind of fulfilling, right? It just kind of soothes me.

29:30 Brian Rose: And then you weren’t into Buddhism or Dalai Lama before

29:33 Shawn Vij: like, I mean, I’m just like, what is this stuff, right? I mean, you know, and I was just never into it. And then I then at that point, I just was at Pete’s coffee. And I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna do search. So I did a Google search. And I said Dalai Lama, you know, and he doesn’t come to the US much. And then it said, just announced he’s going to be at Berkeley.

29:55 And I’m like, oh, so I’m like trying to buy tickets, right? So I’m clicking on that thing. And it’s like, sold out, like it was like Seahawks game. And then like, you got 5000 people, it’s gone, right? Then I do I do another one, then it says, Oh, another announcement comes up three hours later, he’s gonna be at UC Santa Clara. So I’m like, you know, I’ll click on that.

30:14 And I was able to get two tickets, right? And got the two tickets. And remember, this is a venue of 2000 people, right? So I’m like, okay, so I’m like, this is not gonna be enough for me. This is, you know, you know how I think, right? So I’m like, I’m this is not enough. So I call Santa Clara, and I go, I’m going to a personal crisis, you know, and I was I was and I said, I’d like to really kind of meet with the Dalai Lama. And she’s like, really, really? I really want to meet with the Dalai Lama. And you know, I was really, she’s like, okay. And she’s like, sure. And so then I said, this is not gonna happen, right? So I let it go, right? I let it go. And then a week later, I get this is a span in three weeks, right? To get to that 732 in the morning. And then so there’s some cosmic energy or something. But I started, I just let it go. And I read more about the Dalai Lama, I read more about Buddhism. And, and then I get an email, a generic email that says, use your certificates at a hotel before they get voided out, right? So I just booked that hotel. And if it just happened to be the hotel, his onlyness was staying at. So I get there on it was that Sunday night. And I get there on Sunday night and I’m with my brother who you’ve met and with one of his buddies. And we’re having drinks and we’re having sushi at the lobby. And this is like a very, you know, like a lot of the high tech folks hang out in

31:46 This hotel and we were we were, we’re having drinks. And then in the corner of my eye, I see later on half bottle in the wine, we’re all having fun. I see I see a monk sitting on this couch. And I go, you know, something just told me at that point to kind of go over there because I was really kind of hurting inside. And I don’t know. And I, as I walked over there, the crowd just came. And I decided to walk back, I said, forget it, right? So then I went back again. And when I went back again, the crowd just kind of moved over. Nobody like nobody would everybody was nice. And I literally just kind of went to one knee and I started talking to him. And I’m talking and talking. And then the lady next to me hits me says he doesn’t understand English. And so then they had a translator and they translate and I was there for 40 minutes, right?

32:38 Tell them my story and sharing everything and he’s holding my hand. He said be here at 8am tomorrow or 7am tomorrow morning or 8am tomorrow morning. So I show up the next morning and I’m there and that’s what happened. And so I meet the Dalai Lama. He made that meeting happen. And ever since then, I’ve met the Dalai Lama. I mean, I work with his office the next year. I met with him with my parents in LA.

33:06 So I got my parents to meet with him. And then the last year I met with him with my daughter. And that was such a joy.

33:11 Brian Rose: Yeah, you sent me pictures. Yeah, and that was beautiful. So I remember getting pictures from you and it’s Vij and the Dalai Lama. And I’m like, oh, my email and I’m like, what the heck is this? And then I was like, of course, Vij meets the Dalai Lama. You know, because I don’t know, that’s like something I would expect you to do. But he said some things to you when you met him, you know, and I think they’re super important things. And I’m curious, first of all, what’s it like to meet him? You know, he’s he’s such a powerful figure and represents so much. What’s it like?

33:38 Shawn Vij: Yeah. Well, I, as you know, I was going through that moment when I met with him, it was one of these it was said, people go, Oh, yeah, the Dalai Lama. No, it really is. Like you feel it, you feel the energy. And the energy is powerful. It’s all good energy. It’s when I went there, I felt like I was in I felt calm, like in a world of equanimity, it was it was just calm, balanced.

34:09 Like my, everybody’s guard was down. He has that he has that it’s that it’s I don’t know what it is. But maybe it’s the three hours or four hours of meditation he does every day, but it’s just calm. With the exception of the Secret Service, but every everybody else was calm. And yeah, when I met with him, I touched his feet, something told me to touch his feet.

34:38 I felt like touching in India, you do that just, you know, as my parents and grandparents as a sign of respect.

34:47 Brian Rose: Okay. So that’s something that you know, it’s common, right? You remember that

34:53 Shawn Vij: I remember touching his feet. And then I he lifted me up. And I said to him, I said, I don’t know why, but I feel so angry. I feel so angry. And he said to me, he said, now I’m thinking about it. And he said, he said, he said to me, he said to me, he goes, compassion, compassion and wisdom. Wisdom will be your guide. And I said, wisdom will be my guide. And he said, yes, wisdom will be your guide. And then he gave me a book.

35:26 And he, you know, he signed it and everything, but he gave me his book and he told me to read three chapters, chapter six, seven and nine. I won’t tell anybody the book, but it’s chapter six, seven and nine. And chapter nine was on wisdom. So I got the book. I actually got it from London. I had to order it from here because they didn’t offer it in the US. So I ordered the book, got the book and then I see it will be your guide. And then yeah, so that, you know, wisdom was that wisdom was the key for me.

35:54 Brian Rose: And then you didn’t know why you were like, my guide to what and you weren’t quite sure what he was talking about, right? That that

36:01 Shawn Vij: Yeah, exactly. I didn’t know what he was I didn’t know what what he was talking about. And I think when you get into when I talk about a little bit more, but it’s it’s an it was an awakening, but it was really about awareness, right? And getting that greater awareness right now, you’re so angry because you’re not seeing everything. You’re not seeing all the other vantage points.

36:22 Right. You’re only anchored on one right now. Okay, so let the wisdom be your guide in that. Right. And I said to him, he said, he said, your greatest enemy, you can learn from your greatest, your greatest enemy.

36:38 Brian Rose: Yeah, that’s powerful. Yeah.

36:41 Shawn Vij: And I said, I said, Okay, and, and then he whispered in my ear. And he said, your greatest enemy is in you. And that’s when I said, like, you’re my master. And then he did this. And he said, he goes, you are your own master. Right?

37:02 And I was like, wow, you know, like this is just too much at once. Right. It was like, it was like so intense. Right. It was really deep. And then I’m like, this is my I then I’m like, like 20 minutes later, I’m in a venue of 2000 people. And I’m standing there watching him and I go, I just met this guy. Like my brother has like 30 shots of photos of this. And he’s like, and the lady behind us is like, you just met the Dolly Island. And I’m like thinking to myself going, I’ve got to do something more. I’m not going to just sit here and take that energy and let go.

37:39 So I struggled, right? I struggle. Like, well, what can I do at that point? And that changed, that has changed my life completely. I mean, you know, it’s changed my life completely.

37:50 The meeting changed. The meeting, the everything that evolved from that meeting, the things I’ve done, my attitude toward myself, my attitude toward others. I’m feel like I’m back to myself when I actually kind of first met you, right? Like, I feel like I’m back to that. That’s I don’t know how you feel, but I feel like I’m, you know, I’m back to myself with that. And it’s funny, because we didn’t really stay in touch for those, you know, 15 years or so. And then we were both I would say we were both kind of lost, you know, and then at least that’s what I remember, right? Yeah, I remember, you know, meeting you in San Diego and you know, we were just like, you were definitely a rebel, right? Like crazy. I don’t know if you were angry, but you were rebellious. And I remember that you were very rebellious. We used to wear these boots up to here, military boots. And I was just like, okay, what’s going on, right? And just always, you know, we drink a lot. Yeah, yeah. And we did some crazy stuff. And we followed. I mean, I went into that consulting and you went, but yeah, I remember that. And then now I see you.

39:00 And I see a different attitude, right? A different approach, positive energy, like I felt it yesterday when I knew I was coming in from Lisbon. And I felt it when I got landed here. It wasn’t London. It was like, I’m going to be meeting a friend. I felt that energy.

39:17 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s weird. I think and you have changed. Well, you’ve kind of gotten back to the village. I remember I met but like, I think we were all both on our mission of I don’t know what it was. Okay, we’re out there competing, acquiring, doing this thing. And maybe the reason I was drinking so much or we were drinking so much is because maybe, you know, our enemy was ourselves, you know, and this ambitious kind of greedy thing was also toxic within ourselves. And so I think for me sometimes I wanted to get away from my inner critic. I think I’ve always critical myself. Why aren’t you doing more? Why aren’t you doing better? Why aren’t you making more money? Why aren’t you being successful? And then at the same time, I would try to quiet that voice by drinking sometimes, which of course made me less successful, which got me in this whole loop, you know, and then I think that’s what was going on with me. And I think I was angry, angry at a lot of things. And I took it out on myself. And so like when the Dalai Lama says that to you, you know, you know, you are your master, and then the enemy is you. It’s it’s so true. And as soon as I figured out how to get out of my own way, I started seeing these rays of success and kind of mini enlightenments for me. But it wasn’t until I really walked away from the whole banking business entirely that I really started learning.

40:32 Shawn Vij: But you were scared, right? I mean, let me ask you this, because I’ve always wanted to ask you, like, when you I hear your story and everything, but like, what did you feel like when you left? I mean, for me, now I’m still in the corporate world, I still kind of but I’m this is to me is, you know, what did you feel? I mean, you left it all and you and you and you started something totally different, right? Yeah, there’s there’s a lot there, right to leave. I mean, that takes a lot of courage, right?

40:57 Brian Rose: Yeah, well, people say it’s courage. I don’t know about courage. You know, I funny enough, I when I look back, you know, I actually started meditating about three months before I left. It’s weird. And I always heard about this meditation thing. I’ve been into martial arts. So I’d always, you know, beat, you know, beat myself up and beat guys up now when I look back at it, martial arts, when you’re actually beating the hell out of a heavy bag, are you going and beating someone up in a ring? Now that I look at back at it, you’re in a way you’re almost beating yourself up.

41:24 It’s a weird way of that. So I was always into new ideas and new training. But meditation, I’d never got my head around. And finally, I took a trans and transcendental meditation class, which means I paid a couple grand for it, which means, you know, for not much, but it got me to do it. And so once I did it, I was just I was like, I’m gonna do this. And I was doing my meditation twice a day. And all of a sudden, I started looking around.

41:46 And I’m just like, what are you doing? You’re going into this job that you hate. It’s negative and toxic. People yell at you all day long. You’re trying to I’m trying to squeeze as much value out of everyone I meet. So all the banks, all of my colleagues in the firm, I’m just trying to extract as much value and cash out of every single day. And I’ve been doing this for 10 years. There’s a knock on toxic effect to that, right? And I look around, I don’t have any friends. No one wants to be around me. I don’t even want to be around myself to a certain extent. And yet I was trying to pile more zeros into that bank account. And part of me said, wait a second, you just your bank account went up the last three months. Did your life change at all in a positive way? No. And it hasn’t for three or five years. And yet you’re but you got more money. Okay, cool. But you got more money. But you got more money and your life sucks, sucks, sucks. I think finally, I was able to say, I think because the meditation, again, I think because I was able to observe myself. Finally, there was an observer that said, Brian, why are you doing this? And I think that’s when I knew I had to go. And so once I kind of made that decision, it was scary that day. I felt a little bit wrench in my gut. I wanted to walk out of the place and throw my fingers in the air to all the guys. But one of the guys said, say goodbye to everybody. And I remember saying like, fuck that, fuck

43:02 These guys, fuck you. And which was again, was getting me hating me for my decisions. It wasn’t them. And I remember I went and said goodbye to everybody. And that was a big move for me. And then walked out. So yeah, I mean, that was a big dad. I don’t know if it was courageous or whatever, but yeah, that was that. And then luckily enough, I knew I knew don’t go start a tech company because you don’t want to do an IPO and impress your friends.

43:27 That’s not what you want to do Brian. And so I was I allowed myself to go on this kind of journey and discovery, which was when I started broadcasting.

43:35 Shawn Vij: Yeah, no, it’s amazing. It’s great to see you Brian like this. I mean, like literally when I was the first time walking in here, I’m I’m I remember us in this cubicles and I’m like, gosh, we are so freaking old. And I’m thinking I’m like, wow, this is amazing.

43:49 This is great. I’m really proud of you.

43:51 Brian Rose: Thank you, man. Wait. And so now this changed my life because it’s a whole different energy. And now I now I always tell guys now I try to pump as much value out in the world. Like that’s what I do. And we’re broadcast.

44:03 It’s just like, let’s put out this message. Let’s put out this message. Let’s edit this video. And we did it for three years without without any money coming in. But I loved it. And I remember every year I would look back and be like, Rose, you got to get a job. Like, what are you doing? This is stupid. And in everyone thinks you’re an idiot. You’re on YouTube and you’re putting these hour long videos out and, you know, what are you doing? And not to mention all the banking colleagues laughing at me and all that stuff. But every year I said, is your life better? Yes. Do you have more friends? Yes. Are you happier?

44:32 Yes. You know, are you attracting my family? Yes. So keep doing it. Keep doing it.

44:37 Keep doing it. And then now it all makes sense. And now people like, oh, look what you built with London Real. It wasn’t like that. I was just one foot in front of the other and following the energy.

44:49 Shawn Vij: Yes. So that’s what I would argue. I would even say not argue, but I would I would also I talk about it also is what causes a lot of suffering, right? Is us not being we cause and His Holiness says this, we cause most of our suffering. And for me, another aha moment was is being true to yourself. That’s a hard thing. Let’s be really real here. That is a hard thing to be true to yourself.

45:16 Brian Rose: Explain that.

45:17 Shawn Vij: Well, I mean, the U.S. News did a study, right? I’ll just throw this out there and they and it’s they’ve asked people, celebrities in the U.S., they asked how many people who do you think would go into heaven? Right. And they just generically ask people and it’s a big study. And they said, I think it was like 50 some percent said Bill Clinton would go to heaven.

45:41 Right. Right. And they said, 52 percent.

45:43 Brian Rose: 52 percent. According to your book.

45:45 Shawn Vij: According to the book. Then it was something in the in the 58 or 60 percent. I can’t remember the data, but it was for Mother Teresa was also there. And Michael Jordan was the highest at 64 percent. But then they asked who would go? What about you yourself? 89 percent of people said, I’m definitely going to heaven. So if we there’s a gap in expectations of others versus ourselves, then we have we will have a tough time in changing.

46:19 That introspection is required. Right. So that’s what I mean by being true to yourself. So when you’re sitting alone in your room and we spend our lives consuming things, just pause for a moment and ask yourself. Really.

46:39 Did I do the right things today? Did I really contribute the way I should have been contributing? How many times have you spent alone for five minutes at home? Just alone. No, no, no noise. Five minutes is not much time. So I started doing that more and more.

46:58 And now I’m at 30 minutes. Right. Is that meditation? OK. And you’re and you’re asking yourself questions.

47:04 You’re being with yourself. You’re in the beginning. Right. And then you get to a certain stage. Everybody has their form.

47:12 But all I’m asking is just spend five minutes with yourself. You owe it to yourself and being true. Because if when you’re the close to when you start believing in your and that’s when your journey just explained that inner voice as you follow like that inner voice when I turned around and went through that crowd, I was following my inner voice. I my heart was telling me to go to that monk. Right. I mean, we can we can say but in other situations too in work situations.

47:39 Follow your heart. Voice what you feel is right. We all know what’s right. We all know what’s wrong. There’s no rocket science to this.

47:51 Moral fiber. When you when you I’m coining the term. Morality is knowing your values. Right. Knowing these values.

48:02 We all know. I mean, you know, most of the world is in some form of religion. That’s the second thing the Dalai Lama is all about. So his first thing is promoting human values. His second thing is promoting

48:19 Openness of different religions. And so they’re all preaching the right thing. It’s now acting on those things. And this sounds so simple. But that’s what I coined is knowing and acting on your values, living your values every day.

48:34 And that takes pausing. That’s the thing. It takes the awareness.

48:38 Brian Rose: Yeah. Which most people and thanks to the electronic devices that you helped create in Silicon Valley.

48:44 Thank you, Vij. It actually gives us all a great reason not to be with ourselves. I mean, the last time if you see anyone put alone in a room, they’ll have their phone out within 30 seconds because it’s uncomfortable being with yourself to a certain extent and spend now another five minutes and 20 minutes to start asking yourself hard questions. You really don’t want to be with yourself because most likely you’ve used the phone and the food and the TV and the Kardashians to distract yourself from having hard conversations with yourself about what you should be doing with your family, with your job, with your body, with all of these things. And so most people these days, it’s just post-poem, post-post, post-post. It’s easier to do than ever now.

49:25 And so that’s and that’s why I think this isn’t the time to talk about this stuff. And so without a meditation practice, sometimes it’s hard to get in that space where you get to be with yourself.

49:37 Shawn Vij: Yes. You know, they say the average lifespan. I was just reading this the other day, the average lifespan, you know, I’m being general here is that from what I saw was 78 years, right?

49:48 We live 78 years if we are living healthy. And one third of that is sleeping, right? With the exception of you and I probably. But one third of that is one third of you sleep, one third sleeping. And then you spend 10 years, they say, working.

50:07 Nine years they tabulate was like consuming some type of form of consumption of entertainment, TV, just consuming. Right. So they went through all this and they were like, you have nine years left, right? What are you going to do with it? Well, I’ve kind of pushed back in my mind.

50:23 I’m like, it’s not even about that. It’s not about what we do. It’s how we do it. And that’s why I talk about values because you talk about it’s your journey. It’s the things that you’re doing.

50:34 If we focus on how we do these things more than what we attain or what we do, right, it makes the difference of who we are as a society and as individuals.

50:45 Brian Rose: Yeah. And it’s a hard lesson to get across. Takes time, I guess. Right.

50:50 Shawn Vij: The how we do is a hard one.

50:51 Brian Rose: Sorry. Yeah. Media is crazy. We have a course here that we teach six weeks long called our Life Accelerator.

50:57 In the first week we put everyone on a low media diet. So we only allow them to have 60 minutes of media. That means a book, TV, Netflix, anything. At the same time they do mindfulness practice and they do a gratitude practice. And the first week they all report like, oh my God, it’s uncomfortable, but I’ve never had these kind of epiphanies because they’re forced to spend time with themselves.

51:20 And they just start they start flushing out a lot of stuff. They’ve been literally postponed for years because it’s always easier to check the Twitter feed or check the this feed or be worried about someone’s life or be worried about some crisis to some country that has nothing to do with you. So yeah, just that pause and you know you’re saying right there. I think it’s important to take that step back. I want to ask you a question. Why do you think Sean Vidge was so angry? You know, why were you so angry and what was it the culmination of?

51:48 You know, if it was from inside you from the outside, I see a guy who worked for Microsoft, work for Intel, work for all these great companies has a huge house. Beautiful daughter. I met her. She’s wonderful. You know, you’ve got all these things, not to mention all the juice you have in the corporate world, you know, and you’re very humble.

52:05 But I know you’re known as the guy that makes deals and you know, you’ve done that stuff. Why were you so unhappy?

52:14 Shawn Vij: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with I was I let greed take over. I let greed. So as you were thinking about, you know, you were you were your own inspector inside. I grew up in I don’t know if your viewers watch this, but it’s eight mile. I grew up in Detroit, Detroit.

52:31 Okay, a really rough neighborhood. Bad area. That that wasn’t a bad. It was like I would say low middle class. My parents were immigrants from India.

52:40 I came here when I was like one years old. I was I’m pretty much, you know, all American and kind of grew up in Detroit. And as I was growing up, I went through a lot of there was a lot of racism. And also there was a lot of segregation. Right. And it didn’t help that the economy wasn’t doing so good.

52:59 So all these factors kind of came in. And as I was growing up, I I thought the only way out, the only way out was I had to I had to make money. I had to make money to get out of this. And I just started fixating on that. The big home, these things. And most kids do that, right?

53:21 They start looking at the Michael Jordan on the on the on the billboard. Right. And you start looking at it. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that.

53:30 Just have to have a conscious approach toward it. Do it the right way. Do it the right way and make sure everybody has the opportunity to do that. I look, if you look at studies, I mean, how much does the US consume versus everywhere else? There needs to be a balance.

53:45 Right. So that greed, balancing that greed, right, when I self interest in it takes over over somebody else’s that’s not the right way. That’s not the right way. I’m all for that. In fact, when I met with when I met with so I met his onlyness. But one of the things I met with after I met with his holiness was the ex-prime minister professor Sam Dong Rinpoche.

54:05 Brian Rose: Right. Ex-prime minister to that. Right. When they’ve got when they got exiled.

54:10 Shawn Vij: And so I had that meeting with him in California. And when I met with him, you know, we were talking and he’s he’s a monk and

54:18 Brian Rose: and what’s he like? I mean, that’s crazy.

54:21 Shawn Vij: Yeah, it was crazy. He’s asking stories. And he I asked him, we just started talking and we were riffing like kind of like what we’re doing now, but not this long, but we were talking for like 20 minutes or so. And I said, I said to him, I said, I’m not a monk. I’m a capitalist.

54:36 Right. I just came from a big event. And but I really after meeting his holiness and, you know, meeting a lot of you, I feel like there’s there’s something here we can bridge. Right. There’s some there’s an opportunity here.

54:50 And that’s that felt like my calling at that moment. And he took he took it spoke to him. And he’s also he was, you know, he’s on the Dalai Lama for Ethics Foundation and MIT. He works with a lot of different universities around the world. And so he’s like, here’s my card and email me.

55:07 This is the month. Right. And Professor Rinpoche. And I said, great. So we started corresponding over email.

55:14 And that’s that was amazing. And so he just kicked off ideas, ways to approach things. But that to me was that was a big that was a big big door to kind of get in and start thinking about how do we how do we help? Because I think a lot of value can come from universities. We can help students.

55:33 We’re an age now, Brian. Right. Where’s an opportunity to give back? And I’ve interviewed a lot of people at Harvard professors who teach ethics courses, Darden, and I’ve talked to professors at Michigan. And they’re asking me now to come and speak at different schools, which I’m really happy to, because I feel like there’s an opportunity there to kind of share the learning.

55:53 Brian Rose: Let me ask you that question. If you had taught this to 19 year old Rose and Vij, right? Gone to this loan school and Michigan Tech or wherever, University of Michigan afterwards, do you think you could have straightened us out to have more fulfilling lives or done things better or made a more positive impact on the world?

56:13 Shawn Vij: Yes, I don’t think it’d be. It’s not the silver bullet, but I think every influence matters is better than what, to your point, we are what we consume.

56:22 But I do think people watching your show are consuming this, not this, but all the other podcast or all the other things that you put out there. Good hearted things versus watching MTV. Right. So I think I think it does have an influence. It’s the frequency, obviously, right?

56:40 We got to get into that. And, you know, but I do think the more positive things that we put out there. Tend to be more positive. I think it’d be a make it. I think it would make a difference if you get me to listen to it in 19.

56:54 Brian Rose: Why write a book, dude?

56:55 Shawn Vij: Because like people think like, oh, Vidge writes books, you know, this is this is my first book. Right. And I was like, and I was like, what? And yeah, I mean, I didn’t even know it was going to go anywhere.

57:05 In fact, the forward from is the Dalai Lama. When I when I got the forward, I I was ecstatic. I walked in that morning for coffee because it was it was I got the I was going to my dentist and I got an email saying his holiness is going to be reviewing the forward. And we will let you know we need to may have to do some edits. And I’m like, yeah, just call me anytime.

57:28 Whatever you need.

57:29 Brian Rose: Right. And it’s a big deal for you to write the forward.

57:32 Shawn Vij: It’s a big deal. Right. It’s it was in the forward is really powerful.

57:36 Brian Rose: And so I think it’s yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah. You called me and you read the whole thing to me on the phone. That’s how big of a deal was. It was a very big night in London.

57:46 I was like, I Vidge, but you were very excited as you should.

57:50 Shawn Vij: I was so excited in the morning. When I got the actual forward in the morning, I went into it. I went into Pete’s Coffee, my usual place.

57:58 Brian Rose: By the way, do they pay you to say their name all the time?

58:01 Yeah, like Peyton Manning. Budweiser.

58:03 Shawn Vij: But I walked in and I I just bought everybody coffee. I was so excited. And I went to Whole Foods and I was just I was it was it was it was such a great it was such a joyful moment.

58:15 And it literally brought tears to my eyes. And it was it it even made me want to do this more. It made me even want to do this more. And, you know, hopefully I get to see his holiness in probably in another month or so. OK.

58:27 He’s going to be speaking at UC San Diego.

58:29 Brian Rose: And so after that meeting with him that day, you just thought to yourself, I got to take this energy, this momentum I’m feeling and do something more than fix vidge. That’s what you were feeling.

58:40 Shawn Vij: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

58:41 I felt like when I wrote this, I said the the the root cause of why I wrote this was when I opened that pocketbook. I changed when I read that. Yeah. And I and the Dalai Lama book and I said to myself if somebody can take just one or two sentences, if I can change one person’s life, like that changed me. Then I’ve I feel good.

59:07 That was the real reason. And then all of a sudden, like, you know, I I started socializing it to all these like the editors at Fortune and all these other people and they were liking it. Right. And then now it’s like like CEOs and other people are and professors. And so I’m like, oh, I actually could write.

59:25 Right. Like it was actually pretty good.

59:28 Brian Rose: So is it either writer? It’s actually a good story. So I remember I was in San Francisco two years ago.

59:34 I mean, almost to date or something in April, I think. And you were like, I’m going to write a book. I’m like, write the book. And but, you know, it was just it was brainstorming. I did push it because I love you.

59:43 And I know you got a great message. And, you know, this is real. I think that’s why people are feeling it. This is real. This is really to write it.

59:49 But yeah, yeah. But I mean, that’s a good sign, I think, you know, because you had to dig all this stuff out. You’re not a professional writer, but these are all stories about your life, about growing up in Detroit with that background, about having that capitalistic dream, about some of your all of your experiences in different forms of corporate life. You know, been on both ends of, you know, hard, hard decisions, unfair things and seeing how it all played out. Not to mention your own, you know, come to come to whatever moment.

1:00:16 Shawn Vij: Yeah. Yeah. Also, there’s the other good thing is the colleagues. I got to give I got to give props to the colleagues and the other business people I interviewed and having them part of it and the professors. So it’s a culmination of of different, different, different viewpoints and what they’ve kind of gone through as well.

1:00:35 Brian Rose: So yeah, yeah, you read a lot of people, you know, giving you quotes and a lot of case studies in here as well. So my question is, what’s next? Because the book’s one thing. Yeah, this is a movement, Didge. Oh, movement.

1:00:47 You need a podcast. You need a blog. You got to start the tour. You got to start speaking. Speaking for sure.

1:00:54 Shawn Vij: Tour for sure. Yeah, so those things are happening. Those things will start happening.

1:00:59 Brian Rose: What about media? Media?

1:01:01 Shawn Vij: Yes, I’m going to be doing media on the tour. You’re you’re the first one. So thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, you know, you know, I got a lot of love for you, Brian.

1:01:12 So, you know, this is this is good. And, you know, you’ve taught me a lot, too. So I’m really happy. But it’s yeah, the media and all of this. But I think it’s really to start with is the universities because Professor Rinpoche and I really want to do that because one of the other things, if you ask me, what do you want to do 18 months from now?

1:01:30 Right. And, you know, one of the goals is to go back into companies, which I am in, but to go back at the board level and really, really, you know, institute some change. Right. Right. Let’s be really real in the boardroom.

1:01:49 Right. There’s things that are on the website and then there’s things behind the firewall. That requires introspection. I’m not going to call out any companies. I’m not going to call.

1:02:00 We all know. And companies that are doing it right, they’re behind it. Right. And I call out a lot of great companies in there. Yeah. And now let me remind you, some companies.

1:02:16 Not every company is perfect. But companies aren’t toxic. Companies aren’t toxic. It’s the people that are in those companies that can make it toxic. Companies are large.

1:02:26 Right. I’ve spent a lot of time at Microsoft. There were some great places I worked at Microsoft. I had the best times. We did so much.

1:02:36 It was challenging. And then there’s pockets that aren’t so good. Right. Let’s be really real. And when it comes to at the leadership level, having that introspection and really, really get into the bowels of the company.

1:02:54 Right. Not hey, guys, what’s going on? No, really go in and see the different areas and pockets of a company and and and and really have those you know conversations. That’s when it becomes real. OK.

1:03:09 So go in a board level. Go to board level. Institute. Really adopt this whole idea. Because again, there’s a lot of window dressing that goes on.

1:03:16 Every corporation has a basic ombudsman and all that nonsense, but it doesn’t really get exercised. Yeah. And conscious capitalism. Right. I’m not saying I look, I’m I’m a strong believer.

1:03:26 Also, we got to let people go in companies or businesses. There’s a P&L involved. I’m a strong believer in that. But how we do it in letting people go makes the difference. It can either stay in the environment or it can make it productive.

1:03:44 I’m talking the environment internally and externally in the community. And these communities, it’s a small world.

1:03:53 Brian Rose: The community is global now. Look at United Airlines. Just recently. What’s up with that? What do you make of that?

1:04:02 Right. I mean, I mean, you know, I heard John Kasich even talk about it. Simon Sinek said something. He was in here to start with why guy. And he’s recently said some things about millennials.

1:04:10 And someone asked him about it. And he said he said his leadership, corporate leadership is the reason that happened. I don’t know what you think. But he said the values of these people were not told from the top that these are important. These ethical things are important to us.

1:04:23 What’s important was getting these people off the plane.

1:04:26 Shawn Vij: Well, a lot of companies, they have they have their values. They have their values. The problem is they’re on the water fountain or in the drinking fountain and they’re stuck there. They’re not living their values.

1:04:38 Right. And I would implore people to make sure that your core values aren’t congruent with some of those values. And then make sure that they’re living them. Yeah, he’s right. OK, we can we can say that.

1:04:49 Shawn Vij: Yeah. But now let’s go in. And the only way to do that is to voice your voice, the change, voice your values.

1:04:56 Brian Rose: How does United fix itself with something like moral fiber?

1:05:00 Shawn Vij: Do we have two more hours?

1:05:02 Brian Rose: I mean, I know you go into a lot of your IP in here and it’s fast fast-aid stuff, you know, with the four D’s and you talk about a company. But do you think that if you could walk into the boardroom armed with moral fiber and United Airlines and get carte blanche for, you know, six months that you go in and putting the processes and the mindsets to make a change?

1:05:19 Shawn Vij: Yeah, at the individual level. Right. Which I think companies like, right?

1:05:23 They’re looking at attrition. They’re looking at productivity. They’re looking at liability. They’re looking at all of these things. They’re looking at I mean, look how much companies put into ethical compliance.

1:05:34 Right. In policing employees versus this takes a different approach. Right. Right. This is kind of empowering the individual.

1:05:43 And what do what do employers look at? That helps my P&L. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s how I’m going to do it.

1:05:49 Brian Rose: OK, I like it. I like it. Lead with reward. And in the long term, these decisions make a company very successful. It gets the right people, makes the people feel good, keeps the environment not toxic.

1:06:01 But it’s a long term play that some companies don’t see. Exactly. The short term P&L. That’s a public company with quarterly results on Wall Street. This is the dilemma.

1:06:11 Shawn Vij: This is a dilemma. And that’s true. That’s true. But, you know, every company has their short term strategy and their long term strategy. You can still do and meet the quarterly. You can you can hit the street.

1:06:22 You can do those things. You can meet you can meet that.

1:06:26 Brian Rose: But the street values shareholder value. Right. Shareholder value.

1:06:31 Shawn Vij: I’m not going to teach you. You know, but you know where I’m going with it. But it’s a time for us to change what we value. And companies that see that are highlighted in the book. And the ones that aren’t in the book aren’t doing very well.

1:06:44 Brian Rose: No, I’m not saying. So look, there’s also some great stuff in there, but they’re going to have to buy the book to find out about the four D’s. And then look, you you you relate a lot of these things and Buddhism in here, whether you’re in the book. I’m in the book. Thank you.

1:06:59 Shawn Vij: One seventy eight one seventy nine.

1:07:01 Brian Rose: Just by those two pages is all you need to. But no, it was a real honor being in there. Thank you for that. It was really good perspective.

1:07:07 And I think it it helped. It’ll help a lot of people. You know, you’ve been telling me this stuff last couple of years. You’re like, Brian, you’re doing this and you’re doing similar stuff. But until I read the book, I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about. But it’s weird how we ended up in a similar place, isn’t it?

1:07:22 Shawn Vij: Maybe it’s not weird. I’m really going to like the beer tonight. It’s going to be really good.

1:07:27 Brian Rose: Dude, before I let you go, I ask you I got to ask you a few questions about you, Mr. Sean Bidge himself.

1:07:32 Oh, OK.

1:07:34 Brian Rose: When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind? Could be any individual in the world living dead. Anyone who comes to mind?

1:08:10 Brian Rose: I went to Royal Albert Hall a few years ago and I actually saw his holiness interviewed there. And what surprised me about him was he was really funny and he was cracking jokes and just made everybody at ease at the same time. But, you know, you spent some time with him. What is he like?

1:08:28 Shawn Vij: Very much like that.

1:08:29 He puts you at ease to your point. He’s very disarming, right, when you meet with him. But he’s very stern. He was stern with me. Right. And he’s very it’s interesting. Yeah, he’s

1:08:46 Brian Rose: He says so much by not saying so much. If that makes any sense. Very profound statements and comments. And he like most of us have to think like an hour before we say something. Him for that’s powerful.

1:09:02 Shawn Vij: He just that comes with practice. That’s just, you know, so I think he’s very powerful. Everything. If you look carefully what he says, he says everything with total mindfulness. He’s mindful all the time.

1:09:16 He’s meditating all the time.

1:09:18 Brian Rose: Economy of words.

1:09:20 Shawn Vij: Yes. Yes. He’s lived a crazy life.

1:09:22 Brian Rose: Right. Right. Man, you look at the history and, you know, barely making that out of the bed and then all this stuff. I mean, you know, that’s a lot to meditate on.

1:09:31 Shawn Vij: Yeah. I mean, he’s got three three priorities, right?

1:09:34 One, promoting human values to promoting, you know, with all these religions, the harmony of all these religions. Right. I mean, you look at the world. It’s like two billion people are Christian. Half of them are Catholic.

1:09:50 Well, it’s a one point six billion are Muslim. Right. You’ve got another billion of my ancestry in India, Hindus. You’ve got a half a billion of Buddhists that actually half of them live in China. So you’ve got a lot of it.

1:10:03 You have a lot of it. So how do and then you’ve got atheist and you’ve got. But he believes what’s so powerful about him is he knights everybody with those values. We all have the same core. We’re all human.

1:10:14 If you ever see him, what’s powerful about him is he’ll talk to everybody and anybody. Right. There was one meeting he was in, I think, in the Netherlands and he they’re like, well, our prime minister couldn’t come. He’s like, OK, let’s go. You know, let’s he doesn’t care.

1:10:29 Let’s just have that conversation with who’s in the room. He’s very whoever he’s with at the time he’s with he was with my daughter. You know, my daughter, we brought some fruit for him and he was eating the fruit from my dad’s peach tree and he was eating it and he was like, this is really good. But he was it was just so intimate. He’s like he’s with you at the time.

1:10:52 Right. He doesn’t have his cell phone. Right. So like that. And then, you know, the third thing is that you were talking about the dynamic. The third thing that he focuses on is the preservation of Tibet, his culture, you know, Buddhist Tibet.

1:11:09 OK. But that’s the last thing. I don’t know if they’re all the same, but they’re those are the three things that he focuses on. I don’t think it’s sequential in nature. Right. But a lot of it is just human value.

1:11:19 Human value. He’s not like just the Buddhist guy or the Tibet guy.

1:11:23 Brian Rose: Yeah. And what I love about him and what I like about this book, what I love about that, he’s very secular. He’s like one of the most he’s like the sixth of all kinds of studies, but he’s he’s pretty renowned.

1:11:35 Shawn Vij: Right. He is a compassionate leader. He’s a politician and a Buddhist monk. Yeah. Right.

1:11:43 Brian Rose: Yeah. There’s only one like him. So Mr. Fidge, I always ask everybody here a couple of questions at the end. I’m going to ask you these same questions.

1:11:50 They’re interesting ones. If you can make a phone call to the 20 year old Sean Fidge and give that young man a bit of advice. I guess he might have been at Ford. Maybe that was the year before, but it was right around the time I knew. Give that young man a bit of advice and you might as well get me on the phone at the same time and give me the same advice. What would you tell him and us?

1:12:12 Shawn Vij: Follow your heart. Follow. Look deep inside yourself and follow your heart. I know it sounds very cliche, but it’s really true and have the I call it courage. We all have choices in life.

1:12:30 Choice is the biggest thing. We all we have choices not to say anything as well, too, and just let things go by. But choose with your heart. Not if you know it’s wrong. Just don’t do it.

1:12:48 That’s what I would say if you feel that little bit inner voice telling you and you kind of hide it and kind of tuck it away and kind of say, you know what? You know, the lobster tail tastes so good, you know, or whatever it is.

1:13:07 We all know what it is. We all know what it is.

1:13:11 Don’t lie to yourself, Sean. Don’t lie to yourself, Brian. Because it’ll come back anyways. It will. And it’s harder.

1:13:20 That’s so the display suffering. We all suffer. We cause our own suffering. The less true you are to yourself, the greater the suffering. Right. The more true yourself.

1:13:31 It’s that simple because you have less to less to you look at his holiness. He’s not one person at work and one person at home. He’s the same person. He’s direct. He’s transparent.

1:13:42 He’s timely. He does everything. He says what’s less burden for him. That’s what I would tell myself. You don’t have to worry.

1:13:53 Brian Rose: To your point, you don’t have to come back and go through this whole process of, gosh, it took me this long to figure out, you know, what I was, you know, is this what life’s about? Maybe I don’t know. So what were we doing following our heads? We were following our influences. At least I was.

1:14:11 Shawn Vij: Right. And our influences, I’m not blaming our influences. I’m not. I blame myself. But be open and mindful of everything around you.

1:14:22 Right. And I would also tell myself, you know, getting those things is not a wrong thing. I’m a strong believer in that. I believe in the free trade. I believe in capitalism and I but I mean, you have to have boundaries around those billboards.

1:14:36 There needs to be boundaries.

1:14:38 Brian Rose: Second part of that question, best advice you ever received your entire life could be from anyone, really. What comes to mind?

1:14:46 Shawn Vij: The Dalai Lama.

1:14:47 Brian Rose: And which thing did he tell you that the best advice?

1:14:50 Shawn Vij: Your greatest enemies in you. That might be our best one ever.

1:14:54 Brian Rose: Final question. There’s a 20 year old out there, young vidge, young rose that are watching this thing right now, listening to it somewhere and thinking, you know, one day I want to grow up and be like these guys. Be like vidge.

1:15:10 Write books. Work at these big companies. Do great things with their lives. What advice do you give to them?

1:15:17 Shawn Vij: Do what your heart tells you.

1:15:19 I mean, great things doesn’t mean it has to be this or being in corporate America. Great things can be the littlest things or what we consider littlest things, but they’re great things. Make a difference in your environment that you’re in. I live in Seattle. I try to do things that are now more local and try to help out things in that environment now. Get involved with the community.

1:15:41 Make a difference in one person’s life. That’s a great thing. Could be your daughter, could be your son, it could be your loved one. It could be a foster child. It could be do great things.

1:15:54 Brian Rose: Amen. Yeah, I always say just like, you know, pump some value back into this human race. You know, we’re all it’s hard to believe we’re all a bunch of ants running around. But we I believe we all are one. And I think when you pump the value back in is where all the rewards come and all the accolades and you don’t know why. And, you know, I have students sometimes and we have them here for the weekend in London.

1:16:16 And I’ll be like, do this super focus group, 150 people at night. And I have them jumping around and do an active meditation. The next morning I’m in here and I did like 20 interviews in a row. And then that night we’re out to dinner and the next day we’re jumping in a cold pond and they’re like, Brian, where do you get this energy from? And I’m like this, like I get it from you guys because it feels good what I’m doing.

1:16:34 Whereas back in my day, if I was doing it for me, half a day of that out of it, I’m like, yeah, I’m tired. I want to go home. This isn’t much fun. So it’s like this. It’s this secret that when you when you do these great things selflessly, I’m sure that Dalai Lama will give me some points for saying that it’s amazing what happens to you.

1:16:53 You know, it’s crazy. I mean, when I started doing more of this, the universe started to align. I showed this with on the phone with you. I think it was a couple of month ago. The universe started aligning toward me.

1:17:04 I mean, it just actually was the first time when we talked back a couple of years ago, I started doing more of this, following my heart, being true to myself. All of a sudden things just started aligning. Right. Because you’re true to yourself and the universe realizes that. So, yeah, there’s something to it. Something to work that way. It works that way. And again, like you have to constantly monitor yourself. And it’s funny, I had something come up yesterday, like kind of business wise. And, you know, somebody was like kind of not behaving very well in a business perspective.

1:17:34 And actually, I had this opportunity to behave really poorly back to them. And it was like kind of bothered me for a day or two. And I was actually training yesterday before my show. And I was in the middle training and I wrote myself an email. It’s how I read myself notes.

1:17:48 And I was just like, you know what, just pay them, settle it. And I just wrote them a note. I said, you know what, you can choose to be that way. I said, I’m not going to go down in the gutter with you. So here you go. I said, I wish you lots of luck. And I actually said, thank you. Thank you for doing that because it’s shown me that I’m going to take this route. And it must be because you were coming into town, God damn it. And you’re mortified with the book.

1:18:11 And I was just like, you know what? And I’m never the money is not I’m never going to remember it after two days. In the long run, who knows? And I just thought, you know what, I’m going to go this way because that’s who I want to be. But the old rose would have been like, no, you didn’t do that. And I got one up on you. And then the other day, it doesn’t matter.

1:18:28 It’s all these one ups and these haters and let go detach.

1:18:31 Shawn Vij: I talk about they got to buy the book. Talk about it. But yeah, I talk about the whole detachment process.

1:18:36 Brian Rose: Let’s talk about this book. Where can they get a copy? More fiber? I’m telling you from what you’re telling me, this thing is going to be huge. It’s going to be sold out everywhere. It’s going to be sold in a lot of stores that people might be going to. Yeah. What can you say? What can’t you say about this?

1:18:50 Shawn Vij: Well, right now I can say it’ll be on Amazon. I’m still working with distributors. It’ll be at Whole Foods. It’ll be it’ll be at some place. It’ll be it. Yeah, it’s still it’ll be out there.

1:18:59 Brian Rose: So when I go buy my organic produce, I got to look at you in the checkout line and see this book.

1:19:03 Shawn Vij: I’m hoping we’re still working that out. But yes, I’m hoping.

1:19:06 Brian Rose: All right. So they can preorder a copy probably on Amazon.

1:19:09 Shawn Vij: Amazon for sure. And then I’m working on the other the other the other distribute. I’m still in the process of all that.

1:19:16 Brian Rose: But okay, Vij, I mean, look, I don’t know what to say, man. I mean, it makes me very makes me want to tear up and I’m so impressed with you.

1:19:24 The changes you made as a human, let alone you got this beautiful book to show for it. I read the whole thing. It’s amazing. It’s real. I think that’s why people grab onto it. You’re real. You tell a true story about something that happened. These people are feeling you.

1:19:38 So I’m so proud of you. One thing you must insist that you do is that is that this is a movement. This is the beginning, buddy. And you know this, but like you kind of own this thing now and now you owe everybody. So for the next 10 years, I want the moral fiber podcasts. Okay.

1:19:55 I want the next couple books coming in. And I think again, look at the media. Everyone’s watching the Kardashians. I think honestly, you need to be pumping out a podcast every two weeks where you interview people and continue with this message because, you know, it’s all about repetition these days and everyone needs to hear it in different forms. Some people read books these days, all the young kids listening to podcasts, listening to things on the airways and they need to hear this message because young Brian would have needed a bunch of a bunch of different mediums to get this into his head.

1:20:24 Shawn Vij: You know, it’s funny. So when the books came in at the UPS store. Yeah. So I went to go pick them up. I didn’t even know I thought it was something else. I picked it up and the guy, this older fellow. So I go, do you have a knife? Can I open this? He’s like, yeah, here’s a knife. So he opens it. Older guy, he’s owned this UPS store for like 30 some years or whatever. They’re 20 years and he opens it up and the book I saw the book for the first time in the cover. And he goes, huh, what is that?

1:20:48 Moral fiber. We could all use some of that. But that was really, really, it was really profound. Right. That was the first thing he said. So to your point, I think we could all use a little bit of that. Thanks. And likewise, Brian. Likewise.

1:21:05 Brian Rose: You know, I’m just amazed. I’ve said this so many times. It just, if I look back and I see I still have, I should have brought, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get those photos for you. I have the photos of us when we were 19 in those cubicles hanging out, doing crazy stuff. But I look back and I, I mean, can I tell the story? I got, I got to tell the story.

1:21:28 Shawn Vij: Tell the story. You don’t remember this, but we, so we had to go to Cedar Point, the roller coaster. Yeah, remember that? I think I remember. Yeah. And this is how rebellious you were. So we went on this ride called the Gemini. And it was a roller coaster that goes to the top. So Brian’s like, yeah, yeah, ride with me, vidge. And I’m like, okay, right. Thinking, you know, he’s, he’s a good guy. So we’re sitting down and back then they had a, like a bar and then they had a seatbelt, right? But the bar was the problem was the bar was not close. Like nowadays it’s close, but the bar was way out here. Right?

1:21:59 So we are, we’re riding on that thing and your seatbelt’s on and we get to the top. You remember this? And then Rose looks at me on the left and goes, Hey, vidge, you want to make it more exciting? I go, yeah, yeah, sure. And you go, you unbuckle the belt and literally we’re like hanging on this thing where I am and you’re like, you didn’t care if you died or not, but your hands were in the air.

1:22:20 I’m like hugging this thing thinking we’re going to die. I couldn’t enjoy the ride at all, but that’s what I remember of Rose, the crazy man. And now I see you and I’m like, look at this, he’s wearing vest and suits and he’s calm and he’s talking to all these people. So that’s what I remember.

1:22:34 Brian Rose: I’m still crazy, but I remember your reaction.

1:22:36 So that was fun. And I also remember one night when I came back and visited, we went out one night and we’re partying a bit. And then we went up to that damn bridge in the middle of the night and we jumped off the bridge into the water and we were like holding on to like a power line on the bridge. You’re like, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it. And I jump and I’m trying to show off and I do a front flip into the water. And I landed on my chest and I lost my wind. I started sinking in the water. I thought I was drowning and you guys like rescued me.

1:23:05 He took me back. He threw me back. Crazy stuff, man. Like we didn’t care. I didn’t care.

1:23:10 Shawn Vij: You didn’t care for sure. I think you were just, yeah, I think the book would have helped you back then.

1:23:15 Brian Rose: Maybe. Yeah. Well, maybe I had to do all that crazy stuff. I don’t know. Anyways, look, Fitch, it’s been to what, 27 years. It’s crazy. I’m so proud of you.

1:23:26 Shawn Vij: Thanks, Brian.

1:23:27 I’m so glad I met you. I mean, I know this sounds like a cliche, but dude, I always knew you were a good guy, man. You had something inside you, something good about you. I didn’t stay in touch with everybody there. Nobody else really. I mean, you know, maybe one of the guy, but you know, you’ve got some compassion in you and something really good about you, man. I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of this whole thing. And I just want to see you take it to the limit and just give all this stuff back.

1:23:50 I appreciate it. Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much as well, man. And it’s great having you on London Real. As we say, it’s about the journey. I wish you well on yours. Take moral fiber. Just take it to everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:02 Cool. Give me a hug. Thanks, man.